The three skill trees in The Blood of Dawnwalker
Character development in The Blood of Dawnwalker runs through three skill trees: Swordmastery with 29 entries, Vampirism with 30 and Witchcraft with 31. Between them they hold 54 ordinary perks, 9 ultimate perks and 27 active abilities, and every one of them is bought with skill points at a shrine.
The trees are not cosmetic labels. Swordmastery is built around the human form and the sword, Vampirism around claws, blood and the night, and Witchcraft around magic that is only available in the human form. Because Coen changes form at dusk and dawn, investing entirely in one tree leaves half the game underpowered.
Tiers, level requirements and skill points
Perks are arranged in five tiers. Tier 0 holds the six entry perks, tier 1 has 40, tier 2 has 21, tier 3 has 14 and tier 4 holds the nine ultimate perks. Higher tiers are gated by both player level and by how many skill points have already been spent in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
- Perk level 1 - no requirement
- Perk level 2 - player level 5 and 2 skill points spent
- Perk level 3 - player level 10 and 4 skill points spent
- Perk level 4 - player level 15 and 6 skill points spent
Skill points come from two places: levelling up, which grants one point at most levels and two at some, and quests, which hand out 133 skill points in total across the game. That makes quest completion a genuine part of character building rather than a side activity.
Ultimate perks and why only one counts
Each tree ends in three tier 4 ultimate perks, nine in total, and only one ultimate perk can be unlocked per skill tree. That is the single most consequential choice in the whole progression system in The Blood of Dawnwalker, because it cannot be spread across the tree the way ordinary points can.
Perk strength also varies with how many levels a perk has. Eleven perks have a single level, thirteen have two, twenty-seven have three and thirty-nine have four, so a four level perk taken to maximum can absorb a serious share of an early skill point budget.
Day, night and manual gates
Thirty-six entries work in both forms, 30 are night only and 24 are day only. Building around a single phase is possible but punishing, because Vale Sangora forces the swap on the time bar rather than on request, and quest objectives are frequently locked to one phase.
Some perks additionally require a manual to be found and read before they can be learned at all. Learning advanced perks also costs time, pushing the day and night bar forward, so a late day spending spree at a shrine can arrive at night with the wrong equipment preset loaded.