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What do you think are characters aware of levels? Should they be?
In my opinion, all the pure gamey part should be handwaved. Levels, Incapacitation trait, hit points, etc... These are only for players. You are supposed to play your character with this knowledge in mind, but your character doesn't know why "he does that" precisely. For him, it's part of the laws of the universe, things work better when he fights that way, but he doesn't know why exactly.
Otherwise, you end up with characters wondering why all encounters are always around their level and why they are all roughly quite easy save for a few of them.
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I wander into a scroll shop.
Me: I'd like to buy a scroll that will reliably put a troll to sleep if I catch it off guard.
Store owner: Just a regular troll?
Me: Yes a regular troll, but I don't want to pay for too much now, I'm not trying to put a dragon to sleep after all.
Are we supposed to pretend like there are not very specific numbers associated to power in world that characters would be interacting with? Especially those characters who would be testing out their power every day, often multiple times a day?
If you answer this questions with a yes, we should pretend like this information is not noticeable to PCs, then at the very least, the burden is on you as a GM to make the system you use instead one that is player friendly, or else you are cultivating an environment hostile to your spell casters and your players will react accordingly.
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I don't really have a philosophy about this but I can tell you how I personally, and my local playgroups handle this.
Your Character has a general understanding of how this works on the same instinctual level that we understand Gravity, Time, and Space. Very, VERY, , few people even have a moderate understanding of any one of these but that doesn't cause people to become utterly helpless and unable to judge their environment based on these universal facts. While your PC should never say something like "That Ogre is a +2 Level Encounter for us, save your Incapacitation Spells for another group" they should be armed with the basic understanding that the creature is significantly more powerful than that PC can manage in terms of impacting them with their spells.
I always provide the following three things when a PC rolls a successful Recall Knowledge at a minimum and then provide more depending on how well they DO roll: Creature Name, Creature Traits (Along with a description of what exactly those traits mean if needed), and Creature Level. Without this type of info the players will be 100% REQUIRED to metagame by either memorizing statblocks from the Bestiary/Online or stopping to look up the creature to make any functional use of that data in a manner that many players would simply consider cheating or at the very least an unhealthy level of metagaming.
These are things that won't ever translate into "in-game" language and understanding well because they are mechanical but they are still the type of crucial info that EVERY Player Character should be given if they even have a single person who can recognize a creature with a skill check or through personal experience.
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I don't tell my players the levels of creatures routinely or anything, but mostly the only thing you need to know is 'Is this creature higher level than us, the PCs?' and the answer to that is usually pretty obvious to start with, and even when it isn't it's obvious by the end of the first round of combat.
Not using Incapacitation effects in the first round of questionable combats is not a great hardship, and knowing IC 'This spell works poorly on things more powerful than me' is not a huge stretch by any means.
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I don't tell my players the levels of creatures routinely or anything, but mostly the only thing you need to know is 'Is this creature higher level than us, the PCs?' and the answer to that is usually pretty obvious.
This.
Although I will sometimes hint to my players, along the lines of - "This guy seems pretty strong, you aren't sure that spell will work very well on him", especially if they are having a hard fight.
It's probably something I'd ask my players if they'd like first - I'm certainly fine with it, though it's definitely one of the few places where I'd agree that the "game rules" run up against the "game" so to speak, in that it can take you out of it. I'd favor making relative strength levels a bit more clear, like, "oh man, this dude looks totally shredded". Probably as part of the initial Recall Knowledge in addition to other relevant info - I probably wouldn't lie about the relative level on a crit fail, but maybe just be vague? It's a bit of a toughie.
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Incapacitate spells are not the only mechanics that depends on level. Deny Advantage, a class feature at level 3 on barbarian and rogue, says, "You aren’t flat-footed to hidden, undetected, or flanking creatures of your level or lower, or creatures of your level or lower using surprise attack."
Likewise, Income Earned depends on level. And PC cannot craft an item of higher level than himself.
In game, however, we can pass this off as skill. "That enemy rogue telegraphed his sneak attack on me. It was easy to sidestep. The Thieves' Guild in this town is full of amateurs." Or "Wizard Simeon can make magic items far beyond my skill, despite my practice at crafting weapon proficiency runes. He must have spent years up in his tower honing his expertise." Or "That gladiator is wearing the same armor as me and we seem to have the same speed. Yet he dodges my attacks more than I can dodge his. He must be one of the champions of the arena."
