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

jasper · May 5, 2020

Because Gary thought a Thesaurus was a dinosaur and I on the level here. Even I had trouble with this during the first couple of months of gaming. I think we would occasionally use rank for class, floor for location, power/circle for spell. I do like the spells being in ABC order and not having a repeat for each class. Or worse the spell is of a differ power and does slightly different stuff depending on caster flavor.

Charlaquin · May 5, 2020

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.

Snarf Zagyg · May 5, 2020

Charlaquin said:
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.

We should probably do something similar for levels. Maybe if you're really good, you get a special title or something, like Lord, or High Priest, or something crazy.

Charlaquin · May 5, 2020

Snarf Zagyg said:
We should probably do something similar for levels. Maybe if you're really good, you get a special title or something, like Lord, or High Priest, or something crazy.

Well, you’d have to either do it for class levels or spell levels. If you did both, you’d just end up with the same problem but taking up more page space to do it.

Baron Opal II · May 5, 2020

We have picked up the term "valence", but it's used sporadically.

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.

Undrave · May 5, 2020

billd91 said:
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 Xanathar's Guide to Everything spell cards use a series of little symbol to mark a spell as being on a class' spell list or other. This should have been part of the basic spell list (and the class list at the start of the chapter really should have denoted which ones are rituals. That alone would have helped immensely, even if kept in the alphabetical order.

Bawylie · May 5, 2020

I suspect the answer is Tradition and/or Nostalgia.

I know I’m cheating by giving two guesses.

I really wish we invented a better casting system. I think the Warlock is approaching something good.

Tonguez · May 5, 2020

Harzel said:
So, wait. You think that changing the term makes it less meta to talk about the concept in-character?

Yes because Circle has that cool in-world twang to it - its all about the secretive cabals, circles within circles of the Hidden Chamber (of secrets), that a Wizard must prove worthy to enter.

Saying “I am a Grey Wizard of the 3rd Circle of Neverwinter” is much much cooler than saying “I am a Grey Wizard of Neverwinter casting 3rd level spells”

FlyingChihuahua · May 5, 2020

Snarf Zagyg said:
We should probably do something similar for levels. Maybe if you're really good, you get a special title or something, like Lord, or High Priest, or something crazy.

Didn't they have something like that in 1e, where each level of a class had a different title? Come to think of it, I Think someone made one of those for 5e.

Here, with subclasses up to XGtE, plus bonus Mystic if you use that.

Fenris-77 · May 5, 2020

I can empathize with new players finding this confusing when caster level and spell level don't match. My issue with spell 'level' is that it's a very mechanical term, very rules facing. I'd rather have the term be something more games-speak, where the word in question is a word that it would make sense for the character to use. Circles is pretty cool, and anything like that gets the same job done.

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

jasper

Rotten DM

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

Baron Opal II

Hero

Undrave

Legend

Bawylie

A very OK person

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow

FlyingChihuahua

Hero

Fenris-77

Small God of the Dozens

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