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Hey there. I've had a player who recently took on several negative levels (that the group probably won't be able to get rid of for some time) and was looking for a bit of explanation of how it will affect her spellcasting ability.
The PC in question is a 9th level Master Summoner who has taken 4 negative levels (She got critically hit twice in the surprise round by wights, it wasn't pretty). And while the –1 penalty on all ability checks, attack rolls, combat maneuver checks, Combat Maneuver Defense, saving throws, and skill checks is clear, and the penalties to current and total hit points make sense, I'm not so clear on this part:
The creature is also treated as one level lower for the purpose of level-dependent variables (such as spellcasting) for each negative level possessed.
The only thing I can think of that this will definitely affect are spells that scale by level, since I don't see anything about the actual save DC going down.
I also assume it would make her unable to cast her 3rd level spells. The rules on negative levels say she doesn't lose the spell slots from it, but I believe the ruling on magic is that she has to be of a sufficient caster level to actually use those spells. Would that be correct?
And as a Summoner, would this also affect her Summon Monster SLA, dropping it from Summon Monster V to III? Would it prevent her from making use of her Maker's Call and Transposition abilities since those are 6th level and 8th level Summoner abilities respectively?
Are the levels still temporary or they already fail the fort 24 after hours, making them permanent until someone can remove them?
At the moment, still temporary.
As long as the levels are still temporary the caster keeps access to spells and slot that are already prepared/available.
Once they become permanent the casting is restricted by their "new" level.
As an example if a 9th level caster takes 4 negative levels they get access to spells as if they were a 5th level caster.
She can not access the slot until she is the minimum level again.
It's a good question - I know the whole idea was to give a penalty equivelent to losing levels, but without all the character rebulding that would have to go into actually losing levels.
I think you're right, the idea is she'd not be able to cast her 3rd level spells, but wouldn't lose them either - such that if she got a restoration immediatly, she could cast them again immediatly, she wouldn't have to rest to refresh the slots.
Likewise the other stuff would go down.
Problem averted, for the most part. She was incredibly unlikely to make the saves to stop them from becoming permanent, but then as it turns out she rolled a 20 and two 19s among her saving throws. So now she's only got one negative level to deal with.