Character Advancement in "Of Hearth & the Harrowing"

One of the things that sets Basic Roleplaying (BRP) games apart from other systems it the way characters advance and get better. There is no experience points and there are no levels that guide how you grow your character.

Instead, the character grows organically from your actions in game. Each time you make a successful skill roll, power roll, passion roll, or personality roll you get to put a check in the XP box for that roll.

Example skill that is ready to be advanced!

Then, when you are ready for advancement you go through each skill and see if it goes up. In our game this happens during the next Hearth phase when you are safely back in the hearth, not out on an expedition into the wilds.

To see if you advance you roll a percentile roll. You add to the roll (not the target) your Experience Bonus (a derived characteristic that is half your INT). If the total of the roll + Experience Bonus is over the rating of whatever rating you are checking for advancement on then that thing goes up! You roll 1D6 and add that to the skill rating.

Let's see an example. Your character has a dodge skill of 52 and successfully dodges an attack by rolling a 30. You get to check the XP Box! Later, when the heroes return to the Hearth, you decide to take the following week and not go adventuring, but instead, stay in the Hearth. You are helping out the villagers, but you are also reflecting on your past adventures. Time to do advancement!

Your INT is 10, so you have an Experience Bonus of 5 (you'll find it at the bottom of the skill list for ease of finding it when doing advancement). You go to every XP Box with a mark in it, and you roll 1D100+5 (for your Experience Bonus). While trying to advance Dodge you roll 48 on the dice, plus 5 is 53. Since that is over your current Dodge skill, you get to raise your Dodge skill by 1D6. You roll a D6 and get a 3, making your new Dodge skill a 55!

But what if you want to learn something new? Or did not have a chance to practice a skill in the adventuring phase that you want to raise? Fear not. You have options. The Hearth phase is full of opportunity for the Heroes to help out the community, but they can also spend that time doing things like crafting, training with another character, or researching a skill or power.

Training and research take time. One is your hero learning from someone else that knows the thing they are training better than you do, the other is practicing, researching, and discovering on your own. Training nets slightly better results (+1D6 vs +1D4), but sometimes you can not find someone to teach you that new power you want to learn.

Any new skill or power you pick up starts at its base score (based on a characteristic like DEX or POW) plus the roll for training or research that got you the advancement (again, +1D6 or 1D4 respectively).

Advancement is a key component that sets BRP games like Of Hearth & the Harrowing, Runequest, Dragonbane, or Call of Cthulhu apart from level and experience point based games. It is one of the key reasons we chose BRP for making our game in.

You can download a free PDF copy of the character sheet! We will be presenting more preview materials over the next few months as we head toward launch.