Auth and permissions

Hi all I am quite new in using PEAR packages and OO-programming. I am delighted how "easy" development is by using PEAR classes. Right now I am implementing a website where I need some kind of authentication. Not hard to do with help of the auth-package. My problem that came up during the last hours is that I need permissions to access cetain pages. Lets say I want to have five different levels of permissions like "user", "author", "editor", "supervisor" and "admin". A nice to have feature would be inclusive permissions. As I figured out, PEAR Auth does not provide this functionality. I also read about LiveUser. Seems to satisfy my wishes and a lot more, but I think it is to complicated for just implementing my "simple" permission scheme, and the documentation is not such an advanced state for a newbie to get started. I'd like to ask if somebody ever has extended PEAR Auth to satisfy my requirements. I would be glad to just get some tips of you out there how you would face my "problem". If somebody would be so kind to provide me an extended class, that would allow me to go out tonight to have a beer maybe ;-) Thanks anyway -- Cheers Marco