In TSR's D&D, demihumans had strict level limits, based largely on the notion that if they didn't, these long-lived creatures would quickly level-up so much that they'd rule the world, with humans as either an enslaved underclass or an entirely extinct "failed race." Level limits make this a non-issue. If a human can reach level 20+ during his lifetime before old age brings an end to the ability to adventure successfully, an elf that lives ten or more times as long should have no trouble making level 100+ during that time.
In WotC's D&D, there's no limit to the levels that demihuman characters can attain. So what had been done to circumvent the "superelf problem?"
In TSR's D&D, demihumans had strict level limits, based largely on the notion that if they didn't, these long-lived creatures would quickly level-up so much that they'd rule the world, with humans as either an enslaved underclass or an entirely extinct "failed race."
I don't think that was the point of level limits. It existed because unlimited advancement was the only mechanical advantage of being human. Human couldn't multiclass, they didn't have infravision, no ability score adjustments, etc. Considering how long it took to raise levels in the old version, limits rarely came into play anyway.
Furthermore, many DMs I've encoutnered never liked that rule, and chose to eliminate level adjustments.
To answer the question, it probably depends on the campagin. In Middle-Earth, high level elves go "into the West." In FR, they HAD a powerful civilization, but went into decline. In Eberron, the Last War took out many high powered NPCs.
Another caveat is that epic levels are optional rule systems. They don't have to exist in your campaign at all.
In my campaign, I suppose. . . hmm. . . I'd say that NPC elves receive a calling at 20th level. At that moment of ultimate power, they enter a moment of reflection, noting that their entire lives have been spent receiving 4 hours of meditative rejuvination each night. This leads them to seek out more perfection through that meditation.
Elven nations construct massive catacombs filled with huge gilded cots set up below their cities, "Coma" style, where their 20th level companions rest in eternity, seeking the meditative perfection of their dreaming selves. Of course, a few DO resist this call (like PCs).
Resisting might be a cool side quest for PCs playing elves at high levels. Entering into epic levels SHOULD require a self-defining moment, eh? Do you cease to be an elf at this point? What's the cultural effect of continuing to grow in power. . . do you become more of an outcast? Are you shunned? Better yet, are you hunted like a 21st level, Dark Sun psionisicst? Maybe I'll type something up. . .
Anyway, I guess my point here is this. . . adress it yourself if you think it's a problem.
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This has the sounds of a "which edition is better" thread. Well, I'll chime in as I've enjoyed every edition thus far, warts and all.
One of those "warts" to me was the level restrictions of 1E/2E. I'd throw class restrictions based on race in there as well. If a being is sentient, what is to prohibit them from advancing as far as they'd like in any profession (read: character class) they choose? The gods (as that's the only way to explain the restriction in 1E/2e)? Boredom? Introduction of collectable card games? For eliminating race/class/level restrictions, I applaud 3.xE. Perhaps I'll dig that 1E dwarf stuck at ninth level fighter and convert him...
With these restrictions lifted, Yamo reiterates the crux of the old issue: long-lived races should dominate the short-lived races from a level perspective. Why don't they?
The 3.x DMG looks at populations as a pyramidal progression. The base of the pyramid is where the vast numbers of first level commoners and other class dwell. Each progressive tier of the pyramid is smaller than the one below it. Thus, the tiers of reality (why does the Hawkwind song World of Tiers suddenly pop into my head...) should be very small by the time they're in the 15th level and beyond.
Is this the "reality" presented in D&D products? Yes (though those higher tiers seem a little bigger in the Realms but that's my biased opinion).
Again Yamo's question pops into mind: how is that possible?
I have a couple explanations, bear with me.
Theory 1: Tangents of Life. Look at the real world (yes, it's painful lately, put on sunglass and headphones). I wanted to be an artist. That was 20 years ago. I should be a 20+ level Expert by now, right? No. Girlfriends, school, work, other hobbies taking all my time, etc. What's to say that the Tangents of Life isn't responsible for the vast majority of the campaign world's population not being 10th level and higher. Beings fall in love, have families, have to do "safe" work to provide for the family, etc. An 7th level elvish bard sees a vista that he has to paint. In classic elvish detail. Fifty years later he's done. Last I checked, there isn't an XP per brush stroke rule and he's still 7th level.
Theory 1-a: Off Camera Effectively, if the game were a movie camera's perspective, the camera has panned to somewhere else where's there's "action". Once PC/area/setting is off camera, there isn't much XP to go around as the DM's focus is elsewhere. At this point the campaign world falls to the population mechanics of the DMG. Hello World of Tiers. Thus my sardonic perspective of every town in a campaign is relatively peaceful until the PCs arrive, then all hell breaks out.
