Your character's level is a measure of their overall progression—the adventures they've completed, the obstacles they've overcome, and the improvements they've accomplished. Similar to most other role-playing games, your level is determined by the amount of Experience Points (XP) that your character has accumulated.

If you are coming to Legacy from another game system, the XP values might seem very odd. This is because they are balanced to allow you to progress through the earlier levels faster, but slow down once you reach mid-level.

Whenever you accumulate enough experience to advance to the next level, you gain several benefits:

• Distribute six points as you wish among your attributes' scores. You may not place more than three points in any single attribute.
• Choose a single class, either your base class or any Prestige class that you qualify, and increase that class' level by one, to a maximum of ten.
• Gain any level-dependant features that your class permits, as described in that class. This can include skill improvements, defensive adjustments, recovery dice or stamina points.
• Gain one trait. This trait must be chosen from the trait pool of the class in which you gained a level.

Note that traits in a class' trait pool are divided into three tiers: Basic, Advanced and Elite. You may only select an Advanced trait if your level in that class is 5 or higher, and may only select an Elite trait if your level in that class is 9 or higher.