Character level-up in The Bard's Tale 4 Game The Bard's Tale 4 Guide and Walkthrough

Last update: 16 October 2018

For each combat won and quest completed in Bard's Tale IV you will receive a certain amount of experience points. It depends on the difficulty of the encounter and the length of the quest. Acquiring a required amount of experience points translates into further experience levels for the character. You can check how much experience points a character has an requires to level-up after finish a quest or winning a battle.

Once a character acquires a specific amount of experience points, the game will inform you about the ability points that can now be distributed. The info can be found in the upper left corner of the screen. It can easily be overlooked, which is why you should constantly look in that area of the screen. Each level gives one ability point to use. The exception here is the Baed Human - this race acquires an additional point at certain levels.

You will be limited to a specific range of skills when using the ability points. Aside from the standard form, in which unlocking one of the skills unlocks the next one in the tree, there is also a character level limitation. It can be seen as a chain [1]. It moves as the character gains levels - the farther it is located, the more access to abilities the character has. Subsequent ability levels can be unlocked by visiting the Review Board in the Adventurer's Guild. If you don't visit it, you will not be able to advance abilities to higher levels, preventing you from using any accumulated skill points. In addition, a second ring can be seen [2], telling you the number of points already used in relation to their maximum amount.

The consequence of that is the lack of specific character specialization. You cannot invest in one skill tree only, because it will be partially blocked. This means that you must constantly develop several branches of the skill tree.