Character Advancement

The final section for each racial discussion describes alternative benefits for members of that race taking certain classes as a favored class. The normal benefit of having a favored class is simple and effective: your character gains one extra hit point or one extra skill rank each time she gains a level in that class. The alternate favored class abilities listed here may not have as broad an appeal as the standard choices. They are designed to reflect flavorful options that might be less useful in general but prove handy in the right situations or for a character with the right focus. Most of them play off racial archetypes, like a galka’s toughness and proclivity for breaking things or mithra’s grace and finesse.

In most cases, these benefits are gained on a level-by-level basis—your character gains the specified incremental benefit each time she gains a level. Unless otherwise noted, these benefits always stack with themselves. For example, a hume with holy knight as a favored class may choose to gain 1 point of shadow energy resistance each time she gains a level; choosing this benefit twice increases this shadow resistance bonus to 2, 10 times raises it to 10, and so on.

In some cases this benefit may eventually hit a fixed numerical limit, after which selecting that favored class benefit has no effect. Of course, you can still select the bonus hit point or skill rank as your favored class benefit, so there is always a reward for sticking with a favored class.

Finally, some of these alternate favored class benefits only add +1/2, +1/3, +1/4, or +1/6 to a roll (rather than +1) each time the benefit is selected; when applying this result to the die roll, round down (minimum 0). For example, a dwarf with thief as his favored class adds +1/2 to his danger sense ability regarding stone traps each time he selects the alternate thief favored class benefit; though this means the net effect is +0 after selecting it once (because +1/2 rounds down to +0), after 20 levels this benefit gives the dwarf a +10 bonus to his danger sense (in addition to the base value from being a 20th-level thief).

As in the previous section, what is presented here is a set of alternative benefits that characters of each race may choose instead of the normal benefits for their favored class. Thus, rather than taking an extra hit point or an extra skill rank, players may choose for their characters to gain the benefit listed here. This is not a permanent or irrevocable choice; just as characters could alternate between taking skill ranks and hit points when they gain levels in their favored class, these benefits provide a third option, and characters may freely alternate between them.

As with any alternate or optional rule, consult with your GM to determine whether exchanging normal favored class benefits will be allowed.

Advancing Beyond 20th Level

Although classes don’t describe what happens after 20th level, this isn’t to say that there are no resources available to you should you wish to continue your campaign on to 21st level and beyond. Rules for epic-level play like this exist in numerous products that are compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, although in many cases these alternative rules can provide unanticipated problems. For example, if your campaign world is populated by creatures and villains who, at the upper limit of power, can challenge a 20th-level character, where will epic-level PCs go for challenges? You might be looking at creating an entirely new campaign setting, one set on different planes, planets, or dimensions from the one where your players spent their first 20 levels, and that’s a lot of work.

The following are brief guidelines to continue play beyond 20th level. These guidelines aren’t robust enough to keep the game vibrant and interesting on their own for much longer past 20th level, but they should do in a pinch for a campaign that needs, say, 22 or 23 experience levels to wrap up. Likewise, you can use these rules to create super-powerful NPCs for 20th-level characters to face.

Experience Points

To gain a level beyond 20th, a character must double the experience points needed to achieve the previous level. Thus, assuming the medium XP progression, a 20th-level character needs 2,100,000 XP to become 21st level, since he needed 1,050,000 XP to reach 20th level from 19th. He’d then need 4,200,000 XP to reach 22nd level, 8,400,000 XP to reach 23rd, and so on.

Scaling Powers

Hit dice, base attack bonuses, and saving throws continue to increase at the same rate beyond 20th level, as appropriate for the class in question. Note that no character can have more than 4 attacks based on its base attack bonus.

Note also that, before long, the difference between good saving throws and poor saving throws becomes awkwardly large—the further you get from 20th level, the more noticeable this difference grows, and for high-level characters, bolstering their poor saving throws should become increasingly important. Class abilities that have a set, increasing rate, such as a berserker’s rage powers, a fighter’s fighter talents, a paladin’s smite evil, or a thief’s sneak attack continue to progress at the appropriate rate.

Spells

A spellcaster’s caster level continues to increase by one for each level beyond 20th level. Every odd-numbered level, a spellcaster gains access to a new level of spell one above his previous maximum level, gaining MP equal to that new spell level. This new spell level can be used to cast spells adjusted by metamagic feats or any known spell of lower levels.

For example, a 21st-level black mage gains 10 MP, in which he can cast any spell of level 1st through 9th, or in which he can cast a metamagic spell that results in an effective spell level of 10 (such as extended stop, or quickened darkga).
You might want to further adjust the rate of spell level gain for classes (like holy knights and dark knights) who gain spells more slowly than more dedicated spellcaster classes.

The table on the left are guidelines for MP progression and the maximum spell level that can be used with metamagic. For example, a Full Caster (9th) of level 23 can use metamagic on a spell to have a total cost of 11 MP like a Empower Spell (Metamagic) Ardor. A 3/4 Caster (6th) of level 23 can use metamagic on a spell to have a total cost of 7 MP like a Extend Spell (Metamagic) Gale Spikes II. A Half Caster (4th) of level 24 can use metamagic on a spell to have a total cost of 5 MP like a Extend Spell (Metamagic) Greater Fear.

Companions

Companions also continue to progress, though many of their additional portions do not such as their features or special features. Follow the progression found on the following table. You might want to further adjust the rate of progression for classes that have slower, faster, or different progression than a beastmaster.

Multiclassing/Prestige Classes

The simplest way to progress beyond 20th level is to simply multiclass or take levels in a prestige class, in which case you gain all of the abilities of the new class level normally. This effectively treats 20th level as a hard limit for class level, but not as a hard limit for total character level.