AKA Cocaine Is A Hell Of A Drug
From Dragon Magazine, issue #96:
With expansion of the deities in the WORLD OF GREYHAWK Fantasy Setting, and by Roger Moore's articles herein so as to provide for the races of demi-humankind, there is no logical reason to exclude their clerics from play...Elves, half-elves, and halflings -- being more nature-oriented than the other demi-human races -- deserve admission to the druid sub-class. Elves are now unlimited in their ability to rise in levels within the druidical ranks, just as half-elves have always been...Elves are no longer prohibited from entering the ranger sub-class with the same reasoning that now opens the druid sub-class to that race....
E. Gary Gygax, April 1985
In the previous Dragon (issue #95), Gygax had outlined new level maximums for the various demi- and semi-human races for characters that have exceptional ability scores, i.e. prime requisites that exceed the normal maximum for their species. As such an event only occurs through the use of powerful magic (for example dozens or scores of wish spells), I see no problem with extending levels for those rare circumstances.
Likewise, I have even less problem with the new rule that allows single-classed non-humans to boost their maximum level by +2 in a class that they could normally multi-class with (for example, an elven magic-user or dwarven fighter). This is sensible and a nice bennie for non-humans that seek to "focus" in a particular profession. An excellent addition to the game, while still allowing humans to maintain their place in the PC hierarchy by dint of their "unlimited potential."
SO...see those last two paragraphs? One thing: non-obtrusive. Second thing: good and welcome.
Now, let's talk about everything else. Because Gary seems to have been all coked up when he tweaked out the rest of this mess.
Players and DMs alike should take note of an impotant new rule change which is alluded to herein: player characters can be members of certain demi-human sub-races that are not permitted to PCs by the rules in the Players Handbook -- namely, the valley elf, grugach, drow, duergar, and svirfneblin. More will be said about this new development in subsequent articles. For now, however, players who choose to have drow, duergar, or svirfneblin characters should heed this general stricture: The alignment of such a player character may be of any sort, but daylight adventuring must be severely curtailed due to the nature of these creatures. Without special eye protection and clothing, these three demi-human types will suffer slight problems and sickness due to exposure to sunlight.
No, Gary. No. No. No.
No, you cannot give players to play powerful demi-humans...creatures originally designed to provide additional challenge to high level PCs with their extra special abilities. Creatures with built-in magic resistance or natural spell powers or the capability of summoning elemental monsters regardless of class. No, Gary. You are high, man. You are NOT thinking straight.
Unfortunately, however, the drugs would continue to flow all the way through the publication of the Unearthed Arcana, when the final blow would be struck to the balance of non-human class relations:
The cavalier class is not listed on the tables for elves and half-elves, and the bard class is not listed on the table for half-elves, because level advancement in either of those classes is unlimited to any character with the requisite ability scores to qualify for the class.
Fucking cocaine, man.
Anyone unfamiliar with the cavalier class as it appears in the UA will have to wait for the next post in this series to understand just how crap-tastic it is to give elves unlimited class advancement in a class that's...basically...a better fighter. That such a character could also be, say, a drow with a bunch of bonus bennies is a friggin' travesty. Oh Noes! So sad I have a -2 penalty to hit in daylight...we're exploring dungeons, jackass! If I'm getting into fights in town, there's already something wrong!
*sigh*
But let's talk about some of the more subtle problems here. Letting non-humans into the ranger and druid class is a thumbing of the nose at the (unstated) wold-building inherent in the original work. Rangers are not "woodsy heroes of good" (and even if they were, why the hell would a DROW get to be one?)...rather they are AVENGING KILLER HUMANS that hunt and murder the humanoids that threaten humankind. That rangers operate in the wilderness is because THAT'S WHERE THEY FIND THEIR PREY. It's not the "civilized" ork or goblin that they're protecting (human) people from...it's the roaming bands of cannibalistic hostiles that would otherwise overwhelm fragile humanity. Regardless of your take on alignment, forcing rangers to be "good" places them in direct opposition to the listed (evil) alignment of their quarry.
And druids? Do we not remember what these are and where they came from?
DRUIDS: These men are priests of a neutral-type religion, and as such they differ in armor class and hit dice, as well as in movement capability, and are a combination of clerics/magic-users...they will generally (70%) be accompanied by a number of barbaric followers....
