As you adventure you gain experience and can advance your character in one of 3 ways:
Advancing Skills
Session-Based Skill Increases
At the end of every productive gaming session, all players gain a number of Skill Points (SP) to spend:
- 3 Major Skill Points, which can be spent on any Class OR Non-Class Skill.
- 1 Minor Skill Point, which can be spent on any Non-Class skill.
This encourages players to branch out into broader skillsets without forcing them away from increasing their core skills and feeling like they’re missing out by increasing other skills.
Each Skill Point spent on a Skill will increase that Skill by +1.
Skill Increase Limitation
There are only 2 limitations on increasing skills, and Skill Points:
- You may only increase any given Skill by +1 on each session
- You may not increase any skill higher than 80 using Skill Points.
See Skill Limits for further details on what limits there are to Skill maximums.
Class Level Progression
Although there are many ways to determine how/when players should level up, Ettes Eternal takes an opinionated approach to the problem so as to provide a balanced and consistent progression to the game, allowing GMs not to worry about keeping player levels up or various fiddly numbers and balancing and edge cases.
Recommended Class Level Timeline
See the GM Guidelines for information on deviating from this timeline!
| Level | Sessions to next lvl | Major SP | Minor SP | Campaign Milestone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | - | - | |
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | |
| 3 | 2 | 6 | 2 | |
| 4 | 2 | 12 | 4 | |
| 5 | 2 | 18 | 6 | Journeyman Tier; Class Path |
| 6 | 2 | 24 | 8 | |
| 7 | 3 | 30 | 10 | |
| 8 | 3 | 39 | 13 | |
| 9 | 3 | 48 | 16 | |
| 10 | 3 | 57 | 19 | Expert Tier |
| 11 | 4 | 66 | 22 | |
| 12 | 4 | 78 | 26 | |
| 13 | 4 | 90 | 30 | |
| 14 | 4 | 102 | 34 | Master Tier |
| 15 | 5 | 114 | 38 | |
| 16 | 5 | 129 | 43 | |
| 17 | 5 | 144 | 48 | Legendary Tier |
| 18 | 5 | 159 | 53 | |
| 19 | 5 | 174 | 58 | |
| 20 | 189 | 63 |
Total Campaign Length: ~64 sessions + however many spent at Level 20; coming out to ~1 year, 3 months assuming consistent weekly sessions.
Making Higher-Level Characters
In order to accurately create a higher-level character, use the table above to determine how many Major/Minor Skill Points you would have by that level, and then apply those points to your skills as you wish with 2 restrictions:
- NO SKILL is allowed to use more than ¼ of the total points (Major + Minor)
- All Minor Skill Points must be spent on Non-Class Skills
Example: Level 10 Character
A level 10 character should have 57 Major Skill Points and 19 Minor Skill Points, for a total of 76 total Skill Points. This means that they can allot the 19 Minor Skill Points to any non-class skill(s) they want (including putting all 19 in a single Skill!), and then must divvy the other 57 Major Skill Points between any OTHER skills (class and non-class), with no single Skill getting more than 19 points (76÷4). This means that, if min-maxing, this level 10 player would be allowed to put 19 points each in 4 separate skills (3 Class Skills, 1 Non-Class Skill).
Perk Acquisition
Every character receives 1 Perk for free regardless of class at every new Class Level (including Level 1), for a total of 20 Perks by level 20
You start the game only able to buy Apprentice Tier Perks. As shown in the table above, higher Tier Perks unlock at later levels along with every other Tiered System.