3.10 Character Advancement and Gaining Levels
As you accomplish challenges and defeats foes, you gain experience. If you have enough experience, you gain a level. You gain some abilities at
specific levels, as described in Table 3.7: Character Advancement and Gaining Levels.
When you gain a level, the following things happen:
- Your hit points increase (see Hit Points).
- You gain an additional archetype rank (see Archetypes).
- Your accuracy may increase (see Accuracy).
- At even levels, magical power and mundane power each increase by 1 (see Power).
- At even levels, your bonus with trained skills increases (see Trained Skills).
- At even levels, all of your defenses increase by 1 (see Defenses).
In addition, some irregular advancements happen at specific levels:
- At 3rd level, and every 6 levels thereafter, you increase any two of your attributes by 1 (see Attributes).
- At 4th level, and every 3 levels thereafter, your maximum archetype rank increases (see Archetype Ranks).
- At 4th level and 7th level, you gain an additional insight point (see Insight Points).
- At 5th level and 8th level, you gain an additional attunement point (see Attunement Points).
- At 6th level, and every 6 levels thereafter, you gain a legacy item upgrade (see Legacy Items).
These effects are summarized in Table 3.7: Character Advancement and Gaining Levels, which also defines the experience required to gain each level.
| Level | Max Rank1 | Bonus2 | Special | XP |
| 1st | 1 | — | — |
0 |
| 2nd | — | +1 | — | 10 |
| 3rd | — | +1 | +1 to two attributes | 25 |
| 4th | 2 | +2 | 45 | |
| 5th | — | +2 | 70 | |
| 6th | — | +3 | Legacy item: rank 3 | 100 |
| 7th | 3 | +3 | 140 | |
| 8th | — | +4 | 200 | |
| 9th | — | +4 | +1 to two attributes | 300 |
| 10th | 4 | +5 | — | 450 |
| 11th | — | +5 | — | 700 |
| 12th | — | +6 | Legacy item: ranks 5 and 3 | 1,000 |
| 13th | 5 | +6 | — | 1,400 |
| 14th | — | +7 | — | 2,000 |
| 15th | — | +7 | +1 to two attributes | 3,000 |
| 16th | 6 | +8 | — | 4,500 |
| 17th | — | +8 | — | 7,000 |
| 18th | — | +9 | Legacy item: ranks 7 and 5 | 10,000 |
| 19th | 7 | +9 | — | 14,000 |
| 20th | — | +10 | — | 20,000 |
| 21st | — | +10 | +1 to two attributes | 30,000 |
2. This bonus applies to your magical ✨ power, mundane power, trained skills, and defenses.
At your GM’s discretion, you may also change some of the choices you have made about your character when you level up. For example, you could change one of your trained skills for a different skill, decrease one attribute to increase another, or change the mystic spheres you have access to (and corresponding spells). The GM may ask for a specific narrative justification for the change, require spending in-game time to retrain, or disallow changing some fundamental aspects of your character.
3.10.1 Legacy Items
Over time, items associated with places and people of great power gain magical properties. This process takes place for you as you gain levels in addition to in the world as a whole.
At 6th level, you choose a nonmagical weapon, body armor, shield, apparel item, or implement you own. That item becomes a legacy item. You choose a single magic item property of rank 3 or lower, and your legacy item gains that property. You do not have to attune to your legacy item to gain its benefits. However, for each deep attunement property that your legacy item has, you reduce your maximum attunement points by one.
The property must be appropriate for the category of item you chose: weapon, armor, apparel, or implement. You do not have to precisely match the location of an apparel item, just the category. For example, you can choose an amulet as your legacy item and give it the effect of the boots of translocation, or apply the effects of a hardblock shield to your body armor.
Legacy Item Body Armor: Body armor that is chosen as a legacy item has a special damage reduction calculation. Its rank for the purpose of determining its damage resistance multiplier is equal your highest rank in any archetype, if that is higher than the rank of the magical properties on the item. For details, see Magic Armor Damage Resistance.
Legacy Item Scaling: Your legacy item increases in power as you gain levels. At 12th level, you can add an additional item property to your weapon. The item property must be rank 5 or lower. At 18th level, you can change the properties on your legacy item, and the maximum rank of both properties increases by 2, to a maximum of rank 7. This is summarized below.
- 6th level character: One property with max rank 3
- 12th level character: One property with max rank 5, one property with max rank 3
- 18th level character: One property with max rank 7, one property with max rank 5
Losing Your Legacy Item: If you lose your legacy item, you must retrieve it to regain its power. There are rituals to facilitate this retrieval such as seek legacy and retrieve legacy. If your legacy item is destroyed, you can designate a new item of the same type to be your legacy item, causing it to gain all of your legacy item abilities. Designating a new item in this way requires taking a long rest while holding or wearing the replacement item.
Unique Legacy Items: Legacy items are fundamentally a reflection of the character who wields them. Their effects can be more unusual and complex than abilities on normal magic items, and they can have a larger effect on the way that character interacts with the world. As a player, you can work with your GM to create custom magical effects of an appropriate power that are a better reflection of your character’s personality and powers than the magic item abilities that exist.