Character Advancement Options

Like most TTRPGs, MythCraft campaigns involve the heroes getting better over time. Each time a character gains a level, they gain more HP, an additional Attribute Point, and a new Talent. But when should heroes level up?

Milestone Progression

Given MythCraft’s focus on compelling narratives, milestone progression is the ideal method to use when determining if characters should level up. Using this method, when the heroes have achieved a notable milestone, they all level up. Depending on how quickly you want your heroes to advance, these milestones should come every 3-5 sessions on average. Milestones might be as significant as thwarting the main villain’s plans or defeating one of the villain’s notable lieutenants. Milestones might also be less significant, such as completing a side quest for a local community.

Milestone leveling allows you to carefully curtail how and when the heroes gain power, enabling you to shape your campaign according to your vision.

The Adventuring Day

Many days and weeks in the life of a hero may pass uneventfully. Traveling from one city to another along well-worn pathways in a safe kingdom is likely to produce no noteworthy adventures, and such journeys can be quickly narrated with a brief montage.

Other days in an adventurer’s life are riddled with challenges. A day at court may have several social encounters, while a day in the wilderness might have multiple combat and exploration encounters. Some days, such as exploring populated dungeons or investigating crimes in a violent city, may have several of all three major types of encounters.

Whether you use Milestone or XP progression, you can use this guideline to make adventures challenging for your heroes. On average, a day that poses a legitimate challenge to the adventuring party should have 4-6 encounters of medium difficulty, or 2-4 medium encounters and 1-2 difficult or deadly ones.

Adventuring days that punish heroes with Fatigue make the following day quite challenging, as well, so factor this in when determining how many encounters to present to your party.

Experience Points

Some tables may prefer a more mechanical approach to leveling up. If this is the case, you may use the following rules to determine when your heroes get to level up.

Gaining XP

Heroes gain Experience Points (XP) when they achieve certain feats, such as winning a fight (or avoiding one), negotiating with an influential figure, or exploring a new locale, among other situations.

After each game session, add up the total XP that your party earned by consulting the tables below. Divide that total XP by the number of heroes; each hero gains XP equal to the quotient.

Optional Rule: Epic Heroism

If you use XP to level your heroes up, consider using either variant of this optional rule. It will encourage your players to go above and beyond in their combat strategy and roleplaying efforts.

Variant 1: When a hero does something truly remarkable in combat or a social encounter, award that hero 20 additional XP.

Variant 2: When a hero acts remarkably in combat or a social encounter, award all heroes in the party 10 additional XP.

When consulting this table, remember that “winning” an encounter could be achieved by circumventing the encounter altogether. If the heroes are confronted with a difficult combat encounter but manage to resolve it by negotiating with their foes, they should still be awarded full XP as though they won the encounter.

The same amount of XP should be awarded for overcoming any kind of encounter: combat, exploration, social, or something that falls in between these three broad categories.

XP Earned	Effort
10	The party loses or retreats from a situation after significant effort; or they win a trivial encounter.
20	The party wins in an easy encounter.
40	The party triumphs in an encounter that is normally balanced or medium difficulty.
50	The party wins a difficult encounter.
60	The party triumphs in a deadly situation.
80	The party manages to win a remarkably deadly confrontation.

Leveling with XP

When using XP to track character progression, heroes level up by spending XP. When they spend the appropriate amount of XP, they gain a level. For example, if Andi is playing Lyla and is level 1, once she earns 120 XP, she may spend 100 to advance to level 2. She now has 20 XP, and once she earns enough, she can spend 100 more XP to advance to level 3.

Level	XP Spent
1	0
2-3	100
4-6	150
7-10	200
11-15	250
16-17	300
18-20	350
21-24	400
25-28	450
29-30	500