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i got my books frm amazon yesterday, and already im confused about something. i know most people are having to wait untill june 7th. but hey, i might get a responce from a WotC staffer.

regards to leveling up and making a character with a higher starting level. im confused. in the PHB the table listing the benefits for leveling up lists total powers gained for each level. i read this as not stacking. I.E. then my number of utility powers goes from 2 to 3, that represents the TOTAL number of utility powers my character has. i just ad 1 power so i have 3 utility powers total. judging by this table, you only ever have a handful of powers, even if your character is high level. instead of adding new powers on top of old ones (like magic users did in 3.5) you replace your old powers with new, higher level ones.

but then i looked at the section in the DMG on starting higher level, it has a table that summerizes the total numbers of each kind of powers you'd have, and at what levels. this table lists numbers far larger then the PHB table lists.

to help clairify. according to the PHB a 10th level character should have 2 at will powers, 3 encounter powers, 3 daily powers and 3 utility. according to the DMG a 10th level character should have many more powers, the table is so confusing im not even sure how to phrase the example.

so, anyone have any ideas?

The numbers in the DMG table are the level that power is gained. For example, "P, 27, 23, 17" does not mean you have 27 different abilities, but rather that it is a power gained at level 27. The PHB table is the number of different ones you will have at that level, which is why the numbers are much lower.

Could the DMG be adding in non-class powers to the sum? Magic items and your race will give you powers/access to powers. Man I want my books to get here already!

wait, i just figured it out. the table in the DMG reads

Character level /level of power/, /level of second power/, /level of third power/...and so on

As I mentioned it's the level of the power, not how many. The PHB says at level 30 a PC should have 4 At Will Powers. The DMG says these powers should be "P, 27, 23, 17" which means those 4 at Will Powers should be your Paragon Path power, one of your level 17, one of your level 23 and one of your level 27 At Will powers along with that. In total it's 4 powers still.

The DMG show you the Total Progression. In other word the level i.e. 22 show you how much power you have total at that level for each power type. And the PHB show you the progression so you don't have to calculate to find out how much you gained when you level. In other word, using the level 22 as example again in the PHB it show you how much power your gained for your level. Total up one of the power from 1st level to 20th let's say in the PHB and your total will be the same as the DMG on the line of the level 20. It's like that because DMG is mostly used for nps generation and you don't build npc levle 1 and level him up to the level you want, you put it level 50 if you want and you need stats right away. Addindg all of them would be long and waste of time. Also it's usefull if a player is not sure he have the right amount or powers, just cehck if the amount of power match the DMG table.