The Quick

Assume levels go from Levels 1 through 60.
Divide your skills between Techniques, Spells, and ManaTechs.
Order your skills from weakest to strongest, for each category.
Pick a few beginner skills and have them learned somewhere in the first 10-15 levels.
Evenly spread out the rest of your skills.
Group similar skills that should logically be learned concurrently.
Pick your strongest in each category and have them learned around level 60.

The Details

I'm gonna assume that characters will reach endgame content at around level 60, possibly 70. So, let's have a level 60 as an endpoint.

I'm going to use my own character's Skill Schedule as an example. I highly recommend using an Excel Spreadsheet or even a handwritten sheet to plan this out.

Step 1: Divide Your Skills

First, divide your abilities into three categories: Techniques (use TP), Spells (use MP), and ManaTechs (use TP and MP).

Step 2: Order Your Skills

You'll want to order them from weakest to strongest (by your own reasoning) for each category.

Example: For my Techniques, these Caladbolg - Sky Arc's Expanse (6-10) is generally weaker than Shadowrunner (12-15), which is weaker than Knight's Charge (21-25), which is weaker than Inflexion Blade (46-50), and so on.

Step 3: Pick Beginner Skills For Your First 10-15 Levels

Ideally, these skills are pretty essential to your character, but basic enough that you would have learned or will learn them early on. Try to place them in a logical order within these first few crucial levels. These are skills, though beginner, are considered pretty important to making my character somewhat more well-rounded in the early levels, and not simply a character that has to choose the "Fight" command each turn. Chances are, when you are recruited, you will already know these skills, but please put levels in (so I can use them for battle mechanics) and in case you get shuffled around to be recruited earlier.

Example: My character's core, character-defining abilities(not specials) are Sky Arc's Expanse (6-10), Mana Shield (4-7) / Mana Guardian (6-8), and Smite (8-10). So, I place these in early levels, within the first 10 levels.

Step Five: Evenly Spread Out Your Remaining Skills

Spread out your skills, so that you can always generally look forward to gaining some new skill in one of your three disciplines. I generally like to put skill levels at intervals of five (25, 30, 35, 40, etc...)

Step Six: Group Similar Skills

Group skills that would normally be learned concurrently. I myself call these abilities "sister skills," just because, although they have differing effects, their structure is almost the exact same. You'd probably want them to be learned at pretty much the same time.

Example: My own character's "sister skills" are Light of Faith (10-12) / Light of Fortitude (10-12), Divine Strength (16-18) / Divine Will (16-18), and Vortex Blade (26-30) / Terra Pulse (26-30). So, I have these learned at roughly the same time.

Step Seven: Make Your Strongest Abilities In Or Around Level 60

You'd probably want your most powerful regular techs, spells, or manatechs to be learned at around level 60. To early, and you won't enjoy the pre-endgame fights. Too late, and you won't be able to use them much during the much harder endgame content, as well as the final boss battle.

Step Alpha: Create your level range

You noticed I have boxes spanning multiple levels, right? The beginning is when you'd have the ability to learn it. The end is when you will have learned that ability. Generally, keep the sizes between 3 and 5 levels.

I hope this helps. Next article up for writing: estimating TP/MP cost for abilities.

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