Character Advancement

When characters accumulate enough experience points, they advance a character level. New PCs start out at level one and the most experienced, capable heroes in the sector might reach level ten.

Gaining Experience Points

To advance in capability, PCs need to earn experience points. Once they accumulate enough experience, they can advance to the next character level, representing the sharpening of their skills and the heroic veterancy that comes of surviving perils and dire challenges.

There are many different things that can earn a hero experience points, and the kind of activities and goals that reward them will vary with the kind of campaign you’re playing. The GM should make clear to the whole group what kind of things earn the PCs experience in their game.

The table below indicates how many experience points need to be earned before a PC can advance to that level. Once the requisite number of XP are earned, the hero gains their new level and all the benefits.

Note that this table makes for a relatively fast progression through the early levels of an adventurer’s career, before slowing drastically at higher levels. 

A group that prefers a different pacing might alter the chart to suit their own tastes.

In general, you can assume that one “successful” gaming session should usually earn you about 3 XP.

Benefits of Gaining a Level

Once a PC has been awarded enough experience points to reach the next level, they immediately gain the benefits of advancement. No special training or practice is required as their abilities are assumed to have been honed by their past adventures.

Roll Additional Hit Points

First, they become harder to overcome in combat. To determine their new maximum hit points, they roll a number of six-sided dice equal to their new level, adding their Constitution modifier to each one. A negative modifier can’t lower a die’s result below 1. If the total is greater than their current hit points, they take this new total. Otherwise, their current maximum hit points increase by one.

Thus, if a character with a Constitution score of 14 and four hit points reached second level, they’d roll 2d6+2. If the total was five or greater, they’d keep it. If they managed to roll snake eyes and get only a four, they’d still increase their maximum hit points to five. 

Warriors and Adventurers with the Partial Warrior class option get a further two hit points each time they advance a level. Thus, a third level Warrior would roll 3d6+6 for their hit point total, plus three times their Constitution modifier.

Improve Attack Bonus

A PC’s base attack bonus becomes equal to half their new character level, rounded down. Warriors may instead use their full character level for the bonus. Adventurers with the Partial Warrior class option may add a cumulative +1 to their attack bonus at levels one and five, thus having a total +1 attack bonus at level one and +4 at level five.

Improve Saving Throws

The PC becomes more capable of evading chance harms and perils. Their saving throw scores decrease by one, making it easier to succeed on saving throws by rolling equal or over it. As a first level character has saving throw scores of 15, reaching second level would lower them to 14, modified by attributes.

Gain and Spend Skill Points

They become more capable with their skills. A PC gains three skill points they can spend on improving their skills or save to spend later. Experts and Adventurers with the Partial Expert class option gain an extra bonus point to spend on a non-combat, non-psychic skill.

If the PC is a Psychic or Partial Psychic, they must spend at least one of these points on improving psychic skills or gaining new psychic techniques. They can save these points to spend later if they wish, but they cannot spend them on more mundane talents. Restricted psychics can only ever improve or learn techniques from the psychic discipline they selected when they picked the Psychic primary focus. Unrestricted psychics can improve or learn any discipline. PCs with the Psychic character class are all unrestricted, while Partial Psychic Adventurers are restricted in their talents.

Skills that are gained or improved immediately on gaining a level are assumed to have been perfected over the past level and require no training time or teaching. 

If you save your skill points to spend them later then you’ll need to find some teacher or other explanation for developing them. It doesn’t take more than a week to refine your new ability, but you can’t usually spend your points mid-scene to develop a heretofore-unmentioned expertise with flamethrowers.

The cost for improving a skill is listed below. Every skill level must be purchased in order; to gain level-1 in a skill you need to pay one point for level-0 and then two points for level-1. A PC must be the requisite minimum level to increase a skill to certain levels. 

Less hardened heroes simply don’t have the focus and real-life experience to attain such a pitch of mastery.

A PC cannot develop skills beyond level-4.

Psychic Effort and Techniques

When a Psychic gains a new level in a psychic skill, they can immediately pick a technique from that discipline of equal or lesser level. They can’t save this pick; they must choose it as soon as they gain the new skill level.

Psychics can also spend their skill points to master additional psychic techniques. The cost of this education is equal to the technique’s minimum skill level requirement. Thus, to master the Biopsionic technique Metamorph would cost three skill points, because Metamorph requires Biopsionics-3 skill to learn. 

A Psychic’s maximum Effort is equal to 1 plus their highest psychic skill, plus the best of their Wisdom or Constitution modifiers.

Purchase Improved Attributes

A veteran adventurer may have trained or honed their natural abilities well enough to improve one of their six base attributes. While even the most determined development isn’t enough to turn complete ineptitude into gifted competence, a hard-working adventurer can hone their existing strengths considerably.

The first time a PC improves an attribute, it costs 1 skill point and adds +1 to an attribute of their choice. 

The second improvement to their attributes costs 2 skill points, the third 3, and so forth. Each improvement adds +1 to the attribute, potentially improving its modifier.

PCs must be a certain level before purchasing the third, fourth, or fifth attribute boost. No more than five attribute boosts can ever be purchased by a PC.

Choose New Foci

Finally, the PC might be eligible to pick an additional level in a focus. At levels 2, 5, 7, and 10 a PC can add a level to an existing focus or pick up the first level in a new focus.

If this is the first level they’ve taken in the focus, they might be granted a skill as a free bonus pick, depending on the focus’ benefits. During character creation, this bonus skill pick is treated like any other skill pick. If the focus is taken as part of advancement, how-ever, it instead counts as three skill points spent toward increasing the skill. This is enough to raise a nonexis-tent skill to level-1, or boost a level-1 skill to level-2. 

They may do this even if they aren’t high-enough level to normally qualify for a skill level that high.

If the skill points aren’t quite enough to raise the skill to a new level, they remain as credit toward future advances. If applied to a skill that is already at level-4, the PC can spend the three skill points on any other skill of their choice.