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

[Parmandur]

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.​

Really kind of wish they bit the bullet at that point. Too late now, unfortunately.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I definitely go with "circles" when they have to be invoked in-game. There's lots of cooler ways you could devise to reference them, but that one seems to be most instantly clear to players.

But yeah, when I taught D&D to children spell-levels-don't-equal-casting-levels was one of the biggest sources of confusion. Nobody had trouble once it was explained to them, but I usually had to catch them around 2nd or 3rd level.

 

[DammitVictor]

Tales of Wyre uses valencies. I like the metaphor.

 

[Charlaquin]

numbered "circles" seems easier to me.

Numbered is definitely easier. I just thought named categories would sound cooler.

 

[Jester David]

I do wish Gygax had consulted a thesaurus and called then "ranks" or "tiers".
But, really, of all the silly mistakes 1e made, that's well in the middle of the list.

 

[cbwjm]

I remember reading something by Gary Gygax where he laments the use of level for class, dungeons, spells and that they should have gone with something else but the damage was done. Something along those lines anyway. I sometimes use circle for spells. A master mage of the 5th circle is able to cast 5th level spells, for example.

Having read more of the thread, it seems using circle is fairly popular.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You are both correct. The arrangement of the spells makes different forms of access easier or harder. It just depends on what your information need is.

Putting them in groups by class and level as 1e/2e did makes accessing them easier for players making their spell choices when preparing their spells. This, however, can also lead to repetition as spells are shared by multiple class lists so you either have to repeat the whole description or have a reference for the user to flip to some other class's list for the description (also seen in 1e/2e).

Putting them into an alphabetical list makes accessing them easier if you're looking them up during play when a spell of any class could come zipping by. You also avoid repetition or having to use lookup references described above.

There are good arguments for going either way. But WotC has favored the second approach for 3e and 5e.

The 5e phb also lists the spells by name non-alphabetically, though, just not n the description section.

 

[The Green Hermit]

disagree. Alphabetical makes reference much quicker.

What about alphabetically by the level?

 

[Harzel]

Personally, I don't think characters should be discussing spell levels (by whatever name) any more than they should be discussing hit dice or armor class. That's probably why I don't like terms like "circle" - it does sound like something one is trying to make into an in-game term. I'm mildly surprised by the apparent number of folks who think this is a reasonable thing for characters to discuss.

I do wish Gygax had consulted a thesaurus and called then "ranks" or "tiers".
But, really, of all the silly mistakes 1e made, that's well in the middle of the list.

If forced to choose a different term, I think I like "tier" best of all the suggestions so far.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think tier sounds way more rules facing than circle, but both are an improvement on level. You could say spells of the first rank, that wouldn't be bad. If you invented come back story related to training you could use folio too. Spells of the first folio, i.e. the one's that get learned first.

Using ranks, you could also invert the number of the counting and treat it like Kiu rankings in Go. So spells of the 9th Rank are the lowest and spells of the 1st rank are the best (1st and 9th level respectively). That would make more sense with people's intuitive use of the work rank, where being ranked first is a good thing not a bad thing.