From Supplement I, Greyhawk
...They are more closely attuned to Nature, serving as its priests rather than serving some other deity... Druids have an obligation to protect woodland animals and plants, especially trees. Unlike the obligation of lawful and good types towards others of this sort, the tendencu of druids will be to punish those who destroy their charges, rather than risk their own lives to actually save the threatened animal or plant. Druids will not slay an animal if it can be avoided, and they can never willingly or deliberately destroy a copse, woods or forest -- no matter how enchanted or evil it may be -- although they may attempt to modify such a place with their own magicks.
From Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry
As explained in the PHB: "Druids can be visualized as medieval cousins of what the ancient Celtic sect of Druids would have become had it survived the Roman conquest." These are very HUMAN characters, aligned with neutrality/nature, not the frolicking Chaotic Good elves feasting on freshly hunted deer. If anything, druids and elves would probably live in a state of polite distance (if not Cold War style hostility), each in their own section of the forest...if not different forests altogether. That half-elves can beliong to the druid class (and the druidic-based bard class) speaks more to their human nature than any elvish part of their blood. The same reason, really, that they can become rangers (although lacking the unlimited leveling potential of a fully human ranger).
It's part of the neat thing about half-elves: they get more OPTIONS than an elf. Now you're giving me no reason to play a half-elf at all...except as a bard (and interestingly enough, all the half-elves in the campaign of my youth were bards, including my own PC).
And thus a new trope was born...of elven archer-y rangers and leafy-pantsed druids. Man, it always bugged me the way 3.0 portrayed rangers and druids as elves, and now I know why (though I guess that's not as bad as dragonborn paladins...). Still, if you're going to allow elves to become rangers "by the same reasoning" that gives them unlimited druid access, why not go all the way and let halflings play giant-killer, too? What? They can't shoot a bow?
Idiocy.
Of course NOW ("officially") halflings can become CLERICS...something that wasn't allowed in the PHB (even for NPCs). And, why? Because Roger Moore came up with some demi-human deities for a specific campaign setting, that Gary wanted to throw his editor a bone (and some royalties) by using them as filler in the new UA book. AND he (Gary) extended the maximum clerical level obtainable by non-humans (PC and NPC alike) to the point that a dwarf or elf with 18 wisdom (not even a number requiring wish magic!) can obtain double-digit (!!) levels of experience...while the poor half-elf can't get higher than 8!
That's right: a dwarf cleric can reach a higher level of cleric than they can fighter. Cocaine.
Okay, again, understand the original world-building of the game. Originally, ONLY HUMANS COULD BE CLERICS...of the adventuring sort. Yes, you could find dwarf and elf clerics (see their monster description in Supplement I: Greyhawk), because it makes sense that a demihuman population worships their own gods and have their own priests. But those clerics were of limited ability:
On the other hand half-elves, since their inception, have always been allowed to earn levels as an adventuring cleric: presumably because of their human nature. That they could not advance very high showed how their elven half limited their ability to advance within the (human/adventuring) church...even though they could make up for it through multi-classing (half-elves with OPTIONS had the largest number of multi-class possibilities of any race in the PHB). It is this same elven nature (presumably) that prevented the character from being a paladin (originally) even though they wee human enough to take up the mantle of ranger.
[yet another reason why the UA's allowance of half-elf paladins is such a slap in the face]
Similarly, half-orcs were also given the ability to become clerics and cleric multi-classes...the only other non-human (besides the half-elf) with the capability. Again, the assumption is this is possible because of the character's semi-human nature...they have the blood of humanity in their veins and so can learn the ways of the human (adventuring) church. That these teachings could be perverted to evil and combined with the skills of an assassin speaks to their orcish side, I imagine.
But with the UA rules, no half-orc with max wisdom (14) nor half-elf (18) will ever equal a dwarf with even a 16 wisdom (not an elf with 17) because...reasons? Their racial deities are cooler, I guess?
