Do characters know what spell levels and HP are?

[PallidPatience]

"Are you telling me that a spell which is intrinsically and by all definitions only one word long takes seven pages of my spellbook?"

 

[Klaus]

"Are you telling me that a spell which is intrinsically and by all definitions only one word long takes seven pages of my spellbook?"

"No, I am telling you a spell that you only need one word to trigger requires seven pages of preparation rituals, gestures and formulae."

 

[Gold Roger]

Spell Levels: Definitely. They may be differently called depending on class and culture (a cleric may refer to "grants of the 9th grace" when talking of 1st level spells, while a Tsuin mystic wizard call 9th level spells a "Dragon grade mystique"), but they are definitely known.

HP: I think only a very rare creature would actually know it (I guess it would be in flavor for a deathwatching Inevitable to say "Surrender! You are down to 9 hitpoints. You have take 85% damage. Further resistance is futile"). However, combatants certainly know how tough they and their friends are and what punishment they can take without much fear for their life.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Having a concept of spell levels make sense. Even the Detect Magic spell reveals variable power levels?

I always liked the idea that magic is studied as a system. Although I choose to look at it like alchemy. Lots of small, competing ideas - most of which produce broadly similar results. Many of which don't bear much in common with one another.

3e and it's metamagic feats do muddy the waters a little - eg - a fireball could be anything from 3rd level and upwards. Some variants looking vastly different (sculpted, widened, acid substituted, electrically admixtured?)


On HP - Perhaps the gods simply dislike experienced people. Particularly fighter types. It's why they require more praying to fix their wounds?

 

[Psion]

"Are you telling me that a spell which is intrinsically and by all definitions only one word long takes seven pages of my spellbook?"

"No, I am telling you a spell that you only need one word to trigger requires seven pages of preparation rituals, gestures and formulae."

In case you were missing what our artistic Brazilian forumite here was getting out, in D&D, the act of spell preparation is where the bulk of the spell gets cast.

 

[Li Shenron]

Do characters know what spell levels and HP are?

I don't know I'll ask them...

I don't remember having witnessed IC conversations about spells levels actually, it certainly isn't needed.

Spell levels (just like class levels) could be an abstraction, the fact that we write nothing between 2nd and 3rd levels doesn't necessarily mean that in the PC world spells don't vary with continuity instead.

 

[paradox42]

Wow, for once I'm in the overwhelming majority. Spell levels yes, hit points no. I love Sep's concept of valences and adopted it in in-character speech as soon as it became feasible to do so; of course, this means I refer to Epic spells as "transvalent" among other terms- and the players know what I mean.

Hit points, I've never seen a reason to suggest people in the game world know what they are. Magical healing in particular is not used as often in my game as it is in others, given the existence of such items as medical technology left over from the Golden Age (which is fully capable of regeneration and even resurrection if you get lucky enough to find a fully-functional pod), and a special material which channels Positive energy directly and can therefore heal living creatures simply by touching them.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Sure, they could know about hit points. Or not. Talk of hit points and spell levels is invariably discussed OOC in my experience. Distinguishing whether or not the characters have that metaknowledge has never really come up.

 

[Umbran]

I don't know I'll ask them...

In a (non-D&D) campaign I once played in, there was a character with a special ability - Communicate With Player. While not the sort of thing you want happening all the time, it made for some very amusing shtick. Very OotS, long before OotS was in production....

 

[Storyteller01]

HP no, spell levels yes.

It's much like belts in karate or equation degrees in Math.

Ditto.