If elves could advance in any class with no level restrictions, then there would logically be hordes of super-powerful Elven wizards, warriors, etc. with hundreds of years to perfect their professions versus human's 3-4 score years and these races would then rule the world. The workaround to counter this then were these restrictions so as to provide limits so that not everyone would play only demi-humans in what was designed to be a human-dominated world for the most part.
This is exactly why I consider it to be a design flaw. Instead of a restriction in classes and levels, it would make far more sense for long living races that mature slower to just gain overall experience at a lower pace. Especially since elves below the age of 120 are children, both physically and mentally. As long as elves don't aquire the knowledge to build artificial uteruses to mass produce babies on a daily basis, it just ain't possible for them to overrun races that breed like rabbits (humans).
Needless to say the slower aquiring of experience should vary by the lifespan of all demihumans, not just elves. At the same time, shorter living races should learn things quicker than humans do. Because it makes no sense for half-orcs, who become adults at the age of 12, to do the same stuff as human children at that age. They'll die in their early 50ths anyway, barring unnatural death that is.
Wow, I'm feeling a lot of negativity going at Gygax, The Man Who Made D&D Famous, for one little design flaw in a system that influenced the cultural world of media and information, the nuts and bolts of which remained essentially unchanged at its core until the apostasy known as 4e D&D, but was thankfully reincarnated as 5e (from what I have heard).
I wouldn't say it was a "little" design flaw, given that races and classes are pretty much the most fundamental attributes of a character, they define WHAT you are and what you DO. And the nuts and bolts of race-classes was changed by 3rd edition. I should know, I started with it back in 2002 and consider 3.5 to be the best (although I haven't actually looked at 5th edition yet) because it clarified a lot of ambiguously worded rules in 3.0 and expanded on it more. There were no race restrictions in 3rd, only a "favored class" that tied a race to prefer to be something, while humans could be anything (and I think half-elf, it's been years since I played PnP, actually) because their favored class was any and they basically got to ignore the multi-class penalty.
I've never actually played 2nd edition rules except for Infinity Engine games, though I have some of the rule books, and I find the system to be very self-limiting. Races can only be this, stats can only go up to 25, and other things like that. I've read some 1st edition books when I was with my original DnD group and found that even more limiting, where every non-human had a max level and it was absurdly low.
In 3rd, you could BE anything and there were rules to support it.
I'd never play 2nd, but I do enjoy the novels of that time period in Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms.
No offense intended about the "little" design flaw.
I just meant that if a player wanted to have a dwarf paladin, the DM just had to say, "Sure." I don't think Gygax expected his pencils and papers ideas to be turned into a video game (which didn't exist then) with coded limitations, or even that one day what I call his "house rule" would frustrate people who loved what he invented.
What I meant by nuts and bolts is that they are still, mathematically, almost the same, they just do the calculations a little bit more intuitively in later editions. THAC0 is just reversed armor class for the attacker. Saving throws do math on the opposite end, and have been condensed to 3 types. Spells operate and are defined essentially the same. Combat is mathematically nearly unchanged, with rounds and initiative order and to-hit rolls and damage rolls.
The romance of AD&D 2e was that progression was open ended and non linear. 3e and especially 4e took a lot of that imagination and turned it into rules.
AD&D 2e's biggest advantage, its ambiguity, was also its biggest fault. Like @Quickblade alluded to, there were what appeared to be confusing contradictions that just assumed you knew what was "supposed" to happen, or that you would just figure it out if you didn't. While his allowed for a lot of freedom, it also was the cause of argument around the gaming table between more rulebound players.
3e was great in that it cleared up that confusion. The basic books, however, lacked in the flavorful storytelling that was so resplendent in AD&D 2e and earlier.
Ever thought that, maybe a Gnome didn't want your stupid human class system? Huh?!? I just don't wanna be a wildmage. Shows a lack of control y'know what I mean?
As for being a Paladin... I ain't a din, and I ain't ya pal...
