Help me Understand Level limits!

[Deleted]

I love D&D and started playing in the late 70's early 80's with basic but it wasn't long before the change to 1E and eventually to 2E. I then stopped playing with others besides my x-wife and best friend and our games became self contained and often far different than the official rules.

Now I'm playing with the new wife and kids and friends from work and we tried 3E and even 4E but ......didnt really like either. Too many rules for everything!

I thought about playing 2E again but Castles and Crusades and a few other games caught my attention first.

My wife wants to play Basic D&D or even OE and I have kept up with the Retro movement but one thing ALWAYS throws me off.

I really dislike race as class or level limits. Mostly because in Basic you can play till you hit the 36th level as a human but not as a Demi-human? So my son who wants to play a dwarf will be still sitting at like 8th level when my wife hits 36? How does that seem fair or balanced at all? Do they have optional rules that solve this issue?

Is there something I'm missing? As far as Race as class goes I'm fine with hand waving that away and just letting the (dwarf) be a fighter but the son has expressed he doesn't want to do it that way.

Sigh...

I now have copies of all the basic rules...badly beaten and often in VERY bad shape but copies anyway. I also have LL,BF,WB,ect.. but id rather stick to D&D.

[tombowings]

As far as I've gathered (which is not an extensive amount of information), the purposes of level limits are two fold:

1. To balance out the special abilities given to demi-humans up front (a dwarves +4 levels with regards or saving throws for example).

2. To create a humano-centric game world. In other word, to make humans more desirable to play than demi-humans or to keep a party make-up from consisting of 4 dwarves, 3 elves, and a hobbit.

Honestly though, in my experience anyway, level limits are rarely an issue. How many campaigns actually go till a character reaches 36th level? Not many. In OD&D, the power curve is shallow enough so that a 6th level dwarf can complete with a 12th level fighter in terms of usefulness in play. Not raw power, but usefulness (that roll to find traps, shifting walls, and new constructions is nice).

My opinion is to let them be. But never be afraid of making the game your own. We don't all need to be playing by the same rules. Just play the game you (and your players) think is the most fun.

[18 Spears]

The limits work fine for some, but not for others.

All I can say is: evaluate your campaign, and decide if they work for you. If they don't? Alter them or eliminate them depending on your level of need.

The author of the rules was always telling people it was their game to do with as they willed. So ... make it your game!

And, to answer your question, yes there is something you're missing. Unfortunately, given your long experience with the game; if you don't understand it already there is little point in trying to point it out to you.

[capvideo]

Level limits were meant to solve problems that the special abilities of demihumans introduced, which were usually explained “in the day” just as tom describes them. One of the biggest is that demihumans get to be multi-classed; in OE/BX some of them “just were”, that is, an Elf was automatically a fighter/magic-user. And in 1E a demihuman character can share their experience among two or more classes—but since experience costs double every succeeding level this meant that at worst a multi-classed demihuman would be one level lower than everyone else.

Of course, that rationale isn’t much consolation to the halfling who only has one class but is still stuck as a fourth level fighter when everyone else is sixth, seventh, or eighth level.

There have been lots of ideas for solving this. Off the top of my head:

1. Just raise them. 1E did this with Unearthed Arcana. It raised level limits generally as far as I can tell. It raised the level limit for those demihumans who only chose one class. It also provided higher level limits for characters with higher prime requisites, which carried over into 2E (1E sans UA sort of had this—it had level limit penalties for lower ability scores). And it provided higher level limits to demihumans of different racial stock, allowing the player who wanted to be an elven fighter to choose, say, Wild Elf as their Elf type and get a level or two extra.

2. Make levels cost more, either from the start or after the level limit is reached. 2E included this solution in its DMG as the “Slow Advancement” optional rule. “Require demihumans to earn two, three, or even four times as many experience points as a human in order to advance a level… the best compromise is to allow demihumans normal (or double-cost) advancement to their “maximum” levels. Then require them to earn triple or quadruple experience points to advance beyond that.”

