Experience levels | Character advancement The Banner Saga 2 Guide

Bolverk is one of the heroes

Character development in The Banner Saga 2 is not extremely complex, but it does offer several unusual mechanisms worth knowing before starting the actual gameplay.

The Banner Saga 2 does not offer any experience points that a player could use to advance a character. What matters instead is how many enemies a character managed to kill (you can check it in a camp or a city - example shown above). Exceeding the limit of kills makes an upgrade available. For obvious reasons, such a solution forces the members of the team to be active. An ally can participate in twenty battles, but won't level up without killing anyone. Keep that in mind and let everyone fight, either by skipping turns of other characters or changing the members of the active team. When a battle is not that challenging, do not use characters on the highest levels, because they won't benefit from it anyway.

Killing enough enemies is not the only requirement, because you need to have enough Renown to advance to the next level. They also act as a currency with which you can buy items and supplies in the market. You can only lose them as a result of your bad (critical) decisions, but usually no more than 10. Each level costs more - try to foresee how much points you need to upgrade units and, only after that, proceed to buying things.

As a result, setting your priorities is crucial. If you need one strong hero, collect 20 points to max them out. If you want to slightly upgrade the whole team, spend the same 20 points on three or four characters that are currently on lower levels.