What is wrong with race class limits?

[dcas]

Nothing is wrong with racial class limitations.

If one is going to remove racial class limitations, then why not remove racial size- and age limitations, too? After all, these limitations keep players from playing the characters they really want to play. Why can't I play a 7-foot tall Dwarf?

 

[Quasqueton]

First: In my AD&D1 campaigns, I never had a problem with race/class restrictions or race/class level limits. I accepted the rules as they were and never thought about how they affected game balance. The issue just rarely came up. Only a couple (that I can remember off hand) PCs ever rose above ~7th level from low level.

But now that I understand “game balance”, and have seen and played with more Players, I see how the restrictions and limits were bad mechanics for balance.

I had one Player tell me once, straight-honest, that he was going to play a demi-human because my campaigns never got high level. Another Player admitted that he always played elves in my games because my campaigns never got high level. I suspect another Player of always playing elves for this reason.

If a DM’s campaign did regularly reach high levels, then the Players either had to play humans, or someone would find the enjoyment of the game lessened when they stayed 9th level while the other party members were reaching 15th. For classes like the fighter and thief, the difference between 9th and 15th level was not that great (you stop getting hit points at ~9th level). But for classes like clerics and magic-users, the difference between 9th and 15th level was astronomical (5th level spells versus 8th level spells). And imagine the difference between a 15th-level magic-user and a 9th-level fighter in a party together.


Imagine you and your friends have motorcycles, and you go joy riding every weekend. Your friends’ cycles have chopper front wheels, big flaming pipes, all kinds of cool accessories that make the riding experience more fun than just riding your stock bike. For the same price tag of their fancy rides, you got a 20-gallon fuel tank. But if your joy riding never burns more than 7 gallons of fuel (within the range of all your friends bikes), your bike isn’t noticeably cooler than a stock bike. Sure, you can have plenty of fun on a stock bike, but you got to admit, chopper wheels and flaming pipes are cool to have.


Special abilities, bonuses, and “gimmicks” for demi-humans often made PCs more fun to play (for some people). And if the only [major] mechanical drawback of the race rarely came into play, well, it didn’t really matter. That is what is wrong with AD&D race/class restrictions and level limits.

Also, there was a measure of intra-party competition for personal power in some games. [Even Gary Gygax had/has this – he refuses, even to this day, to give out any of his personal characters’ actual game stats because of this sense of competition. He doesn’t want other Players to have knowledge of his PCs’ abilities and weaknesses. (He has stated so on this forum*.)] So, for some Players, in a game that will probably stay at low to mid levels, the demi-human special abilities made their characters more powerful than the “suckers” who stuck with humans, whose only “bonus” was unlimited advancement.


Compare the 20-gallon fuel tank to higher speed, better maneuverability, or lighter weight. To the competitive biker, a longer range is worthless for short distance riding.

Quasqueton

* http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2922198&postcount=71

 

[Umbran]

I disliked them because so many of them seemed like splitting hairs. A halfling can be a fighter/thief, but not a ranger? Or an elf could be a fighter/mage/thief but not a bard?

We really do have to be careful here. In 1e, rangers were not particularly thief-like. And honestly, the 1e bard was not much like a fighter/mage/thief, either. We have to be careful we don't weigh the 1e choices against current classes.

 

[Remathilis]

We really do have to be careful here. In 1e, rangers were not particularly thief-like. And honestly, the 1e bard was not much like a fighter/mage/thief, either. We have to be careful we don't weigh the 1e choices against current classes.

I was weighing them against the SECOND edition classes, but I see you're point...

 

[Sejs]

His soul has grown all it can.

That's just replacing one unexplained, arbitrary 'because' with another.

 

[Seeten]

His soul has grown all it can.

But if we reincarnate his soul into a Human, suddenly his soul is expandable again.

Interesting thought.

If I were an Elven Necromancer, this is something I'd be working on, with magic jar. Bring hundreds of humans, rip their souls out, and replace with elven souls, increase their potency, chain their souls down with magic...I could design a whole campaign out of this incredibly silly idea that somehow the racial meat that holds the soul limits it.

 

[Gentlegamer]

1. It's a setting element, not a rules element.

AD&D is a setting.

Demihumans don't have the same driving ambition as humans to reach high levels. That players complain that this restricts them only proves that the players themselves are humans and possess that driving ambition.

 

[Gentlegamer]

But now that I understand “game balance”, and have seen and played with more Players, I see how the restrictions and limits were bad mechanics for balance.

I had one Player tell me once, straight-honest, that he was going to play a demi-human because my campaigns never got high level. Another Player admitted that he always played elves in my games because my campaigns never got high level. I suspect another Player of always playing elves for this reason.

The AD&D world postulated a humancentric culture/setting. Racial level limits was for setting balance. While player characters may never reach high levels as a demihuman, the centuries long lifespans of many of them as NPCs would surely lead to their domination of shorter lived races very easily. In fact, a campaign using this assumption as a setting could be very interesting, but it was not the default setting of AD&D.

 

[Sejs]

We really do have to be careful here. In 1e, rangers were not particularly thief-like. And honestly, the 1e bard was not much like a fighter/mage/thief, either. We have to be careful we don't weigh the 1e choices against current classes.

1e rangers were crazy fighter/mage/druids. 2e rangers were rather thiefly, though. Hide in Shadows/Move Silently and all that.

And to split hairs, 1e bards were very fighter/mage/thief like, given that you had to be a fighter, and a thief, then a caster before they let into the club. Just substitute 'druid' for 'mage' and you're there.

Why can't I play a 7-foot tall Dwarf?

Well, you can, but then you can only mine chrome, asbestos, and linoleum for the rest of your days.

 

[Roadkill101]

The problem with race class limits from earlier editions (specifically 1e AD&D), IMO, is they just don't make any sense for any reasons other than fluff (i.e. setting specific). I don't recall any mention in the early edition "core books" mentioning any setting specific information, in the way of fluff.
Race class level limits, made even less sense. Without resorting to multi-classing, once your Dwarven fighter hit level 8, he gained absolutely nothing other than loot. So your Dwarven fighter is still gaining experience by continuing to adventure, yet he never learns to wield his axe with any greater precision (i.e. his chances of hitting never improve). And as others have pointed out, Dwarves have a far longer lifespan than Humans.
There was little attempt to explain why such limits existed. Maybe some fluff, for context, should have been included to provide some sort of reasoning behind the limits.
I'd been playing for close to ten years before I learned of the early Greyhawk and Blackmoore campaigns and how they helped give rise to the game called AD&D. From which I was able to figure out that some of the non-sensical rules were hold-overs from these early settings, which had been included to the system.
The rules I found non-sensical, I pretty much ignored, especially race class and race class level limits.
I will say, that while I never really played it, at least the Basic System did allow demi-humans continual if much reduced advancement at higher levels.