What is wrong with race class limits?

A lot of people have seemed to complain on the race class limits of the earlier editions. Why were they bad?

Was it because they were poorly explained as to why certain races and classes had limits? Would it have been better if for instance it was built into the game that halflings had pissed off the god of magic and there fore could not use any arcane magic? Would that kind of explanation for race class limits in the game and setting make them okay?

There's nothing wrong with it -- in a setting, where "pissed off god of magic" is cool.

I don't like that kind of thing in the Core rules, though. My setting should be mine. Give me parts that work well and are balanced, and let me decide how to abuse them.

Cheers, -- N

For me they are bad because they can prevent players from playing the characters they want (or the DM to make the NPC he wants). No explanation would change that, so no, no kind of explanation for race class limits in the game and setting would not make those restrictions okay. They are fundamentally wrong.

Now I can absolutely see that for example halflings don't become necromancers or warlocks in great numbers - it's just against their nature. But I absolutely don't need hard rule restrictions for this kind of stuff. If a single halfling wants to become a necromancer there shouldn't be rules against it. There will probably be all kind of problems he has to face, but I just don't see any reason for rules which restrict race classes.

Maybe they should prevent players from playing weird or untypical characters? But if these characters come with great stories, background, and reasons (especially if they come during the game) such rules just get into your way.

I have no problem with race class level limits. If I only want gnomes to be beguilers, or tiefling warlocks, that's cool.

I find race class level limits a bit silly, though, unless there is a reason, and it's not just about making humans preferable. I mean sure, a half orc with an int penalty won't be as good a wizard as a gray elf, but the system takes care of that in other ways.

When sad and cheesy rules of bygone eras spring to mind, this one generally presents itself right promptly.

1. It's a setting element, not a rules element. As a setting element, it's not universal even to High/Epic Fantasy - or to D&D, as evidenced by the way campaign settings changed it up - and should not have appeared in the core rules. In many cases, it's not a very well thought out setting element, either; the "no dwarven wizards" clause, for example, seems to fly in the face of "dwarves as master magical craftsmen" in the absence of, say, a separate runesmith class.

2. It codifies class and level = setting element. Classes and levels ultimately make very little sense except as a gameplay construct, and racial level limits made it explicitly clear that if Bob the Fighter was Boebiethel the Elf Fighter, he knew he was a Level x Fighter because he could no longer gain XP. Which I find completely ridiculous and silly.

3. In the same light, it makes no sense. What does a character who hits his level limit experience? What is the mechanism, in-setting, preventing him from advancing?

4. Contra the above, in AD&D, racial level limits *weren't* just a setting element. They had a game balance function - non-human races were pretty much strictly better, but they couldn't advance to limitless levels (except where they could). As game balance, this was... really, really bad. AD&D campaigns that reached such levels seem to have been rare, and by those levels the racial bonuses were mostly irrelevant anyway.

5. Exacerbating the game balance problem, level limits could be (somewhat) circumvented by having high ability scores. Randomly generated, of course. So a character who got lucky rolls was even better at lower levels (because of his higher stats and the racial bonuses he could then "afford" to have) and remained better at higher levels. Again, this is just about as bad as you can do with a gameplay construct.

6. Worst of all, racial level limits are just about the most anti-fun development imaginable. Getting past all the cheesiness at the lower levels, you end up with a character who can no longer advance mechanically in a meaningful way (caveat: this being AD&D, he could still load up with the millions, if not billions, of gp worth of treasure doled out by the classic modules). While his companions invariably got better.

Overall, I'd be hard pressed to think of a single rules element in any mainstream RPG more ill-conceived and poorly executed.

Crothian said:

A lot of people have seemed to complain on the race class limits of the earlier editions. Why were they bad?

Was it because they were poorly explained as to why certain races and classes had limits? Would it have been better if for instance it was built into the game that halflings had pissed off the god of magic and there fore could not use any arcane magic? Would that kind of explanation for race class limits in the game and setting make them okay?

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Nothing; the races got plenty of other advantages so it balanced out in my opinion.

(Note that I'm referring to AD&D and OD&D here; I don't know from 2e and on.)

I never had a problem with them. Especially since my group was happy to house rule around them if the DM so desired.

Crothian said:

Was it because they were poorly explained as to why certain races and classes had limits?

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In general, I think every role-playing game could provide more in-game explaination/rationalizations for things. I don't know that you can ever do enough of this.

Furthermore, I think every game could provide more "behind the curtain" information about why the designer(s) made the choices they did. (Even if it is relegated to a web enhancement.) Again, I don't know that you can ever overdo this.

The problem I had was that it didn't make sense. Take the elf, they are supposed to be inherently(sp?) magical, live the longest of the races (playable at the time) but could only be a 11th level wizard.

Again with the Dwarves, second longest living race but could only go to level 8 as a fighter.

These level caps just never made sense to myself and my friends.

Arrel

Nefrast said:

For me they are bad because they can prevent players from playing the characters they want (or the DM to make the NPC he wants).

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Players are always going to be limited to what they can play. All this is is just other types of limitations. And I don't think players should always be able to create the character they want when it goes against the rules and setting. Even without these limitaiotns I have said no to many a player character concept and its not the end of the world.