I don't know exactly how each potential gains are decided, i suspect there are randomness included, for the book reading problem some people had, i experimented and noticed after reloading a save that the gain was never the same from reading a book.
So i imagine randomness is working for everything else too regarding potential and skill gains.
By the way, what are those bars that appear on your pets when you accidentally hit them with things like fire or ice bolts (or whatever those spells are that hit things in a line)?
The bar below is their health (only if you have used the stethoscope on them) , in Elona+ there's another bar below that is their "special" attack gauge, it increase for every hits they do and recieve.
On top there's sometime a bubble indicating they're not happy when you hit them with a spell accidentally. A good idea to train the "Control Magic" spell to avoid half killing them.
After trying ADOM, it seems as though 90% of Elona game has been derived from it. I haven't gotten too far in ADOM but can someone who has tell me how similar Elona is to ADOM's late game?
Out of a few similarities (the puppy cave that is the same ADOM puppy quest, the tower of fire that act the same against your items and your fire resistance, the etherwind diseases that are chaos corruption in ADOM, the sacrifice in altar to gain favour until you're crowned and get items) , you'll see that ADOM is very different on the long run.
Elona has a lot of completely optional actions, dungeons etc to do, while ADOM has only some optional dungeons, and is overall more serious fantasy while Elona introduce a lot of humour elements to the setting. the map in Elona has much more locations, the random town missions do not exist in ADOM , there are only fixed quests.
The late game in Elona+ has a few similarity , as you get to the lowest level of the Dungeon quest (Lesimas) after collecting 3 stones to open closed stairs and must defeat Zeome to complete the game.
While in ADOM you must reach the lowest level of the Dungeon quest (Cavern of Chaos) after collecting 5 orbs to open the closed stairs and in the end close the Chaos gate (or if you met some specific conditions, enter the gate and beat what's inside for an alternate more complete ending)
But thanks to Elona+ , that's not the end, as you unlock the act2 and a whole new continent by beating Zeome, while in ADOM, it's the end.
Then in Elona, along optional random and fixed dungeons of various danger levels you have many, many (optional) things you can do when not following the main quest, while in ADOM you have some optional fixed dungeons but not much out of that.
ADOM is more serious themed, while Elona has a lot of (not always good taste) humour and parody.
In the end, both are really great games to play.
ADOM require a lot of
spoilers reading to avoid crippling your character and chance to complete the game unfortunately (i completed ADOM once with a Grey Elven Wizard with the basic ending, but i think i couldn't have if i didn't read spoilers first, there are thing you must not do and things you must do that you can't know with what the game gives you as informations), while you may not need that much spoiler to complete the act1 of Elona+