Earning new spell levels in Dungeonslayers

Question

When a mage earns a level, I don't quite understand the spell learning mechanics.

Applicable rule:

LEARNING NEW SPELLS

When a spellcaster reaches a higher level, he can learn new spells. This doesn't cost any learning points. Instead the spell must already be in possession of the character. If not he must try to find new spells during adventuring (or purchase them in a library for example). For each new level, a spellcaster can learn new spells until the sum of the spells' levels is equal to the character's new level.

I'm not sure the player earns just one spell level (e.g. a 5 level wizard could learn a total of 1+1+1+1+1=5 spell levels) or earns a number of spells levels equal to its new experience level (i.e. same wizard could learn a total of 1+2+3+4+5=15).

The former seems a bit underpowered and unflexible, while the later is clearly overpowered IMO.

English is not my first language so maybe the meaning as written is not as ambiguous as it looks to me, or maybe is just a translation problem (it's a german game).

Any insight is welcome.

Answer 1

The german version is clear in it's meaning: your latter version is the correct one, a level 5 wizard can learn spells worth up to 15 spell levels total, including spells learned for previous levels.

I played a lot of DS and from experience, the bottleneck is not running out of spell levels, but actually finding the spells you want to learn (of course that differs from group to group, but looking at the ready made dungeons one can download from the homepage I don't think our GM was stingy with the spells).