Jeff Carlsen
Adventurer
Instead of nitpicking which spell belongs at what level, I wonder why we even have spell levels at all?
I think that D&DN should eschew spell levels altogether, and instead consolidate spells with similar purposes/effects and scale them from level one on up.
I'd similar to what the OP suggested for Cure Wounds, where the various spell metrics and effects increase automatically as the caster gains levels.
With spell levels gone, and spells retaining value throughout the character's career, you now have simply have X amount of spell slots as opposed to X amounts of slots for y levels spells, and n slots for z level spells. This means that the only practical difference between a vancian system and a mana point system is now when the spells are prepared. Also, this makes 3E style level-by-level multiclassing more viable.
Since there would be less redundancy in the spell list, and spells don't lose value over levels, you can decrease the amount of spell slots allotted to characters from 20+ to about 12-15. This will make higher level characters easier to generate as well as NPC's.
While an interesting idea worthy of discussion, I want to keep this thread focused on spells within the current system. Please feel free to open a new thread to discuss modifications to the system.