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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RogueInRouge" data-source="post: 5702917" data-attributes="member: 6683718">I'm the friend DM'ing with Arrowhawk; he pointed me to this thread  to add some context to discussions we were having offline. Lots of great  points in here, and I figured I'd throw in my own 2cp as well.I agree, and this  is pretty much what I was reacting to in the game session. We'd also had  characters in previous sessions say things in-game like "Well, I'm a  5th level Fighter right now. But when I level up again, I may start  taking levels in a different class." I'm trying to avoid that kind of  dialogue.Great example of how to  represent the distinction in game terms with flavor and panache! Coming  back to class levels (as opposed to spell levels), I think the same  approach works just as well... I  wouldn't have a captain of the guard say "The lieutenants are  5th level fighters, and the grunts are a mix of 2nd level Warriors and  1st level Fighters (which pretty much evens out because Warrior is an  NPC class and gimped a bit compared to the PC Fighter class.)"But he probably would say:  "The lieutenants are battle-hardened men, each and  every one. Why I've seen Kradok here chop through a score of goblins  single-handed! The rest of 'em? Well, they're green recruits, aye, but  they've got a good fightin' spirit in 'em! Maybe in a couple of years  one of 'em will give Kradok a run for his money. If they survive that  long..."Sure,  I think a fair amount of this is inevitable. So many of the game  mechanics are handled OOC that it doesn't feel like a stretch to handle  spell levels that way too.  In some cases, you may actually want there  to be some mystery for the players as well as the characters. (They just  plucked a cracked, dusty scroll from the skeletal fingers of an  entombed prince. Is it really just a CL9 MM, or something... more?) But  although they're related, I don't think you *have* to treat spell level  and class level the same way as a DM.I love this post! To me, it implicitly underscores a couple of important points:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Characters  don't pop into the world with magic level numbers floating above their  heads... but given that things work the way they do, intelligent folks  are going to be able to do a good job of differentiating the good from  the bad, the mediocre, and everyone else in between.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Any in-game notion of "class level" derived this way would tend to  be formulated and/or adjudicated by an in-game organization. A  hedge-wizard or medicine man might not self-identify as "A wizard of the  6th Circle," but an emissary from the Host Tower in Luskan might peg  him as exactly that when gauging his arcane proficiency.</li> </ul>In practice, though, I think Arrowhawk's biggest concern is  really about buying spell scrolls or paying for one-time casts of a  given spell. Getting a CLW cast by a 1st level cleric won't help a  battered fighter quite as much as CLW cast by one at 5th level. The  characters have seen the difference, and if they're being asked to  donate some gold to the temple in return, they'll want to know who's  doing the casting so they can decide if it's worth it.For temples offering this kind of service, it doesn't feel like a  hindrance to roughly map OOC levels to an in-game ecclesiastical  hierarchy. Or to just have the temple give a flat quote for full  healing, regardless of who does it: "You appear to have sustained  some serious wounds. But by the grace of Lathander we can restore you to  full health... in exchange for a modest donation. Say 90 gold?" That's a lot better (imho) than an in-game exchange like, "Hey  there, looks like you've got 20 points of lethal damage. Since I'm 6th  level, I can probably take care of it with a single shot of Cure  Moderate Wounds. So let's see, that's 20 gold for the spell level plus  100 gold for my caster level, comes out to 120gp. Interested?"When it comes to purchasing scrolls, it stands to reason that any  specialty shopkeep will charge a different price for a scroll that  creates three magic missiles than she would for a scroll that creates  just one. The question is, unless she's a wizard herself, how will she  know the difference? I don't like the idea of introducing a worldwide  equivalent of Underwriters Laboratories into the campaign (perfect for  FrobozzCo in the GUE, but not what I'm looking for in Faerun.)So the  merchant will have to trust some kind of magical authority, whether it's  the scribes in Candlekeep or the Red Wizards of Thay. And caveat emptor -- take a minute to review that scroll before you  plunk down your purse. Of course, if it's waaay over your head, you may  not understand it well enough to assess the difference. (Make a  spellcraft check. And if you fail, you can choose to trust the merchant, take a gamble, or just walk away.)</blockquote>

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