Professions

The Profession System is designed to enhance the backgrounds and current occupations of player characters besides their "adventuring classes." Adventuring classes define players' core abilities and their general features from combat encounters to social situations. The Profession System is aimed at giving players opportunities to enrich their downtimes, backgrounds, non-combat activities, explorations, daily goals and occupations and their characters out of adventure days.

Characters can take up the path of a Profession between Levels 1-3 and have access to Apprentice levels of the professions if they meet the prerequisite for the intended profession. It is recommended that players should take at least two weeks of downtime to begin a Profession. It is not advised for characters to have more than one profession, as the system is not designed for multi-professions, and it could end up for characters to have unfair advantages. However, at the GM's discretion, players may take suitable perks from other professions if needed. If a character wants to start a profession at later levels, GM may let them start with more Profession Experience (PEX) depending on the earlier experiences of the adventurer. For example, if the character acts as an advisor to an important underground boss, they may start from the Journeyman rank.

PEX is the main way of progressing through the Ranks and gaining new abilities. Most of the Professions explain how to gain PEX. For example, the very first Profession designed by us–the Bounty Hunter in The City of Crescent–gains PEX through collecting bounties, and it is scaled with the Challenge Ratings of said bounties.

To improve ranks, a character must spend their PEX for the current rank's abilities (usually at least two of them), and also reach the designated PEX for the next rank and expend the experience as well. It should be noted that the rank system does not work like 5th edition class leveling; you must spend your PEX in order to rank up.

There are four ranks for each profession: Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Master. Apprentice is the starting level, and there is no PEX needed to enter that profession, but investments should be made beforehand or the backstory of the character must fit the profession. Each profession has a prerequisite for it, but if a character's backstory fits, the GM may allow for the profession to be chosen.

For Journeyman rank, you must spend at least a total 100 PEX on abilities in the Apprentice rank and spend 300 PEX to reach the rank.

For Expert rank, you must spend at least a total of 200 PEX on abilities in the Journeyman rank and spend 1,000 PEX to reach the rank.

For Master rank, you must spend at least a total 400 PEX on abilities in the Expert rank and spend 5,000 PEX to reach the maximum rank.

When you spend enough PEX to reach the next rank, you can also purchase other abilities as well before advancing. In addition, you can purchase earlier abilities from lower ranks.