Class and Level Geekery XIX - Nobody Cares about that Stuff Anymore

[Timy]

The rule of thumb, as I understand it, is that we only put in abilities/levels that we can pretty definitively state are possessed or demonstrated. Hence the perennial argument over X being listed as Sorcerer 21+, it's overwhelmingly likely that he's intended to be higher level than that, but he COULD do everything seen at level 21 with the right build/items.

Similarly, Dashing Swordsman level 1 COULD advance bard casting and Dashing Swordsman 2 not do so, and that explains everything observed.

I'd say Bard 15+, Dashing Swordsman 1+, (bard caster level 16+) pretty well covers what we know he has.

I personally think that he's bard 16+, dashing swordsman 1+, and that Haley, Elan, and Belkar are all now level 17, but there's nothing in the rules that says Dashing Swordsman can't advance casting at level 1 (the actual abilities of Dashing Swordsmen being unknown except possibly to Rich), so I would not say that Bard 16+ is clearly demonstrated in the comic.

Like others have pointed out, the problem with this reasoning is that we fall in the "or the giant is using an houserule".

quick reminder of the FAQ in the OP :

Q: Does The Giant use house rules?
Probably. But for the purpose of this thread, we assume that the comic doesn't, except where The Giant has explicitly said so, or where some event is clearly not possible by the rules. That is, we try to explain events in the comic within the rules as much as possible, and that means not leaving factoids out of this thread just because The Giant might not have followed the rules there.

IIRC, absolutely nothing in comic shows that the dashing swordsman prestige class advances casting level of any sort. More than that, (again IIRC) Julio never used any kind of spell in-comic.
And on the other hand, we even have an instance where Elan say that at least in the regard of spell known, he had to take a bard level to relearn a spell.

So in my opinion, for the purpose of this thread, we have to consider that Ethan is a level 16+ Bard with the usual "or the Giant used an houserule"

EDIT : I went here : 0390 to have the first description of the dashing swordsman and it is fully described as a fighter/duelist class.