Samurai sheepdog book of many things vol 125

Character Advancement

A crucial part of any game is character advancement. When
you gain levels, your decisions on how to build your character
shape your actions both in and out of combat.
The following is a brief summary of character advancement,
followed by a series of character kits with suggestions on specific
feats, magic items, and other options to pick when leveling up
that aren’t covered by race or class.

Gaining a Level
When you reach a milestone such as completing a story
arch or earning experience beyond threshold of your current
level, you advance your level. Often, this is done behind the
scenes. Sometimes, you will have the opportunity to apply your
character’s new level while in a safe location that also allows
you to adjust other aspects of the party, such as selling looted
items, buying something specific or more useful, or training and
researching.

Milestone Leveling
With milestone leveling, characters don’t gain experience in
the same way as a video game character, so they are always able
to make it back to town before being showered with rewards.
Benefits: Milestone leveling is an easy way to set expectations
in players. They know that once they have surpassed the
requirements of the arc, they’re going to gain a level. They’ll
come back to town with a laundry list of things to accomplish,
including optimizing equipment for the next outing, tracking
down the new spells they must learn, or determining their feats
and ability adjustments. If somebody is going to miss a session,

they can plan around that and level their character up on their
own when they have the time without missing any of the ongoing
story.

Character Advancement

124

Character
Level
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Feats
1
–
2
–
3
–
4
–
5
–
6
–
7
–
8
–
9
–
10
–

Ability
Increase
–
–
–
1st
–

–
–
2nd
–
–
–
3rd
–
–
–
4th
–
–
–
5th

Gold (gp)
by class
1,000 gp
3,000 gp
6,000 gp
10,500 gp
16,000 gp
23,500 gp
33,000 gp
46,000 gp
62,000 gp
82,000 gp
108,000 gp
140,000 gp

185,000 gp
240,000 gp
315,000 gp
410,000 gp
530,000 gp
685,000 gp
880,000 gp

For Gamemasters, milestone leveling allows for a flat playing
field, where the party can potentially reach the final encounter
of an adventure at any time during play because it will be as
comparatively difficult as the rest. There are fewer pieces of the
puzzle to consider, and planning takes less time because of the
narrower list of options.
Drawbacks: Sometimes the definition of what makes
something an arc is unclear, and it can go on for some time.
In play terms, weeks of game sessions may pass while players
struggle with a puzzle, difficult and time-consuming combats, or
missed opportunities to play due to life. Stories pervade social
media of players who have languished at levels as low as 3 or 4
for a year or more because the party is still in the same dungeon.
Per Encounter Experience
Per encounter experience can still achieve most of the goals of
leveling up without breaking the story. During an 8 hour period of
rest, characters can still do basic training and research, or practice
new techniques that can prove useful before they leave the area.
Benefits: Once they have the experience required to gain
their new level, characters may have a breakthrough, or their
practice pays off. This is especially useful when a new spell, such
as restoration, breath of life, or resurrection is needed and there

is no time to walk back into town for a scroll that may not even
be there. It also helps characters whose tactics until now may not
have been the most effective. By picking up a different feat or
character option, that player now has a better chance of dealing
with what’s to come.
Gamemasters can also benefit from per encounter experience.
Since they can plan ahead for the experience gain, the GM can
plot out stronger, more complex encounters as the current
adventure continues, giving things a more natural growth
pattern, and providing more options when looking for potential
adversaries, traps, and other challenges for the party.
Drawbacks: Tracking party experience in the middle of a
densely populated dungeon or other in game event can seemingly
break immersion when not handled carefully. The hydra dies and
suddenly the wizard knows how to fly?
There’s also the question of when to actually apply the
encounter experience and what it means to gain a level midday.
Does the party get a full refresh as if having rested 8 hours? Does
the wizard now have extra spell slots when before he was firing
his crossbow because he was out? Should they instead wait until
there’s an opportunity to rest that may not come for 3-5 more
encounters?
Incremental Experience
One potential solution to the drawbacks of both milestone
leveling and per encounter experience is a hybrid of the two,
adjustable by GM on the fly and on a case-by-case basis.
Benefits: Options exist that divide a character’s level into
its component parts: Hit dice, attack bonus, saves, skills, and
features (which may or may not include spells). Experience per
level is then divided by a value (usually 4) and at each smaller

threshold players choose which combination of those options
they want. Once all options have been chosen, the player has
gained their full level and may begin progressing on the next. This
helps characters to feel like there’s a flow to their growth and
more frequent rewards gained during play.
Drawbacks: There are times when a piece of the current
level doesn’t garner a true reward for the player. If I don’t gain
an increase in my attack bonus for the level, nine times out of
ten I will push that off to the end of my batch, then feel like I’ve
effectively gained nothing for the last quarter of my current level.