Progression

Progression covers how characters grow, including experience, levels, feat tiers, feat choices, mastery bonuses, and attribute improvements.

Leveling up

Your character level rises as you accumulate experience points, and 20 is the highest level you can reach. Levels beyond 20 belong to legendary and divine beings alone.

Experience is earned through:

• Skill checks, which pay whether they succeed or fail, and pay more against harder difficulties, as described on Dice rolls
• Combat victories, where elites and bosses are worth far more than ordinary foes
• Completing major story milestones
• Certain item consumption and crafting actions
• Casting spells that spend an action, spell slot, charge or use, which awards Arcana experience with more awarded for higher spell ranks

Experience from a kill is never split with your party, so you earn the full amount even when a companion lands the killing blow. Party members earn their own full share on top of yours, while followers who accompany you without joining the party earn half, and either only while they are close enough to take part, as described on Party.

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. Your level also opens the rarity of gear the world will hand you and the belt slots you can fill, as described on Equipment.

Feat tiers

Feats use eight tiers, from Initiate through Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, Grandmaster and Legend. Your class or skill determines when you choose a feat, and only the available choices are offered.

Class feats and skill feats

Class feats come from your class progression and include automatic grants and choices from a feat pool. Your subclass determines which choices are available, with the schedules listed on Warrior, Rogue and Sorcerer.

Skill feats come from leveling individual skills, with each skill page listing its choices and mastery bonuses. Class feats and skill feats appear in the Feats section of the Skills tab.

Granted feats

Some feats arrive on their own when you reach the level that carries them, with nothing to pick:

• Feats tied to your class or subclass appear in the feat tree as owned nodes marked "Auto".
• Foundational class feats land at set levels and form the backbone of the class, and every character of that class gets them whatever subclass they take.

Everything else is a choice, and you pick one from the pool your class, skill, or subclass allows. 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, and you can allocate them as either:

• +1 to two different attributes, or
• +2 to a single attribute

Subclasses

Your class determines when you choose a subclass, which grants its own feats and choices. A Sorcerer chooses the Solstice or Arcanist bloodline at level 1 after the intro, while Warrior and Rogue unlock their subclasses through class progression.

Spell picks

As a Sorcerer, you learn spells through picks and automatic bloodline grants, separately from your feat choices. The Abilities tab shows your known spells and any picks waiting to be used.

See Sorcerer for the learning schedule and Spell ranks for ranks, spell slots and replacing a spell.