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Ninjalitude
2008-03-12, 09:01 AM
well the story is this, our party wizard had a rather unfriendly encounter with some vampires but was able to escape back to our party, (he was doing wizardly things like buying bat guano or whatever) several saves later, oh joy a NEGATIVE LEVEL *BUM-BUM-BUUUU*. Well we don't have a person capable of casting restoration so he is stuck with actually losing a level for the time being. During the time when were traveling a short way to the next towns temple, we level up, wizard gains old spells again, fighter gains feat etc. but when we get there and the wizard is cured, he realizes "wait, i essentially just leveled again, shouldn't i get more spells?" then i realized that he should get access to his old spells again but he already did by choosing them again, should he get new ones or be punished for choosing them again?

Project_Mayhem
2008-03-12, 09:10 AM
hmmmm. I would say he either gets his old spells back, or two new ones. Not both.

its_all_ogre
2008-03-12, 09:17 AM
i do not think he goes up again.
he is say level 8, loses a level becomes level 7.
goes back up a level so he is now level 8.
restoration cannot restore the level, he has no longer lost it.

like curing hps, if the fighter takes 10 points of damage and rests over night regaining 5 hps, you can only cure 5 hps as he is only missing 5?
if that makes sense?

BardicDuelist
2008-03-12, 09:21 AM
Normally, I'd say that he would just keep the spells he had or get new ones and lose those. However, because the wizard stores the spells in a spellbook, he then has them in somthing seperate from his actual mind.

To me, the experience gained would result in more time spent researching spells, and thus he should gain two new spells in addition to the two he previously had. To "balance" this, I would charge him a fraction of the gold it would cost to copy those spells into his spellbook. This fraction would consist of one minus the XP needed to regain level/XP needed to level up if he hadn't lost the level.

For instance, if origonally 5th level: 4th level after level drain, earns 5000 XP to reach 5th level again. Would have needed 6000 XP to reach 6th. so, I would charge him 1/6th of the GP.

I know this probably makes wizards more powerful, but I don't really care as we don't powergame. This is how I'd handle it and is not RAW (technically, RAW is that they gain two new spells, as you do not lose spells in your spellbook when you lose a level).

AintThatASeamus
2008-03-12, 09:28 AM
A wizard wouldn't lose knowledge of spells when he loses a level. The highest level spells he knows would still be in his spellbook; he just might lose the ability to cast them until he went up a level or had the lost level restored. So there would have been no reason to relearn these spells when he gained enough experience to make up for the lost level.
When he earned the new level, the wizard ought to have selected new spells that he did not already have in his spellbook. But he wouldn't have received any new spells when the level drain was repaired.

Talya
2008-03-12, 09:43 AM
The wizard never loses learned spells, unless he loses his spell book. He may lose the ability to cast them, temporarily, but he still knows the spell.

And when a wizard gains a level, he learns two new spells. This might not apply if they have the level restored magically, but say, for instance, the wizard lost a level through death/resurrection, then regained it through experience, he certainly would learn two new spells...in addition to those he'd already scribed into his spellbook before losing his level.

its_all_ogre
2008-03-12, 09:59 AM
ignore my comment, i misunderstood the query :smallbiggrin:

Douglas
2008-03-12, 10:00 AM
I'm not completely sure from your post exactly what happened. Here are the two possibilities:

1) Wizard takes negative level, party levels up, wizard gets restored before 24 hours have passed. In this case, the wizard never actually lost a level. The Restoration removes a negative level, but that is not the same as him gaining a level. He gets new spells for the levelup the whole party went through, but nothing for the restored level.

2) Wizard takes negative level, 24 hours pass, wizard fails save and permanently loses a level, party levels up, wizard gets Restoration cast on him. In this case Restoration does nothing. Restoration can only restore you to a level you had previously attained. If you wait long enough to gain the level back by normal experience gain, then Restoration is useless. He does get new spells for levelling up normally, and he never actually loses spells for losing a level - they're still in his spellbook - so he does get to "double dip" for new spells, but he pays for this by being a level behind.