3. Don’t worry about them. Like tom, this was rarely an issue for us—we considered ourselves pretty lucky to make it past 4th level. Having a level limit of 8 was simply not on our radar. It did mean we didn’t play halfling fighters, but that was probably part of the point of those rules.

4. Ignore them and give humans something else. Star Frontiers did this, for example. We do this in our current game; every character gets a specialty; being a Paladin is a specialty (for warriors), being a noble is a specialty (for anyone), being a druid is a specialty (for prophets), and being a demihuman is a specialty. So there’s no level limit on being an Elf, you’re just foregoing having some other specialty that you might have taken.

And, of course, there’s “just ignore them”, which I suspect a lot of players did.

[blackbarn]

Just do what's fun for you and your family. Really... it's not worth getting stressed over, and it's definitely not worth forcing your family to obey rules that nobody understands or enjoys. Play it by ear, and make a ruling on how it will work for *your* game.

Likewise, remember it is only a game, and not a simulation of reality of any sort. If nobody else is questioning the rules, try to just go along with it for the sake of having a fun time with the family. Too much rules tinkering and hemming and hawing tends to turn wives and kids off to the game. They just want to play, most likely, and don't care about all the little details or perceived imbalances and uncertainties we hobby gamers like to think about.

[Random]

There's really no way to "understand" level limits.
You either like them or you don't.
They can be replaced with some other drawback if you desire.

My preferred way to think about it...

Consider the situation in your example: Your wife has a level 36 human and your son has a level 8 dwarf.
That's not likely to ever happen.
More likely your son will have a level 8 dwarf and one or more other characters at that point.
Having a well-established dwarf will still be very useful!

[geoffrey]

I like demi-human level limits. Consider:

In chapter 8 of The Two Towers, Gimli (speaking of the Glittering Caves) says to Legolas: "No dwarf could be unmoved by such loveliness. None of Durin's race would mine those caves for stones or ore, not if diamonds and gold could be got there. Do you cut down groves of blossoming trees in the springtime for firewood? We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them. With cautious skill, tap by tap--a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day--so we could work, and as the years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock." [emphases mine]

As can be illustrated with this quote, dwarves in D&D simply don't have the time nor the desire to go higher than 8th level in fighting skill. They have more important things to do.

[Mushgnome]

Since you mention advancement to 36th level, I'll assume you are using BECM/Rules Cyclopedia. Looking at my RC, I see the max level limit for Dwarves is 12th level, at which point the Dwarf has more hit points than a 12th level fighter and the saving throws of a 30th level human! Furthermore, past 12th level, Dwarves continue to improve in combat skill up to "Attack Rank M" (as good as a 25th level fighter) and they only take half damage from spells.

Therefore I would argue that if you start a Rules Cyclopedia campaign at 1st level and play a couple of times a week, it will be years before the Dwarf "runs out of cool."

That being said, if the rules don't fit your game, change them!

[Deleted]

I play with my wife,two sons and two life long game friends that live close to me. We normally play a HUGE amount for a good long time and then at a good stopping point we slack off and let our other passions take the lead for a bit.

Last time I ran a game I would get off work and get home to find everyone waiting,dinner made and chores ect done and my D&D stuff piled up behind my already set up screen. Then we would play from 6pm till 1 am. This happends 3-5 days a week and then every weekend we would play from 8 am till 1 am.

Really my oldest son(20) and my wife are the ring leaders. When the game is hot they don't really get the whole moderation thing.

Now this might only last 3-6 months. Then it might be a mmo or boardgame or who knows what( last year for 3 months it was Magic the Gathering for gods sake! Who even knew that game was around and going strong?? $600 and a ton of cards later suddenly my youngest son built a vampire drain lich deck and destroyed everyone else and set us free.

Really I say all that just to let you see. These people are not normal play time people. The option of getting to max level and becoming a Diety just might set them off into another crazy no sleep game of endurance to see who whould break first them or me.(it would be me now,im getting to old for late night gaming!).

[Koren n'Rhys]

Lots of great advice above, but I'd also recommend using LL with the AEC rules. There are still level limits, but it will let you separate race from class ala AD&D. LL is B/X D&D, so it really isn't an issue to use the RC as your main rulebook as DM.

