Leveling Up

As characters complete Expeditions and earn Experience Points they will have the opportunities to level up and advance their class.

Determine if you want to level up

The west marches is split into four distinct Tiers of Play which holds its own restrictions on Expeditions they can attend. You might prefer lower level Expeditions, or want to continue pursuing a storyline from a storyteller that will remain for low level characters, or simply prefer to stop at a given level. Whatever the reason, you can choose to stay at your current level.

When you reach enough EXP to level up but decide you don't want to go to the next level, any EXP overflow becomes Free EXP. (e.g. If you had 900 XP and earned 150 during an Expedition, you would be at 1000 EXP with 50 free XP). You can continue playing the character in Expeditions following the normal Tier of Play restrictions. Whenever you would earn EXP again, you can once again make the choice to either level up or bank the EXP into Free EXP.

Plan what features you're taking

Having an idea of what new features you want to take beforehand is best. You can use a variety of tools to help you plan.

• Pathbuilder2e is a great way of seeing which features you have access to and to help theory craft a character.
• Archives of Nethys is the standard pathfinder 2e wiki where you can find all the information about the mechanics of the game.
• If you have a good old fashioned hardcopy or PDF of the Player Core rulebooks and other supplements you can reference those. The west marches tries to stick as close to RAW as possible.
• You can also look through features in the FoundryVTT itself but the content is not organized by what you can and cannot use, it may be difficult to make a decision using only that.

Some points to keep in mind about the west marches:

• We use the Proficiency without Level variant rule. The numbers for attacks, AC, and abilities will be different in the FoundryVTT than with 3rd party supplements. The FoundryVTT calculates it all correctly.

Importing your idea into the FoundryVTT

Once you know what features you want to take, navigate to your Character Sheet and begin the process of leveling up.

1. Increment your Level in the top right corner, or press the "+ Add" button that pops up in the chat log when your added experience exceeds the experience threshold. If you increment your level manually, remember to reduce your experience points by 1000 per level.
2. If you leveled up to a new Tier of Play and gotten Ability Score increases, navigate to the Character tab and select the Edit button in the Ability Scores section. You'll be able to select your Ability Score increases here.
3. If you upgraded your Intelligence score, remember to add a new language and to increase a skill from Untrained to Trained - remember, you can use this skill increase to learn a new Lore skill as well! Uncommon and Rare languages are subject to Firekeeper approval, as usual for Uncommon and Rare options.
4. Navigate to the Feats tab. You should see some empty slots. Clicking the Browse button on each category will open the importer for you to select the feats you want.
5. If you are a spellcaster, navigate to the Spellcasting tab and select any new spells you may learn.
6. If you reach a level where you can boost a skill proficiency, navigate to the Proficiencies tab. Click on the "Untrained", "Trained", etc. next to your chosen skill to open up a drop-down. Here you can select your new proficiency level.
7. Most things that can be handled automatically, like cantrip scaling, will be done by the system. Make sure to check that this is the case once you finish selecting all your features. If you run into any difficulty or have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out and ask either in the Discord or by contacting a storyteller.