4. Death and leveling up Dark Souls III Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
The basic mechanic of character progression in the game is increasing the experience level of your character. Contrary to most other games, in Dark Souls III it does not happen automatically. The experience points are replaced by souls, which are gained from various sources. When you've acquired enough souls (the exact amount can be checked by looking at the bottom right corner of the screen), you can head to the Firelink Shrine (it's unlocked after completing the first, "training", area - the Cemetery of Ash) and speak with the Fire Keeper. After selecting the "Next level" option, a window showing all of your stats will appear on the screen. Here you can check your experience level, as well as the amount of souls required to increase your level. Each succeeding level is more expensive than the previous one, which is why you should only develop those stats, that will be useful for your character, allowing you to specialize in your preferred style of combat (increasing strength if your focusing on heavy equipment, or spend your souls on dexterity, if you rely on quick, light armaments).
Increase the stand you're interested in and the level of the character will increase automatically as well. This means that if you've invested 3 points in strength, and 2 points in intelligence, the overall level of your character will be increased by 5.
Souls can be acquired in two ways. The first and the most obvious one - each enemy or boss you kill will give you a certain amount of souls. Weaker enemies will give lesser amounts, whereas the strongest ones and bosses will give you the most. Additionally, some souls can also be acquired by completing quests for NPCs, as well as by killing other players. The second method comes from consuming various special items, which can be found throughout the world, such as the ones lying near the dead bodies of defeated enemies. Each of those items will give a varying amount of souls - the rarer the item, the more souls it will provide (such as the Large Soul of the Deserted Corpse). In case of special items, however, like the Fire Keeper Soul, you should be careful with consumption, as they may also have some other uses. You should hold onto those items until you learn about their purpose. Souls can also be gained by selling items to the Shrine Handmaid.
To make the progression of your character somewhat more difficult, the game features a mechanic that causes you to lose the souls you have gathered. As they can't be stored anywhere, they are lost whenever you use them as well as each time you die. There aren't any other negative effects associated with dying, aside from the loss of souls. However, if you were killed, you can still find the souls you've lost and reacquire them. In order to do so, you must travel to the place you've been killed at and pick up the green "orb" you will find there (as shown on the screenshot). It contains all the souls you've had on your character at the moment of death. If, however, you're killed on your way there, the orb will disappear. Long story short, after each death you can still reacquire the souls you've lost, but when you're killed again (before picking up the orb), they are lost permanently. It means, that it's not worth accumulating huge amounts of souls - it is best to spend them as often as you can, either to increase the level of your character, or to purchase the items you need.