Ordinarily, the PCs would not notice that skill comes in discrete values. However, earned income does make this more obvious. The bard could notice, "Before the Battle of Banker Hill, I regularly earned 3 sp a night performing at the taverns. Now I earn 5 sp a night. I wonder why I never earned 4 sp inbetween?" "Fah," would reply the fighter, "Fighting for your life on the hill gave you more zest and passion. We can hear it in your voice. And so can your audience."
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Ordinarily, the PCs would not notice that skill comes in discrete values. However, earned income does make this more obvious. The bard could notice, "Before the Battle of Banker Hill, I regularly earned 3 sp a night performing at the taverns. Now I earn 5 sp a night. I wonder why I never earned 4 sp inbetween?" "Fah," would reply the fighter, "Fighting for your life on the hill gave you more zest and passion. We can hear it in your voice. And so can your audience."
This actually isn't how Earn Income works. Each level is pretty specifically a new and different job (not necessarily at a new business, but definitely a different job). Check the example in the corebook of Harsk making tea, as a 3rd level Ranger, he actually only has 2nd and 5th level tasks even available to him, since those are the only jobs on offer.
So performing at Tavern X is always 3 SP a night, but after the Battle of Bunker Hill you can work at the nicer Tavern Y, which is 5 SP instead. Or the two jobs could be at the same inn, but the 3 SP is as a backup singer and the 5 SP is for the lead. Regardless, if you go back to the same tavern and do the same job, you would make the same money as before.
This is why settlement level limits how high level activities you can use for Earn Income in that settlement, there just aren't those high level jobs in that place.
I give as a free piece of information to spellcasters, represented by a tingle at the back of their neck. Specifics can come from knowledge checks.
I don't like the meta, but I wouldn't want to take it away from players either.
Incapacitate spells are not the only mechanics that depends on level. Deny Advantage, a class feature at level 3 on barbarian and rogue, says, "You aren’t flat-footed to hidden, undetected, or flanking creatures of your level or lower, or creatures of your level or lower using surprise attack."
Deny advantage is a passive skill that a gm can handle discretely ( although I have told my players when it kicks in thematically so they know their class abilities are working to their favour).
Ordinarily, the PCs would not notice that skill comes in discrete values. However, earned income does make this more obvious. The bard could notice, "Before the Battle of Banker Hill, I regularly earned 3 sp a night performing at the taverns. Now I earn 5 sp a night. I wonder why I never earned 4 sp inbetween?" "Fah," would reply the fighter, "Fighting for your life on the hill gave you more zest and passion. We can hear it in your voice. And so can your audience."
Earn income requires you to find work first. So getting that raise either has the PC gunning for it or finding another job.
It is also capped by settlement level and what the GM says can be found :)
Also on that note, it is also part of why crafting items isn't "always worse than earn an income" like a bunch of folks kept saying.
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I don't really play anything close to the chest, unless it is dramatically important for some narrative reason. Players want to go pull up monsters in the Bestiary or AoN? I just don't care.
If obscuring the mechanics of the game from the people playing the game is just a speed bump, remove said speed bump. Likewise, I don't make people roll to swim/jump/climb/etc unless there is some interesting narrative outcome to failing.
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From an in character perspective, they're probably not going to look at a monster and go "oh yeah that's level 13" in the same way you won't look at someone and guess their precise strength score.
But at the same time these are obviously on their face very real concepts in universe. If you want to find another way to describe it because you find 'level' to be too gamey or want to be a bit more abstract, I think that's reasonable, but imo suggesting that it's a purely metagame construct is clearly wrong too.
Also on that note, it is also part of why crafting items isn't "always worse than earn an income" like a bunch of folks kept saying.
The other part being "if you want a 12th level item and the settlement you are at caps out at 8th level items, no amount of Earn Income is going to help". :)
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*Remembers the long metagame debates over players finding out a creatures saves from other editions.*
Its kind of strange how metagaming went from "this is horrible and I hate my players for it". To, "its fine if I tell stuff to my players otherwise they would have problems and feel bad".
It seems like a complete 180 in mentality, specially considering that secret checks are even more part of the system now.
With greater GM's power in PF2 comes greater GM's responsibility.
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*Remembers the long metagame debates over players finding out a creatures saves from other editions.*
Its kind of strange how metagaming went from "this is horrible and I hate my players for it". To, "its fine if I tell stuff to my players otherwise they would have problems and feel bad".
