AD&D level limits question

[Ariosto]

I'm curious about the frequencies of exceptional (17-18) prime requisites and nonhuman characters, and what levels human characters attained, in campaigns that never hit the racial limits.

Considering how many limits are in the 4-6 range (or F 7 for a dwarf), it's startling to me to think that there would be campaigns in which characters never advanced so far.

Even with exceptional scores, even with 18s, the highest limits are
dwarf: 9 ... elf: 11 ... gnome: 8 ... half-elf: 11 ... halfling: 6 ... half-orc: 10.

Assuming multiclassing in two or three classes, humans with similar XP would be a level or two ahead. If people were playing only the ilk of elven mages with intelligence 18, then I could see it. Most players I have known basically "retired" characters in the neighborhood of 13th level.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I personally can't comment much on this. I started playing AD&D during the 2E era, and never played 1E at the table. As a DM, I chose to ignore level limits as they existed in 2E from a theoretical perspective, but my games generally wrapped up around level 10 and 2E's level limits never came into play. I might have had to ignore level limits if somebody played a Halfling Fighter, but nobody ever did. Closest I ever got to ignoring level limits at the table was playing a level 20 Halfling Fighter at a convention one-shot.

I did play the SSI Gold Box AD&D PC games, most notably Curse of the Azure Bonds(which level limits were a big issue in) and Champions of Krynn(which used the Dragonlance level limits, which were much higher when they existed at all). The level limits in Curse of the Azure bonds annoyed me greatly, especially compared to the anything goes aspect of Champions of Krynn.

 

[mhensley]

Yes, but I never played in a game that got to high enough levels that they were an issue.

 

[Votan]

It depended on the group. I once played a F7/MU11 in the G/D/Q series (Queen of spiders supermodule, as it was later called) and it was a dreadful mistake as the level limits were crippling.

In another campaign (in a city 1000 miles away), I saw a 1/2 Elf F/MU/C who was over 20th level in all three classes (we did not start new players at levels higher then 3) and it was pretty overpowered (at least compared to my level 3 cleric).

So the answer is "sometimes".

 

[Hereticus]

I'm curious how many people respected the level limits set out in the AD&D 1E Players Handbook during its lifetime 1977-1989.

Neither level limits, nor stat limits, nor racial exclusions.

 

[Set]

There were optional rules that allowed members of races to get up to four levels over their 'soft cap' if their primary attribute was around 19 to 20-ish, and further optional rules that allowed races to go over their caps if they spent anywhere from two to four times as much experience. We generally allowed both options, and it rarely mattered anyway, since we only had a few games head into really high levels anyway (such as the Bloodstone modules).

We scoffed at a lot of rules, both in 1st edition and 2nd, such as weapon speeds and armor vs. weapon type modifiers (the pain! the pain!).

 

[Quantum]

No, I ignored them completely.

I just never could understand how how a fifteen hundred year old elf be stuck at sixth level. It just seems to me that you never stop learning new things, esepcially if there is something you're very passionate about.

 

[Dausuul]

I said no, but not really sure if it applies. IIRC we only hit them once, and sorta smoozed past them.

This.

 

[Remathilis]

We only played 2e, where the level limits were larger anyway. That said, we ultimately ignored them for our one-and-only epic-level 2e game.

 

[Mouseferatu]

We houseruled them - IIRC once you reached the racial level limit, the xp to reach subsequent levels doubled. Thus they didn't reach an utter plateau, but the humans started racing ahead at that point.

This is exactly what my group did, actually.