D&D 5E Is a dwarf wizard still "playing against type"?

[SirAntoine]

what do you mean it didn't stop anyone? and what is an attack rank?

My question is if you had 4 players, an elven fighter/mage, a human cleric, a Dwarven thief and Human Ranger... you get to a point where the two players playing humans want to keep going but the other two are at or about to be at level limit... how do you continue the campaign?


In my experience we always pushed off the choice until someone hit a level limit, and as such 7 out of 10 times it wouldn't come up. Then the few times it did we decided it wasn't worth retiring and brining in new characters so we would just ignore them... I only once saw a group choice to use the limits. I thought the game was odd because everyone started as demi humans with 2 or three classes, then retired before level limit and brought in a human with only 1 class...

They wanted to play. They also believed their character was the best. The attack ranks were like a partial level increase, from Expert. I don't remember what they gave, but I think it was THAC0 and saving throws.

 

[SirAntoine]

I think 2e had a thing if you had an exceptional stat or something... we never really used them. I did jokeingly say I was going to use them in a 3.5 game... but I was just being funny

It did, and I was thinking of it when I made my recommendation of 8th or 9th level. The level limit would have to be lower in 1st Edition, where every limit was lower already even without this optional rule.

These mechanics were there because the demihumans could multi-class, and because they were so long-lived.

 

[SirAntoine]

As I recall, there were rules for a demihuman with exceptional stats to gain a few extra levels before halting level gain. The complete book of elves, I think, had the optional rule for elves to keep levelling at twice the xp needed per level.

I always thought it strange that elves, noted as being some of the greatest magic-users and even having taught humans the art of magic, were limited in their maximum wizard level. Without using the optional rules for exceptional abilities or slow levelling then I don't think they could ever cast 9th level spells.

In 1st Edition, they couldn't even get close.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yea I think that humans being multi classed (aka craming a lot into a little time) and long lived races like elves should dual class (aka get board and switch professions) then level limits would make a lot more sense...

 

[SirAntoine]

Yea I think that humans being multi classed (aka craming a lot into a little time) and long lived races like elves should dual class (aka get board and switch professions) then level limits would make a lot more sense...

That makes a certain amount of sense.

 

[Minsc]

They wanted to play. They also believed their character was the best. The attack ranks were like a partial level increase, from Expert. I don't remember what they gave, but I think it was THAC0 and saving throws.

YES!!

This was in Basic D&D. Halflings could get to level 8, Elves to 10, and Dwarves to 12. Then they'd start getting ranks, which were represented by letters. So you could have a level 12 F Dwarf. LOL, I forgot about that!

In AD&D 1e and 2e, there were level limits for all demihumans. Overall, they were much more restrictive in 1e, except for Thief. All demihumans were unlimited in their Thief level advancement (except Half Orcs, but they were unlimited in Assassin levels).

I remember making almost every non human a multiclassed Thief in 1e, so I could never hit an absolute level limit.

I played more Basic D&D before 2e came out though. I actually had some characters cap out at level 36 as a kid!

 

[MasterTrancer]

While it's still a novel concept for me, having played mostly BECMI and 2E, I find that Dwarven Wizards are quite intriguing.

Right now I'm toying with the idea of a Mountain Dwarf Abjurer.

 

[TrippyHippy]

One of my favourite Dwarves characters was an NPC in the much maligned, but actually quite subversive, Something Rotten in Kislev episode of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay’s Enemy Within Campaign.

The Dwarf was a Necromancer, that the PCs were sent to dispatch by the Tsar (Kislev being a fantasy version of Russia). However, when they got to his village they found that he wasn’t malevolent at all, but had been raising the dead to aid the villagers as labourers on the local farm area. It was implied that the Tsar was the cruel one having ignored the pleas of the starving villagers - to the degree that they had to turn to someone else in their desperation. The Necromancer was presented as an amiable, mild mannered old Dwarf to confound the stereotype some more. It was a common theme of the story - and one of the reasons I really liked it.

 

[SirAntoine]

You see, that's it right there. I prefer to think of it as a design, not a stereotype. If people think it's a stereotype, people will want to break it. A design is only a preference, but to adhere to that preference is unfairly hard now.

 

[delericho]

Is playing a dwarf wizard still "playing against type"? Or can it be considered the norm now?

How many dwarves have appeared in D&D novels (and computer RPGs, and movies, and...)? How many dwarven wizards have appeared in D&D novels?

How many dwarves have appeared at D&D games? How many dwarven wizards?

AFAIK, Wizards never released the race/class breakdown from the 4e Character Builder (which would be the closest think to actual information). However, I'm not aware of seeing a massive influx of dwarven wizards - generally speaking, if you want to play a dwarf they're probably better suited to some other class; if you want to play a wizard you're probably better picking some other race.

So I think they've gone from "vanishingly rare" to "sometimes seen", but I don't think they could really be considered the norm.