Heroic Advancement

Your character's heroic advancement is marked by level. Each time you gain a new level in your class, your Stamina increases, and you gain new features or abilities according to your class's advancement, as detailed in Chapter 5: Classes.

In the standard setup for the game, heroes gain Experience each time they finish a respite (see Building a Heroic Narrative in Chapter 1: The Basics). When you gain sufficient Experience, you gain a level during the same respite. The Heroic Advancement table shows exactly how much Experience (XP) you need to advance from one level to the next. The amount of Experience you gain is cumulative.

Alternative Advancement

Though many games might advance using the standard setup for heroic advancement, the Director can decide that their game uses different advancement. Check with your Director about what method of advancement they plan to use.

Adjusted XP Advancement

Some Directors prefer that heroes gain new levels faster or slower to suit the pace of their story. The Adjusted XP Advancement table is set up for campaigns where heroes advance at double or half the usual pace. Directors can also create their own customized pace for XP-based advancement.

Milestone Advancement

Rather than tracking XP, some games have the heroes advance in level when they achieve a particular story milestone. For example, when a party defeats the main villain of an adventure and foils their dastardly plot, each hero gains a level for achieving this objective, no matter how many obstacles they faced along the way.

For many Directors using milestone advancement, the end of each adventure within a campaign serves as a milestone for gaining a new level. The Director can share these milestones with the players to encourage them to work toward particular goals, and to engage with the story and world the Director has prepared. For example, in a campaign where the heroes have to face nine evil mages, it makes sense that each time the heroes defeat a mage, they gain a level. The Director should keep milestone goals flexible, though. Defeating a mage could mean stopping them with violence, using negotiation to make them stand down, or anything else that thwarts their evil plans.

Director Says So

Some games don't track XP or goals at all. The heroes simply gain a level whenever the Director decides it's appropriate for the story.

Heroic Advancement Table

Adjusted XP Advancement Table