[Mushgnome]

Sounds like a loyal and dedicated group of players, I am slightly jealous and wish you fun whatever you decide!

[calithena]

Ignoring level limits is fine.

You can also let people burn wishes to open up the next level once they have reached max, this is a useful way to eat them up if they accumulate Rings of Many Wishes and the like.

Or, make levels beyond the max depend on completing special quests, etc.

Playing with level limits is fine too, but getting hung up on the rules is not something you have to do in OD&D, if you don't want to.

[howandwhy99]

Jan 26, 2011 18:24:04 GMT -6 Bruce The Black said:

I really dislike race as class or level limits. Mostly because in Basic you can play till you hit the 36th level as a human but not as a Demi-human? So my son who wants to play a dwarf will be still sitting at like 8th level when my wife hits 36? How does that seem fair or balanced at all? Do they have optional rules that solve this issue?

Yes, in BECMI/Cyclopedia demi-humans retain their level limits, but humans gain levels up unto 36 and immortality beyond. No, it isn't balanced.

As to optional rules, all of what are printed in the books are not rules at all, but guidelines for creating your own ruleset for behind the screen. It has to make sense to you. If you don't know why the rule is there or what it does, it isn't going to help your game. So, like the others are saying, if demi-human level limits aren't helping your game, then do something else.

Is there something I'm missing? As far as Race as class goes I'm fine with hand waving that away and just letting the (dwarf) be a fighter but the son has expressed he doesn't want to do it that way.

What is it you think you are missing? I'll try and address my understanding as to why level limits are in OD&D, AD&D and the like, but I can't guarantee it will help.

The game is based upon the Human scale. Ability Scores and Classes are defined by Bayesian curves and linear progressions of specified human behaviors respectively. The median 10.5 of the ability scores mark the adult human norm of ability with higher and lower ability tapering off to 1/216th at the end. It is a quantiled quantile making it 16 parts (or a sexti-decile) on a scale of 3-18 generated from a 3d6 curvilinear die roll. At 18 (and 3) the 1/216th fraction goes on in instances like percentile Strength, each score halving it. So 1 human in a population of 532 (18/50), etc.

Demi (semi)-human races are playable races because they have abilities falling within the 3-18 range of human ability. Imagine two Bayesian curves on the same x-axis, but with different medians. Demi-human races have different curvilinear distributions. So imagine the second, non-human distribution being smaller or larger in breadth. In AD&D other races were given maximum and minimum scores on the assumption that there was a cap on all races. You don't have to do this however, simply extend out the bell curve fractions to attain higher scores. For example, a halfling 17 max can be made 18, but the PC is 1/532 of the halfing population in the game world.

My suggestion is to not to use the AD&D charts, they have some serious problems. Define your demi-human distributions as you see fit and overlap them to know what the 3-18 scores mean for the ability of a PC of that race in relation to others of its race.

Understanding ability score distributions by race feeds into class level limits by race. All of the classes are human social roles, but with some multi-class combinations being more akin to social roles of the specific demi-human type. I.e. elves are magical warriors by natural predilection and can switch between the two easily. Other classes are specific to human predilections, this includes many of the sub-classes, and are not performed by members of other races. This is not to say Dwarves do not have clerics, but their definition of a cleric is different than the class presented for human performance by a PC.

Demi-human level limits are taken account of based upon all of their statistics. Halflings are about 3 feet tall and their very best warriors, a truly tiny fraction, do not max out as high as human Fighting-Men. Those with "exceptional strength" (on their own Bayesian curve) can advance a level or two farther, but sooner or later the next level break is simply beyond even the peak physical abilities of the race. It's not as if magic cannot increase these scores, but the class abilities would be lost if and when the magic was dispelled/removed. The limits keep the PC from attempting to gain a large amount of XP easily lost.

Dual-Classing represents humans ability to switch from one long term profession to another, but doing so normally takes a long amount of training and other costs before reaching 1st level. On the other hand, I *believe* demi-humans have the ability to multi-class because they naturally hold the ability to perform non-human cultural roles / classes which overlap humans ones - the human ones being the only classes defined for player focus/scope in the game.

