[AD&D] Changes to Humans for level-limit free game

[LibraryOgre]

So, I was thinking on the drive home, as I'm planning on starting a 2e game this fall, to replace the Vampire game which is sucking. I was playing with a few things in my head, and struck upon an idea: In a game without level limits, one of the human benefits should be a +1 to Charisma (with no opposing penalty).

Humans: the race that can get along with anybody. Orcs? Some humans trade with, or even mate with, them. Elves? No problem. Dwarves? Often get along. Halflings? We'll build tables that will fit 'em. Humans found and join societies with relative ease; one of our defining traits, when compared against other races, is our relative freedom of social organization. Three of humans "signature classes" require Charisma... druids, paladins, and bards. It also explains why they find most races a touch standoffish... compared to humans, they don't have charisma.

Now, I'm also thinking of adding 2 proficiency slots (weapon or non-weapon, to be spent as normal for the class), but I thought the +1 to Charisma fit really well with humans.

[SimperingToad]

I prefer to just assign experience penalties to demi-humans. Such as 10% base +5% per racial ability (or more if the ability is a biggie). Result is that demi-humans advance more slowly, and at different rates due to the number of extra abilities some have over others.

Logic? Characters gain no experience in a class due to use of a racial ability. Not directly at any rate. They are similar to magic items or spells in that they are tools the class may use, but they are not functions of the class itself.

I find it simple anyway... :smallbiggrin:

[Zombimode]

Well, you have to ask yourself: is this necessary? What do you want to achieve with such a change?

Players who like to play humans, will do so, and players who dont, wont. Its easy as that.
I play a AD&D variantion for 5 1/2 years now. We never bothered with level caps. My groups are always at least 50% human.
I'll tell you what: I even suggested a "balance change" to the human race, but my players opposed me: "Nah, we like human as they are; dont change them!" :smallwink:

[Lapak]

I prefer to just assign experience penalties to demi-humans. Such as 10% base +5% per racial ability (or more if the ability is a biggie). Result is that demi-humans advance more slowly, and at different rates due to the number of extra abilities some have over others.

Logic? Characters gain no experience in a class due to use of a racial ability. Not directly at any rate. They are similar to magic items or spells in that they are tools the class may use, but they are not functions of the class itself.

I find it simple anyway... :smallbiggrin:People respond better to rewards than they do to penalties; if you're going down this road I'd just give humans a flat +5% and leave it at that.

[Sophismata]

Wow, odd. I never had a problem with level caps in AD&D.

As others have said, you probably don't need to institute rebalancing without them. If you do, a (small) flat bonus to human exp is better than a demihuman penalty.

[Draz74]

... does anyone in 2e have a use for Charisma anyway? :smallamused:

[Zombimode]

Well, a Paladin needs 17, and a Druid needs 15. With one bonuspoint its easier to be those classes.
Besides that, if you play with Reaction or the DM frequently uses charisma checks in social encounters, a high charisma can be invaluable.
If not, well yeah, than its a dumpstat.

In my AD&D version, I've added some quite usefull skills based on charisma, including one that gives you some sort of power points :)

[Zaydos]

... does anyone in 2e have a use for Charisma anyway?

Depends does the DM actually use the reaction tables in the book to determine how much NPCs like the party, and/or use the henchmen rules built in? Both of those play off Charisma and could be useful, but when I played it was role-playing that decided how much someone liked you and we never got high enough level to recruit henchmen. So can't say I've ever seen it used... is it bad that I still don't like the idea of dumping Charisma, I mean I'm supposed to be the grand arch-mage who without even casting a single spell can reduce whole armies to trembling terror. Oh and paladins that 17 minimum Charisma can be hard to obtain.

Edit: Ninja'ed

[crimson77]

I never really understood the level caps in 2e in the first place for demi-human races. It seems kind of dumb that they, on average, live longer than humans but cannot advance in as many classes.

I played for years without level caps or xp reductions for demi-human races without much of a problem. The races themselves (with a few exceptions from other books) are quite balanced. But you have to remember that balance is not the name of the game in 2e, it was about making choices. Will i be powerful now and boring later or will i be weak no and powerful later? If you are worried about balancing things then be careful with kits.

