If we play by AD&D 1e rules, non-humans are significantly limited as to class choice, and even then have maximum levels of those classes. I personally have no problem with the limitations whatsoever, but I know that other people do. It wouldn't phase me a bit if we played with those old-school limitations, but on the other hand, from our experience with D&D 3e, I know that the world doesn't come to an end if we allow all races to play all classes and to not use the level limits.
If that were the case, I would think that we'd have to allow humans to multi-class just like non-humans. We'd also have to give some power to humans to compensate for their loss of level exclusivity. Maybe something like humans get 1 free re-roll per game session (generally, I'm trying to keep "benny" style re-rolls to a minimum).
I guess I'd have to make up a new set of multi-class guidelines too, if we opened up classes and levels freely.
I know in one 2e campaign I played in, we used the 1e level limits and multiclass combinations for non-human characters, but once they reached their limits, they had to earn double the required experience points for each level beyond that. I'm afraid I can't recall many details about how well it worked, other than basically we had a lot of single-classed people (other than my elf fighter/mage/thief) and it ended well before we got even close to any limits. I can't entirely endorse this, but we thought the DM made a good argument for it.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be opposed to any race any class (though the idea of dwarf wizards bugs seems wrong...while the idea of halfling berserkers fills me with giddy glee).
I actually kind of like the human 'benny' idea as a benefit for being human, as it sort of fits with the idea of the humans inheriting the world from the other races that is very common in a lot of fantasy stories. It's a nice extra, but it's not terribly overwhelming.