Progression

Level Requirements

Gear is gated by your class level. Hover an item to see what it needs.

You cannot use everything from the moment you find it. Weapons, armour and tools carry a level requirement, and the level that counts is your best class level - not your character level.

Hover any gated item and the tooltip says so:

Requires Level 18 to use

Three things are gated

When you try, you get told exactly what you are missing:

You need level 18 to use a IRON_SWORD (you are level 14).
You need level 30 to wear a DIAMOND_CHESTPLATE (you are level 22).

Why it exists

Without a gate, the fastest way to gear up is to run past everything dangerous and loot a chest in a high-level region. The gate makes the level bands mean something: the gear a region drops is gear you are expected to be able to carry.

It also cuts both ways - you cannot twink an alt, and a friend cannot hand you endgame armour on day one.

Which level counts

Your highest class level. If you have a level 40 Miner and a level 5 Farmer, you are treated as level 40 for every requirement - including for a sword, which is not what a Miner is for.

This is why a second class is worth buying: it raises the ceiling for everything, not just its own speciality.

Two different tables

There are two level tables on the server, and they are not the same one:

They mostly agree, but they disagree in places. A diamond sword needs level 35 to use, while a loot chest only starts dropping one when the region is banded at 33. An iron spear is 20 to use but drops from band 18.

The practical effect: a chest can occasionally hand you something you cannot yet equip. That is intended - it is a reason to keep levelling, not a bug.

See Loot Chests for the chest-side table.

Roughly where the gates fall

The full ladder is on the Loot Chests page - the two tables track each other closely enough to plan by.