It seems like a complete 180 in mentality, specially considering that secret checks are even more part of the system now.
I think there are two different things here.
If a player is, of their own volition, looking up the stats of a creature/relying on knowledge of a creature's stats to determine their combat actions, that is flat out unacceptable to me. I have threatened to kick people from game for that.
However, if I give a player a piece of information in some form, I am in effect giving them permission to use it; it's no longer metagaming at that point. It would be weird of me to expect a player to not use information I've given them.
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Look, if you think a bunch of Enchanter Wizards haven't done research to support a theory describing what triggers their Charm, Suggestion, and Dominate effects not working as well on creatures of a certain power or experience level I don't know what to tell you.
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It seems like a complete 180 in mentality, specially considering that secret checks are even more part of the system now.
I know you're framing it this way because it's better for your argument, but again, I'd argue it's not really metagaming in the first place.
At fifth level, my Wizard gains a third level spell slot. An incapacitation spell cast from this spell slot can effect creatures up to level 6 normally (while anyone higher is resistant to it), while casting it from one of my second level spell slots works normally up to level 4.
It seems incredibly bizarre to me to try to frame it in such a way that somehow my Wizard would not, on any level, understand these concepts or be able to define them.
If anything, being forced to play my wizard off as willfully ignorant of how spells work is the much more immersion breaking and metagame-y way to play things.
It seems like a complete 180 in mentality, specially considering that secret checks are even more part of the system now.I know you're framing it this way because it's better for your argument, but again, I'd argue it's not really metagaming in the first place.
At fifth level, my Wizard gains a third level spell slot. An incapacitation spell cast from this spell slot can effect creatures up to level 6 normally (while anyone higher is resistant to it), while casting it from one of my second level spell slots works normally up to level 4.
It seems incredibly bizarre to me to try to frame it in such a way that somehow my Wizard would not, on any level, understand these concepts or be able to define them.
If anything, being forced to play my wizard off as willfully ignorant of how spells work is the much more immersion breaking and metagame-y way to play things.
This is more complicated in 2e, though, what with most NPCs not being built like PCs. You can't just say "that person can cast 5th level spells, therefore they are either level 9 or 10". That might be true in many cases, but it won't be universally true, any more than you can determine an NPC's level by their skill bonuses.
Incapacitate spells are not the only mechanics that depends on level. Deny Advantage, a class feature at level 3 on barbarian and rogue, says, "You aren’t flat-footed to hidden, undetected, or flanking creatures of your level or lower, or creatures of your level or lower using surprise attack."Deny advantage is a passive skill that a gm can handle discretely ( although I have told my players when it kicks in thematically so they know their class abilities are working to their favour).
When my five-player 3rd-level party with two rogues fought a 4th-level barbarian, the barbarian's Deny Advantage was very noticeable. Passive means always-on, it does not mean subtle. Losing the sneak attack damage on a surrounded barbarian had significant impact on combat. The gnome rogue with thief racket still had Dex-to-damage, but the halfling rogue with scoundrel racket started using Feint before Strikes.
Ordinarily, the PCs would not notice that skill comes in discrete values. However, earned income does make this more obvious. The bard could notice, "Before the Battle of Banker Hill, I regularly earned 3 sp a night performing at the taverns. Now I earn 5 sp a night. I wonder why I never earned 4 sp inbetween?" "Fah," would reply the fighter, "Fighting for your life on the hill gave you more zest and passion. We can hear it in your voice. And so can your audience."This actually isn't how Earn Income works. Each level is pretty specifically a new and different job (not necessarily at a new business, but definitely a different job). Check the example in the corebook of Harsk making tea, as a 3rd level Ranger, he actually only has 2nd and 5th level tasks even available to him, since those are the only jobs on offer.
I apologize for my inexperience. My player characters have taken only one day of downtime, in order to transfer a weapon potency rune. They were living in a cave at the time and I had put the unspecified resources needed into their loot. They have never used the Earn Income rules, so I don't have them memorized properly. The point that I was trying to make is that some details about level are as obvious as counting money. We have to make excuses if we want the fictional in-game reality to appear to follow fiction rules rather game rules.
So performing at Tavern X is always 3 SP a night, but after the Battle of Bunker Hill you can work at the nicer Tavern Y, which is 5 SP instead. Or the two jobs could be at the same inn, but the 3 SP is as a backup singer and the 5 SP is for the lead. Regardless, if you go back to the same tavern and do the same job, you would make the same money as before.