*sigh* (again)
Hey! How 'bout this? Have you ever noticed that...with the advent of the new super-official Unearthed Arcana...even while demi-human class and level potentials were "expanded," a LOT of the original (i.e. PHB race-class combos) were actually reduced? Huh? What? That's right...here's the comparison:
Dwarf fighter, STR 16 (or less) in PHB: maximum 7th level
"Hill Dwarf" fighter, STR 16 (or less) in UA: maximum 6th level
(High) elf fighter, STR 17 in PHB: maximum 6th level (7th with STR 18)
High/Grey elf fighter, STR 17 in UA: maximum 5th level (6th with STR 18)
Gnome fighter, STR 18 in PHB: maximum 6th level
Gnome fighter, STR 18 in UA: maximum 5th level
Half-elf fighter, STR 18 in PHB: maximum 8th level
Half-elf fighter, STR 18 in UA: maximum 7th level
(High) elf magic-user, INT 18 in PHB: maximum 11th level
High elf magic-user, INT 18 in UA: maximum 10th level
So, yeah: adopt the new UA rules and all your "standard" races are going to suck a bit more. Hey, but at least they raised the maximum thief level a half-orc can achieve (still not "U" however, so why would a half-orc be anything bother being anything but an assassin?).
It's crap...it's all just a big pile of crap. I'm sure there are folks that LOVE the Unearthed Arcana rules and the newly expanded demi-human roles. Sorry...I'm not one of them. Here, I'll share another fun, personal anecdote with everyone: when I decided I wanted to start playing AD&D again (four-ish years ago), I decided to look at each D&D race, and their allowable classes, and figure exactly how high of level I wanted their potential to be based on A) how I viewed the species, and B) how it fit with my world/setting. This included looking at what I wanted their best fighting ability to be, the highest level of skill I wanted them to get to, the best spells they would have access to, and all the various "class abilities" (like the gaining of henchmen or "baron status" or whatever) they might achieve. I decided that I was not going to be a "slave to the rules," but would "make my own choices" as to what level/class restrictions would be allowed in my game.
And what I found was that I liked ALL the classes and level restrictions AS WRITTEN. The PHB limits are perfectly appropriate, based on how I see my campaign world. Well, except I'd like a dedicated, "focused" non-human to be able to achieve a slightly higher level (and the UA '+2 to max' rule gets that job done).
But I definitely don't want elven cavaliers and (adventuring) dwarven clerics and half-elf paladins in my game. Nor do I have any interest in making duergar and drow and svirfneblin available as PC race types...my players have yet to discover and explore the Underdark! Why should that content be available to players from the get-go?
(Spoiler: it shouldn't)
There have, of course, been worse travesties in D&D since the UA was published. Allowing PC githzerai (hello, 2E Players Options!). And WotC's devolving the druid class into its current shape-shifting/no semblance of origin/bullshit is a clear sign that the designers live in Seattle and smoke way too much weed ("Dude, like, why don't we, like, lean heavy into the shape-changing thing? Like isn't that better than making them use a scimitar all the time?" "Yeah, dude. Like what if it were a dragon-born druid, and it could become, like, a REAL dragon." "Dude, cool."). Yeah, far worse travesties. But adopting the UA rules wholesale into your 1E game is...pretty bad. You're going to end up with a lot of elven cavaliers.
(I mean, why wouldn't you? No level cap, right?)
No. The PHB works JUST FINE. Add the +2 bonus to max level for single-class demi- and semi-humans. Leave out the non-standard "sub-races" (terrible term, BTW, Gary). Leave out the cavaliers. If PCs end up taking their prime requisites into the 20s some point down the road then, sure...take a gander at the UA tables to get an idea at how many bonus levels to grant (here's an idea: +1 to max level for each point over 18). But, otherwise, just stick with the classics; stick with what works.
And remember folks: drugs are bad for your brain.
 |
| Must. Stop. Doing. Cocaine. |
Too...much...caffeine. BTW I love Mexican coffees. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOK. First, 1e AD&D was marketed as RAW. Play this game RAW. Except we all still house-ruled. And Dragon Magazine was full of house rules. Every month.
So then we’re back to AD&D being a “new thing” only because why should Arneson keep getting royalties on everything that everybody ever writes, long after he stopped contributing to the published products. Especially when RPGs were sprouting everywhere once D&D became a thing, and there wasn’t any clear-cut line between what was “D&D” and what was something different. Arduin products were derivative, but so was Runequest, so where does the line belong? Especially from the POV of D&D’s publisher, who watches all these rivals making money that *TSR* wants.
Anyway. Regardless, most of us, then and now, look at an RPG as a menu. We take what we want, tweak where we want, and leave the rest.
The whole Basic / Expert et al series re-wrote details of the rules in each incarnation. Why shouldn’t AD&D have done the same? So look at UA this way.
One thing that I *do* have a problem with is ignoring the actual origins of the classes. A druid calls for the whole historical background, in your campaign. A bard, same. A ranger needs to be analogous to Aragorn’s Numenoreans in exile. Dropping this stuff in without any foundation is like drawing yourself into the Mona Lisa.