Theory 2: The XP Chain The Level Pyramid and the XP charts work hand-in-hand. As you get more powerful, you need to find more powerful obstacles to overcome. That usually means that those of 10th level and higher are putting the targeting scope on those that are of higher level than they. If that population is smaller to begin with, those advancing up are eliminating others and taking their place. I'm reminded of the 1E monk advancement rules... With there being fewer "targets", the PCs often have to diversify their planar selection. Hello Outer Planes. Once there, the Level Pyramid takes a dramatic shift and that 15th level tier looks a lot bigger. In a reality of infinite planes with petitioners, deities, the Blood War, Sigil and gods-know what else, there's a lot of places for those high level PCs to vanish and not unbalance the worlds of the Prime Material. I imagine that "superelf" takes on a whole new meaning in Arborea.
Theory 3: Boredom I should lump this with Tangents of Life but this seems an appropriate to end my treatise. How often does a campaign make it to super high levels with the [u]original[/u] PCs having started at 1st level? Without counting gold pieces as equaling one XP. Without misinterpreting the XP values of magic items in 1E/2E? If there was someway to chart the level progression of every PC that started at 1st level and how far they advanced, I'm sure the chart would look like "a World of Tiers". Boredom kicks in for a lot of games before a new, fresh idea kicks in and a new game is started and the old game is abandoned. In 22+ years, I had one 1E game make it to 11th level on average. 2E the highest was 10th. 3E the highest game fell apart by 8th level. How does this apply to the concept of "superelf" PCs? I see this as indicative to how reality plays out, whether here in the harsh real world, or there in the harsher reality of our campaign worlds.
And as the Wereplatypus states: "Anyway, I guess my point here is this. . . address it yourself if you think it's a problem", I couldn't agree more (since his post showed up before mine was finished). My theories are how I have addressed it and I hope it can help others address it as well.
I see your point. But, here are a few things to consider:
1)Elves as a race aren't particularly interested in enslaving anyone.
2)The fact that human life cycles are relatively short doesn't necessarily mean humans
would be outcompeted; in fact, it would likely mean exactly the opposite. While an elf might not begin reproducing until 60 or 70, by that age most humans already have multiple children and grandchildren. Humans would almost certainly have numerical superiority.
3)Only a tiny fraction of humanoids of any race ever achieve even a single class level in anything.
4)
The elven lifespan is dilated, meaning that the phases of their lives are longer, which means they take longer to develop.
5) Characters who reach level 20+ tend to have resources for
circumventing or overcoming the limits imposed by natural aging.
6)As your levels increase, your improvement curve flattens out.
When you're first level, it doesn't take much to move up. But think about how much effort Elminster would have to expend to make serious gains in ability.
7)When you reach a certain level (probably 20-30 in most cases), you're probably content with your level of power. For all practical purposes, going from 28th to 29th
or 31st or 33rd
isn't really making much of a difference in your life (at least not enough to merit the amount of effort you would have to invest).
Cheers!
High level has never been an issue in our game. We have normal character advancment plotted out through 60th level, with active PCs and NPCs around that level. Through magic characters have extended their life spans to almost immortality, so elven longevity isn't an issue.
I mentioned this on the "epic hooks" thread, but in my campaign, all "epic" level PC's/NPC's can no longer be raised from the dead, as their Gods consider them too valuable to waste on the material plane. Once an epic level creature dies, his/her respective Deity or whatever plane they would have ended up on upon death, keeps them as part of their infernal or celestial host.
Therefore, most elves 20th level and higher, retire...
The best mathematicians aren't typically the oldest, nor are the best musicians. I think the normal PC advancement rules apply, well, to PCs. For most level 5 wizards, they're at that level because that's what they're power is at. I could practice at painting all I want and I'd never be a world renowned painter, it's just not me. PCs (and occasionally villians) are the exceptions. They are the prodigies with unlimited potential and elite abilities. They're the mathematicians that will only get better with time.
Also, some of the most brilliant mathematicians of all time were ancient greeks. The average lifespan of a greek in the ancient era was less than two thirds our average lifespan, but yet their culture was a wellspring of mathematical advancement. Culture has as much to do with achievement as lifespan. Elves likely have a much slower culture.
I think elves are just sissies.
Bear with me.