Using this more rules-appropriate scenario, the owner of the Yellow Shield Tavern used to hire the bard as the background musician at 3 sp per night. After the Battle at Banker Hill, the owner became willing to hire him as the lead singer at 5 sp per night, except when the bard rolled low on the Performance check for Earn Income. Meanwhile at the Clapping Xill Tavern, the innkeeper never pays more than 3 sp a night.
That does of better job of explaining why no-one ever pays 4 sp a night.
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I treat Game Concepts - like creature level - as player knowledge which the Characters don't know the specifics of,but they know intuitively.
Most professionals have a good understanding of how their job works and how to assess the basics of the tasks they perform routinely. For an Adventurer, that means being able to look at a challenge and say "Thats easy/on par with me/uphill from where I'm standing." at least.
That means I'm pretty clear about below character level / same as character level / above character level, with the caveat on the last one that if someone is trying to determine if their Incap spell is going to be effective, I'd tell them.
I've found that players almost always have more fun when they're making informed decisions, with the sort of understanding that their character - an in setting expert- would have in the same situation.
It's not that hard to say that certain existential threat magics inspire a deep instinctive resistance in creatures that can only be overcome by a caster who is as much or more strong-willed/experienced/soul strength/etc. Level already exists as a concept for classifying and stratifying spell levels that fit into common and distinct buckets, it's not difficult for a scientifically minded spellcaster to expand that to individual level by casting enough incapacitation spells on enough targets enough times to get a statistically valid prediction of who is higher level in a caster/target dynamic.
It's not that hard to say that certain existential threat magics inspire a deep instinctive resistance in creatures that can only be overcome by a caster who is as much or more strong-willed/experienced/soul strength/etc. Level already exists as a concept for classifying and stratifying spell levels that fit into common and distinct buckets, it's not difficult for a scientifically minded spellcaster to expand that to individual level by casting enough incapacitation spells on enough targets enough times to get a statistically valid prediction of who is higher level in a caster/target dynamic.
I think that's a valid point, but I also think you are letting your experience with the modern world cloud your judgement of what dissemination of information looks like in-setting.
Is there a wizard somewhere who has an inkling of what "level" is? Most likely.
Is this widely understood information? Certainly not.
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Knowing a creature's level is not much different from knowing that it has a +8 on its attack bonus. You get a general sense of its ability and whether it's better than yours, in either case.
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The whole topic is weird for me. I come from a lot of narrative games. Some have secret stuff, but many more are all-cards-on-the-table. Never once had a problem where players knowing the rough power level of opposition sabotaged whatever story I was doing. That goes for both PF (and related games) and the nebulously-defined-indie-narrative-games.
Now, you and/or your players might not enjoy that style, but that is an entirely different argument than "not knowing is core to every story". If your players aren't enjoying a game because they are constantly having friction with rules obfuscation, hide fewer rules/mechanics/systems. If your players are constantly bored because they have perfect knowledge of the game, start playing a little closer to the chest. The GM is just one player. Work together. Find what works best for the most people. Have a good time.
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Is there a wizard somewhere who has an inkling of what "level" is? Most likely.
Is this widely understood information? Certainly not.
While I dont personally use terms like level in setting, there are two major considerations to consider here -
One, the setting itself. Golarion in particular is more Sci-Fi than Fantasy in many ways, with Magi-science replacing technology.
Two, niche communities and professionals come up with their own terms, slang, and language terms to accommodate their challenges.
Someone's probably made a monster chart, and rated a bunch of common monsters relative to each other.
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The thing is that with this edition there seem to be so many unspoken rules or rulings that can pretty much and drastically change your game experience for better or worse. One example would be creature identification which at our table still is a total mess. Of course you will get a creature description, but from there, everything is strange.
For example our GM might describe a Vrock as a large, birdlike creature with an otherworldly and evil aura (short version). So far so good.
Now comes the part with the hidden (or not so hidden) knowledge rolls where we still have not figured out what exactly is RAW. Do we at this point of time already know which knowledge skill to use or do we have to go in blind and potentially waste actions? Does our Ranger go "I want to use Nature to learn more about this creature" and simply learns nothing (apart from the fact that this creature is clearly not an animal)? Or does the GM secretly roll Religion after the Ranger has expressed his wish to spend an action on a knowledge check? Or does the GM call the check early on, so probably only my Cleric would go for some Religion checks.