Gnomes have this thing called a fighter and they need no gods help to kick your whiny human ass!
The racial class/level restrictions are explained in the PHB way back when as necessary to avoid the often long-lived demi-humans becoming too powerful versus shorter-lived humans. If elves could advance in any class with no level restrictions, then there would logically be hordes of super-powerful Elven wizards, warriors, etc. with hundreds of years to perfect their professions versus human's 3-4 score years and these races would then rule the world.
This is especially hilarious since you have stuff like Human Mages becoming Liches to live forever, or vampires or using clones or just epic magic.
Thing is, at least in ADnD 2E there already were ancient elven High Mages or Baelnorns as well. Elminster is basically immortal anyway and longer-lived than any elven mage because he is a Chosen of Mystra.
And it turns out that this theory fell flat on its face because we already had... dragons. Ancient Great Wyrms of great power and magic, some of them becoming liches on top, that don't rule the world.
And that's because of adventurers. If you become too powerful, you get noticed, when you get noticed you'll be stopped by either side.
Look at Irenicus. He is powerful and he's old enough to have lots of experience, yet he's stopped, though not easily. If you become strong enough to become a god, then you stop belonging to the mortal world, at least in the Realms.
Especially since elves below the age of 120 are children, both physically and mentally.
Also I am not sure if this was something that was either retconned or omitted in older editions but in 3E, elves actually mature physically like humans. It's when they get to about 120 that they're emotionally mature enough by elven standards to wander out.
Like in the real world, you might be mature enough physically at 15-16 years but society doesn't consider you an adult mentally and emotionally for certain privileges until you're 18 or 21, for example, depending on culture or even state.
Wasn't Drizzt training with swords at the age of sixteen? If they aged physically like humans, that would mean that Drizzt was training with swords when he was a toddler of 1-2 years.
And didn't Salvatore state that drow (and by extension elves) mature physically similarly to humans but mentally much slower in the Dark Elf Trilogy? This became official in 3E in Races of the Wild where it states that clearly.
"Early 1298 DR : Drizzt is born
Early 1314 DR : On 16th birthday, begins training with Zaknafein
Beginning of 1319 DR : After ~5 years of training with Zaknafein, and at age 20, begins Academy training."
By the way, the above is proof that a Bhaalspawn elf character is possible with the same backstory. Just like Drizzt, they wander out while they're still immature mentally but perfectly mature physically.
I like the principle of the 3rd edition with favored classes for races. It allows any race to be anything but with possible penalties on how they gain XP. For exemple a half-orc Bard suffers from lower charisma and intelligence, but he can take a level of Barbarian without penalty.
But those penalties only apply when multiclassing. A half orc could be a single class bard (or barbarian/bard) without penalties (apart from those that are a consequence of low charisma).
@Francois The multiclass penalty in 3E has long been considered a bad and useless rule that serves no real purpose, mechanical or RP.
You could make a Dwarf Barbarian 1 /Druid 1/Cleric 1/Rogue 1/ Wizard 1/Fighter 5/Ranger 1 and get no multiclass penalty. But if you made a Rogue 1/Ranger 5 you would get a penalty.
That doesn't make much sense and it's a pointless rule. Serving only to limit creative builds and backstories.
Drizzt in 3E is a Drow Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian with Wizard as Favored Class. I believe that's a 40% multiclass penalty on all xp. Maybe more.
One has to wander how he even survived since he needs +60% more xp than other characters. Add that Drow Level Adjustment +2.
Many DMs simply don't use the multiclass penalty rule. And it's the same with 2E where many DMs ignored the racial restrictions/level caps. One example are the BG games which ignored that nonsense restriction because no one would play those races and everyone would be a human.
Can you imagine playing an elven mage and stopping at ~12 level while a human mage could go at 30+?
The funny thing is, that in 3E Prestige Classes don't count for the multiclass rule. So you could pile a bunch of great PrCs and get no penalty for the same result of simply being a multiclass.
