Experience and Gaining Levels

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Experience and Gaining Levels

Characters gain Experience (XP) by adventuring. Each game session the Gamemaster will award experience based upon what the character or group accomplished. Guidelines for distributing experience are in Running the Game. Characters need 10+their next level in XP to gain a level (See Table: Experience per level). Players can track experience on their sheet in the tracking boxes at the top of their sheet, erasing them once they gain a level and starting over.

Please note, it is customary for characters to start off at Level 1. In some cases, the GM might want to run a "zero level" introductory adventure, in which case a character would need 11 XP to gain level 1. This should not be the norm, but more of an experimental scenario.

Character Advancement

When a character advances a level, they gain ten skill points to be spent in separate skills, and they gain five proficiencies to be spent in any skill that they put a rank in on the same level.

Some class abilities increase by level.

Additionally, at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level, and every 5 levels afterwards, characters gain 1 point to improve any core ability score - not including Luck.

Increasing some skills grants additional spells, powers, or combat maneuvers, and players will need to make these selections where appropriate.

• Strength Attack = Strength stat bonus + 1/2 ranks in Combat.
• Dexterity Attack = Dexterity stat bonus + 1/2 ranks in Combat. 
• Spell Attack = Intelligence stat bonus + 1/2 ranks in Spellcraft.
• Putting a rank in Combat grants one new combat style action. 
• Putting a rank in Spellcraft grants one or more Low Magic spell equal to the character's intelligence stat bonus, or for magicians one new spell list. 
• All classes have an "F" power that increases by one per 5 ranks in a skill.
• Some classes gain additional abilities at higher levels; see your class description. 

At each level roll to restore spent Luck. Luck is regained by rolling 1d6 and adding back to the total, but a character cannot regain more Luck than their Luck score. However, if they roll a 6, they also increase their Luck stat by 1 AND restore 6 points. A character always gets to roll a d6, even if they haven't used any Luck in an attempt to roll a 6.

Partial Advancement

With that said, characters do not have to wait for each level to earn their skill points and proficiencies. Learning happens over time, not all at once, so too can characters improve their skills organically. They are still restricted to increasing any one skill by one point at each level, but these can be allocated incrementally. Table: Partial Skill and Proficiency Gains by Level shows how much XP a character must earn before assigning their next skill point and proficiency (the shaded X's). Players should mark each skill that they put a rank in as they progress so as not to accidentally put more than one rank in a skill that level. Proficiencies must be placed in a skill that was increased on the same level but can be placed in a skill that they previously increased that level, not necessarily in the skill that they increase when they gain the proficiency.

For example, if Brawn was level 3, he requires 14 XP to gain a level. Per the chart, he gets his first skill point at 2 XP, and then at 3 XP he gets his second skill point and his first proficiency. If he put his first skill point into Combat, when he gets his second skill point, he cannot also place it into Combat; he has to pick a different skill. Let's assume he spends his second point in Perception. The proficiency he gets at 3 XP can then go into either Combat or Perception, or alternatively he could save it for later in the level.

Recalculate defenses and Health Points

Any character that gains ranks in skills that correspond to one of the three attack types should recalculate those, along with recalculating "F" attributes or any other unique class abilities.

Multiclassing

In Adventure’s Edge, the assumption is that a character’s class was not something easily learned - it was in fact the culmination of years of training that shaped how the character sees the world. Characters who start off as a Magician will always be a Magician; that is how their early development shaped them. This makes the initial class selection a crucial one, as there are core class abilities that will be inaccessible to other classes, while some can be gained through time and training.