Race Level Restrictions. HELP PLEASE!

[Ath'kethin]

As others have approached the level limits question, I'm going to focus on psionics.

The Complete Psionics Handbook has a completely different mechanic for running the abilities than the Skills & Powers book does. In fact, the Skills & Powers book was a deliberate revision to the 2e psionics rules, published in conjunction with the revised Dark Sun box set. The Complete Psionics Handbook is stil necessary for descriptions and effects for many of rhe powers, though (see below).

In a nutshell, the original 2e psionics rules, from the Complete Psionics Handbook, are a proficiency-based system, by which I mean the powers work, mechanically, the same way nonweapon proficiencies do. In the revision fouind in the revised Dark Sun box set and the Skills & Powers book, they changed it so that psionics work using the combat mechanics instead.

As mentioned in the intro to the Psionics Section in Skills & Powers, they eliminated the Metapsionics discipline. Some of the powers, such as Aura Alteration and Mind Bar, were moved to other disciplines, but many, including AFAICT Empower, simply vanished. The Psionic Power Summary tables, starting on page 175 of Skills & Powers, list all the available powers and indicates whether the power's effect has been changed in the book.

It was all confusing at the time and is still confusing now, since if you're using Skills & Powers you still need the Complete Psionics Handbook (as well as Dragon Kings and The Will and the Way, bith of which are Dark Sun supplements) for descriptions of many of the powers. Of course, if you're cool with the proficiency-based mechanics, you can just use the Complete Psionics Handbook (plus the two Dark Sun books if you like).

 

[Thagdal]

Some really nice information in this thread.

OP, it sounds like you are playing a mix of rules from editions and house rulings (as is tradition for early era D&D).
Given that mixture already of rules, its going to be a very game/player dependent decision on what limits to pick from what edition or updates.
For my hodgepodge games which primary use 1st edition, I removed level limits from races, and gave humans a bonus non weapon proficiency based on background, and an ability point to be placed where they want.

 

[Gus L]

I think one of the best things you can do in using AD&D or OD&D is recognize that you will run into rules voids and contradictions ... even within the same edition. Acknowledging this and accepting that any game with these systems will be a "table version" rather then some authoritative one is key to moving forward. In the specific case of demi-human level limits the point is to decide what you and your players want. How important are demihumans to the game?

Same with psionics. the rules for them have always been a weird messy add on and it's going to be up to the table that uses them to sort them out: even just replacing monster psionics with spell like abilities and player ones with the magic-user class (my own personal preference).

So becoming comfortable with kludge and with deciding how you want to play things as a referee is the only real solution here.

Finally, my own experience has always been that by the time things like demihuman level limits kick in the game world and the player characters are pretty well intertwined and the rules aren't doing as much work anymore. A 15th plus level character in an old system will have been around for years. The powers and abilities they get from the stuff they've plundered will far outweigh those they have from levelling itself. Level limits aren't something to fret about until they're actually there - and usually some in game solution (a quest for the lost crown of dwarven lordship etc.) will usually present itself as a solution just because of the amount of game world that has developed in the past 100 plus sessions.