Experience

This page includes all the rules in the Extended Realms setting regarding Experience Points, including rulings regarding its attainment and expenditure.

## Leveling

Similar to the official level-up system used in the official D&D 5e setting, players level up their characters based on experience points that they gain from vanquishing foes or coming up with ingenious plans to circumvent otherwise impossible problems. Unlike the official setting, however, the experience system in the Extended Realms setting is quite different, as shown below:

* Every player character (and/or companions) has an Experience Pool, which can contain an unlimited amount of Experience Points.
* Instead of leveling up the character (that is, increasing Character Level), players level up the character's level in each individual class they belong to (that is, increasing Class Level).
* In order to increase a character's Class Level, the player must subtract the necessary amount needed for the level-up from the Experience Pool. The amount of experience required to reach each level is listed in the table below:

Note that each value in the "Experience Needed to Reach" is only the amount needed to reach that level from the one immediately below it. That is, by spending 400,000 Experience Points, a 9th-level Ranger can become a 10th-level Ranger, but the same 9th-level Ranger cannot expend 800,000 Experience Points to become a 11th-level Ranger. If the Ranger in the example wishes to level up from 9th-level straight to 11th-level, they must spend 1,200,000 Experience Points in order to do so (1,200,000 = 400,000 + 800,000). This table is used for all of the classes in the Extended Realms setting unless otherwise stated (i.e. Racial Prestige Classes).

Player characters can only spend Experience Points from their Experience Pools during a short or long rest, and only when they are not engaged in any other activities (attuning to a magical item, keeping watch, resting, communing, etc.).

Think of this system as "purchasing" level-ups using "experience points" as the currency. A good simile for this system is like purchasing a new house. The buyer must have enough funds before they can even consider purchasing that new house, and when they do have enough funds they must SPEND those funds to make the purchase, they don't automatically get the new house just because they've hoarded the necessary amount of funds (try as we might to hope that's the case).

## Spirit Prism

In certain instances, some player characters may find themselves gifted with a Spirit Prism, which contains and safeguards their soul, marking them as a Chosen of Thae'ron. For these characters, death is not permanent, as when their physical body expires they can spend Experience Points from their Experience Pool (which is absorbed into the Spirit Prism when they receive it) to resurrect themselves, similar to the way a Lich can recreate itself from its phylactery. For these characters, refer to the following table to see how much Experience Points are required to resurrect themselves:

As one can probably tell, it gets progressively more "expensive" to resurrect oneself, to a point where it becomes more experience-consuming to resurrect than to level-up. For characters with multiple classes (that is, multiclassing), the cost to resurrect oneself is the sum of the experience needed for all their classes. For instances, a character who is a 17th-level Monk and 14th-level Sorcerer that dies must spend 7,200,000 (6,400,000 for level 17 & 800,000 for level 14) to resurrect themselves. In the event that a character does not have enough points in their Experience Pool, they go into a sort of "debt" where they incur negative experience. While a character has negative experience, any experience they gain is automatically used to "pay back" the "debt", and until their Experience Points are once again back in the positives, they cannot level-up any of their classes.
As with leveling up, a character can only resurrect themselves (ergo, spending Experience Points from their Experience Pool) during a short or long rest. Because a "dead" character is reduced to their Spirit Prism, they will need someone, most like a fellow party member, to carry them around until they are resurrected. The resurrection process takes 4 hours, and any damage dealt to the Spirit Prism during that time interrupts the process, forcing the character to restart. Therefore, something as simple as a vat of acid can easily bring low a Champion of the Prismatic God. Fortunately, interrupted resurrections do not consume the required Experience Points.

Like phylacteries, Spirit Prisms are not indestructible. If a Spirit Prism is damaged, destroyed, or twisted in some way or form, the soul which it contains will be irreversibly destroyed and will cease to exist. Nothing, not even intervention from the Overdeities, can restore a soul lost this way. Aside from being destroyed, Spirit Prisms can also be abused by practitioners of forbidden arts, Liches, for instance, value Spirit Prisms above all other treasures. With a Spirit Prism embedded within their phylactery, a Lich can exist for all eternity without ever needing to consume souls again.

## Experience Earned by Monster CR

The most common way to earn experience is, of course, slaying monsters. Due to the high number of experience points necessary to advance in levels in the Extended Realms setting, Game masters are encouraged to refer to the following table to calculate how much experience a monster or groups of monsters award upon defeat.

Given the higher experience earnings, Game Masters are also encouraged to increase the challenge and difficulties of their monsters and combat encounters, to drive home the feeling of the high-risk, high-reward adventuring lifestyle.