Character Style help - need variations

[Kate Paullin]

How do I set up multiple character styles that are based on other character styles? I want to create varations of similar text, without having to update certain characteristics every single time. I don't want to have to save styles to my library to be able to do this within one file.

I expected to be able to change style settings so it pulls from a specific style, but don't seem to be able to do that.

[Monika Gause]

You can do that in InDesign, but not in Illustrator.