So, when is the Order's next level up?

[Lheticus]

Unless there was another level up between when Elan took Neutralize Poison in the 4th book and now, it's been over AN ENTIRE BOOK since the last time they leveled up, and between the Linear Guild in Tarquin's city and everything from Redcloak's Summon Monster IX to actually legitimately fending off 3 members of the Vector Legion, I'd say they're about due, wouldn't you? Anyone else think this is going to be happening anytime soon?

Or did I actually miss them leveling up another time?

[ManicOppressive]

They don't display their level ups every time. This:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...-Call-Us-Nerds

is a good thread for figuring it out. Basically we just determine their level based on things like the spell levels they're casting or what have you.

Long story short, the Order are all hovering between level 14 and 16.

[Lheticus]

So the Giant just stopped doing the formal level up scenes? Probably a good decision, they would rather slow down story progression at this point. I wonder how many levels of Dashing Swordsman Elan has now...think I'll stop by that thread and poke around for that info.

[factotum]

So the Giant just stopped doing the formal level up scenes?

He barely started doing them--I can only think of two strips in the entire run that include anything about levelling up, and both occurred before strip #150. Or am I missing some?

[Emperordaniel]

He barely started doing them--I can only think of two strips in the entire run that include anything about levelling up, and both occurred before strip #150. Or am I missing some?

Off the top of my head, there was that time Belkar leveled up while fighting wights in occupied Azure City, somewhere in the 500s.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Off the top of my head, there was that time Belkar leveled up while fighting wights in occupied Azure City, somewhere in the 500s.

And Elan says he levelled up the day before #647.

[ti'esar]

He barely started doing them--I can only think of two strips in the entire run that include anything about levelling up, and both occurred before strip #150. Or am I missing some?

I think it's reasonable to believe that he may be intentionally avoiding them now, though, in keeping with his previously-expressed sentiments about trying to obscure exact rule-related details so people will stop complaining about them.

[b_jonas]

He barely started doing them--I can only think of two strips in the entire run that include anything about levelling up, and both occurred before strip #150. Or am I missing some?

There's way more than two strips. There's the whole Order without Belkar levelling up in #124, then Belkar levelling up from role playing XP in #125, then Belkar and Elan deciding what class to take a level in in strip #126. Much later, there's Belkar levelling up in the Azure City Resistance in #515, but immediately losing the level to a wraith as Tsukiko won't cast restoration on him and there's no other cleric around. Then there's Crystal levelling up because her nemesis Haley had levelled up (I can't find this one), and asking Bozzok to spare Haley for that reason in #613.

Update: also in #508, Kazumi and Daigo levels up.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I think leveling up has been shown several times, as b_jonas shows, but most of the leveling up in that thread is calculated by seeing what abilities or spells they have, or seeing how much XP they got from an encounter.

[factotum]

There's way more than two strips. There's the whole Order without Belkar levelling up in #124, then Belkar levelling up from role playing XP in #125, then Belkar and Elan deciding what class to take a level in in strip #126.

I'd class those as part of the same run, so maybe "strips" was a poor term, and all the later ones apart from the one-off Belkar one (which was clearly done that way purely to make the level-draining joke) are for people other than the Order, which is probably why I didn't remember them. I think it's pretty darned clear the Order have levelled up a lot more than 2 times since they were struggling to defeat groups of goblins in Dorukan's dungeon...

[dtilque]

My headcanon is that the entire party except for Durkon leveled up in 946. This was the morning after the Longest Day (the preceding 111 strips all occured in a single day). The one time we see that entire party level up together happened at the beginning of the day after they got out of the Dungeon of Durokon. They'd all gained lots of XP there. Similarly they all gained lots fo XP in the Longest Day so they probably all leveled up the beginning of the next day. But even if they'd leveled up during the day, the spell casters wouldn't have been able to fill any new slots/learn new spells until the next morning, so for them leveling up effectively happens in the morning.

Anyway, it's fairly certain that Elan took Bard 14 and V made it to Wizard 17 at that point, since they cast spells they couldn't have if they hadn't. There are people who will argue about V leveling then (in fact I got into an arguement about it in the Geekery thread, so please don't argue about it here). Let's just say that in order to avoid V leveling at that point, you have to bend over backwards and stick your head where the sun don't shine; the most straightforward way of reading the strip is that he's now level 17.

Elan is probably either Dashing Swordsman 2 or 3 at this point.