Speaking of Aragorn, a half-elf should be said Numenoreans. A people of mixed elven and human blood from way, way back in history. Make up your own race for your world, but that’s the template, a separate race. Actual, contemporary “mixed marriages” should be as rare as hen’s teeth. And if they occur, remember the individual’s choice that must be made: be either human, or elf.
So, if you’re playing the whole BECMI mess, you pick an edition and go with those numbers. If you’re playing 1e, pick numbers you like from PH and UA, mix to taste. If you want to introduce bits and pieces to your world, they should fit your world. If they don’t fit, cut them loose. If you don’t like adventuring clerics of this or that race, then they don’t exist.
Histrionics are optional.
I have definitely been back on the caffeine since coming to Mexico (though the caffeine content isn’t close to what we have in the U.S.)…I should be able to when myself off it and get back to the decaf in a couple-four days.
DeleteD&D was created using a “kitchen sink” approach…it included many aspects of fantasy, history, and adventure. However, it always had a strong theme of what it was about, and over time there was a coalescing of those disparate elements to fit that theme. For me, the game’s high point as far as “setting” goes was about ‘81/‘82…about when Gary had the firmest control over the product being put out. After that, a lot of extra hands started getting free rein to implement their own “great ideas,” and Gygax began loosening his grip on the wheel. I’m sure there are folks who disagree, but I prefer the ‘unified theme’ approach to ‘too many cooks.’
Sorry...that last sentence should have said "unified vision."
DeleteRe: The use of UA. I think the reason the book is so polarizing is what you are demonstrating in these articles. It is written to replace, not augment, which makes it really annoying for anyone trying to use the whole thing. (as an aside OSE's careful attention to this aspect alone is what makes it so strong in the OSR, especially the Advanced take) Also, as you point out it changes the implied setting. It offers so many "cross outs" where you have to remember what has changed, it winds up being annoying. Additionally, it breaks the self-contained element of the system as written from 1977-79 that you were talking about here a year or so ago...
DeleteRe: Numenoreans. The long life of the Edain (and eventually Numenoreans) is not because they were mixed blood with elves. The long life was the reward from Eonwe herald of Manwe for the Edain's help in the war against Morgoth. There were only 3 lines from 3 marriages of the Edain that carried elf blood. The long life of the elves is not because of any genetic source, it is a similar state of being to the blessing of Eonwe. The parallel blessing for humans is death. This is why elves and mixed elves get a choice to live as human or elf - they are picking the blessing they will live under. This is also why when an elf marries a human they choose mortality. The ranger's stat requirements (Str 13, Int 13, Wis 14, Con 14) are a better reflection of the blessings Aragorn/Dunedain lived under than half-elfness.
Re: Tolkienisms: Half-Elves were likely included because of Elrond Half-Elven. Elrond and his brother Elros shared the "half-elven" moniker due to being the offspring of man and elf, but they were both required to choose to live as either Elf or Man. They weren't some weird hybrid species.
DeleteYeah. I think that B/X is the better model for Tolkien elves...though that, too, has its pitfalls (see the portrayal of Galadriel in the "Rings of Power" TV show).
DeleteUnfortunately the portrayals of the characters featured in Rings of Power bear little resemblance to the characters described in the books.
DeleteExactly.
DeleteI'm with you for the rest of this, but against you (and Gary c. 1985) on the +2 levels for single-class non-humans, and here's why. RAW, the only non-humans that could achieve name level in a class that permits exercising domain over a territory (cleric, fighter (and possibly ranger, but I’d argue not), magic-user, and illusionist) are dwarf fighters with 18+ strength and half-orc fighters. The +2 rule opens domain play to elf fighters and magic-users (of sufficient Str or Int), half-elf fighters (with 17+ Str), and maybe less significantly, dwarf fighters of any Str. Elves as ambitious domain-holders, clearing territory and collecting taxes, seems anti-tropal. (How do like that word?) Besides breaking tropes, less subjectively, it violates the spirit of the DMG, “ADVANCED D&D is unquestionably ‘humanocentric,’ with demi-humans, semi-humans, and humanoids in various orbits around the sun of humanity.”
ReplyDeleteConsider for a moment that not all fighters (demi-human or otherwise) have an 18 STR...a character is perfectly viable (as a fighter) with a STR of 16 or 17. I see this all the time in my campaign.
