As with all characters and heroes, progress and evolution are key to their self-development. Here, a character’s advancement is rooted in the skills in which they train. Earlier, we had an example of making a potion to cure a poisoned adventurer (see the Using a Skill section). Now we’ll talk about how that player has grown from using that skill.
Gaining Experience
Each type of skill is associated with a phase of the game. When a skill of a particular type (say, Adventure) is used with the corresponding eponymous Phase (again, Adventure), the player has learned something useful. Whenever a player successfully uses a skill during the right phase, they gain one experience pip. The exception to this rule is the Defense Skill. While a Combat Skill, players ONLY gain experience in Defense if they have prepared their Defense during their Prep Action and successfully defend against an enemy attack while in Combat.
It is important to remember that characters can use any of their skills in any of the phases, but they ONLY gain experience for them when they use them during the associated phase. If you aren’t sure whether you should gain experience or not, just ask your GM.
Combat Skills gain experience pips whenever a character successfully beats an opponent’s defense in an attack as part of their Attack Action. They do not gain experience for hitting an enemy that flees from being Engaged, or who do not put up a defense.
Levelling a Skill
With sufficient experience in a skill, the skill can become ready for advancement, increasing in number. To reach this point, a player must obtain enough experience pips equal to the next level (i.e. when a Defense skill of level two has three experience pips, the skill is ready for advancement). When a skill is ready for advancement, no more pips can be added to that skill until it advanced.
Once three skills are so trained (all are ready for advancement), the character has trained enough to progress to the next character level. They will be allowed to level up the next time they enter a Rest Phase. At this point, all three chosen skills increase by one point. All of the experience pips from the associated skills would reset to being empty. The player, with their newfound strength, may again continue to learn new tricks in the associated skills, refilling the experience pips anew. In addition, with each improvement to the character’s level, they may choose to increase one attribute by a single point (increasing the associated pool). As noted in ADVANCED OPTIONS, characters can also choose to take a character Perk, further refining what the character’s role can be.