How does it "feel"

[sgeorge1701]

Question:

Inside the head of a "character".

What happens the "day" you level - do you "know" that you leveled and now have to spend "X" number of days/level fine tuning your skills?

Or do you wake up at the "END" of "X" number of days/level - just knowing the new skills/spells/etc?

Steve

Just wondering if Arthur is aware he reached 5th level, but is days away from "leveling" and getting access to some cool spells.

S

[David]

Howdy Steven,

Well, not that I've "leveled" many times (although I find that the pan-skill leveling paradigm used in Dnd is no where as realistic as the skill-based leveling paradigm, which is what I would use to model reality in a fantasy game/simulation were I not already commited to working as a techno-linguist/nerd), I would liken it to mastering a skill skiing, swimming, lifting weights, speaking a language, or in a video game. Let me try to explain that -- and NO, I do not think there is ONE answer and would love to hear those of others.

I know that, for instance, when I go up weight in one exercise, I usually a) notice that what I used to find tough (impossible?) is now not so tough (talk to me when I get back to the gym after being sick!), so I set more weight on, b) that when I'm ready to go up with one exercise, usually, I am also ready in a couple other, related lifts. Now, lifting weights is a gradual strenghening process, so maybe each plate represents part of a level. In the same way, when a character STARTS to level (has earned the eeps, but not spent the time), he notices tasks that WERE tough seem easier. After doing this a couple of times, he knows he's hitting a break-through, just as athletes do when training in most every sport.

So, that was a very fighter-intense answer. Let's try a more cerebral/mage one.

I would equate it to having master a new set of gramatical structures and accompanying vocabulary. You work with it and work with it, then suddenly, you put it into practice and with much less effort, it all works. Then, armed with this, you find that you can innovate (thank you, Chomsky) in novel ways and you've "leveled" in this aspect of grammar.

In Arthur's case, he probably is realizing that many of the spells he thought tough aren't so bad and that he's on the edge of some sort of epihphany. A mean DM might say that PCs get "false epiphanies" (I certainly have), but I'm not sure we're ready for that level of realism yet...