non-humans level restrictions

Fysh

One of the advantages of being human is that they are ambitious and have no level restrictions. I assume then that the other races face level restrictions? Probably they are so high that they are irrelevant for BG1 & BG2, but I am just interested to know what they are...

CaptRory

The experience caps are applied universally. That bit didn't get carried over to BG.

Fysh

Yes, but I mean in 'real' D&D how high can they go?

atcDave

In "real" (PNP) AD&D the level limits can be pretty low. Anywhere from 6th to 15th level or so depending on race and class. If they'd been applied to BG, some would have mattered in the first game, they all would have mattered by the end ToB.

franco

@atcDave. That used to really bother me in AD&D, that the level limits for non-humans tend to be restricted. So it discouraged me from playing them.

Now that would have been an interesting way to give importance to the INT ability. Have it help determine how high a level a non-human character could go before being restricted. The attribute Wisdom (Will) could also be involved. Fun.

atcDave

franco said:

@atcDave. That used to really bother me in AD&D, that the level limits for non-humans tend to be restricted. So it discouraged me from playing them.

Now that would have been an interesting way to give importance to the INT ability. Have it help determine how high a level a non-human character could go before being restricted. The attribute Wisdom (Will) could also be involved. Fun.

In Unearthed Arcana (1E) they added the idea that having good prime requisites could let you go a level or two above the normal limits. And I think single class characters could go over (maybe 2?) also. So if say your Half-Elven fighter was normally capped at 7 (? its been a while. I don't recall right off exactly what it was); good scores and being single class might let you get to 11.
There was also an optional rule that once you reached the "cap" that maybe it just meant your experince was halved or quartered or something and you didn't completely stop.

But as I said, much of this was Unearthed Arcana. I don't remember exactly what was official for 2E. In my own game, and most of those I played in, alternate rules were in place by the time 2E came along. What I did, was applied a penalty to certain classes/race combinations. So I had no actual "cap" at all; but if say you were playing a halfling, there would be no penalty at all for a thief, while a fighter or cleric might have a 25% penalty to all experience earned, and a mage maybe 50%. Then a Halfling Fighter/Thief would only apply the penalty to the fighter side. Made for some interesting characters and choices.

Another thing to remember about PnP, in different games you might progress at a different rate. So one DM might tell you he considered 15th level to be "high". While another might tell you "no one ever will get above 7th level in this game." If you know going in, that the DM is going to be very stingy with experience, there might be no harm at all from the level limits.

ZanathKariashi

Considering you can beat BG2 in it's entirety, without going above the TotSC level cap.....Demi-human caps wouldn't hurt ANYTHING....


One Idea I proposed was giving unlimited advancement for single classes, but capped advancement for multi-classes to make the choice a bit harder.

Official 2nd was that single class demi-humans with high prime requisites would go beyond their normal maximum by up to +3 levels, depending on the stats in question (+3 required 18+). Except for Half-elf bards, who had unlimited advancement. (Half elves also had most of their classes fall between 16-12...Ranger being 16, and the lowest being Druid at 12, except bards which had unlimited advancement)

Most races got 1 class that was around 15 (Thief- Halfling, Mage -Gnome/Elf, Fighter- Dwarf, Half-orcs), and others around 10-12, depending on how many classes they got (Half orcs capped at 4...FOUR..in cleric, while they got up to 9 thief (but then again, the playable Monsterous Humanoid rules sucked ass...so what do you expect)).

Klorox

Level limits sucked so hard in PnP AD&D.

In 1e, I think everybody was unlimited in thief levels though.

It was so rare for any of my groups to ever reach above level 10, but the specter of level limits stopped me from ever playing Demi-humans.

mlnevese

Those limits were created in PnP to justify why the world was not ruled by level 200 elven wizards... after all they lived for a long time.

mister_ennui

The limits also reflect the vision that Gary Gygax had of the game. He says in the 1E Dungeon Masters Guide:

"ADVANCED D&D is unquestionably "humanocentric", with demi-humans, semi-humans, and humanoids in various orbits around the sun of humanity."