[atul]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
A console RPG that did the same - Final Fantasy VIII or IX or X or some such - it was a _huge_ PITA because if you want your people to level up, you had to swap each of them in long enough to take an action.

Arcanum? The amount of xp for kill was so minor compared to the one you got for bashing the critter up you could leave them lie unconscious if you were the kind type (and without followers, as they butchered without mercy).

Originally posted by Cainehill:

Paper and Pencil RPGs such as Runequest, AD&D and the like certainly never insisted that a character make a kill to get experience, or 1st level mages would never reach lvl 2; similarly, support characters such as clerics would rarely.

I really liked RoleMaster series (and MERP) in the sense you could actually level up from all the xp you gained for getting hit yourself. All those imaginative criticals yielded tons of xp when felt in first person.