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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 4816692" data-attributes="member: 8863">That was part of Gary's reasoning, at least from what I remember from the "Ask Gary" threads. Also, demihumans had various minor abilities like infravision, ability to examine stonework features, better chances to spot secret doors and so on, as well as multiclassing which made them more attractive to players.Yeah, this is my feeling on the whole level cap stuff.  Humans could advance to any level in any class they wished, but demihumans had level and class limits.  The level limits were stricter in 1e, and I don't know what they were, but in 2e they were extended which made the whole balance concept useless.Here's 2e's limits:Dwarf:Fighter 15Thief 12Cleric 10Elf:Ranger/Wizard 15Fighter/Cleric/Thief 12Gnome:Illusionist 15Thief 13Fighter 11Cleric 9Halfling:Thief 15Fighter 9Cleric 8Half-elf:Bard No limitRanger 16Cleric/Fighter 14Wizard/Thief 12Druid 9Now 2e, didn't have name levels per se because level titles were dropped, but classes still gained followers, and those point's were essentially the equivalent of name level for those classes.  Those levels are:Fighter 9Ranger 10Cleric 8Thief 10So around 9th or 10th level is 2e's equivalent of name level.  Note that the level limits for all the "favored classes" of every demihuman race is well above that limit, and many of the levels are at it or above it.  Worst is the half-elf, which has a name level cap for only the druid, and everything else goes above that, and no limit for bard!  And in addition, half-elves had the best multiclass combos in the game, they could combine almost anything.  So by 2e, the whole level limit concept was useless as balance, since the typical game ended before most of them came into play.  Basically, whatever balance Gary had originally intended had been utterly thrown out at this point, and the multi/dual-class system did not improve things. The only reason to play a human was if you wanted a paladin or one of the other special classes that weren't open to a lot of the demihumans.  The 2e DMG mentions the game balance and human-centric aspects, but generally the level limits were only coming into play with NPCs.  And even that didn't make sense, because if elves are so good with magic, and gnomes with illusions (for example), then why do humans still manage to advance further?</blockquote>

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