Another reason why Humans were buffed to always have an advantage with any class (extra Feat and Skill point) was to give people a reason to play a Human from Level 1.
Drizzt in 3E is a Drow Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian with Wizard as Favored Class. I believe that's a 40% multiclass penalty on all xp. Maybe more.
The penalty only applies when you have more than one level difference between classes. Favored classes allows races to incorporate one or a few levels to a mostly pure class. Like a halfling rogue taking 2 levels of ranger for free dual wielding and Track. The same halfling could later add one level of Barbarian to get rage and one level of fighter for extra feats and still have no penalty.
For exemple if Drizzt has similar levels in each class he could start gaining wizard levels without penalty. This makes sense if magic is something that comes easily to elves but not others. I never played 3E in PnP, only in games like Temple of Elemental Evil where the best builds are often a pure class with a few levels of something else. To me it made choosing races and classes very interesting when planning a game.
@Francois Yup, believe me I know how multiclass penalties work. It's still a terrible rule. The multiclass penalty is a relic from older editions that's more of a flavor/RP rule that limits character building/creation for no real reason.
Can you imagine playing an elven mage and stopping at ~12 level while a human mage could go at 30+?
I couldn't imagine playing a campaign to level 30+. TOB is very, very much not normal. most campaign go to around level 14-15, so the difference is not do much. Further, there were optional rules to have demihumans take an XP penalty after the level limits. they are nowhere near the crazy limitations that the 3E fanboys make them out to be... and in many ways they were a lot easier to deal with than 3E XP penalties (because there was no penalty at all for the vast majority of the game).
There are, however, the terrible "XP bonus for high stats" rules in 2nd, to widen the gap between lucky dice rolls and unlucky ones. Hard limits do limit a player how far a character can go, if your limit was 12, but the campaign goes to 15, you find yourself being entirely useless by the campaign's finale.
I'm more familiar with 1st edition than 2nd. Under 1st edition rules, demihumans where capped in all classes apart from Thief. The exact level the cap was set at varied with race and prime stat, but in some cases was as low as level 5. This isn't quite as drastic as it sounds, since the expectation was that most characters would retire at level 9.
The optional rule (which first appeared in Dragon magazine I think) was that demihumans could continue to advance beyond the cap, but would need three times as much XP.
The reason was that Gygax's campaign world, Greyhawk, was overwhelmingly human-dominated, and he wanted party make-up to reflect that. So yes, the intention was to "punish" players for not playing humans.
That means he gets 40% xp because none of his classes are either Wizard or 1 level apart from each other.
So Drizzt has a shitty build. Serves him right for going against his racial imperative of Evil Drow Necromancer. His stupid uncle said he should be a fighter. That doesn't mean the rules are bad. A half Orc with the same classes would only get 20% penalty instead of 40%. If Drizzt was Rgr5/Ft5/Wiz16 he would kick rightous ass without penalty and a half orc would still get penalty. That's the whole purpose of racial favored classes. If someone goes against their racial class they are penalized; that's the whole point.
Every 3.X group I've played with though has ignored the favored class rules. Base multiclassing is already pretty garbage in 3.X, why penalize it even more?
I think some multiclassing combinations can be very powerfull and they give incentive to chose one race or another. I think it gives different advantages to each races without arbitrary limits like in 2nd ed. To me it makes sense. If a race is naturally good at something they could be able to learn it on the side apart from their other learnings. A race that tries to juggle two unfamiliar classes could end up with a learning penalty if they don't balance them well. Ignoring this rule make it easier, but then there's not much difference between races in what they can be. Personnally I would have put un-favored classes as well as favored.
I'm more familiar with 1st edition than 2nd. Under 1st edition rules, demihumans where capped in all classes apart from Thief. The exact level the cap was set at varied with race and prime stat, but in some cases was as low as level 5. This isn't quite as drastic as it sounds, since the expectation was that most characters would retire at level 9.
