Player Controller/Character

I’m really confused with the idea of not just having the character by itself or having systems connected to the play… and i’m also unsure which between the controller and character what types of things you are supposed to use for each, EG I have a leveling system on a blueprint component that is added to the character which seems to work but i never can tell what im supposed to use both for really even something as basic as health i can’t get right with it (atleast actually taking damage after being hit with a line trace)

TLDR: What are both the player controller and characters generally supposed to be used for?

i would put leveling systems inside the player controller, because when you enter a vehicle or change characters, you don’t want to lose the ability to gain experience points. you keep the same player controller throughout the level, and probably only use 1 player controller for the entire game, but you switch between characters/pawns all the time. every time the pawn falls out of the world and dies or gets destroyed, you create a new pawn to posses, which doesn’t know any of the info the other pawn had.

Thank you! I understand now lol. Next is to figure out how to save stats by steamid in either some saving capabilities i didn’t know of or figuring out a dedicated server and some stuff with that, and loading.