Racial level penalties question

If you race has a penalty of -1 to your level does that mean you can reach a max of level 19 in the original campaign(needing the same exp as a normal lvl 20 character)?

Or does it just mean you would need as much experience as a level 21 to reach level 20?

As far as I know, it just means that you need as much XP as level 21 to get to level 20.

What I *don't* know is whether there is that much XP to be had in the game.

In other words, if you want to powergame, go with a human (or, if you want to multiclass, one of the "traditional" demihumans, in which case the reduced or eliminated XP penalty will make up for the higher number of feats/skill points you'd get as a human).

Personally, I'm tooling around with a couple of planetouched characters. The tiefling especially seems to have some quite significant role-playing significance. Major kudos to Obsidian for making people notice that you have horns on, if that's the case.