The optional rule (which first appeared in Dragon magazine I think) was that demihumans could continue to advance beyond the cap, but would need three times as much XP.
The reason was that Gygax's campaign world, Greyhawk, was overwhelmingly human-dominated, and he wanted party make-up to reflect that. So yes, the intention was to "punish" players for not playing humans.
I liked multi-class demi-humans back in the day also, e.g. Halfling fighter/thieves, since thief was unlimited for Halflings but fighter had a lower hard-stop based on the strength score. Multi-class characters could keep developing, although they still split the XP as I recall between the 2 classes even if no longer advancing.
As has been noted, the assumption was that 12+ level characters were the peak of power after years of playing and would not be the norm.
the racial restrictions to specialist mages are hardcoded for some reason, so you cannot lift those restrictions either.
What?? I'm like 98% sure this is moddable. My old mod used to free up these restrictions. Hang on...
Okay, here is the code I used. (I discontinued that mod and folded the wizard components into Tome & Blood, so I haven't tested this since like a year ago. But I'm pretty sure it worked back then...)
I remember I saw a video recently stating that a group of Elves and a Gnome stole the Nether Scrolls from the Netheril human Empire. The Gnome took a scroll and when he read it it granted the whole race advanced access to illusion magics, explaining why in 2e they can only be Illusionists and in future editions they have illusion bonuses or innate spells.
I think that's actually the backstory of Pathfinder's iconic Ranger. If I recall he's either in self-exile or actually exiled and preferred the wilderness to caves and such.
Comments
Needless to say the slower aquiring of experience should vary by the lifespan of all demihumans, not just elves. At the same time, shorter living races should learn things quicker than humans do. Because it makes no sense for half-orcs, who become adults at the age of 12, to do the same stuff as human children at that age. They'll die in their early 50ths anyway, barring unnatural death that is.
I just meant that if a player wanted to have a dwarf paladin, the DM just had to say, "Sure." I don't think Gygax expected his pencils and papers ideas to be turned into a video game (which didn't exist then) with coded limitations, or even that one day what I call his "house rule" would frustrate people who loved what he invented.
What I meant by nuts and bolts is that they are still, mathematically, almost the same, they just do the calculations a little bit more intuitively in later editions. THAC0 is just reversed armor class for the attacker. Saving throws do math on the opposite end, and have been condensed to 3 types. Spells operate and are defined essentially the same. Combat is mathematically nearly unchanged, with rounds and initiative order and to-hit rolls and damage rolls.
All invented by good ol' Gygax and his buddies.
AD&D 2e's biggest advantage, its ambiguity, was also its biggest fault. Like @Quickblade alluded to, there were what appeared to be confusing contradictions that just assumed you knew what was "supposed" to happen, or that you would just figure it out if you didn't. While his allowed for a lot of freedom, it also was the cause of argument around the gaming table between more rulebound players.
3e was great in that it cleared up that confusion. The basic books, however, lacked in the flavorful storytelling that was so resplendent in AD&D 2e and earlier.
As for being a Paladin... I ain't a din, and I ain't ya pal...
Gnomes have this thing called a fighter and they need no gods help to kick your whiny human ass!
Thing is, at least in ADnD 2E there already were ancient elven High Mages or Baelnorns as well.
Elminster is basically immortal anyway and longer-lived than any elven mage because he is a Chosen of Mystra.
And it turns out that this theory fell flat on its face because we already had... dragons.
Ancient Great Wyrms of great power and magic, some of them becoming liches on top, that don't rule the world.
And that's because of adventurers. If you become too powerful, you get noticed, when you get noticed you'll be stopped by either side.
Look at Irenicus. He is powerful and he's old enough to have lots of experience, yet he's stopped, though not easily.
If you become strong enough to become a god, then you stop belonging to the mortal world, at least in the Realms. Also I am not sure if this was something that was either retconned or omitted in older editions but in 3E, elves actually mature physically like humans.