Just my two cp or in the case of 2e my two ep.

[Draz74]

Depends does the DM actually use the reaction tables in the book to determine how much NPCs like the party, and/or use the henchmen rules built in? Both of those play off Charisma and could be useful, but when I played it was role-playing that decided how much someone liked you and we never got high enough level to recruit henchmen. So can't say I've ever seen it used...

Yeah, I know it had some marginal uses. I was being snarky. Plus, if "roleplaying NPCs as liking you better" is the main effect of Charisma, then do humans really need a +1 Cha boost, or can you just roleplay NPCs as liking humans better?

[Matthew]

I slap an experience penalty on the demi-humans; of course, it is already an integrated part of their experience progression table, so it does not particularly feel like a penalty. In any case, I am opposed to making it easier for humans to advance by level than it already is [i.e. changing the standard].



Yeah, I know it had some marginal uses. I was being snarky. Plus, if "roleplaying NPCs as liking you better" is the main effect of Charisma, then do humans really need a +1 Cha boost, or can you just roleplay NPCs as liking humans better?

Henchmen are anything but a marginal use of charisma.

[KiltedGrappler]

I've also never used level limits and my players still predominently play humans. In my current campaign we have two elves, a halfling, and four humans. As far as my group goes, it always just comes down to the character the player feels like playing, not numerical bonuses.

[hamlet]

Giving humans an extra couple proficiency slots is a big boost, IMO, and doesn't really need to be improved upon.

Another possibility I've seen is to allow humans, due to a wider gene pool, to roll seven abilities and choose to swap out the seventh for any lower score.

Charisma is hardly "marginal" in 2nd edition.

[Zombimode]

I've also never used level limits and my players still predominently play humans. In my current campaign we have two elves, a halfling, and four humans. As far as my group goes, it always just comes down to the character the player feels like playing, not numerical bonuses.

Exactly. Besides, non-humans arent that much better then humans, especially not universal. Yes, an elven warrior who fights with longswords and bows is slightly better then a similar human. Yes, halflings and elves make better thieves then humans. But an elven mage has nothing over a human mage, clerics of all races (excluding gnomes, who even get a Wis penalty) are pretty much the same, and so on.
Why shafting them with a XP penalty?

[potatocubed]

I never really understood the level caps in 2e in the first place for demi-human races. It seems kind of dumb that they, on average, live longer than humans but cannot advance in as many classes.

It's kind of an odd blend of game mechanics and in-game logic, which runs something like this:

In The Game World
1. Living longer means more time to accumulate power.
2. Demihumans live longer than humans.
3. Therefore, on the whole, demihumans will be more powerful than humans.

This raises the question: Why aren't demihumans in charge of everything, all the time? Even if a human manages to level up to a point where he's a threat, they can just wait a few decades for him to die of old age.

(You can also add a bit here about multiclass demihumans being flat-out better than single-class humans.)

The answer is...

In The Game Rules

...demihumans have an arbitrary and absolute cap on their abilities. It doesn't matter than Elfy McElfpants the elf wizard is thousands of years old. He's still stuck at level 12 (or whatever it is) and that's why he isn't single-handedly ruling the world.

I think this is dumb. YMMV.

The Answer to the Original Question
You don't need to make any changes to humans in a level-limit free game. The level limit exists to explain why demihumans don't rule the world. You can come up with another explanation, gloss over the tricky question, or just say that the PCs are special cases.

[Zombimode]

The Answer to the Original Question
You don't need to make any changes to humans in a level-limit free game. The level limit exists to explain why demihumans don't rule the world. You can come up with another explanation, gloss over the tricky question, or just say that the PCs are special cases.

Yeah I hear that often, but it never starts to make sense to me.
The personal power and expertise of few individuals says nothing about the succes of a tribe, realm or race.
Numbers, organisation, the average knowledge and skill are far more important, plus a lot of factors I have not listed.

[Random832]

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/demihumanlevellimits.html is worth reading for everyone in this thread.

tl;dr: Humans get the short end of the stick, and level limits were a crappy attempt to make up for it. So, yes, you should give humans something nice.

