“So, each time we go up a level we get another d10 hit points?” asked Margaret.

“You do, because you’re a fighter. Kate gets d4 hit points, because she’s a magic-user,” replied Gary.

“A magic-user who rolled a one!” interjected Kate.

“I forget, did we roll hit points for level one?” asked Margaret.

Gary explained, “You didn’t. I’m using a house rule that every character gets full hit points for level one. Technically you should have rolled, but a fighter with a single hit point who dies the first time he’s hit just doesn’t seem like much fun to me.”

Margaret agreed, “No, that wouldn’t be fun.”

“Can we stay at the Fort for at least a day?” asked Dave. “Hernan is going to learn ‘Sleep’ from Nalda then memorize it for my single spell.”

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“Yeah, I’m going to memorize ‘Sleep’ again too,” decided Kate.

“Are the hit points the only benefit from going up a level?” asked Laura.

“It’s easier to hit things as you go up levels,” offered Dave. “Look at the ‘to hit’ table that Gary printed out for us. You look up your level on the left hand side, then go across to the monster’s armor class to figure out what you need to roll to hit. You can see as you go down the table that it’s easier for you to hit a particular AC the higher level your character is.”

“Gevot’s thief skills go up each level. He has a percentage chance to pickpocket or climb or hide in shadows. Those go up each time he levels. Also, spell casters can learn more spells and sometimes higher level spells.”

“So, I can cast level two spells now that my cleric is level two?” asked Anne.

“The original designers loved the word ‘level’ and it’s horribly overused,” began Gary. “You have your character’s level, the level of spells you can cast, and the level of the dungeon you’re on. All three refer to entirely different things. There’s actually a comic about it and the punchline is all the confusion about the different meanings of ‘level’ over the years due to the designers not owning a thesaurus. You have a chart with your character information that shows the spell level you can cast as you go up in character levels. You’ll be able to cast level 2 cleric spells when you reach level 3. It’s confusing.”

“So all of us are still restricted to level 1 spells?” asked Kate.

“Yep, until you go up to level 3,” answered Gary. “What is everyone else going to do while Hernan learns ‘Sleep’?