Consider that an adventure is often as traumtic as any war, with friends dying, innocents being slaughtered, and the fear of death every minute. Certainly, all of that is fuel for a major case of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Elves, being a race of deeply emotional beings, are hit harder by these kinds of traumas. When they burn-out, it takes them 50 years to get back to normal when a human might only take 5 years.
Its been proven that the ability to handle stress is genetic, so I see no reason why the flighty elves wouldn't just be genetically pre-disposed to being poor levelers.
First, thank you all this is the best discussion of long lived races I a have seen but no offense to anyone I don't think anybody found the silver bullet yet to put the issue to bed.
Of course it is a game and a fantasy game but I am intrigued by the issue. And oddly think it is important to the real world. With medical technology advancing at the rate it is we could effectively have the launch of an "elven" sub-race of humanity within our life times. But that a real tangent (if anyone if interested "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is a great book on the subject (though there is no reference to elves).
Anyway I wanted to chime in on the theories note (which I thought was great by the way).
Theory 1: Tangents of Life.
REPLY: Yeah real life does get in the way, but in my real life - I have managed to multiclass and improve dramatically in all of them. Improving as a business person, a martial artist, and a teacher, and that I have improved in each over the last 20 years with no end to the opportunity in site. I think that is a better reflection of the real world. Yes I have given time to other interests, my family, but I continue to grow in my "Class" pursuits.
Theory 1-a:
REPLY: There is always a bigger challenge, there is an expression in Gung-Fu, "For every hand there is a faster." Which translates basically as, there is always someone out their who can kick your but. Challenges may need to become more complicated or redefine the terms you are used to, but to use a martial arts analogy, I am a pretty decent stand up fighter, reasonably strong, good hands and feet, BUT go to the ground, add weapons, multiple attackers, other components (injury, terrain, infiltration, having to protect non-combatants) and it easy pretty easy to escalate the challenge -there are always ways to escalate the challenge.
Theory 2: The XP Chain The Level Pyramid and the XP charts work hand-in-hand.
See above challenges are easy to find. To my twisted imagination it is actually much harder to find good interesting low and middle level challenges. Add good tactics and even a couple of orcs are viscious challenge to middle level characters.
Theory 3: Boredom I should lump this with Tangents of Life but this seems an appropriate to end my treatise.
REPLY: I don't find this. I find that the more I know about something the more there is to learn - it may be harder to find the teacher or the source material. But martial arts, business, fatherhood, are all inverted pyramids you need a base of knowledge to even pursue the "next level" for example what I can learn as a black belt is completely different from what I could teach lower ranks, they don't have the frame of reference or the conditioning, or skills to take on what I am learning, and what I am learning now is more interesting and more fun. I think this is true of all disciplines.
Elves as a race aren't particularly interested in enslaving anyone.
REPLY: The a conceit of the world as written it is not however a solution as to why it doesn't happen.
2)The fact that human life cycles are relatively short doesn't necessarily mean humans. Humans would almost certainly have numerical superiority.
REPLY: This assumes the long lived race will give the speed breeders a chance, and not cull them out. Or that they haven't achieved a level of power were they care - if your family has a couple generations of compound interest, and magic item creation/acquisition at a couple thousand years per generation no 40 year old can compete one on one, which is the paradigm of the game.
3)Only a tiny fraction of humanoids of any race ever achieve even a single class level in anything.
REPLY: Again a conceit of the game, not a reasoned explanation of the impact of aging.
4) The elven lifespan is dilated, meaning that the phases of their lives are longer, which means they take longer to develop.
REPLY: Doesn't address the issue really they still have centuries of good learning and professional development time versus decades.
5) Characters who reach level 20+ tend to have resources for
circumventing or overcoming the limits imposed by natural aging.
REPLY: Doesn't address the issue, all elves effectively circumvent aging (relative to humans)
6)As your levels increase, your improvement curve flattens out.
REPLY: True not everyone would progress as fast, but if you chose to take on the challenges - they are there. As well as challenges beyond all but the most powerful humans - challenges and plans with centuries long timeframes.
7)When you reach a certain level (probably 20-30 in most cases), you're probably content with your level of power. For all practical purposes, going from 28th to 29th
or 31st or 33rd
REPLY: Probably true - but part of the issue is the percent of the population of the race to reach that level.
There are other issues as well, what is a perspective that allows consideration of objectives and plans that can take centuries? What is it to have a century in the classroom before you start out on your life? What is it to have a whole race with families with centuries of savings (even at just a few coppers a month) relative to humans, the simple economic skew is huge.
Just a few thoughts.
