Judging from the majority of examples in the novels, I have found the categorization below to be heavily flawed. " Amateur (Raven) Low Level Professional (better than Raven, less powerful than company wizards) Professional (One Eye, Goblin, Silent, and Tom-Tom) Good Professional (Smoke) Great (The Circle of 18, New Taken) Great with Experience (The Ten Who Were Taken) Extremely Great (Dominator, Lady) " Harden, merely "Great" and placed on the level of non-entities like Scorn and Blister, was able to freeze three Taken during their frontal, offensive charge: the Hanged Man, an effective battle mage as seen earlier in the initial carpet attack; Stormbringer, vastly powerful as we all know; and Soulcatcher herself. Only one thing stopped Harden from scattering the brains of these 3 Taken: the action of unseen Shifter. Raven is not the amateur we think he is. He kills Raker, the first or second most dangerous and respected member of the original eighteen in the Circle. It would be foolish to think that he did not use considerable magic in this effort, perhaps a powerful concealment spell, as someone in the Circle isn't likely to be dispatched by some talentless thug who sneaks up behind him with a dagger. One-Eye built a spear that utterly destroyed an ancient "Extremely Great" sorcerer Kina, when forces of considerably greater power were only able to trap her. Sure, it took him extra time to craft it, but consider the leftover time the entrapping powers had after imprisoning Kina in the plain castle. A group of lesser light mages summoned a tree that still keeps an ancient Dominator underground. And of course, nearly any fool who stumbles upon a true name can use it to wholly disarm a demigod. None of these are exceptions: interactions like these are the norm in the Black Company microcosm. Understanding this, it appears rather useless to try to force any kind of gaming paradigm onto the type of fiction that Glen Cook has written here. None of these categories hold fast in any significant way. -Mike PS- did anyone receive my previous post? ------------------------------- Michael R. Hodum Gardens Area R.A. - Claver Hall '06-'07 Honor Council Ext. 3510 "... for among the simple pleasures of life must be counted the happiness of bringing good news to a grateful recipient." - Arnold H. M. Lunn (A Saint in the Slave Trade: Peter Claver) -------------------------------