What is wrong with race class limits?

[tx7321]

Mol, I'm limiting my comments to The Hobbit and LOTR. The other examples I don't know much about (nor any of the Gandalf is an angel stuff).

Anyhow, Tolkein was only one example. Many fairy tales have the hero being human who has to ultimately be the one to slay the dragon etc. to rescue the princess (I just watched LEGEND a few weeks ago, Jack is a human hero). Same with other fantasy novels and stories. In these stories there are other ancient magical creatures about, but ultimately a human saves the day. One could argue most if not all fairy tales are human centric. And one could also argue that D&D is based on the same elements of fair tales, but with the added benefit of "writing it" as you play. The logic of an AD&D world where there are no level limits is one where old age never slows the elf warrior or magician (or at least not for a very long time). Kinda hard to have a human centric 1E world with the majority of high level wizards and fighters being elf. Hence the level limits. And as a PC who wouldn't choose an elf over a human (assuming you could reach your maximum years).

 

[molonel]

Mol, I'm limiting my comments to The Hobbit and LOTR.

Meaning what? Tolkien's mythology was fairly consistent in regards to the descent in power of the various races. There are references throughout the trilogy to this. The 4th age of the sun was the age of men. It was proceeded by the ages where the elves ruled and fought against Morgoth, and perhaps followed by ages where other races would rule. Humans were not the big league heavy hitters in previous ages.

And, in fact, the true heroes of the trilogy are not the heroes of elves, or men, but hobbits.

It is to them that the kings of elves and men bow at the end of the trilogy: the least of all races. They succeeded where both elves and men failed.

The other examples I don't know much about (nor any of the Gandalf is an angel stuff).

Maiar, actually. His name was Olórin in Valinor. He was the same sort of creature as the balrog, although the balrogs were the spirits of fire who chose to serve Morgoth.

Anyhow, Tolkein was only one example. Many fairy tales have the hero being human who has to ultimately be the one to slay the dragon etc. to rescue the princess (I just watched LEGEND a few weeks ago, Jack is a human hero). Same with other fantasy novels and stories. In these stories there are other ancient magical creatures about, but ultimately a human saves the day. One could argue most if not all fairy tales are human centric. And one could also argue that D&D is based on the same elements of fair tales, but with the added benefit of "writing it" as you play. The logic of an AD&D world where there are no level limits is one where old age never slows the elf warrior or magician (or at least not for a very long time). Kinda hard to have a human centric 1E world with the majority of high level wizards and fighters being elf. Hence the level limits. And as a PC who wouldn't choose an elf over a human (assuming you could reach your maximum years).

There can be any number of reasons besides simply enforcing arbitrary level caps, if you want to play a human-centric world. The will of the gods, or biological reasons like fertility levels or simply a lack of females (say, among the dwarves). My particular multiverse is peopled by all sorts of races on all sorts of planes, and I can run an adventure on any of those.

I hate to state the obvious, here, but humans are the heroes in many human stories because, well, those stories were WRITTEN by humans. That doesn't mean the game has to follow that route, nor that games which do are superior to games that don't.

I really couldn't care less what Gygax envisioned the game to run, because, in his own words, he is not the final arbiter of my game. I am. And I'd rather the rules reflected that.

 

[tx7321]

I believe there was something about level limits reflecting a lack of disipline or focus, or greater interets in other things (like gold for dwarves and poetry and song for elves) as longer lived races were more destracted by other things. Another thing to remember is that elves and demihumans in general are naturally "magical" (dwarves even have magical like abilities such as infravision, etc. This natural ability likely gives them an advantage so that they might not feel the need to develop typical class based skills.

 

[RFisher]

A. Most classes stop gaining HD and special abilities. Spellcasters became increasingly godlike, while Joe Fighter or Bob Theif are more or less stuck with gaining +2-3 HPs for every half a million XP they managed to scrape together.

Nolo contendere.

B. When you can already kill practically everything, and your character stops advancing in any meaningful way...why not just start over? You've already "won" the game, really.

The game is about more than just killing things. Otherwise, I'd just play AdventureQuest & not bother having to interact with other people. (^_^) PCs can have meaningful goals other than improving the numbers on their character record sheet.