Assuming that my Cleric has passed at least one check our GM would provide the Name of the creature, its traits and one piece of useful information but (up to now) not the creatures level. For example he might warn us about the dance of ruin AE. However can we at this point already suspect that as a demon (trait) the Vrock will probably be susceptable to cold iron weapons, aka do we already know a second piece of useful information via the known traits, or do we need to determine this anew for any demon we might encounter during our adventures?
Also, does your GM reveal the level of a spell was just being cast after you have successfully identified it or not. Big difference.
So it seems some tables do all of the above and some tables do none of the above, which easily explains the huge disparity in game difficulty and game experience for the individual gaming groups as well as for individual characters / classes.
One thing to note is that PCs may have highly quantized development, but NPCs (in PF2, not so much PF1) don't. Even NPC spellcasting can be tweaky, which would disturb attempts at developing theories.
"Plucky folk who band together seem to align with a somewhat measurable norm, especially if particularly diverse in ancestry. Oddly, most others follow those norms, yet there are notable exceptions."
Also notable is how often in heroic lore characters can measure one another's abilities, arguably better than in most RPGs.
That guy's a rookie, but that guy with the same ability, he's a protege.
Personal anecdotes, separate runs:
Had one player fish for an NPC Cleric's level. I had her able to cast a 4th level spell he named, but not another 4th level spell he named. Puzzled him mightily until another player laughed at his metagaming and he got the point.
Also had a savant janitor, ward of a powerful church, who had "plot powers", yet lacked the self awareness to discuss them. His church understood his importance, yet nothing about how his abilities functioned.
And when a high-level party chatted extensively with Baba Yaga, (PF1, Int 40!), she tried to engage the superhuman-Int Magus in discussions about the ramification of quantized chance, a.k.a. how probability always breaks down fairly cleanly, most often into multiples of 20, sometimes 100. It astounded her how the sum of all probable events often exceeded 100% and depended highly on one's consideration of that event happening. Ah, the mysteries of a fantasy reality at the quantum scale. Wave functions so often have measurable curves. :)
The thing is that with this edition there seem to be so many unspoken rules or rulings that can pretty much and drastically change your game experience for better or worse. One example would be creature identification which at our table still is a total mess. Of course you will get a creature description, but from there, everything is strange.
For example our GM might describe a Vrock as a large, birdlike creature with an otherworldly and evil aura (short version). So far so good.
Now comes the part with the hidden (or not so hidden) knowledge rolls where we still have not figured out what exactly is RAW. Do we at this point of time already know which knowledge skill to use or do we have to go in blind and potentially waste actions? Does our Ranger go "I want to use Nature to learn more about this creature" and simply learns nothing (apart from the fact that this creature is clearly not an animal)? Or does the GM secretly roll Religion after the Ranger has expressed his wish to spend an action on a knowledge check? Or does the GM call the check early on, so probably only my Cleric would go for some Religion checks.
Assuming that my Cleric has passed at least one check our GM would provide the Name of the creature, its traits and one piece of useful information but (up to now) not the creatures level. For example he might warn us about the dance of ruin AE. However can we at this point already suspect that as a demon (trait) the Vrock will probably be susceptable to cold iron weapons, aka do we already know a second piece of useful information via the known traits, or do we need to determine this anew for any demon we might encounter during our adventures?
Also, does your GM reveal the level of a spell was just being cast after you have successfully identified it or not. Big difference.
So it seems some tables do all of the above and some tables do none of the above, which easily explains the huge disparity in game difficulty and game experience for the individual gaming groups as well as for...
I generally provide the Creatures primary identifying Type Trait (IE, Demon) even on a Failure - mostly because at least half my table are veterans, and everyone knows what a Vrock is. People feel better about using Cold-Iron weapons guilt free in these cases, and its consistent with how Failures work for other skill checks.
On a success I provide a creature name (its a Vrock - a Wrath Demon, not a bird Demon), the GENERAL traits associated with its type (Demons are universally weak to cold iron and good, plus the antithesis of their sin - again, this helps level the field for new players and veterans who already know), and the Skill check makers choice of notable weaknesses or vulnerabilities or strategies (including best, worst save), defenses (what elements its resistant to and immune to), a summary of its offense, or a lowdown on its dirty tricks or special traits.
If they pick something not relevant, I'll have them pick again.
On a Critical Success, I'll give them the same as a Success PLUS information I feel is relevant to them.
