Racial Level Limits: Did you Use Them?

[Philotomy Jurament]

Not only did I observe the limits, but I currently observe the limits.

 

[dagger]

Not only did I observe the limits, but I currently observe the limits.

We do as well but we use increased XP (usually double) to bypass it. It helps to also use the higher limits from UA and we use these limits as default even if the PC does not have higher score.


I don't think its a bad rule (level limits) and we like level limits.

 

[Crothian]

We do as well but we use increased XP (usually double) to bypass it. It helps to also use the higher limits from UA and we use these limits as default even if the PC does not have higher score.

Unearthed Arcana really changes the game and ruined a lot of what made D&D great.

 

[Niccodaemus]

I voted that we didn't use them, as was the case in about 99% of our games.

However, we very rarely reached those limits to begin with, so it's somewhat moot. Campaigns which didn't end prematurely (due to TPK or whatnot) usually wrapped things up between levels 5-9. That was probably 6 months to a year of play though, since leveling was much slower back then.

Ditto. Highest level I ever got to was 12th level magic user, and that was HUGE, and required 2 years of play.

 

[The Shaman]

We used them, and if I were to run AD&D again in the future, I would use them in that campaign as well.

Demihumans almost always multi-classed in our games, so even if one class topped out, they were usually gaining levels in the other class along with the single-classed humans.

Some years ago I considered a house rule: change the U class from thief to something more archetypal. Frex, allow single-class elves unlimited advancement as magic-users, gnomes as illusionists, and dwarves as fighters; halflings would remain unlimited as thieves, and half-orcs and half-elves would remain as written.

 

[Gryph]

Both my HS group and my college/post college group used the limits in 1e. UA came out as we were getting close to the some of the level limits and we adopted the higher limits there.

Later we decided to add a x2 XP to advance optional rule that I think we got from a Dragon article. It only affected one character who was multi-class and didn't have a good attribute score for one of the classes.

 

[Gryph]

Unearthed Arcana really changes the game and ruined a lot of what made D&D great.

We adopted most of it when it first came out and almost as quickly removed many of the rules from our campaigns.

The only things we ended up keeping were some of the sub-race choices, the expanded level limits and some of the new spells.

We hated what the new classes, weapon specialization and the optional ability scores methods did to our games.

 

[dagger]

We just use the spells, level limits, few races, and weapon specialization (for fighters only).

 

[Ariosto]

Some years ago I considered a house rule: change the U class from thief to something more archetypal. Frex, allow single-class elves unlimited advancement as magic-users, gnomes as illusionists, and dwarves as fighters; halflings would remain unlimited as thieves, and half-orcs and half-elves would remain as written.

Some years ago, Gygax seemed to think something like that might be good. I would be wary of elves unlimited as MUs, though; thief works because it's not such a hot class.

 

[drothgery]

In theory, we used the level limits (with the modifiers for high PR scores). In practice, even the game that was basically every other week while classes were in session for 4 years of college didn't reach them; I think you need to be a far more dedicated gamer than my group was to reach high levels in 2e without throwing the XP tables out.