DeleteGiven THAT, I don't mind an elf with an 18 STR and a particularly ferocious, focused warfare-bent (i.e. as a single-class fighter) being able to achieve "barony" status (barely) amongst the humans...such an individual would be very rare and a stand-out. Most of the elven fighters I've seen in my campaign (and there have been a handful) put their highest ability scores into DEX (1st) and CON (2nd).
As for half-elves...I *like* that a half-elf has the greater potential to achieve warlord status (with focus). Again, this would be an unusual character, but they ARE half-human and I'm good with such an individual striving to (perhaps) inherit the domain of their mortal parent. Similarly, I like that a half-orc who decided to go the route of the thief could (with focus) become a thief-master with their own guild, though such an occurrence would be even MORE rare, as some magical contrivance would be necessary to raise their DEX above the racial max of 17. Truth be told, I am far LESS enamored with the (BTB) reading that all other races can become master thieves without even blinking!
As for dwarves...they already have the natural potential to achieve "lordliness" (with a high enough ability score)...that a dedicated (i.e. single-class) fighter makes it an easier, sits better with me than seeing a bunch of "fighter-thieves" sitting on baronial thrones.
AND...I like wizened elven wizards. They're weird and creepy.
; )
I *do* run a human-centric campaign, and I'm not too worried about demi-humans getting up into the 9th-12th level range when the human PCs are working into the teens in the BIG classes (fighters, mages, and clerics). They still end up being the real 'movers and shakers' even letting the demi- (and semi-) humans getting a little "boost."
Also, knowing that you were in Mexico, I assumed by the post’s title that we were going to get real personal! But I’ll take a nerdy discussion of level limits….
ReplyDeleteEh. I’m always pretty “personal” (and pretty nerdy) in these blog posts…Mexico or no.
DeleteYeah, the UA really messed up demihumans. I've never been comfortable with the "underdark races", and not being a fan of D&D fiction I never caught the Drizzt fever that was the source of so many brooding, dual-wielding, drow rangers. But on the other hand, I've also never been entirely comfortable with everyone getting to advance forever as Thieves but not anything else, especially since half-orcs had to trade that for an inherently level-limited class. I think I do like some of the alternate elves and dwarves (again, underdark versions deeply excepted), so I'd be good with Mountain Dwarves, Gray Elves, and Wood Elves, but not the others, and of course the original PH demihuman table included all three types of halfling.
ReplyDeleteAs for elves getting to play the domain game, I note that there are at least three Tolkien models for that: Elrond, Galadriel, and Thranduil (aka the Elvenking in The Hobbit). So, an exceptional elf could and should very well be a D&D baron to my way of thinking.
My introduction to Druids was in AD&D, so I tend to think of them in terms of the post-Gaulish model more than the eco-warrior one. My usual instinct is to have them serve as the priests of polytheistic, open religions while Clerics are the priests of monotheistic or monotheist-like ones, though I have other ways of organizing the classes, too (Illusionists as priests of a Gnostic/Buddhist-inspired religion that believes the world is an illusion drawn across the senses to imprison otherwise divine humanity, Magic-Users as priests of "daimon" cults with direct contact with divine and semi-divine Solars/Planetars/Devas, Demons, Devils, Modrons, Daemons, and such through summoning spells and the like, and so on; this really lets DDG shine), though those might sometimes involve restructuring those classes a bit. Whatever, I don't know how I feel about halfling Druids, even NPC ones, either. I do not like elfin Druids or Rangers. You are 100% correct on Rangers. It does make me want a "Hunter" class of woods-wise adventurers that aren't Forest Warden Jack the Giant-Killers or whatever (and happily for me I have one such).
I think that demihuman level limits adds weight to my earlier arguments about sixth level being fairly advanced (though, again, not the end of a career).
I go back and forth on the single-class characters getting a bonus +2 level limit. Right now, I happen to be in favor.
I always think of Gil-Galad when it comes to Tolkien's warrior elves. Unfortunately, he doesn't get a lot of screen time in the films.
Delete[Galadriel is an NPC cleric/magic-user, man. Come on now]
Regarding the 6th level thing (again):
For me, I think of the "max effective shelf-life" for any player character is about 1,000,000 x.p. One million is about as much as I'd expect ANY PC to earn over the course of their career before the player would get bored and want to look at running something else. Not that characters don't exceed that threshold...high level characters pick up powerful magic items (like Books of Exalted Deeds and Decks of Many Things) that can bestow extra levels on them. But, generally, 1M is about the expected range of game play for most PCs.