[Matthew]

Sean K. Reynalds is not somebody I would go looking to for advice about AD&D.

[Asema]

I just give humans a flat 10% bonus to experience gained, that stacks with a high primary attribute.

[LibraryOgre]

Exactly. Besides, non-humans arent that much better then humans, especially not universal. Yes, an elven warrior who fights with longswords and bows is slightly better then a similar human. Yes, halflings and elves make better thieves then humans. But an elven mage has nothing over a human mage, clerics of all races (excluding gnomes, who even get a Wis penalty) are pretty much the same, and so on.

Not quite. For one thing, there's the ability to see in the dark... in our Pathfinder game, it's why my bard (hobgoblin) is doing the scouting, not our rogue (halfling)... he's got a better Stealth mod, but I can see in the dark.

There's also the ability to sneak, which means your wizard can do the scouting, or go with the thief to make an early strike (or get in a good position).

And, of course, there's also the ability to multiclass (which makes a big difference in AD&D's experience system, especially if starting above 1st level), which means that even someone who thinks of themselves primarily as a wizard can make use of his other benefits.


Sean K. Reynalds is not somebody I would go looking to for advice about AD&D.

The only person whose opinion I trust less than Sean is Skip Williams, "The Sage".

As for why I feel I need to include these, it has to do with my philosophy of game design, which rejects the idea that humans are the standard race against which everything else should be judged, themselves gaining neither bonus nor penalty. In many ways, I see that as a very anti-human viewpoint.

[Douglas]

In The Game Rules

...demihumans have an arbitrary and absolute cap on their abilities. It doesn't matter than Elfy McElfpants the elf wizard is thousands of years old. He's still stuck at level 12 (or whatever it is) and that's why he isn't single-handedly ruling the world.

I think this is dumb. YMMV.
Yeah, I remember reading that years ago and immediately thinking it was an unnecessary kludge. Sure, all the demihuman races live longer than humans, but they also breed slower and are therefore less numerous. A typical elven hero may be more powerful than a typical human hero, but is he more powerful than a dozen typical human heroes working together? It's quality vs quantity, and I don't think the power difference for the high end of the level scale was really that big in AD&D 2e, though I freely admit I barely got to play the game at all so I don't have much experience with it.

[John Campbell]

I've played AD&D for roughly 25 years. In that time, I've seen maybe three PCs for whom the level limit (or its lack) had any effect at all. The progression was so much slower in AD&D that it was rare for characters to ascend to the heights of power at which it came into effect.

I tended to play demi-humans - elves and half-elves in particular - a lot; much more than I would have if all else had been equal. My usual reason wasn't that the demi-human races themselves were intrinsically more powerful; it was that they could multi-class and humans couldn't, and I don't like playing single-classed characters. (I don't like class/level systems at all, really, but my choices have often been D&D or nothing.) I don't like playing elves, either, but given a choice between a single-classed human and a multi-classed elf, I'd often choose the elf. This is one of the few things I prefer about 3.x... they got rid of multi-classing, but they loosened up the restrictions on dual-classing enough that it almost sorta kinda works, and it's equally available to humans and demi-humans, and they got rid of all of the class/race restrictions.

Anyway, I'd be tempted to balance the removal of the level caps by tossing dual-classing out of the game - it's never worked right anyway - and making multi-classing available to humans, allowing them any of the combinations that any other race can do (except maybe the gnomish illusionist combos). If you get rid of the "if you want to play a fighter/mage, you must be an elf or half-elf", I suspect you'll see a lot fewer keeblers in the game...

[Matthew]

As for why I feel I need to include these, it has to do with my philosophy of game design, which rejects the idea that humans are the standard race against which everything else should be judged, themselves gaining neither bonus nor penalty. In many ways, I see that as a very anti-human viewpoint.

Right you are. Yeah, I reckon if that is the case, then extra abilities are a reasonable way to go about it. I seem to remember a few possibilities listed in Skills & Powers.

[JadedDM]

I once had a player complain about level limits in my game, so I just removed them without any counter-balance. It never affected my game, since we never get past level 8 anyway.

The parties in my game tend to be all human save one, maybe two members, anyway. They just like humans, I guess.