There is a third possible chain of events, but this one is clearly not what happened. I'll include it just for completeness.
3) Wizard takes negative level, 24 hours pass, wizard fails save and permanently loses a level, wizard gets Restored. Wizard is back to his old level. He still has the spells he picked the first time - they are not magically erased from his spellbook at any point - but he does not gain any more. Wizards get free spells in their spellbook at each new wizard level, and this is not a new level. If he had regained the level by earning experience, that would count as new because he has full flexibility in choosing what this level will be and what benefits to get from it, just like the first time. Magical Restoration, by contrast, simply gives him back everything exactly as it was before.

Burley
2008-03-12, 10:24 AM
Basically Ninjalitude, everybody is saying that the Wizard never actually lost the spells. He wrote the same spells in his book twice, because there was a mind-flub on the player/DM side. Not a big deal. Happens to everybody. There is always the: "Oh, I forgot my racial bonus. I wasn't sleeping two rounds ago. I cast Magic Missle and Fireball." The DM (you?) can either honor the mistake, or honor the correction.

Basically, DM (still you?) can say: "No, you wasted your two free spells on spells that were already scribed. Sorry."
Or, since the DM (somebody that isn't not you?) didn't realize that either and therefore couldn't convey the correct rules: "Let's just backtrack and say that you scribed two other spells, and the pages of the spells you thought you lost were just stuck together because of air humidity and you didn't notice. Now, get out there and pursue ultimate arcane mastery, you little scamp."

Irreverent Fool
2008-03-12, 12:08 PM
I believe douglas has given you the answer as per the RAW.

For the sake of reference, I provide you with one of my most-used bookmarks: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#energyDrainAndNegativeLevels

An interesting note about restoration! Aparently "a character who has a level restored by restoration has exactly the minimum number of experience points necessary to restore him or her to his or her previous level."

So if you've leveled up since losing a level, avoid restoration like the plague! It will set your experience points to the minimum required to be at the level you were at prior to the level loss!

(This is up there with drowning yourself to get your hp set to 0, but I thought it was worth pointing out.)

Edit: Oh, also about restoration: If you've let too much time pass between failing that fort save and permanently losing a level, that spell will only help you out if it's cast within a number of days equal to or less than the restoration's caster level. By the sound of your story, it may be too late to ever get it back via a spell.

Aquillion
2008-03-12, 12:44 PM
An interesting note about restoration! Aparently "a character who has a level restored by restoration has exactly the minimum number of experience points necessary to restore him or her to his or her previous level."

So if you've leveled up since losing a level, avoid restoration like the plague! It will set your experience points to the minimum required to be at the level you were at prior to the level loss!Nah. Restoration can only "restore you to your previous level", and the xp limitation only kicks in if you are actually "a character who has a level restored by restoration".

If you are at or above your 'previous level', it is impossible to get back to it via Restoration's effect (which 'restores one experience level' -- no, you can't interpret the 'previous level' bit to level you down, no valid mangling of the english language would let that 'restores one experience level). So in that case, Restoration does nothing to your level or xp at all.

But a wizard who has a level drained and actually loses it? That's a more complicated case. Common sense says the spells they learned don't magically disappear from their spellbook. Sadly, common sense has very little to do with D&D (and I'll bet there are classes that get items / external things as they level up that could be exploited this way -- what if my character takes Leadership, then loses a level? Does my cohort go away? What if I take a level in Druid or Wizard and lose it? Does my Animal Companion / Familiar suddenly vanish? If not, could I repeatedly go up/down levels to get infinite whatevers?)

What about Psychic Reformation? Could a psi//wiz 20 spend 1000 xp to reform all their levels and learn different spells, getting 40 wizard spells for a relatively small amount of XP at that level?

I can't find any actual rules for losing levels anywhere; it just says you 'go down one level' (and no, nothing implies that you have to make the same decisions you made the first time when you level back up.)

Irreverent Fool
2008-03-12, 01:01 PM
no, you can't interpret the 'previous level' bit to level you down, no valid mangling of the english language would let that 'restores one experience level). So in that case, Restoration does nothing to your level or xp at all....(and no, nothing implies that you have to make the same decisions you made the first time when you level back up.)

Douglas pointed out that you only get new spells upon attaining a 'new' wizard level. This is more ambiguous than 'previous level'.

I'm afraid it's not a mangling of the English language to say 'previous' means 'previous' and that 'restore' means 'restore'. Yes, it's obvious that it's not supposed to work that way! No, it's not a weird or twisted interpretation!

It's stupid. But taking things literally usually is.