I've always played pire characters in QFG. I just think it's more fun. Interestingly, I checked my character sheet after a battle to find that my pure wizard had achieved 30 points in the throwing skill!

Has anyone else encountered this? Is this supposed to happen? I have been throwing knives in the dead parrot a lot despite the unreliability of my throws. Are there other skills that you can learn this way?

I don't know... I don't think you are supposed to be able to mysteriously 'learn' and gain exp in skill that is 'zeroed'.

I agree. Highly unusual. I reloaded another save (fortunately only about 15 minutes lost) and it hasn't happened again. If it does I'll call it legit and go with it, but I'd be very interested to know what triggers that.

In addition, QFG5 has a minimum threshold of 100 for individual skills. How you got 30 is a bit of a mystery.

Was the number highlighted in any way? That might suggest you had some effect giving a temporary boost, although I can't think of anything in the game that grants it for throwing. Maybe if you had magic daggers equipped and had started tossing them - unlike the previous games, you can manage reasonable throwing accuracy even without the skill if your Str/Agi/Luck are high enough.