Progression
Progression covers how characters grow: experience, levels, feat tiers, feat choices, mastery bonuses, and attribute improvements.
Leveling up
Your character level increases as you accumulate experience points. Experience is earned through:
- Successful skill checks (especially against high-difficulty targets)
- Completing quest milestones and finales
- Combat victories
- Certain item consumption and crafting actions
When you level up, you receive attribute improvement points (at specific levels), feat choices from your class and skill trees, and potential access to new subclass options.
Feat tiers
Feats are organized into seven tiers, from weakest to strongest:
- Initiate
- Novice
- Adept
- Expert
- Master
- Legendary
- Mythic
Not all feats in a tier are equal in terms of use case: a Mythic defensive feat might be weaker in offense than an Expert offensive feat. Choose based on your playstyle rather than purely by tier.
Class feats and skill feats
Class feats are unlocked through your class progression tree and are often tied to your class role. Some are granted automatically at certain levels (base feats). Others are presented as choices from a pool filtered by your class and subclass.
Skill feats are unlocked through leveling up specific skills. If your Stealth skill reaches level 2, you unlock a choice from the Novice-tier Stealth feat pool. Skill feats enhance that specific skill's capabilities.
Both types show up in the Feats section under the Skills tab in game, organized by source and tier.
AUTO and BASE feats
Some feats are granted automatically when you reach the required level or progression point:
- AUTO feats are granted at a specific character level related to your class or subclass. They appear in your feat tree as owned nodes labeled "Auto".
- BASE feats are foundational class feats granted at specific levels, forming the backbone of your class identity. These are always granted, regardless of subclass.
Other feats present a choice, where you pick one from a pool of allowed options for your class, skill, or subclass. Feat choices are permanent once confirmed.
Mastery bonuses
At certain skill levels, you receive a mastery bonus: a raw numerical bonus added to dice rolls using that skill. These are separate from the attribute modifier bonus and compound as you level the skill further.
Attribute improvements
At certain character levels, you receive attribute improvement points. You can allocate these as either:
- +1 to two different attributes, or
- +2 to a single attribute
Subclasses
Once you reach the appropriate level, each class branches into specialized subclasses. Subclasses unlock unique feat pools that are only available to that specialization. You choose your subclass from the Skills section when it becomes available. Subclass choices are permanent.