What is wrong with race class limits?

[dcas]

So there is no xp penalty for demihumans who multiclass? That incourages demihuman multiclassing.

Exactly.

Also, since the AD&D1 xp tables tend to double xp totals for level up (2000xp for 2nd level, 4000xp for 3rd level, 8000xp for 4th level, etc.), if you want the demihumans to be a level behind the human characters, the xp penalty should be 50%. A 25% penalty just makes the demihuman level up equal to a human maybe a game session or two behind the humans. So the demihumans are a level behind the humans only half the time -- sort of a leap-frog effect. I'm just offering this as advice, for consideration.

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not sure I want demi-humans to be a level behind all the time.

 

[Quasqueton]

I think the best argument against the rules is that they don't matter until the campaign has progressed a long ways. The theoretical balance doesn't matter, in other words, until the campaign is past 8th level. Given that plenty of campaigns don't get that far, it makes demihumans too good.

And when the party level gets over 8, the demihumans start to become too bad.

For levels 1 to ~7, demihumans have benefits with no penalties*

For levels ~8 to ~10, demihumans start to feel a penalty, as they start falling a level or two behind their human counterparts.

For levels ~11 and up, the demihuman penalty gets progressively worse, as they fall three, four, five, and more levels behind. Eventually, the demihumans are no longer in the same league as their human counterparts.

So the only time the level limit penalty for demihumans actually does its job (of being a penalty even roughly equal to the demihuman bonuses) is in levels ~8 to ~10.

* Some level limits are as low as 4th and 5th level, and some are as high as 10th and 11th. See my post on the 3rd? page.

Something I hadn't really thought about til now, is, apparently Gygax must have expected Players to regularly play characters up to the higher levels (beyond name level). Otherwise why have a penalty that doesn't come into effect till then? It's almost like he expected the middle levels (8-12) to be the most commonly played levels, and therefore the demihuman level limit penalty would be felt by those who chose non-human characters. Because the penalty is unfelt in the lower levels, and the penalty is too heavy at higher levels.

I'll have to look around and see if other rules support this "sweet spot" theory. (Nothing else comes to mind immediately, though.)

Quasqueton

 

[billd91]

I think that the reasons cited by Geoffrey and others are good reasons.

I don't entirely agree. We aren't talking about creatures from completely alien worlds. We're talking about other cultures that, admittedly, have some very different physical issues but are otherwise contemporary with the humans we are also trying to play.
Why should they be significantly harder to play than humans brought up in a magical world with real monsters, many non-human races running around, and demonstrably real gods? Those issues are all beyond our experience. Why aren't we complaining here that playing ANY PC is like putting on a funny suit? The psychology of even humans in those situations should be nearly as alien.

 

[Geoffrey]

I don't entirely agree. We aren't talking about creatures from completely alien worlds. We're talking about other cultures that, admittedly, have some very different physical issues but are otherwise contemporary with the humans we are also trying to play.
Why should they be significantly harder to play than humans brought up in a magical world with real monsters, many non-human races running around, and demonstrably real gods? Those issues are all beyond our experience. Why aren't we complaining here that playing ANY PC is like putting on a funny suit? The psychology of even humans in those situations should be nearly as alien.

I can imagine being a human with magical powers because I am human. Magical powers are not who you are, they are something you have "in your pocket", so to speak.

Conversely, one's race (human, elf, dwarf, or whatever) is who you are, not merely something you have. I can't imagine being a non-human because I am human. Seriously, try to imagine being an eagle. The best we humans can do is imagine being a human mind inside of an eagle's body. That is why the best we can do is imagine being a human mind inside of a demihuman's body, which results in players playing demihumans merely as humans in demihuman bodies.

If I had a dollar for every time I have seen a PC "elf" played as a human who likes trees, or a PC "dwarf" played as gruff human who likes ale, I wouldn't have to be posting this from work.

It would be interesting to know how many players who supposedly want to play demi-humans would still want to play demi-humans if they received no bonuses for doing so (e. g., no infravision, no combat bonuses, no special abilities, etc.). I think the number would be pretty low.

 

[Quasqueton]

I can't imagine being a non-human because I am human.

