Level Increasing Magic Items and Fighting to Level

[Scott]

A 7th level monk finds a level up ioun stone. Does he gain the abilities of an 8th level monk? Does he need to fight before he does? If he loses, does he drop to 6th level? The XP required to get back to 7th is much lower than that needed to actually reach 8th?
Or
By the magic contained in the stone will the charactergain the abilities of the 8th level monk, and not have to fight until the character actually gains the XP to reach 8th level.
Same thing with druid and assassins.

[geneweigel]

I considered this since yesterday and I'd rule yes.

The original version from THE STRATEGIC REVIEW was spellcasting oriented only being expressed as "adds 1 to spell ability" before being all encompassing in the DMG with "adds 1 level of experience" in AD&D for all classes.

NOTE: I reread the short story "MORREION" last night and I noticed some bleed from other parts of the story into the Gygax treatment of them. In particular, the sustaining parts which were irrelevant and had to do with a spell the magic-user cast that was unrelated to the stone's power. The psionic strength points of the burnt out stones was another bleed which seemed to do with a memory block spell cast upon its owner that the stones were "pulling on" (giving the stones different colors) and eventually "pulled out" making the stone color "disappear" within. So each color was a progression of color of the memory block. Thats my theory anyway.

[Merkholz]

This is an interesting question and one not answered in any way in the rulebooks. IMO the powerful magic in the IOUN stone only transfers the powers of the new level not the new XP or actual level. A new 9th-level Lord with such an IOUN stone subjected to the touch of a wraith would not lose 125 000 xp but only 62 500 xp. Viewed this way a monk (or assassin or druid) would not have to fight his way to the new rank. Also note that having such a stone would make such a challange much easier.

[Scott]

I agree with t hat, except that in the case of a monk, I don't think he would be allowed to use the stone/item during the level combat once he acquired the xp needed to acually reach the level.