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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5142103" data-attributes="member: 80487">In 1st ed. AD&D, halflings have maximum natural strength scores (no 18s). Even exceptional strength "is modified by a restriction that no creature of human/humanoid nature can lift more than twice its own body weight above its head." A 60-pound halfling could thus lift no more than 120 lbs. -- but could still get other benefits of high strength.The benefits to hit and damage rolls made lower limits for females contentious. Players might not picture their fantastic swordswomen as matches for the most musclebound men in terms of toting barges and lifting bales. However, the thought that a human female character could not get the combat power benefits of a player's rolling 18/51 or better stuck in some craws.Limiting hobbits to 4th level originally made sense, in my opinion, as reflecting the source material. It was to my mind no "game balance" against the 6th-level potential of dwarves (who lacked the hobbits' outdoorsy stealth and accuracy with missiles, but had more dungeon-oriented specialties). The elves, able to be both 4th-level fighters and 8th-level magic-users, were "just better" -- if not as much superior as some Tolkien fans thought they ought to be. (It was not the elves but the hobbits excluded from the benison of the clerical Raise Dead spell in the original set.)"Should any player wish to be one ..." was on the mark, except that the halfling as a role had appeal beyond its apparent power as a game piece.In the "B/X" edition, dwarves and halflings had their level limits doubled (to 8th and 12th) while humans topped out at 14th. (A projected Companion volume did not come out until the Mentzer "BECMI" revision.) They got their own experience progressions and a shared saving-throw table, and dwarves seemed to come out very strong. (For another 180,000 XP, a top-level human fighter got on average 1 more hit point and +2 to hit, but worse saves across the board by 1 or 2 points.)Elves got up to 10th in both fighting and magic, which just rocked -- especially versus the relatively pathetic human magic-user. Casting 6th-level spells (tops in that game) was neat, but maybe not worth the wait -- and survival to beat the elf's top casting ability, requiring as many XP as the elf's maximum, was dubious. Raise Dead worked on any of the PC types.I suspect a "power gamer" would pick a cleric, dwarf or elf in B/X. Yet, I routinely see halflings, thieves, fighters and -- most surprisingly -- even human magic-users. The perhaps seemingly superfluous m-u gains experience levels (and thus spell levels) more quickly than the elf. The fighter and halfling also advance slightly more rapidly than the dwarf, the halfling having a very short career (while remaining viable alongside higher-level PCs when there is something other than XP to gain). The thief goes up like a rocket, getting about a level ahead of the others for the same XP, and its very own special abilities improve at each level.</blockquote>

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