I'm aware that's generous, but being generous makes people WANT to specialize in Knowledge skills and feel Recall Knowledge is a good action to take.
I agree this likely affects player experience greatly, and I think a strictly RAW reading isn't generous enough.
To the OP, I'd say, "Yes sure, why not?"
Then again, I'm the rare person who favors Simulationism over Gamism YET wholeheartedly loves the RPG Mechanics Verse trope very much...
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Now comes the part with the hidden (or not so hidden) knowledge rolls where we still have not figured out what exactly is RAW. Do we at this point of time already know which knowledge skill to use or do we have to go in blind and potentially waste actions?
I wrestled with this personally, I ended up giving my players knowledge of what roll they would be making.
I would also love to see "player can ask a directing question" be baked into the recall knowledge text as a guide for what the gm can respond to that the player would find useful. As that seems to be the biggest sticking point.
I don't want codified tiers as that muddies things in my experience and makes knowledge less evocative. But a list akin to
- defenses (highest or lowest saves, AC or defensive abilities like weakness, resistance, immunity or regeneration)
- offenses (special abilities or capabilities)
- magical abilities (innate spells, magical abilities)
- notoriety (level, history)
Or something similar (ideally with more thought put into it than I have lol), but leaving it open for players to improvise topics a bit too.
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The thing is that with this edition there seem to be so many unspoken rules or rulings that can pretty much and drastically change your game experience for better or worse. One example would be creature identification which at our table still is a total mess. Of course you will get a creature description, but from there, everything is strange.
For example our GM might describe a Vrock as a large, birdlike creature with an otherworldly and evil aura (short version). So far so good.
Now comes the part with the hidden (or not so hidden) knowledge rolls where we still have not figured out what exactly is RAW. Do we at this point of time already know which knowledge skill to use or do we have to go in blind and potentially waste actions? Does our Ranger go "I want to use Nature to learn more about this creature" and simply learns nothing (apart from the fact that this creature is clearly not an animal)? Or does the GM secretly roll Religion after the Ranger has expressed his wish to spend an action on a knowledge check? Or does the GM call the check early on, so probably only my Cleric would go for some Religion checks.
Assuming that my Cleric has passed at least one check our GM would provide the Name of the creature, its traits and one piece of useful information but (up to now) not the creatures level. For example he might warn us about the dance of ruin AE. However can we at this point already suspect that as a demon (trait) the Vrock will probably be susceptable to cold iron weapons, aka do we already know a second piece of useful information via the known traits, or do we need to determine this anew for any demon we might encounter during our adventures?
Also, does your GM reveal the level of a spell was just being cast after you have successfully identified it or not. Big difference.
So it seems some tables do all of the above and some tables do none of the above, which easily explains the huge disparity in game difficulty and game experience for the individual gaming groups as well as for...
My policy, which Mark and Linda gave a nod if approval to, is to give a success the creature's name and traits, including universal characteristics of those traits like demon weaknesses, and then start reading the creature's flavor text until I reach something actionable. That means something the players don't know already and that they can actually use.
Mark also said he rolls his knowledge checks in secret and doesn't necessarily tell players what skill they are using. I see why he does this, but I've always worried it would be a little too frustrating in practice. Plus, it is usually easier for me to ask a player for their relevant bonus then consult a chart that has that information recorded for everyone. Or, now that play is remote, just asking them to roll a blind check.
Spellcasters, particularly the kinds associated with large institutions that can conduct research such as wizard and clerics, might have an extremely vague concept of level.
This concept would be tired entirely to their understanding of spell levels and spells per day. So 'more powerful mages can cast more spells and more powerful spells'.
This awareness can be seen in spell casting services. Otherwise, how could you ask "how much does it cost to cast a 3rd level heal spell?" There is a highly structured payscale based upon this mechanic.
I notice, however, that the payscale only goes up to 9th level spells. Maybe that could show a gap in common perception of 'spell levels'. Maybe some people doubt 10th level spells exist, since high level casters aren't going to throw those out for party tricks. Even when there are historical events involving 10th level spells, people just write those off as either legends, or the result of more cumbersome rituals or rare magic items.
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I understand the impetus to want to hold back from giving players numeric level descriptions, because level feels off from real world experiences, but that is because level is not a real or tangible thing on planet earth. There is just too much that level consistently defines in game to pretend like a fairly detailed analysis of it is not possible for golarion characters and what’s worse, players need more accurate descriptions of level to make counteract checks and incapacitation spells to work efficiently and effectively. It is just the way that spells work. The have spell levels that directly interact with character level.