It's when they get to about 120 that they're emotionally mature enough by elven standards to wander out.
Like in the real world, you might be mature enough physically at 15-16 years but society doesn't consider you an adult mentally and emotionally for certain privileges until you're 18 or 21, for example, depending on culture or even state.
Wasn't Drizzt training with swords at the age of sixteen?
If they aged physically like humans, that would mean that Drizzt was training with swords when he was a toddler of 1-2 years.
And didn't Salvatore state that drow (and by extension elves) mature physically similarly to humans but mentally much slower in the Dark Elf Trilogy?
This became official in 3E in Races of the Wild where it states that clearly.
"Early 1298 DR : Drizzt is born
Early 1314 DR : On 16th birthday, begins training with Zaknafein
Beginning of 1319 DR : After ~5 years of training with Zaknafein, and at age 20, begins Academy training."
By the way, the above is proof that a Bhaalspawn elf character is possible with the same backstory.
Just like Drizzt, they wander out while they're still immature mentally but perfectly mature physically.
The multiclass penalty in 3E has long been considered a bad and useless rule that serves no real purpose, mechanical or RP.
You could make a Dwarf Barbarian 1 /Druid 1/Cleric 1/Rogue 1/ Wizard 1/Fighter 5/Ranger 1 and get no multiclass penalty.
But if you made a Rogue 1/Ranger 5 you would get a penalty.
That doesn't make much sense and it's a pointless rule. Serving only to limit creative builds and backstories.
Drizzt in 3E is a Drow Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian with Wizard as Favored Class.
I believe that's a 40% multiclass penalty on all xp. Maybe more.
One has to wander how he even survived since he needs +60% more xp than other characters.
Add that Drow Level Adjustment +2.
Many DMs simply don't use the multiclass penalty rule.
And it's the same with 2E where many DMs ignored the racial restrictions/level caps.
One example are the BG games which ignored that nonsense restriction because no one would play those races and everyone would be a human.
Can you imagine playing an elven mage and stopping at ~12 level while a human mage could go at 30+?
The funny thing is, that in 3E Prestige Classes don't count for the multiclass rule.
So you could pile a bunch of great PrCs and get no penalty for the same result of simply being a multiclass.
Another reason why Humans were buffed to always have an advantage with any class (extra Feat and Skill point) was to give people a reason to play a Human from Level 1.
For exemple if Drizzt has similar levels in each class he could start gaining wizard levels without penalty. This makes sense if magic is something that comes easily to elves but not others. I never played 3E in PnP, only in games like Temple of Elemental Evil where the best builds are often a pure class with a few levels of something else. To me it made choosing races and classes very interesting when planning a game.
Yup, believe me I know how multiclass penalties work.
The multiclass penalty is a relic from older editions that's more of a flavor/RP rule that limits character building/creation for no real reason.
Drizzt favored class is Wizard, because he's a male drow as @JumboWheat01 said.
His levels are Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian.
These are his exact 3E stats officially: https://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=fr/fx20010117d
That means he gets 40% xp because none of his classes are either Wizard or 1 level apart from each other.
It should be also noted that his ability scores are taken directly from 2E (or even 1E) without converting them to 3E values.
But then 5e came along and was truly a godsend~!
Were nonhuman races better at lvls 13+? If not they just seems to punish you for not being human.
The optional rule (which first appeared in Dragon magazine I think) was that demihumans could continue to advance beyond the cap, but would need three times as much XP.
The reason was that Gygax's campaign world, Greyhawk, was overwhelmingly human-dominated, and he wanted party make-up to reflect that. So yes, the intention was to "punish" players for not playing humans.
Every 3.X group I've played with though has ignored the favored class rules. Base multiclassing is already pretty garbage in 3.X, why penalize it even more?
As has been noted, the assumption was that 12+ level characters were the peak of power after years of playing and would not be the norm.
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Think about it. If a dwarf said he wanted to become an archer, his friends would tease him mercilessly.