Kogatai Uhaanta's page

What about the characters that do have to use those rules, at least as a guideline? Does Drizzt level at the same rate as everyone? Settings like FR, Dragonlance, other stuff I also haven't gotten around to reading?

I can't speak for the others, but the version of the game that the Dragonlance characters were designed for is so far removed from Pathfinder as to be pretty much the same situation as trying to stat out Gandalf.

And even within that paradigm the literary characters didn't hold up to the game mechanics; Raistlin Majere, the most powerful wizard the world had ever seen, had a 17 Intelligence, which never increased (at least until his 3rd edition incarnation). This made him, as an RPG character, incapable of casting many of the spells he cast in the books - even though the original books were based on game modules.

From the Second Edition Player's Handbook:

"A Character of the dwarven race can be a cleric, a fighter, or a thief. He can also choose to be a fighter/cleric or a fighter/thief."

Though honestly, I never had a problem allowing other/illegal race-class combinations if a player had a good story and rationale. But one thing the class restrictions accomplished was giving each race more of an identity and place in the world.

It's also true that some campaign settings allowed nonstandard combinations, too. In Al-Qadim, for example, dwarves could be wizards as long as they took a certain kit, and gnomes were allowed to be any kind of wizard, not just illusionists.

Having actual requirements to take a race or class made some classes feel very special; playing a paladin was a big deal back then since not everybody could do it.