Leveling System

The Verse Master must decide on a Leveling System that permits the characters to grow and gain new abilities. Within Verse Chronicles there are two traditional systems that the Verse Master can choose from: the Experience Leveling System and the Milestone Leveling System.

Regardless of the system used every character starts at level 1 (unless that campaign setting states otherwise). The character must use a Rest Spot to level up once either a sufficient amount of Experience (XP) has been gained or whenever the Verse Master decides they have reached a Milestone. In doing so, 6 hours of their day or night must be dedicated to studying and training during the level up process and cannot be interrupted while doing so. Verse Chronicles does not have a maximum amount of levels that a character can reach unless the Verse Master is playing a Campaign Setting that has one and some systems may not have a leveling system at all.

Build Points
Whenever a character levels up they gain Build Points equal to 10 + Character Level. These points can be used to increase Ability Scores, increase Skills or Knowledge or Training, to unlock a new Spell Access Level, to increase the damage Unarmed Dice (UD) or Spell Dice (SD) deals, or to purchase Feats or Spells. All Campaign Settings have difficulty settings that determine how XP a character needs to level up in the Experience Leveling System as well as whether characters have a bonus amount of BP when leveling up. In Easy Mode, the BP has a + 3 bonus, in Normal Mode it is a +2 bonus, in Adept Mode it is a + 1 bonus, and in Hard Mode BP does not have a bonus. Build Points can be applied anytime the character is at a Rest Spot and is dedicated studying, practicing, or training. The Character gains the points at level up or through Intuition Points (see below) but do not have to use the points when leveling and can hold onto them to roll over either at next level or when at a different Rest Spot.
Each Ability Score can have a maximum of 1 build point placed into them at each level and does not roll over. Any points not put into the Ability Score at one level cannot be stacked onto another level. Skills can have a number of build points placed into them equal to the character’s level. A level one character can place a maximum of 1 point into each skill then at level two place an additional 2 build points giving them a total of 3 points to the skill. The same is true for Knowledges and Training. Unarmed and Spell Dice have set amounts that must be purchased to increase to the next level and must be purchased a level at a time and cannot be skipped. The same is true for Spell Access Levels. Feats and Spells have set amounts that are used to purchase them and only Spells of the Spell Access Level the character has access to can be purchased and the prerequisites must be met for Feats. Spells and Feats can be learned outside of leveling as well.

Starting at level one and every four levels afterwards, all Characters gain either a Bonus Feat or a Bonus Spell of the players choosing. The Bonus feat can be a General or a Combat Feat and can only be taken if applicable and if the prerequisites are met. The Bonus Spell can be any spell that is applicable and must be one that belongs to the Spell Access Levels that the Character has access to.

Feats and Spells can be learned in numerous ways but they must be trained on while at a Rest Spot. In order to learn a new spell using Build Points, players must spend the amount of points necessary to purchase the spell and spend time studying and training on how to use it and the same is true for Feats. The more feats a Character has through the BP system, the less spells they may have and vice versa as more points are spent on one over the other. This is because learning spells and learning feats both take time and training and therefore the player must choose if their Character takes the time to learn one or the other.

Build Points can also be used to increase Skills, Knowledge, or Training. Each level they can add any available Build Points equal to up to the character’s current level into any Skill, Knowledge, or Training. Additionally, Characters can add Build Points to Ability Scores with a maximum of 1 point per Ability Score each level. Players must be very careful about where they put their points as they only have so many per level. Any unused BP rolls over to the next level to be used but they must only be used while in the leveling process or when using a Rest Spot while uninterrupted.
Points may also be granted by the Verse Master depending on what the character achieves while exploring through the use of Intuition Points. Each time a character uses a Skill or succeeds on a Skill Check they gain one Intuition Point. Once the Character has 10 Intuition Points in one Skill they gain a +1 bonus to it. Also, for each hour a Character spends studying a Knowledge through research either through computers or books, such as at a library, they gain 1 Intuition Point.
However, once an Intuition Point is gained from a single source, such as a specific book or scroll, then that source cannot be used to gain more Intuition Points and new sources must be used that provide new knowledge or information. Once they have 10 Intuition Points in one Knowledge they gain a +1 bonus to it. Finally, whenever a character naturally lands a Critical Hit on a creature with an Attack then they gain Intuition Points for that Training skill and once they have 10 Intuition Points in one Training then they gain a +1 bonus to it.

The last use of Build Points is to grow in power and damage by unlocking new levels in spells and attacks. At level one every character has access to Cantrip Spells and their unarmed attacks deal 1d4 for their UD and spell attacks deal 1d4 for their SD. All of these have a maximum point of leveling up that cannot be exceeded once reached. These can only be increased by leveling up and using BP to unlock the next level when used as shown on the following charts.

The amounts to unlock each level are the totals, but you have to have the level that comes before it. (i.e. to unlock Abnormal spell access, its purchasing Common access for 5BP + Uncommon access for 10BP + Abnormal access for 15BP = for a total of 30 BP)