As you adventure and gain experience, you advance in level. Gaining a level (also called leveling or leveling up) is one of the biggest rewards you’ll receive for your success in the game—your character improves in several ways every time you go up a level. Each time you overcome a noncombat encounter, defeat monsters, or complete a quest, your Dungeon Master awards you experience points (XP). When you earn enough XP, you reach a new level.The Character Advancement table shows the total XP you need to reach each level and the abilities and other benefits you gain with each new level.
Step by Step: Refer to the Character Advancement table and follow these steps when your character gains a level. At most levels, you gain access to a new power or a new feat. Refer to your class description for the full listing of the powers available to you, and see the feat section for the complete list of feats. The game assumes that you’ve been learning these powers in your spare time, studying musty tomes or practicing a complicated series of maneuvers. In game terms, though, as soon as you gain a level, you can immediately use your new powers and feats.
- Ability Scores: Check the Ability Scores column to see if you can improve your ability scores. If you can, choose the abilities you want to increase. At 4th, 8th, 14th, 18th, 24th, and 28th levels, you increase two ability scores by 1 (you can’t take both increases in the same score). At 11th and 21st level, you increase each of your ability scores by 1. If you increase an ability score to an even number, your ability modifier goes up, and that change affects powers, skills, and defenses that rely on that ability score. Make a note of that fact, but don’t change any numbers just yet.
- Level Modifier: If your new level is an even number, everything that’s based on one-half your level becomes better—your attacks, defenses, initiative, skill checks, and ability checks. In combination with any increased ability modifiers, you now have the information you need to increase those numbers. Go through your character sheet and note those increases.
- Paragon and Epic: If you just reached 11th or 21st level, you have some exciting decisions to make—you can choose a paragon path or an epic destiny. Make that choice, and make a note of the new power or feature you gain.
- Hit Points: Check your class description to see how many hit points you gain with your new level. Add those to your total. If you increased your Constitution score, increase your hit points by 1 (as if you had your new Constitution score when you were 1st level). Also, if you increased your Constitution score to an even number, increase your number of healing surges by one.
- Class Features: When you check your class description for hit points, also check your class features to see if any of your powers or other abilities improve with level. For example, the thief’s Sneak Attack class feature improves at 11th and 21st levels.
- Feats: Check the Powers and Features column of the Character Advancement table to see if you learn any new feats. You learn one feat at 1st level, one new feat at every even-numbered level after that, plus one new feat at 11th and 21st levels. If you increased an ability score, you might meet the prerequisites for some feats that you didn’t qualify for before. (The Feats Known column on the Character Advancement table enables you to double-check at every level to be sure you have the number of feats you’re entitled to.)
- Powers: At most levels, you gain access to a new power. You can take each power only once (you can’t choose the same power multiple times). Refer to your class description for a full listing of the powers available to you.
At-Will Attack Powers: At 1st level, choose two at-will attack powers from the list in your class description. You don’t automatically learn new at-will powers as you advance, but as you gain levels you can choose to retrain (see “Retraining,” below) and replace an at-will power you know with a new one.
Encounter Attack Powers: At 1st level, select one power from the list of 1st-level encounter attack powers in your class description. At 3rd and 7th levels, you learn a new encounter power of your level or lower. At 11th level, you learn a new encounter power when you choose a paragon path. The path you choose determines the power you gain. At 13th, 17th, 23rd, and 27th levels, you can replace any encounter attack power you know from your class with a new one of your new level (or an encounter attack power of a lower level, if you choose).
Daily Attack Powers: At 1st level, choose one power from the list of 1st-level daily attack powers in your class description. You learn a new daily attack power of your level or lower at 5th level and again at 9th level. At 20th level, you learn a new daily power, determined by your paragon path. At 15th, 19th, 25th, and 29th levels, you can replace any daily attack power you know from your class with a new daily attack power of your new level (or a daily attack power of a lower level, if you choose).
Utility Powers: At 2nd level, choose one utility power from the list of 2nd-level utility powers in your class description. You learn a new power chosen from the list of utility powers of your level (or a utility power of a lower level, if you choose) at 6th level and again at 10th, 16th, and 22nd levels. At 12th level, you learn a new utility power determined by your paragon path. At 26th level, you learn a new utility power from your epic destiny.
Retraining
Sometimes you make decisions when you create or advance your character that you later regret. Perhaps a power you chose isn’t working with your character concept, or a feat never comes into play the way you anticipated. Fortunately in such a case, level advancement isn’t only a time to learn new powers—it’s also an opportunity to change some of those decisions. Every time you gain a level, you can retrain your character: change one feat, power, or skill selection you made previously. You can make only one change at each level. When your class table tells you to replace
a power you know with a different power of a higher level, that doesn’t count as retraining—you can still retrain an additional feat, power, or skill as normal.
Feat: You can replace a feat with another feat. You must meet the prerequisites of the new feat. You can’t replace a feat if it’s a prerequisite for any other attribute you have (another feat or a paragon path, for example), or if the feat is a feature of your class, path, or destiny (as the Ritual Caster feat is a class feature for wizards). You can replace heroic or paragon tier feats with higher-tier feats, but only one at a time, once per level you gain. For instance, at 11th level, you gain one feat and you can also retrain one of your heroic tier feats, gaining a paragon tier feat in its place. At 12th level you can do the same, so you can potentially have four paragon tier feats at 12th level. (You might find that many of your heroic tier feats remain worthwhile well into higher levels, however.)
Power: You can replace a power with another power of the same type (at-will attack power, encounter attack power, daily attack power, or utility power), of the same level or lower, and from the same class—a 5th-level attack power for another 5th-level attack power, for example, or a 22nd-level utility power for a different 22nd-level utility power. You can’t replace a power that’s a class feature (such as a white mage’s healing word or a thief’s sneak attack) or a power gained from a paragon path or epic destiny.
Skill: You can replace a trained skill with another trained skill from your class list. You can’t replace a skill if it’s required for a feat, a power, or any other attribute you have, or if it’s predetermined by your class (such as Arcana for black mages or Religion for white mages). If your class requires you to choose one of two skills (such as the archer, which requires either Dungeoneering
or Nature), you can alter your choice by retraining, but you’re limited to replacing one skill with the other.
Milestones
You gain certain benefits when you reach a milestone—when you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest.
Action Points: Your character starts with 1 action point. No more than once per encounter, you can spend an action point to take an extra action, use certain feats, or use paragon path powers. When you spend an action point, it’s gone, but you can gain more in two ways: by reaching a milestone or by taking an extended rest. Each time you reach a milestone, you gain an action point. After you take an
extended rest, you lose any action points you haven’t spent, but you start fresh with 1 action point.
Magic Items: Each time you reach a milestone, you gain one additional use of a magic item daily power. Some magic items, particularly rings, also grow more powerful after you reach a milestone.