Training by defeating your master.

[alcyone]

"When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave."

- Master Kan

A silly idea I had today was every third level, to gain the level you'd need to defeat your master (or some other rival of your rank) in one-on-one combat. Through some sort of special agreement, combat wouldn't take either combatant below 0 HP.

Nethack has something like this; your quest leader summons you, you quest for some artifact, and fight your quest nemesis, though this is a one-time thing.

These rivals and masters would need to be finely crafted to be appropriately challenging.

Upsides:
- It's cool.
- It's more fun than spending money and downtime on training.
- It's something you and the player can do between regular group sessions as a one-off.
- Coming up with masters, rivals, or quest monsters could be fun.
- Some players will dig it.
- The reward at 9th or 12th (or name, or max, etc.) level could be something special, individualized for that character or class.

Downsides:
- More work for everyone.
- You could lose, and you wouldn't get the level until some agreed upon time you could fight again. Though some Rocky or Van Damme style training for the fight would be awesome. Too bad C&C doesn't have musical cut scenes.
- Coming up with masters, rivals, or quest monsters could be a pain in the ass.
- Some players will hate it.

I propose a book of quest nemeses for the 13 classes in Aihrde; I'd buy that for a dollar.

You could also make it so it was positive only; not a requisite for leveling but some kind of trinket you get that makes you a little bit cooler or better.

[Buttmonkey]

If you were going to do that and if you wanted to make it a (theoretically) non-lethal combat, I'd suggest the contest ends when one side taps out. You'd have to develop a mechanic for deciding if/when an NPC gives up. You could always just use subdual damage instead, but I like the idea of a PC or NPC preferring to die rather than submit.

[serleran]

Defeat need not be combat at all but a game of wits, a battle of wills, or even just not dying. Same kind of stuff I used to use in AD&D with the classes that required an ordeal to advance, like monk and druid.

[Relaxo]

This could be totally cool. I too, thought of the old Druid rules back in 2nd ed.

but yeah, totally neat. especially appropriate for Monk, like Serl said.
In stead of using it to advance levels, it could add advantages is one idea.

[Arduin]

This only worked (somewhat) in 1st Ed AD&D due to two key factors. 1) You couldn't level without winning such combat. 2) There were a limited # of Druids in the world per level.

Those two factors drove it.