How do I increase my actual level?

[soss]

I'm still level one and I haven't been able to increase my attribute points. I've been playing for around 5 hours.

[ma2k13]

Find a bed and sleep. You should level up then.

[soss]

Originally posted by p4kh2un:

Find a bed and sleep. You should level up then.

Thanks

[Darkening Demise]

Keep an eye out for text in the upper left corner about skill increase. The one that makes you 'level up' will have more to it and you'll need to find a bed that allows you to use it to sleep. It doesn't matter how long you sleep, just so long as you do. So 1 hour minimum. Be sure to sleep and level up as soon as possible before your main skills increase more, you'll regret it otherwise. Skills take longer to level up as they increase, therefore by not sleeping you could end up taking forever to level up again.

[ed]

Look at your skills menu. There will be a red bar along the bottom - this bar fills up a little every time you level up one of your selected class skills. Once the bar is maxed out you'll get that on-screen notification and it'll be time to sleep.

If you have been playing for five hours but not leveled up your class skills enough, you won't be ready to level up yet.

EDIT: Also for goodness' sake be sure you either install the Plus 5 Always mod or level your non-class skills in between actually leveling up, so that you will have good stat gains (you can see which skill boosts which stat in your skill menu).

Note that even with Plus 5 Always installed, you MUST level up a skill with your desired stat at least once, you can't just level no Strength skills at all and expect to choose +5 Str. I think without the mod you'll have to level skills for the desired stat ten times, instead of one, to get +5; since leveling major skills ten times levels you up, if you want to add +5 to two different stats you'll also have to grind a bunch of your minor skills to make up the differnce. (There are no Luck skills, so thankfully there's no grinding Luck skills either. You can just do +5/+5 and put your third point for +1 Luck.)

If you level up a bunch but let your stats be awful, the game will become unplayable in a hurry.

[AmudPuddle]

There is also an icon that appears next to your compass that looks like a moon with an arrow pointing upwards when you can level up

[CMDR Herne]

Remeber to save a game before you level up. Just that you can complete the main quest on Level 1 or 2 if you want to.
Also the way the level up system is like and its effects in game particuly in how hard or easy it makes it, you might not want to level up at certain points perhaps.

[IDon'tFeelSoSpecial]

Look at your attrubutes and at the bottom there should be red bar and if it's full, sleep.