So no one else should be allowed to imagine being a non-human because they are humans too?

If I had a dollar for every time I have seen a PC "elf" played as a human who likes trees, or a PC "dwarf" played as gruff human who likes ale, I wouldn't have to be posting this from work.

If I had a dollar for every time I have seen a PC human played as the Player at the table who is swinging a sword or casting a spell.

This is a game, dude. Not a therapeutic psycho-experiment, or a thespian exercise. Besides, how do you know that elves aren't exactly like a tree-hugging human, or that dwarves aren't exactly like ale-guzzling humans? With some cosmetic work, I bet I could pass myself off to a tribe of elves or a clan of dwarves as just another one of their own.

Quasqueton

 

[billd91]

I can imagine being a human with magical powers because I am human. Magical powers are not who you are, they are something you have "in your pocket", so to speak.

Conversely, one's race (human, elf, dwarf, or whatever) is who you are, not merely something you have. I can't imagine being a non-human because I am human. Seriously, try to imagine being an eagle. The best we humans can do is imagine being a human mind inside of an eagle's body. That is why the best we can do is imagine being a human mind inside of a demihuman's body, which results in players playing demihumans merely as humans in demihuman bodies.

But can you imagine being a Roman? A Sumerian? A Khmer living near Ankor Wat? A Viking living on Greenland? A cro-magnon warring on his neanderthal neighbors? All of these may be humans (we don't exactly have a choice with history) but that becomes a pretty superficial similarity. We can rely on historical accounts and evidence to give us some ideas about what their cultures were like, if sufficiently detailed, but is that significantly different from using a flavor text write-up for demi-humans? I think not.

Also, we can expect to be far more like dwarves and elves in daily experiences than like eagles. Certainly their human contemporaries have more similarities with them than we have with eagles. Given the other issues with a typical campaign world, humans in the campaign probably have more in common with the elves and dwarves running around than they do with us... other than the fact that they have a similar physical makeup to ours.

 

[Geoffrey]

So no one else should be allowed to imagine being a non-human because they are humans too?

If I had a dollar for every time I have seen a PC human played as the Player at the table who is swinging a sword or casting a spell.

This is a game, dude. Not a therapeutic psycho-experiment, or a thespian exercise. Besides, how do you know that elves aren't exactly like a tree-hugging human, or that dwarves aren't exactly like ale-guzzling humans? With some cosmetic work, I bet I could pass myself off to a tribe of elves or a clan of dwarves as just another one of their own.

Quasqueton

I don't care how other Judges run their campaigns. All I'm saying is that I do not allow non-human PCs in my campaigns.

I agree about D&D being a game. I like what Dungeon Crawl Classics say: "Remember the good old days, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere."

Since non-human intelligences do not exist in reality, we can of course imagine them any way we want. I prefer to imagine them as being unhuman, bizarre, and incomprehensible. Others prefer to imagine them as essentially human: "What's a dwarf like? Well, you know how Brian gets when he's drunk? That's a dwarf." Yawn. But to each his own.

 

[Geoffrey]

But can you imagine being a Roman? A Sumerian? A Khmer living near Ankor Wat? A Viking living on Greenland? A cro-magnon warring on his neanderthal neighbors? All of these may be humans (we don't exactly have a choice with history) but that becomes a pretty superficial similarity. We can rely on historical accounts and evidence to give us some ideas about what their cultures were like, if sufficiently detailed, but is that significantly different from using a flavor text write-up for demi-humans? I think not.

To a certain extent I can indeed imagine being a human from a different land, time, and/or culture. After all, we're all still human and can use that commonality of humanity to extrapolate from. Our imaginings aren't perfect, but they're good enough for me.

But I can't even begin to imagine not being human. I can't even take the first step.

 

[dcas]

So no one else should be allowed to imagine being a non-human because they are humans too?

In Geoffrey's game, yes. Others are free to do what they want with their own games. Simple as that.

 

[Crothian]

Is playing a monster as a PC a privilege (either granted by the rules or by DM)?

Actually, playing anything in any RPG is a privilege. Players don't have a right to play anything the DM doesn't want them to.