Character Creation Thread

the reason I believe we need 40 XP to reach level 40 is:

1. characters often start at 0 and need a certain amount of XP to gain first... In this case 10 XP.

2. in the level 10 line it says 100 XP... yet there is no 11th level, so why would you need 100 XP? It makes more sense that at 9th level you would need 100 XP to level to 10, the highest level.

The general answer is nothing but bonuses from magic weapons. Fighters get increasing damage bonuses for a chosen weapon as part of their class feature, but that's part of what makes them fighters.

As I'm sure you're gathering, Shadowdark characters are pretty low-power compared to 5e characters (and even compared to some OSR games). The power curve as you level is also more flat. The good news is that this applies to most adversaries as well. Monsters tend to not have damage bonuses for their attacks, just a die roll. The hit point totals for monsters tend to be lower. Of course, as an OSR-style game, it's not uncommon for you to encounter monsters that are a higher level than your party. Picking your battles is important.

The XP table is a bit confusing. But the first line of text under "Leveling Up" in the rules says "To gain a a level, you need to earn your current level x 10 XP." [emphasis from source]. So if you are 3rd level, you "level up at" 30 XP.

Needing 10 XP to go from 0 to 1 and also to go from 1 to 2 is a bit odd, but that's what they did. Honestly, I think level 0's are really just meant to level up after you finish your Gauntlet, and they also through an XP value in there for those who might want one.

The reason for level 10 having a total to level up is unclear. On the Arcane Library discord, the most common explanations are "in case the GM wants to have levels higher than 10" and "the game designers may have had toughts about a future expansion for higher levels". Personally, I think it's maybe just someone's obsessive need for the table to have an entry for each row.

What version do I have then?? 😳

I honestly don't know. But I do know that the one with leveling at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, etc is the one that's current and official.

I think there has been an evolving rule set... As I assumed it at one point had Level 0... even that version I found has leveling up based on 10XP x your current Level... It is possible there was an earlier version that had XP x 10 to go from Level 0 to 1 and either by misinterpretation or some other reason it changed...

I got a one on a hp, so I'm re-rolling that now. I also tough talents where 1d12 but are in fact 2d6 so re-rolling those as well.

I'm going to go head and submit my character meet Kasin the Witch .
I do have a question though, one of my talents is "Learn an additional witch spell of any tier you can cast", does that mean for each tier of spell I can cast I get an additional spell, or does that mean that when i get that talent, I get 1 additional spell and it has to be from one of tiers I have. Essentially, since I got that talent at level 1, should that I mean I have 5 tier 1 spells and 1 tier 2 or 5 tier 1 and 2 tier 2 ?

If you roll that talent, you get one and only one new spell. That spell must be from a tier that you are able to cast.