I'm not really strong on the concept of "roguelike" progression; but here are the Advancement rules from Knave:
Whenever a PC accumulates 1000 XP, they gain a level. As a guideline, PCs receive 50 XP for low-risk accomplish-ments, 100 XP for moderate-risk accomplishments, and 200 XP for high-risk accomplishments. The referee should freely notify the PCs of how much XP different objectives are worth when asked. . . .
When a PC gains a level, they roll a number of d8s equal to their new level to find their new HP maximum. If the result is less than their previous maximum, their maximum HP increases by 1. They also raise the defense and bonus scores of 3 different abilities of their choice by 1 point. Abilities may never be raised higher than 20/+10.
When a PC gains a level, they roll a number of d8s equal to their new level to find their new HP maximum. If the result is less than their previous maximum, their maximum HP increases by 1. They also raise the defense and bonus scores of 3 different abilities of their choice by 1 point. Abilities may never be raised higher than 20/+10.
There's also this "Designer's Note":
You can also raise abilities randomly if you want. My preferred method is to roll a d20 for each ability, in any order, raising that ability by 1 if the roll is less than that ability's defense. Keep cycling through the abilities, stopping when three abilities have advanced, and skipping any abilities that have maxed out. In this method, natural talents will tend to advance faster than weaknesses, which makes PCs more varied and specialized.
Burning Wheel is a "crunchy" game that features detailed and granular PC build at the start, but that has unfixed advancement. It doesn't use levels, but something a bit closer to RQ/BRP-style advancement. It doesn't have the feature that "natural talents will tend to advance faster than weaknesses", but PCs still tend to be pretty varied (at least in my experience).
