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

[Iry]

Why Circle? You can use Square, Rhombus, Trapezoid, or Gazorpazorpian.

 

[Raduin711]

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.

In games that have such titles, at the table people tend to forget them (what's level 3 called again?) but I am glad to have them for when NPC's talk about them. "Oh, he's a journeyman Invoker" or some such.

 

[jasper]

Lvl1: Private
lvl2: Bosun
lvl3: Lance
lvl4: Corporal
lvl5: Sergeant
lvl6: Staff
lvl7: Guns
lvl8: Master
lvl9: First Shirt
lvl10: Chief
lvl11: Lieutenant
lvl12: Captain
lvl13: Major
lvl14: Petty
lvl15: Colonel
lvl16: Brigadier
lvl17: Warrant
lvl18: Admiral
lvl19: General
lvl20: Marshall

 

[Fenris-77]

First, a cookie for @Dioltach for mentioning Rivers of London. Such a good series.

Second, this thread has me in mind of R Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing Series. I love the idea that arcane casting is called Gnosis, which is math and logic based, and expressed in Abstractions and Propositions. I think you could pull a great naming tradition out of that.

 

[Willowfang]

No matter what system you use to differentiate different power levels, someone, as some point in time, is going to get confused. And here you're talking about new players. Certainly there could be a better system on the whole, but then the same set, if not a different set, of players will still get confused. The game is going to have a learning curve, so no matter what system is used, some people will learn a given system faster than others.

I would think using the term "level" would be better than multiple terms meaning the same thing. Sure the nomenclature would help you tell the difference between the power levels of characters, spells, dungeons/buildings, etc, but you're still mentally translating "levels" of the said thing, but they you're already also saying character, spell, dungeons, etc.

You may be using the term level over and over, but you're also using another term in each case as well. I would bet if we had different terms for spells, levels and hit dice, right from the start, some players and DMs would have started just using levels for any ranking system

 

[Li Shenron]

Because back in the day people were okay with "level" meaning multiple things:

• character level
• spell level
• dungeon level
• encounter level

As per the AD&D DMG:
View attachment 121735

Notice level is never used by itself, but always in context to something else.

Sure, you could call it something else, but then other people would wonder why not just use the term "level" or something. More terms would make the game confusing to those people.

The problem is that character, dungeon and encounter level could match in meaning if you want to, but spells don't.

We can talk about a "level 3" encounter for a party of 3rd-level PCs if we want. In the current edition there is no such thing as encounter level formally, but it is only a matter of setting a couple of defaults such as number of PCs e.g. 4 and degree of difficulty e.g. "medium". Then, we could say that a "level 3" encounter is one that has a total worth of 600xp. The 5e approach is significantly more nuanced than a single level value.

For a dungeon, if we really wanted to, we could decide to design it specifically so that all encounters on the 3rd "dungeon level" would be in fact "level 3 encounters". How many you would put there would depend if you want each floor to be doable with a whole day of resources (then you would put 6-8), or something else. Naturally, I don't expect many DMs out there being interested in such rigid dungeon design, but it can be done.

So a dungeon's 3rd level is an area that contains 3rd level encounters which in turn are "medium" (or whatever) difficulty encounters for an average party of four 3rd level characters.

OTOH spell levels are whatever the rules system gives you. 3e and 5e grant the 1st spell level at 1st character level, and additional spell levels every 2 character level, because that's just what the designers felt right. I think it would be very silly to try and change the whole spellcasting system of a game just to match spell levels with character levels. It would be a lot easier and better to change the term for spells.

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Personally I always use "level" for monsters as a synonym of "challenge rating" for individual monsters, and I don't know why they do not in the books... the meaning of CR in 3e and 5e was always directly tied to the PC character level. If you tell your players "this monster is 3rd level (CR)" then they know exactly that (in 5e) it means that a single PC of 3rd level should be typically capable of fighting the monster with the abilities available at her current level.

Then obviously, if I have a party of 4 PCs I can say "this encounter is 3rd level" if it's made of four CR3 monsters. Things are less and less obvious the more you drift from a group of monsters with equal CR, but at least there's a baseline.

"Dungeon levels" on the other hand, I've never personally intended them with any particular meaning, and in fact I think I usually call them just "dungeon floors".

Sometimes with beginner players I have talked about "spells powers" (as in "powers of 10") rather than levels to avoid confusion. It doesn't sound very good in English but sounds better in other languages.

 

[shadowoflameth]

Having 17 levels of spells would be way more complicated. The designers wanted to limit spells as a resource ie so many of x level per day. For that to work with spell level equaling character level there would be spells that were 2nd level that are now first, 2nd level spells that are now either 3rd or first level and so on. needing a couple of levels between advancing to more potent magic makes it a more important milestone to get say 5th level spells and the line about what level a spell should be is tough to decide as it is. Imagine the arguments about 'Stone Skin should be an 11th level spell not 12th. Wall of Flame is 11th and it's way more useful. I think IMHO it's worth the time to educate new players and have a more manageable spell list.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They would. However, I take the division of spells into discrete, well-identified "levels" as a convenience for game purposes, not an exact description of how magic works in the characters' world.

Do characters in your world(s) discuss the toughness of monsters using the term "Armor Class"?

The two aren’t related or at all similar cases. The characters know that spells have distinct hierarchical categories, and the natural word for that is levels, but circle is a natural fit for how magic works in my worlds.
So, yeah, my rogue/wizard has talked with his wizard cousin Nubo about how Nubo has surpassed him in wizardry because pc hasn’t been focused on spellcraft, and that convo involved talking about spell levels (using the term circle).

 

[shadowoflameth]

If it comes up in character, they have to call it something. If your character says, 'Nubu you are not initiated into the 3rd circle of instruction. No fireballs for you.' That makes sense. So does saying, 'Hargen, at your level of mastery, an eldritch blast is unlikely to stop that thing before it can tear us to pieces, let me lead with my lightning bolt, I have a better chance.' Less meta and more fun than, 'Steve, it's got at least a 19 AC. If you don't get a crit, we're in trouble.'

 

[DND_Reborn]

The problem is that character, dungeon and encounter level could match in meaning if you want to, but spells don't.

Well, if you could do it to everything else, matching all level aspects, you could do it with spells as well. I think the only things that having match would be useful are character level vs. encounter/monster level. If you know a 5th level character against a CR 5 is basically a 50/50 fight, it would make planning encounters easier.

As for spell level, you could have it match character level by compressing the classes into 10 levels, not 20.

I know others have said the multiple uses of levels has led to confusion, but I've never encountered it. The different aspects of level aren't related and if you understand that, I would think there shouldn't be any confusion. As I said before, I think having more terms would lead to more confusion, not less.

I mean, does my 7th rank wizard casting a 3rd circle spell at a 4th challenge monster on the 6th level of the dungeon really help anything? Not IMO, but YMMV I suppose...