One caution about ascending to a role too early. If you go from MU to bard . . . MU supports stone and sun. Bard only supports Moon. As a bard, you will be able to use sun and stone, however I believe RAISING your spells in your spell book will be possible only to the level that you had as a Magic User. Now, if you go to Samurai (supports sun) spells levels in sun start to rise again. I have planned my next game with three ascensions per character. I suppose if you just want to ascend and pass through a role because your finishing role is not going to use a skill or magic, it would do any harm. Gold is the issue for me. Even though I seldom buy things from the shops, I am always short on cash. I am a no gold cheat player, so it is my own fault.

I did a warrior to barbarian ascension, then my character sucked. The barb was supposed to get lots of hp--all I ever got was one, no matter how many times I re-loaded--and I simply stopped getting ability points with the levels as well--yeeh-haw that was worth it..
any ideas?
Also, what exactly does training a skill do at the guild?

You will get more HP, AP and Skill Points when you reach a higher level than your warrior was. Untill then you will have to be satisfied with 1 HP and 1 SP. I guess this is to avoid to get your attributes raised too easily. So plan your role ascensions and your needed skills carefully, role hopping just for the fun of it is not a clever thing to do!

When you train a skill (or an attribute) at a guild, it will be raised 1 point immediately (giving you all the advantages of a higher skill or attribute). The higher you want to raise it, the more expensive it will become. You can not raise an attribute over 18 at a guild (only with the help of an ankh). You can only train one thing at a time at a guild untill you reach your next level. Of course it is possible to get training at two (or more) different guilds at the same time.

I hope this will help you, Arcadius. And remember: Sol lucet fortibus!

THE ONE

Yes, I had the same thing when went warrior to barbarian. The answer is that until you are a HIGHER level in barbarian than you were as warrior, you will only get minimal (ie 1) ability/hits on level up.
This applies to all classes and role ascensions - a good reason not to leave it too long before ascending, or there is a long wait for benefits.
My barbarian is now level 11, and now has about 110 HP which is more than anyone else. (But I prefer the one I switched to Samurai - benefits are far more obvious).

Training skills increases your ability in that skill - for a magic user you can learn higher level spells in that school of magic.
For something like Gallantry, the question is really what does that skill do anyway and how do you see it working? - hmmm I'd like to know that!