Hello stern Defenders of the Free People and welcome to our new Against the Darkmaster tutorial!
Today we still are going to talk about our character customization, and this time around we will see how to level up Syndel, the character that we created last time.
You will see how easy of a procedure is, so let’s get started.
Experience Points
In VsD the experience points are not calculated in the scale of hundreds or even thousands, but on a scale of tens.
On the back page of you character sheet (which can be downloaded here) there is a set of questions. Some of them are general and some of them are related to your Vocation.
You will have to answer to this questions at the end of each session, and every positive answer is equal to 1XP. Once you reach the amount of points indicated in the Experience Points Table, you are ready to level up.
It’s all about the skills
In leveling up there is one major thing that we have to keep in consideration: the Development Points (or DPs) at our disposal for each category of skill, which depend on our character Vocation.
Since Syndel is Wizard, she gains the following DP every new level:
1 in Adventuring and Roguery, 5 in both the Lore category and Spell Lores, and zero in Armor as well as Combat and Body.
I decided to start with my Spell Lores and then work my way up to the rest.
I can’t just add new Spell Lores to those that Syndel already knows, unless she had a chance of learning them during the game. Since this wasn’t the case, I will go ahead and distribute all my 5 DPs to the Spell Lores that Syndel already knows. So, I will increase the following Spell Lores by 1 rank each: Eldritch Fire, Eldritch Movement, Eldritch Storm, Illusion, and Mind Control.
Now that I’m done with the Spell Lore I move on to the other skills. Just like I did when I created this Wizard, I want to Develop the Body skill. To do so I have to trade 2 DPs from other categories to gain 1 DP in the Body category. I will take 1 DP from Adventuring and 1 DP from Lore, and trade them for a single DP in Body, which I immediately spend to buy a rank in the skill. Now that my HP Total has gone from 25 to 30, I will feel little bit more safe during battles. Then I finish allotting the remaining DPs. I will increase by 1 rank the Perception skill with the Roguery DP, and by 2 ranks both the Arcana and Charisma skills with the 4 DPs left in the Lore category.
The whole process ends for me by adding 3 Magic Points to my total and by blanking out all the answers in the Experience Tracking section.
I hope that you enjoyed reading this Tutorial, and feel free to share your characters with us. If you still have any doubt and/or any feedback don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Thank you for reading
Comments
First thing that comes into my mind, why stopping at level 10 ?
Will there be, eventually, a chart for handling unlimited leveling ?
Hi! Well, ten levels are something like a sweet spot for us, because they let you see your character grow, and play a heroic storyline in a reasonable amount of time. However, as you may guess, we’re also fans of long, epic sagas, so yes the full rules will contain options to let you continue playing and advance your characters over the 10th level.
Sounds good to me 😉