OD&D: Balancing Demi-humans (Dwarves)

The Dwarf from Swords & Wizardry Core Rules

Dwarves in OD&D/S&W are fairly competent characters with no real drawbacks aside from being limited to 6th level Fighters. As the majority of my play happens in the levels 1-4 range, level limits are usually irrelevant at character creation.

Using the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules as a base, I developed the following house rules in order to balance low level Dwarves against humans in my OD&D/S&W game:

Dwarf

Prime Attribute: Strength, 13+ (+5% experience bonus)

Hit Dice: 1d8/level

Armor/Shield Permitted: Any

Weapons Permitted: Any except large two-handed weapons, specifically two-handed swords, polearms, or longbows. When wielding a battleaxe, longsword, or bastard sword, Dwarves must use two hands and therefore cannot also carry a shield.

The player-character Dwarf has a +4 on saving throws against any magic, and easily takes note of certain features of stonework: sloping corridors, moving walls, and traps made of stone -- in particular: falling blocks, rigged ceilings, and tiny arrow slits designed to release poison gas or darts. They can also identify whether stonework is recent or not. There is no established die roll for using these abilities; exactly what a Dwarf does or doesn't perceive is up to the Referee. Dwarves only take 1/2 damage from ogres, trolls, and giants. Dwarves can see in the dark (darkvision), to a limit of 60 feet.

Dwarven player characters must be Fighters.* They may advance beyond 6th level only if the warrior has a Strength of 17 (maximum 7th level) or 18 (maximum 8th level).

Dwarves use the class abilities and advancement table of the Fighter, however, Dwarves may not make use of the Fighter's Parrying ability.

Dwarves with a Constitution of 14+ may choose to brace themselves instead of attacking, giving enemies a -2 penalty to attacks against the Dwarf.

Rationale

The main change I made in balancing the Dwarf against the human Fighter was to limit the Dwarf's use of weapons. Specifically, keeping the Dwarf from wielding a longsword one-handed means that out of the two, only the human Fighter can deal 1d8 damage and carry a shield; Dwarves with a shield are only able to do a maximum of 1d6 damage with the weapons available to them. And only the human Fighter has access to the highest-damage weapon, the two-handed sword (1d10 damage). Therefore the best choices a Dwarf has for two-handed weapons are the battleaxe and bastard sword, due to their +1 to damage when wielded two-handed. I like the archetype reinforcement these rules encourage.

Removing the Dwarf's ability to Parry as a Fighter keeps the integrity of the skill and speed humans have over Dwarves in tact.  

For the bracing ability, I wanted to give Dwarves some feature which represents their sturdiness without giving permanent bonuses to hit points or Armour Class. Incorporating the 1/2 damage from ogres, trolls, and giants helps with this too, though the Referee needs to include those monsters in the campaign in order for it to be useful.

*I do not use the Thief class in my game. Therefore, all Dwarves are Fighters.