Starting skills in Project Zomboid grants a XP boost helping you level the skill much faster, with level 1 making a 400% XP difference. Let’s take a look at how this works.

Starting Skill XP Boost

Starting LevelXP BoostActual relative experience gain
025%100%
175%400%
2100%532%
3+125%664%

Looking at the above chart starting skill level 1 gives a significant XP boost. So how does the above chart work:

  1. If you start with Lv. 0 Cooking your character will earn 25% XP (you can view this as a debuff). Watching Day 1 episode of Live and Living you will receive 112.5 XP in cooking.
  2. However if you pick the Burger Flipper occupation that starts with Lv. 2 Cooking your character will get 532% XP compared to Lv. 0 Cooking. Watching the first episode will now give 598.5 XP.
  3. If you pick the Chef occupation that starts with Lv. 3 Cooking your character will get 664% XP compared to Lv. 0 Cooking. Watching the first episode will now give 747 XP.
  4. As for Lv. 1 skills we can look at Carpentry. At Lv. 0 Carpentry watching Day 1 Life and Living will give 75 XP.
  5. Picking the Park Ranger occupation starts you off with Lv. 1 Carpentry your character will get 400% XP. Watching the first episode will now give 300 XP.

The in-game tool tip XP boost values are a bit confusing. But from our testing it looks like your character receives around 4-6.64x the amount of XP depending on your starting skill.

Lv. 1 grants 4x the XP providing incredible value for your character. Therefore its important to take at least 1 level in a skill that your character will want to grind.

Not sure how much XP is needed to level Skills? Check our Skill XP Chart.