Does Know Your Enemy provide all class levels or just fighter levels?

Question

I have a battle master fighter in my group who would like to use this ability while spending time at a party where a lot of my NPCs are attending. He would like to know the class levels of each one. He has for sure been able to spend the minute required for each one.

My question is because of the strange wording of the ability, is it intended that he knows all class levels and class types? Or is it only intended that he knows any levels in the fighter class? Or just the numeric levels?

Getting wrapped up in knots about this one and I don't want to get it wrong because it's a big deal. I really don't want to give him the information if I don't have to, but I also don't want to overrule this particular ability since it is unique to his subclass. So I'm going to do it, but only if I have to by RAW.

Answer 1

Know Your Enemy provides inexact information about Fighter Levels and unspecified class levels.

Know Your Enemy states:

The DM tells you if the creature is your equal, superior, or inferior in regard to two of the following characteristics of your choice:

• [other options]
• Total class levels (if any)
• Fighter class levels (if any)

You only learn if you have more, less, or the same of these as the target, not the exact number of levels. For fighter levels, you learn this about fighter levels only. For class levels, you learn this for all class levels, but do not learn anything about which classes.

For example, suppose I am a 7th level fighter with 3 levels in Rogue. I am going to use Know Your Enemy to examine Owen Reynolds, a 5th level fighter/8th level cleric. Know your enemy will tell me that I am superior to Owen in fighter levels, but inferior to Owen in total levels.

Answer 2

Distinct Fighter levels and Unknowable Class Levels

As per the wording of the ability:

The DM tells you if the creature is your equal, superior, or inferior in regard to two of the following characteristics of your choice:

• Strength score
• Dexterity score
• Constitution score
• Armor Class
• Current hit points
• Total class levels, if any
• Fighter class levels, if any

So, for the two things the fighter can learn, total class levels and total fighter levels are valid options to learn. But this does NOT tell you the total levels in other classes.

E.g. If you asked about the total level of a NPC and the fighter levels you might get back the answer "higher" for total levels and "lower" for fighter levels without being told what those extra class levels are.

Also, remember that the DM only has to tell you if they are superior, equal or inferior, in the chosen criteria, compared to the fighter, not what that actual value would be.