Horse runs faster than you, which is good for out-running not only Amazoni Mantraps, but Erathsmador out in the open. Raft goes faster than you can swim and allows you to skip fighting pirannha. Either will allow you to get between distant points in a minimum of time, although if you want to fight in either case, you do better dismounting either, which can be a pain, especially with the horse (I always seem to dismount on the far side from the enemy, which allows them to shoot garbage at me). In addition, there are certain areas the horse just can't fit because the trees are too close, although you could walk through them yourself without a problem (one is a path north from Ishad N'ha to the Lake; another is halfway through the clearing to the Samurai Burial Grounds).
Stats max out at 24, so far as I can tell. Guilds specialize in one specific Stat and will allow you to train it up to 20 (to the contrary of their telling you only 1, after which that skill option will be removed. Ankhs will raise the Stat they are for by 1 point up to the 24 max, after that they just "Fail" and you lose them.
Skills are based on Intelligence at a 1:4 rate, which means you can get up to 6 skill points per level. The number of skill points needed to raise a skill from one level to the next increases with each skill level, so it becomes a question of whether you wish to use the points on the high-level skills and train the low-level skills (which would cost less) or spend alot of money raising the high-level skills and use the points to bring up the low-level skills quickly. There is no 'right' way, so choose whichever you would prefer. Skills appear to max out at Level 12.
Training a skill in a Guild will bring that skill up to the next whole number (the cost is pro-rated if you have it partially done already). Depending on which class you are, you may be able to access multiple guild halls and train a skill in each one (ie, my Samurai is presently training Sword/Athletics in the Dojo, Second Weapon in the Armory, and Sun Spells in the Magic Shoppe). Most important is the fact that you can train again after levelling, so it becomes important to keep track of how far over in experience you are after 'attaining' a level before actually levelling. If you have enough experience to level twice (which can happen at low levels), you will level in succession after hitting the Level button only once, which means you miss out on the chance to train after the first level-up because you go right to the second one.
Experience requirements appear to level off at 250k, but I didn't notice at what level it happened, so I can't tell you that.
Hit points are re-rolled on every level. If your present HP exceeds the rolled value, you only get 1. Resetting will cause a new roll to be performed, HOWEVER, considering that the more levels you reset to get a max HP addition, the lower the percentage chance that you will get a max roll on the next level, you are more or less working towards a virtual impossibility of getting extra HP on each successive level. IE, considering a 4-sided die:
Level 2 - 2d4 - 37.5% chance to get 6 or higher (6 out of 16)
Level 3 - 3d4 - 31.25% chance to get 9 or higher (20 out of 64)
Level 4 - 4d4 - 25.78% chance to get 12 or higher (66 out of 256)
Level 5 - 5d5 - 11.82% chance to get 16 or higher (121 out of 1024)
What this means is that if you reset every time you level in order to get 75% or more of your Maximum Hit Points, by the time you are trying this for level 4 (only the third time you've levelled), you have a 1 in 4 chance at best of getting enough HP to keep you at that Max %. By level 5, 1 in 9. Since bonus from Stats (Fortitude) is applied unilaterally, it doesn't really figure into the equation (HP Range would change from "Minimum to Maximum" to "(Minimum + Bonus) to (Maximum + Bonus)"). The percentages get worse if you use a greater-sided die, which I'm sure they do.
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