There is some loose balancing going on here. Demi-humans typically receive racial abilities humans do not. Over the long haul, an entire campaign from 1st to top level, the class race combos are more even with the humans with maxed out levels - when those level are but a few more, like 10 or 11. However, this isn't balance between players as it is in d20. It is a balance by scope of the game. The demi-human abilities offer additional exploration benefiting those PCs, but limit the highest class level explorations as a detriment. The scope of classes varies widely too, but this is balanced by having larger and smaller class scopes require more and less XP to advance. Thieves have far less to explore, but advance relatively quickly for it. Magic-Users have the most (excluding the sub-class of Paladins), but they require far more play time to master a level and therefore more XP to advance in class abilities/level. Having the lowest scope core class be only 1/2 of the highest offers not only different complexity games to different players, but also keeps them relatively close in beginning character power. The "sweet spot" of overlapping class scope will be relatively easy for players to balance the party out to with smaller scope PCs advancing more quickly. The logarithmic advancement charts also enable new 1st level, 0 xp PCs to advance to 1 level behind the highest in the time it takes the highest to reach 1 more level.

Demi-human racial abilities increase the above game scope by individual player PC, but each race and any custom races can be balanced out on the campaign level and with the built-in level limits. So, for example, if 10 levels of M-U = 10M game states, 9 + elven abilities should be about the same. Though I am so far off in game state number it's laughable.

Given all of this I'll reiterate to only include rules in a game you want and you have a firm grasp of why they are in there and how they work in conjunction with everything else.

Level limits could be increased by raising demi-human populations or changing their ability distributions, but I doubt it will work with the higher level BECMI rules.

Editted for grammar

[Finarvyn]

To me, the secret is this:

When all character are limited in levels, giving demihumans a greater limit isn't a bad idea because it offsets some of their added benefits. The problem occurs when demihumans are limited and humans aren't, or when you raise the bar for humans but not for demihumans.

For example, the OD&D charts in Men & Magic went to level 9 for fighters, 11 for magic users, 8 for clerics. While rules existed for going above this, it seems like the game was designed to run to roughly 10th level or so. As such, limiting dwarves to 6th level, elves to 8/4 MU/Ftr, and halflings to 4th level wasn't such a bad thing.

OD&D Greyhawk pushed levels a little higher, but at the same time allowed for demihumans of high stats to push the demihuman limits a little higher as well.

If you switch to AD&D, the game is designed to extend to level 20 and you need to adjust demihuman level limits appropriately (double them?) or the game balance gets messed up.

With the RC extending to level 36 you really need to be sure that level limits are worked out carefully or demihumans become no fun to play at all.

It's all a matter of scale.

Most of the people I know who dislike level limits are usually tweaking one (humans) without tweaking the other (demihumans) and, if you do that, I wouldn't want to play them either!

[cooper]

Sorry, people get hung up on the "level" of the character and don't factor in combination of abilities which make class combos more powerful than they really are.

at 2.200.000 xp a wizard is 15th level a fighter is 16th level and a cleric is 17th level a 2e bard and thief are 20th level and an elven f/m/th is 7/11/13

the elf far outstrips in every category the 2e bard. He has better saves vs. spells than a 19th level cleric and better saves vs. breath weapons than a 21st level magic-user. In a game where many things are "save or die" who can discount the exteremely powerful ability of mixing the saving throws of different classes?

even a 5/8/8 half elf f/mu/cl has better saves vs. poison and death magic than an 18th level magic user and has as many spells per day as both a 12th level mu or cleric in addition to being able to wield magic intelligent swords (something mu nor clerics can do).

but he's only a 5th level fighter?! Not true. People get hung up on the number and they loose sight of the forrest for the individual trees.

level limits are in no way broken and in fact demi-human multi-class combos are viable at least until level 20 in 0d&d/greyhawk 1e and BECMI has it's own set of rules to balance demi-humans against 36th level humans.

[Deleted]

Thanks for all the Feedback!