Note: you no longer need to wear "leveling gear" as we did in the past - your character will gain practices and vitals dependent on your characters maximum stats, not current (in other words, your race & class combo is what changes your stats and thus your vital/practice level increases). You do, however, need to be aware of your class stat (such as a witch's is wisdom) as that current stat will alter the amount of betters that you get at each level, with a maximum of 2 per level.