Now does this mean I consider 500K to be "mid-level?" No, absolutely not. Experience awards increase over time as characters level up: monsters and treasures gain in size and value as PCs advance their careers. For me, I consider dead-center mid-level to be roughly 100,000 x.p. Characters approaching that number are "low-mid-levels;" characters over that threshold are "high-mid-levels." Looking through the PHB classes, you'll note that 100K inexperience isn't even CLOSE to Name level for ANY of them; most (including the fighter and cleric) need more than DOUBLE that amount of x.p. to reach Name level (magic-users need more than TRIPLE).
So no, 6th level...especially for a demi-human thief of unlimited potential...doesn't feel like "mid-level" to me. It feels like a character who's barely passed out of the "apprentice" stage of their adventuring career. 24 hit points gets whittled down real fast when your armor class is (most likely) in the 5-to-3 range.
; )
2e raises demi human level limits on all of the classes except thief where it adds one.
ReplyDeleteIt returns druids to just humans and half elves, but let's elves be rangers.
Overall as I have said before I'm glad we got the 2e that we got and not whatever craziness Gary would have given us. 2e may have been a sanitized version of 1e, but at least it kept the game mostly the same versus pushing it in the direction of UA wonkyness. Eventually it did with all the splat books and rules changes, but the core game as presented in 89 was a course correction after UA.
Did the pre gens in Dragonlance follow the level limits? I don't have any of the high level ones so I can't remember how it is handled.
The DragonLance modules use none of the new rules from the Unearthed Arcana. Every demi-human pre-gen in the DL modules has level limits strictly as per the PHB with the EXCEPTION of "Tanis Half-Elven." For some reason, the Hickmans do not give a rip that Tanis is a half-elf fighter with a 16 strength (max level: 6th). By DL 14 (the final module in the main series), he is 11TH LEVEL...which would not even be possible under UA rules. No idea why. The DL hardcover source book messes around with level limits (including putting level limits for humans!), but...whatever. They were concerned with STORY, not gameplay, and Tanis was the main protagonist of the novels. Go figure.
DeleteInteresting (and extremely charitable) take on 2E. Aaaand...that's all I want to say on the subject.
; )
My group never had UA and we just had a jotter that was filled with rules written by a player's big brother who had seen UA.
ReplyDeleteIt's a mess, but I don't think that it's chemically induced. Rather it is the lack of cash flow that was said to be affecting the business at the time. Gary would've been well aware of the topics in the mail bag and I suspect demi-human limits was a topic nearly as common as alignment. My guess is that the need to put out a commercially successful product quickly vastly outweighed considerations of whether the new options broke the game. See also mad character generation methods.
On level limits, the only response that is ever needed is 'game balance'. Concocting interpretations and lore on the nature of made up races in a game is a path that has no end. There be dragon(kind and tieflings). IMV a better scheme that they could've introduced was xp penalties rather than level limits.
I agree with you on where most of the levels are pitched.
I'll just say this: I played a svirfneblin cleric/illusionist in 2e and she was so amazingly, stunningly broken I'm still in awe. Hats off to my friend Rick and his DMing skills. Asilud Sunnilda Gelud-Diedelindadottur was the back-up cleric, the back-up wizard, and the sneakiest member of the party. She had decent hit points; an amazing AC; something dumb like 90% magic resistance; and access to wraithform and improved invisibility. It was bonkers. Loved her.
ReplyDeleteWow! Having never played 2E (except one or two brief forays), I just went and looked up the demi-human level caps. Not much of a cap! Looks like ANY gnome could be a cleric-illusionist of up to 9th/15th level (or higher if using the optional bonus given in the 2E DMG: 12th/18th wouldn't be out of the question!). That right there seems excessive to me. Adding in the Svirfneblin abilities? Yowza.
DeleteI see why 3E (and all later editions) simply axed level restrictions...they were mostly gone with 2E anyway! (and the human-centric game died a quiet death ever after)
*sigh*
That being said: I'm glad you enjoyed your time with your character and have fond memories; D&D *is* supposed to be fun after all. If I rail against these things, it is because I feel the MOST fun is had from long-term enjoyment, and long-term enjoyment suffers with these "upgrades." Others are welcome to disagree.