AD&D 2nd Ed. & NPC level limits

[Aba]

Hello,

I recently discovered Birthright, and was totally enthralled. It's probably the best campaign setting I have seen from TSR, ever. I have some material (campaign setting, book of magecraft and priestcraft, some domain sourcebooks) and I started a campaign of my own, using AD&D 2nd Ed. (both I and my players decided to stick to a game system we already had and knew, and which was the one for which Birthright was designed for in the first place).

Being new, forgive me if my question has already been asked a bunch of times (I did look at the FAQ, but found no answer).

How's that high mage Aelies is a half elf (in theory max wizard level 12) and he is 16th level? Even if one took into account his intelligence 17, with the exceeding level limits rule, he should only get to level 14. Also, same problem (I have heard) with Rhuobe manslayer. Although I do not own Blood enemies, Abominations of Cerilia, I have heard that he is a F16/W16: again, 4 fighter levels above the theoretical maximum of 12. How's that?

Aba

[Ariadne]

May be, they did it as others do it too! Ignore level-limits, if you like to play high level campaigns in 2nd Edition. IMO it's the worst idea, someone could ever have.

In our campaign I have a half-elven priestess with Wis 19 (max. level 13th) and she is 14th level meanwhile. So what! If the mage is 16th level, play the NPC at this level...

Rhuobe Manslayer is an elf (even if he is an abdomination) and has unlimited excess to the wizard class. By the way, Awnsheglien and Ersheglien are unique (and unique with level-limitations). Short, if you're a DM, make your Awni how you want him...


(P.S.: The BR designers made some more mistakes: In Kninasi exists a CG priestess of Avani and if you look into the "book of Priestcraft", you will find "any non chaotic" as requirement for the priesthood of Avani. So what...)

[geeman]

At 02:08 AM 10/24/2002 +0200, Aba wrote:

>I recently discovered Birthright, and was totally enthralled. It`s
>probably the best campaign setting I have seen from TSR, ever.

Hear, hear.

>How`s that high mage Aelies is a half elf (in theory max wizard level 12)
>and he is 16th level? Even if one took into account his intelligence 17,
>with the exceeding level limits rule, he should only get to level 14.
>Also, same problem (I have heard) with Rhuobe manslayer. Although I do not
>own Blood enemies, Abominations of Cerilia, I have heard that he is a
>F16/W16: again, 4 fighter levels above the theoretical maximum of 12.
>How`s that?

Rhoubhe is a F16/W15 in BE.

Often the individual characters in the BR materials break the "rules"
regarding things like class levels, dual class requirements, alignment or
racial restrictions, etc. In some cases they break two or more such
rules. Many of those restrictions go away if one uses 3e (and not a lot of
them made much sense anyway) but since you`re using 2e you could either
make some house rules that would allow for those character descriptions,
assume that those characters were exceptions that prove the rule, or just
change the character descriptions so that they fit into the standard 2e rules.

In the case of the High Mage and Rhoubhe you could, for instance, assume
that an optional rule regarding demi-human characters gaining class an
level beyond their racial maximum was in effect in which such characters
could level up past their maximums at something like x3 (or x4, x5, x10)
the experience point cost. Given the near immortality and immortality of
those characters, however, you might then have to explain why they are ONLY
17th level and 16th level respectively....

Gary

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