Not to mention items now also have clear levels that relate pretty directly to character level, settlement level and character level. Just knowing what is more powerful or less powerful than you is not enough information for your actual character to make rational in game choices.
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For incapacitation spells, you might want to use max level-1 spells too. Then it becomes more important to know the exact level of the enemy, rather than if they are about stronger than you or not.
Also knowing levels leads to some problems, why is that human child you have to protect/capture level 10? (It's a fiend in disguise) and other subterfuge things like that.
For incapacitation spells, you might want to use max level-1 spells too. Then it becomes more important to know the exact level of the enemy, rather than if they are about stronger than you or not.
Also knowing levels leads to some problems, why is that human child you have to protect/capture level 10? (It's a fiend in disguise) and other subterfuge things like that.
The simple solution in the second example is to not assign levels to every NPC. Age of Ashes is a published work that is pretty clear that most civilians don't have combat stats. If your party asks about the child, make their Secret Perception or whatever checks and inform them they're just a child, or "they have a strange aura of power - not like a child at all!" depending on how they do.
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On the subject of recall Knowledge, while all those ways of running it are great that's not how the action is actually written. This was a weakness in the playtest and it's still here. I don't want to know what paizo staff do in their games, I want to know the rules! And if they all run it that way, well maybe they should have put that in the book.
Well, I think when it comes to counteracting effects, as other people have said, knowing if the target is STRONGER than you is usually all that is needed, and that can be discovered very easily without metagaming. Of course, sometimes the healthy "ok, this is a solo creature, it's 99% likely this creature can kick our butts" metagame happens, but that I don't mind. I will not tell players a monster's/effect's level in any situation, though. I tend to be pretty generous with a successful Recall Knowledge, giving a weakness or a weak save and some cool lore if appliable. No need for specific numbers for anything, though.
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It seems like a complete 180 in mentality, specially considering that secret checks are even more part of the system now.I know you're framing it this way because it's better for your argument, but again, I'd argue it's not really metagaming in the first place.
At fifth level, my Wizard gains a third level spell slot. An incapacitation spell cast from this spell slot can effect creatures up to level 6 normally (while anyone higher is resistant to it), while casting it from one of my second level spell slots works normally up to level 4.
It seems incredibly bizarre to me to try to frame it in such a way that somehow my Wizard would not, on any level, understand these concepts or be able to define them.
If anything, being forced to play my wizard off as willfully ignorant of how spells work is the much more immersion breaking and metagame-y way to play things.
The player character knows their own abilities instinctually, so yes, they understand that they can now incapacitate a stronger creature using their new higher spell slot. What they don't know is the exact level of creatures and NPCs that they meet. So you might know you could maybe now affect an ogre if you're lucky, but can you affect Jackson, the captain of the town guard? You don't really know...
Character level doesn't have to be a floating number over characters heads, it can be something determined with a skill check or perception check. Such information is hardly more emersion breaking than learning anything else about a creature
To elaborate that point (too late to edit) and help make sense of why this matters in game and can be handled in a fashion that is not completely immersion breaking:
If I have a player that is a sorcerer and has dispel magic as a signature spell, they are clearly demonstrating that their character is, in world focusing their time and energy on learning the nuances of how to cast this spell in relationship to the world around them. As a GM, I can work with them to make the game more fun and immersive for everyone. Instead of just telling the player what level every thing is immediately, I can let the player know that figuring out the level of spell effects in relationship to their spell casting ability is something that can be accurately determined with a knowledge check related to the tradition of magic it was cast from. I am creating an important relationship between what the character wants to do and skills that they will be able to use to learn specific things that they want to be able to do. In world, I can have a character who focuses on learning how to be a good counter-magician, and the game is not narratively broken.
The same could work for an enchanter. If I had a player that wanted to be an enchanter, I could suggest that they consider taking additional lore: Enchantment, and then let them use that lore skill for determining if a given creature is susceptible to incapacitation enchantment spells and what level of enchantment spell would be necessary to affect them, as well as making checks to learn new enchantment spells at a slightly easier DC. Another character would have to have the relevant skill for the individual creature and perhaps face a more difficult DC than a character that wants to specialize in a school of magic. You are making the game more immersive if you look at what characters really want to be able to do, and give them ways in game of doing that thing better.