What was the reason for Demihuman level and class limits in AD&D?

[Ariosto]

What? Can't humans be those classes? Doesn't stopping assassins at 15th level defeat the "humans can advance infinitely in their chosen class" concept of game balance?

And why DID assassins, monks, and druids cap at 15/17/14, but illusionist, paladin, and ranger NOT cap? (I can see fighter, cleric, magic-user, & thief, but why some sub-classes and not others?)

Same reason as with non-humans! Ditto (pre-UA) ability-score requirements: a prejudice against proliferation, extreme at exceptionally high levels.

Lift the caps if you like. The Great Druid and Grandfather of Assassins require (besides the trial by combat) only 1,500,001 XP -- the same as a 14th-level fighter or magic-user. Unearthed Arcana takes druids up to 23rd level (Hierophant of the Cabal) via something sort of like the bardic colleges. For assassins, one might try +500,000 XP per level, a 16th HD (Hidden Imam?) and +2 HP per level thereafter. Higher levels of monk could also be +500,000 XP for +2 HP. (These are just off the cuff.) Good luck rolling a bard in the first place; I think 23rd (on top of the fighter and thief levels) is plenty!

 

[Piratecat]

This is incorrect. Gygax said directly, on this board, that reaching name level should take about one year (52 weekly game sessions).

Bullgrit

Really? Weird. I thought I remembered an editorial of his way back when where he said something different; it's possible he changed his mind, or I'm misremembering.

 

[Ariosto]

Really? Weird. I thought I remembered an editorial of his way back when where he said something different; it's possible he changed his mind, or I'm misremembering.

It is reasonable to calculate that if a fair player takes part in 50 to 75 games in the course of a year he should acquire sufficient experience points to make him about 9th to 11th level, assuming that he manages to survive all that play.

I assume that it is actually the character's survival in question; player mortality in "old school" games has been greatly exaggerated.

 

[Glyfair]

Really? Weird. I thought I remembered an editorial of his way back when where he said something different; it's possible he changed his mind, or I'm misremembering.

It wouldn't be surprising. Gygax certainly has both changed his mind, and just changed his statements (because the original statement was in his official TSR position).

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Really? Weird. I thought I remembered an editorial of his way back when where he said something different; it's possible he changed his mind, or I'm misremembering.

This is what I based my statement on. Its entirely possible that I misremembered, but I suspect that he changed his mind. As someone else pointed out, he's certainly done that on more than one occasion!

 

[Bullgrit]

Really? Weird. I thought I remembered an editorial of his way back when where he said something different; it's possible he changed his mind, or I'm misremembering.

For what it's worth:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-108.html#post2766231

The number of XPs given to rise a level was initially intuitive, later on based on th play of my campaign group. I think that 52 sessions to reach 10th level is about right if the time per session is about four hours. Longner sessions would reduce the number accordingly.

* * *

The ironic thing with demi-human level limits, in my experience, is I never saw anyone reach a limit through play from low levels. PCs died before reaching higher levels.

Although, one time I did tell the Players I was going to start a campaign off at higher level, and I gave them the xp number (putting a single-class character at about 11th level). They all (6) chose to play elves. All the PCs started the campaign at their class maximums (some single classed, some multi classed). The campaign lasted only around 5 game sessions, so again level limits didn't come into play.

Bullgrit

 

[Bullgrit]

And: http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/239789-lets-read-entire-run-2.html#post4451449

An essay by Gygax on what constitutes successful gamemastering. As expected it is quite oriented towards competitive play, chastising GM's who let their players advance level too quickly, and encouraging strict enforcement of timekeeping rules. We also get our first estimation of proper advancement time. According to Gary, it should take about a year of weekly gaming to get to name level, and then characters should gain around 2-3 levels a year after that, so overall, getting to 20th level should take around 4-5 years.

Bullgrit

 

[Ariosto]

But

As BLACKMOOR is the only campaign with a life of five years, and GREYHAWK with a life of four is the second longest running campaign, the most able adventurers should not yet have attained 20th level except in the two named campaigns. To my certain knowledge, no player in either BLACKMOOR or GREYHAWK has risen above 14th level.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Ariosto's posted quote, above, is what I remember!

 

[MerricB]

Ariosto's posted quote, above, is what I remember!

There's no contradiction: "Name" (8 or 9th) level should take about a year (or slightly more than that; say 40-60 sessions) to achieve. The levels above that come at a crawl: 2-3 levels per year, according to Gygax's early writing.

For a five-year campaign, that gives:
The first year to reach 9th level.
The following four years to reach 21st level (3 levels/year).

So, it's possible to reach 20th level in Blackmoor/Greyhawk... although no-one had done so when Gary wrote that article.

The demi-human limits are built very heavily around an assumed retirement level for PCs - once Name level is reached, your PC is probably more concerned with territory building than normal adventuring. Thus, in a campaign that ends at about 10th level, having a elf fighter 5/magic-user 8 isn't really far off the pace.

Of course, these limits were also imposed in the very early days of the game, before Gary really got to see how long certain PCs would be active. When you have the high-level magic-users that later appeared, that elf is looking a lot less interesting.

Thus it was - and I don't really know how much Gary had to do with it, but I assume at least some - the levels were increased in Unearthed Arcana for high ability scores, and then, a little later, they were much increased in 2nd edition by the new team.

Unfortunately, the 2nd edition increases totally ignored how the XP charts work and the effect of "Name" level. Territory development had basically gone from the game by that time, but the plateau effect of the Name levels meant that while an multiclass character wasn't far behind the curve in AD&D for the levels they were active (a fighter/magic-user could expect to be only one or two levels behind a single-class character), by the time the 2e F/MU was wandering about at levels 10+, they were slipping behind more and more and more!

Not so much of a problem with the fighter-types, but a huge problem for the magic-using types.

Cheers!