From: heath@anchor.as.utexas.edu (James Heath)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: Why are their level limits?
Date: 27 Aug 92 22:13:20 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <MGATES.92Aug25142122@entiat.boeing.com> mgates@entiat.boeing.com (Michael Gates) writes:
>>>>>> On 24 Aug 92 19:24:41 GMT, gajensen@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu said:
>
>gajensen> (kevin mcfadden) writes:
>> 	Ok, this may be a faq but it has been a nagging problem.  What
>> justifies the limiting of levels and classes of non human race
>> characters?  Certainly not their racial benefits.  The way I see it

	Certainly Yes, IMHO.

>gajensen> advance as high as they want, no-one in their right mind
>gajensen> would ever play a human. Think of it, Dwarf Paladin, immune

	A-men.  Except purely for role-playing, like if you really wanted
to play a desert dweller (I guess you could come up with sand elves) or a
seafarer.

>abuses of power. If a character is particularly strong then they will be
>particularly challenged. If a character makes no sense in my campaign I

	Fine if you're playing one on one.  But if the power levels within
a group are unbalanced, you may have to tailor your game to challenge the
most powerful character, which is hell for the others.  Similarly, if you
pitch to the less powerful ones, the mega-dude(s) will dominate.  There
must be balance in a party.  And demi-humans disrupt that balance.

	Example:	Elven fighter with	high STR, DX and INT
						virtual immunity to charm
						  (a bane to fighters)
						+1 to hit with a weapon, which
						  s/he will certainly spec. in
						secret door detection
						stealth
						low CON is ONLY minus!

	This character actually exists:  a wood elven fighter named simply
		The Dealer.  Factor in a player with incredible dice
		karma and you've got a machine.  If Todd weren't such a 
		wunnerful roleplayer, I'd ask him to get a new character.

	Dwarven Cleric:  virtually immune to poison!

	Don't even talk to me about Deep Gnomes or Drow...


	YET, I despise class level limits.  My reason:  why are there elves
left, if the Elf King is a 9th Level fighter.  A bunch of evil 15th-20th
level badguys unite to exterminate the elven race.  They take down the
leaders while their armies keep the elves busy.  How do elves get access to
high-powered magic to make magic items?
	On the other side of the coin, there must be some kind of limitation,
or elves would rule all.  The Elf Queen has A THOUSAND YEARS to study magic.
PC's take what, 10 years game time to reach 10th level?  SHE must be a 100th
level mage!  Her champion has been slaying elvish enemies for many CENTURIES,
so he must be a 40th level fighter at least.  In the centuries since the
Race Wars, the Drow have been growing in power.  The High Priestess of Lolth
must be higher level than the Spider Chick Herself!  It's ridiculous!

	My solution?  Since the demi-human races live longer than humans, their
minds work more slowly;  they "take the long view".  A bad side of this is 
that they learn more slowly than humans.  In game terms, this means that it
takes demi-humans more xp to move up than humans.  My algorithm to adjust the
basic tables in the PH2 is below:


	program calcxp
c
c	Program to compute xp tables for demi-human races
c
	character class*7
	integer xp(4,4,20)
	dimension class(4)
c
c	The first index of xp is class (F,C,M,R);  the second is category of
c	demihuman, and the third is level.
c
10	format(23hEXPERIENCE LEVEL TABLES)
15	format(a7,18x,13hRACE CATEGORY)
20	format(5hLEVEL,7x,1hI,10x,2hII,9x,3hIII,10x,2hIV)
25	format(i3,10i,10i,10i,10i)
30	format(10hCategories:)
35	format(5x,21hI - humans, half-orcs)
40	format(5x,26hII - halflings, half-elves)
45	format(5x,39hIII - dwarves, gnomes, most other races)
50	format(5x,23hIV - elves, deep gnomes)
	open (1, file='basexp')
	rewind 1
	open (2, file='newxp')
	rewind 2
c
c	Read in base values, and multiply by relevant factors
c	
	read (1,*) class(1), class(2), class(3), class(4)
	do 200 k=1,20
		read (1,*) xp(1,1,k), xp(2,1,k), xp(3,1,k), xp(4,1,k)
		do 100 i=1,4
			if (k.le.10) then
				xp(i,2,k) = aint(1.25*xp(i,1,k))
				xp(i,3,k) = aint(1.5*xp(i,1,k))
				xp(i,4,k) = aint(1.75*xp(i,1,k))
			else
				xp(i,2,k) = aint(1.1*xp(i,1,k))
				xp(i,3,k) = aint(1.2*xp(i,1,k))
				xp(i,4,k) = aint(1.3*xp(i,1,k))
			endif
100		continue
200	continue
c
c	Write to output file
c
	write(2,10)
	write(2,*)
	do 400 i=1,4 
		write(2,15) class(i)
		write(2,20)
		do 300 k=1,20
			write(2,25) k,xp(i,1,k),xp(i,2,k),xp(i,3,k),xp(i,4,k)
300		continue
		write(2,*)
		write(2,*)
400	continue
	write(2,*)
	write(2,30)
	write(2,35)
	write(2,40)
	write(2,45)
	write(2,50)
	stop
	end

	This program generally leaves demi-humans about one or two levels 
behind the humans, but that's OK by me.  And my players haven't quit playing
Demi-humans because of it.  They just piss and moan a lot...

	Comments, critiques welcome (comments of "It sucks" to dev/null)

							Later,
							JIM

Jim Heath, the Undead DM from Hell
					heath@astro.as.utexas.edu

	
	
	
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