Whenever you win a fight, you gain some XP. If you tie a fight or defeat just some of the opponents that you're fighting, you still gain XP for defeated opponents, but not (normally) any items or other benefits.
The XP you gain is distributed among your four attributes: Perception, Reflexes, Strength and Will. See XP page for how leveling up works and how your attributes affect the game.
You can skew the XP gain towards a particular attribute with the following four bonuses:
All other things being equal, you will gain an equal proportion of XP to all stats. The chance of XP modifiers can change this distribution as follows:| Modifier | Proportion of stat gain (P : R : S : W) |
|---|---|
| No modifier bonus | 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 |
| Slightly (+1) chance of Perception XP | 2 : 1 : 1 : 1 |
| Slightly (+1) chance of Reflexes XP | 1 : 2 : 1 : 1 |
| Moderately (+2) chance of Perception XP | 3 : 1 : 1 : 1 |
| Impressively (+2) chance of Perception XP | 4 : 1 : 1 : 1 |
| Slightly (+1) chance of Perception AND Reflexes XP | 2 : 2 : 1 : 1 |
etc.
In addition to the above modifiers, the selection of techniques you used in combat affect the distribution by providing a hidden Moderately (+2) chance of XP, depending on the associated attribute to techniques. If you use nothing but Perception based techniques, you get a hidden +2 chance of Perception XP. If you use 80% Perception techniques and 20% reflexes techniques, you gain a (+2 x 80%) = +1.6 chance of Perception XP and a (+2 x 20%) = 0.4 chance of Reflexes XP. It does not matter how many techniques you use.
- The following adjectives correspond to the following increases:
| Modifier | Increase |
|---|---|
| Slightly | +1 |
| Moderately | +2 |
| Impressively | +3 |
| Highly | +4 |
| Majorly | +5 |
| Greatly | +6 |
| Massively | +7 |
| Insanely | +8 |
| Ridiculously | +9 |
| Supremely | +10 |
| Supremely† | +11 |
| Supremely† | etc. |
†According to Kinak, the adjectives no longer change at this point, but the effect still increases.