Personal Ability

The Personal Ability System (パーソナルアビリティシステム) is a new mechanic for NPC characters introduced in God Eater 2 Rage Burst. The system allows the player to select additional skills for NPC characters for them to utilize in gameplay.

How the system works
By selecting characters to participate in battle in-field or as backup, they will gain AP (Ability Points) which can be used to purchase new individual Personal Abilities. Different characters have different sets of Personal Abilities to learn.

Another type of AP called GAP (Global Ability Points) are earned on a per-mission basis, normally only after completing a mission for the first time. As their name indicates, they are shared among all NPCs and are generally used to unlock more expensive and powerful Personal Abilities.

Backup (non-party) characters have skill sets that let them equip different Support Skills. These Abilities trigger after a mission and have effects ranging from increasing the number of Abandoned God Arcs found to increasing the rate at which Blood Art Awakening Chance increases.

God Eater NPCs have skills that affect how they fight in game, with certain skills enabling item usage or changing the way their AI works, whereas others provide Skills like the ones players can get.

There are certain character-specific Personal Abilities, which are are gold colored and are easily recognizable as they are at the bottom of the list of Personal Abilities. These skills generally activate multiple Skill effects, and in most cases can only be unlocked after a certain point of the Story or after completion of the Character Episodes of the character in question.

Trivia

 * While characters will always win AP if brought to a mission, regardless of whether their Support Skills trigger or not, picking their Support Skills allows them to earn much more AP than they normally would. The number of AP won depends on the number of  ◆ shown at the top right corner of the character's portrait.  One icon is a 10% boost to the AP win; two icons means a 25% boost; and three icons is a 100% boost. A ★ icon is a 50% boost. Normally, only one Skill on the Rewards screen can be selected per mission, but certain Skills can be picked to either get two uses instead of one or to redraw the available Skills.