In order to take advantage of the information in this article, you will need to know how to examine your character's skills and spells. For a list of what skills you know and how knowledgable you are with them, use the 'skills' command. The 'spells' command will bring up a similar list for your known spells. The 'practice' command shows both at once. Skills and spells are displayed in groups of related skills and spells, such as "Cleric healing spellgroup". They are shown in order of dependencies (described in the next section), with each skill or spell displayed below and an indentation to the right of the skill or spell it is dependent on.

There is also a 'skill list' and 'spell list' command that will show you every skill and spell in the game. A complete listing is also available here.

Each skill and spell you know has a certain "knowledge level". This represents how well your character is versed in that particular skill or spell. The knowledge level for each skill or spell is a percentage (0-100). The percentage is displayed according to the category which that number corresponds to:

not learned	0
very bad	1-9
bad	10-19
poor	20-29
fair	30-39
moderate	40-50
average	51-62
good	63-74
very good	75-86
exceptional	87-98
perfect	99-100

"Not learned" does not show up on 'skills', 'spells', or 'practice' commands.

There are various ways to increase your knowledge levels: through use of the skill or spell, with a teacher that can teach you that spell, purchasing it with combat points, or by memorizing a spellbook. Despite the moniker, spellbooks can also teach skills. Examining the skill and spell list, note that many have dependencies, or a skill or spell that you must have learned (at least 50%) first in order to attempt to learn the desired skill or spell.

If you use a skill or spell, there is a small chance that its knowledge level will increase, regardless of whether you succeed or fail at using/casting it. You can improve it a little (+1%) or a lot (+2%), and will gain experience for doing so. You cannot cast "not learned" spells without the use of +cast_ability eq (see Spell Success section), and most skills cannot be attempted unless you have learned them; however, there are a few skills you can attempt untrained, and, if you are very patient, you can learn and improve the skills through use without ever spending practices or combat points. Examples of these kind of skills are search and taunt.

In order to use a teacher or spellbook, you will need to spend practices. Teachers are usually easy to find. In most cities, the 'where' command will show you where the teachers are. When you have located a teacher, use the 'slist' command to see what he teaches. Slist only displays the things you can learn, and it won't show other spell/skill tree dependencies unless you use 'slist all'. High-level skills and spells may require finding a special teacher or spellbook. The 'skill find' and 'spell find' commands can help you locate such teachers or spellbooks. When learning a skill or spell from a teacher or spellbook, the exact amount that your knowledge level of that skill or spell will be indicated, such as: "(35 percent gained)". It is possible to train a spell up to 75% (very good) with a teacher or spellbook.

If you already know a skill or spell pretty well but less than very good, you may see a percentage at the end of its listing in a teacher's slist. This percentage shows how much more knowledge you will gain if you spend a practice to learn it; if the percentage is low, you may find it more worthwhile to try and improve it through use instead of spending a practice. The skill and spell lists show under the 'Pracs' heading how practices are required to bring a skill or spell from "not learned" to "very good". (Hint: these are good tools to use to plan out how to spend practices when you level ahead of time.)

In order to increase your knowledge level of that particular skill or spell beyond "very good", you will have to improve it through use or by spending combat points. Note that some skills do not improve with use, and there is no way to improve it without spending practices or combat points. Examples include armored skin and increased stamina.

Use of combat points is described concisely here.

Regardless of how you try to obtain the skill or spell, you must meet its level and attribute requirements before you can learn it. These requirements are shown in the skill and spell lists, and also the help page for each skill and spell.

Every skill has a different mathematical formula for determining effectiveness, whether it be an active skill (one you have to type in a command for, such as butcher, kick or trip) or a passive skill (one that works automatically, such as swim, parry or multiple attacks), but your knowledge level of the skill is usually an integral part of the math. The higher your knowledge level in a skill, the greater your chances of successfully using that skill are.

Spell success is described in detail here.