D&D General Why are spells grouped into "levels"?

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I don't remember new players I knew back in the 80's and 90's being confused by it. It only seems to be confusing people who started with 5th Ed.

Besides. the level of confusion can vary depending on your wording. "Your Wizard is 3rd level and he can cast spells of level one and level two" is much less confusing to me than saying "X level" for everything.

 

[Shiroiken]

1e AD&D PHB:

It was initially contemplated to term character power as rank, spell complexity was to be termed power, and monster strength was to be termed as order. Thus, instead of a 9th level character encountering a 7th level monster on the 8th dungeon level and attacking it with a 4th level spell, the terminology would have been: A 9th rank character encountered a 7th order monster on the 8th (dungeon) level and attacked it with a 4th power spell. However, because of existing usage, level is retained throughout with all four meanings, and it is not as confusing as it may now seem.​

This is it. They thought about changing it (and probably should have), but the terms were developed during the early days of OD&D. The concepts were fresh, and level had similar uses: a 3rd level character should be adventuring around the 3rd level of the dungeon. I'm not sure where the use of level for spells came from, since they don't line up with character or dungeon level, but obviously someone suggested it at some point, and it stuck.

It's the same with Hit Dice: originally everything used 1d6 (possibly with a +/- 1), the same as damage, so it represented the average number of hits that would kill you. This was a carryover from the days of miniature wargaming via Chainmail. The purpose was quickly lost once they added in different weapon damage, leaving it as a term that has no real meaning, yet it continued through every edition except 4E.

 

[Davinshe]

Back in 2E we called them Circles, and I know we weren't the only ones doing this. We literally did it because it genuinely was causing confusion, especially with newer players. So a Fireball was a "Third Circle" spell. It also made more sense RP-wise and let you actually discuss spell levels with NPCs without it feeling really weird and meta.

This was also the term used by Earthdawn.

 

[Gadget]

Others have thoroughly explained the historical reasons for why 'level' is over used in the game. For what it's worth, I've always preferred the term 'valance' (as in electrons around a nucleus).

 

[Doug McCrae]

The following is all from Jon Peterson's Playing at the World.

Spells with levels that are different from character levels originated in Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor campaign (Peterson considers this to probably begin in the winter of 1971/72), which preceded 1974 OD&D. In the wargame Chainmail (March 1971), which was a major source for Blackmoor's rules, spell casters have four different power categories, though they are distinguished by titles not levels. There is one spell, Moving Terrain, that can only be cast by a Wizard (the most powerful category). All other spells can be cast by any spell caster. Peterson speculates that this led to the idea of out of synch spell levels and caster levels.

By the time he brought his Blackmoor campaign to Gygax's attention, Arneson had introduced a number of innovations in the Chainmail magic system... Blackmoor wizards were ranked by numerical level rather than by hierarchical titles... In addition to levels of Wizards, spells themselves were sorted into ranks representing difficulty or power--in Blackmoor, these were confusingly named spell "levels"... the [D&D spell level system] is probably best understood as an extension of the concept in Chainmail that the spell "Moving Terrain" could not be cast by lesser magicians but only by full Wizards​

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Others have thoroughly explained the historical reasons for why 'level' is over used in the game. For what it's worth, I've always preferred the term 'valance' (as in electrons around a nucleus).

Agreed.

But.

Lots of stuff was in AD&D. And isn't in 5e.

I think they could have made that fix very easily.

Hopefully they fix in 6e.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Back in 2E we called them Circles, and I know we weren't the only ones doing this. We literally did it because it genuinely was causing confusion, especially with newer players. So a Fireball was a "Third Circle" spell. It also made more sense RP-wise and let you actually discuss spell levels with NPCs without it feeling really weird and meta.

I've been doing the same and for about the same amount of time.

 

[dave2008]

Why even number them?

1st level spells -> Novice spells
2nd level spells -> Initiate spells
3rd level spells -> Adept spells
4th level spells -> Journeyman spells
5th level spells -> Expert spells
6th level spells -> Master spells
7th level spells -> Grandmaster spells
8th level spells -> Archmaster spells
9th level spells -> Legendary spells

Or something along those lines.

numbered "circles" seems easier to me.

 

[ART!]

I've never heard of anyone being confused by this.

I post in solidarity with those who have encountered this. I've lost track of how many times, over decades.

If we split spells into 20 levels instead of 9, that would be less confusing. But, that's too much work for me at the moment.

1000x this.

I suspect the answer is Tradition and/or Nostalgia.

Yeah a it's a clunky hold-over and needs to die a 1000 deaths.

There's nothing gained by keeping it, and lots to gain by losing it.

 

[Bawylie]

I post in solidarity with those who have encountered this. I've lost track of how many times, over decades.



1000x this.



Yeah a it's a clunky hold-over and needs to die a 1000 deaths.

There's nothing gained by keeping it, and lots to gain by losing it.

I don’t know about NOTHING gained. Nostalgia is something and this is definitely a nostalgia edition.

But yeah I agree otherwise that there is something to gain by a revision of the spell system.