Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells - Character Advancement

Artwork by Louis Glanzman

As it's common in most RPGs, characters get better over time in Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, but instead of  tying XP to an specific task, like the acquisition of treasure or the killing of monsters, I decided to leave it open and determined to the number of adventures survived. That way, the group can tailor their game to their tastes.

Character Advancement

During their exploits throughout the stars, the adventurers will learn a lot of things. They will get better at what they do. They will become more resilient and capable of greater deeds.

To represent this in the game, characters have Levels of advancement assigned to them. Everyone starts at first Level, and as they gain more experience through a number of adventures, they get to advance to the next Level. As characters become more experienced, leveling up takes more time.

To advance to the next Level, each character is required to participate in a number of adventures determined by the table below.

Next Level	Adventures Required
2nd	2
3rd	3
4th	4
5th	5
6th	6
7th	8
8th	10
9th	12
10th*	14

* Each subsequent Level requires the same number of adventures required for the previous one, plus 2 more.

Kaylia started as a first level character, and needed to go on 2 complete adventures to reach 2nd Level. Now she will need to participate in 3 more adventures before she can advance to the 3rd Level!

Level Advancement Benefits

Leveling up provides a number of benefits:

• His Level is one higher, making it easier to face Powerful Opponents.
• Many of the Archetype’s Special Abilities improve as the character advances through the Levels.
• Gains 1 additional point of Vitality (The Tough gains 2 points)
• Makes Improvement Rolls for a chosen Attribute first, and then for the two Archetype’s Prime Attributes. An Improvement Roll consists of rolling a d20 and comparing it to the Attribute score in question. If the roll results in a number higher than the Attribute score, the Attribute is improved by one point (to the maximum natural score of 18). If the result is equal to or lower than the Attribute score, it’s not improved. An Attribute can only be improved once per Level, even if the player chooses to to roll for one of his Prime Attributes as his chosen Attribute’s Improvement Roll.

Now that Kaylia’s reached second level, she gains various benefits. First of all, she is more capable of fighting her enemies now as Powerful Opponents will compare their HD to two Levels instead of one now. She can also make more improvements to technological objects than before, and can make more effective emergency repairs. She gains 1 point of Vitality and can make some Improvement Rolls. She choses to roll against her Willpower first as her chosen Attribute. She rolls a 13 and it is improved from 10 to 11. Then, it’s time to make the Improvement Roll for her Prime Attributes. She rolls first for her Agility, getting a 9 on her d20, which is higher than it’s score. This means her Agility becomes 9. However, when rolling against her Intellect, she only got a 5, way below her 14 points of Intellect, meaning this Attribute won’t improve this Level.

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