What do 60th level PCs do in a campaign? Most of the dieties in the old manuals rounded out in the high 20s. i'm not being critical, just curious how a DM would handle a group this powerful (and why he'd want to).
Part of it is the power structure of my world (one of them anyway). There are creatures in my world that exhist in a place that encompasses normal reality called the Cosm. These creatures are the true creaters of all reallity and are the creaters of all the mortal worshipped deities. There are three major powers that controll all time and space, and all other Cosm creatures are creations and off shoots of the three. THe main antagonist that I use is a Shapeshifter named Pierce who was the first creation of the Three. His abilites are virtually unlimited, and is able to assume the form of any creature that he has ever been in contact with, and any individual (including Deities). His primary roll is as an assassin, serving and protecting the Three from Upstarts in the Cosm, trying to usurp their power, but as is prone to happen with creatures of that extream power and near Immortal lifespan, he grew board with his life and began watching the lives of mortals, Then he began manipulating them, pitting them against one another. once he weeded out the weak, her than began pitting the mortals against some of their gods. Then when only a few were left standing he began to pit those few epic level characters against the rivals and upstarts of the Cosm.
It plays out like an Epic level chess game with this one board creature setting things into motion and playing different pieces, causing strife and blood shead, and suffering on a grand scale for no reason other than his own ammusment.It is basically the equivilant of having an NPC that in the characters reality has taken up the role of DM and is manipulating them, with or without their knowledge for no reason other than his own enjoyment. Believe me, it's not easy in the lease. My players are amazed at how many little loose ends come back to bite them, and how small actions can set into motion events that will quickly spiral out of control.
With Epic level characters, throwing bigger and bigger monsters at them serves no purpose. But wrap them in a soap opera full of intrigue and subterfuge and they will be begging for more. The onther thing is to make it very clear to them that no matter how powerful they become, they are dealing with forces beyond their comprehension let alone their skills.
My answer is that elves (and the other longer-lived demihumans) are non-human, both physically and psychologically. Presumably something in that psychology predisposes them to be less ambitious and aggressive in their activities, resulting in lower levels on the average (as well as other effects).
That point of view is consistent with humans getting more feats and skill points -- humans are just better at the things they do ("better at", not "better than").
Two more cents.
Jack
In my campaign, elves are an almost extinct race. This is so because of the Inquisition that Tonko, God of Blood and Hatred, decreed. What few elves that are left are constantly hunted, never welcome, and never safe. The ruler of my campain world is Vlad Strakov, a powerful vampire wizard. The only way to put an end to the elven bloodshed is to kill Vlad, for he is the one that asked Tonko to decree the Inquisition in the first place.
Down this road lies madness.
What about Drow? Or the hundreds of other races superior to humans?
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rob
Down this road lies madness.
What about Drow? Or the hundreds of other races superior to humans?
: ]
rob
Most evil races that are superior to humans fail to overtake the world because of that whole "evil always turns against itself" mentality. (in a fantasy world...)
As far as the good races that live longer... one of the big thing that happens with people who strive for power is that quite a few of them die in the process. When a party of humans die, it's not really that big of a deal... there's always more where they came from to fill in the ranks and keep adventuring. Elves on the other hand are almost always described as a dieing race. Even at a natural rate they have so few children that their numbers are dwindling... especially when you throw wars, adventures that PCs are on, natural/unnatural disasters, invasions from other planes, etc.
I'm not saying it is right, or that this is law, just seems to be the common reply you see.
Personally I liked the storyline behind the dark sun world... in Athas everyone was oppressed equally :)
"Nervous, very very nervous, I was and am but why do you say that I am mad."
Its a fantasy world - and of course you can just ignore the issue. For me though I want fantasy worlds in my fiction, film, and my gaming that "work" and make some amount of sense in how the people and cultures interact and function. To me, and apparently a few others, this is an issue that warrants some explanation.
I like that elves are few in number - I killed most of the elven population of with an elf specific plague. This solve a lot of other problems as well because it leaves a lot of magic items, and ruins about and pluasible excuses for dragon hordes, explanantions for magical effects that don't tie directly into spells from the books, etc.
I also like the idea of modifying the stats on elves so that the receive bonuses on certain skills like, knowledge and craft, as well as certain feats and get level adjusted. Does anyone else do this?
Would anyone like to see the elf template I put together?
Or I am better off letting this thread die?
Read the Races of the Wild. It discusses how Elves have a need to be better at alot of things. That for one will slow them as they multiclass.
The very fact that a level 15 group/PC has to LOOK for a challenege to improve on experience largely speaks to it. The higher level you go, the more difficult challeneges you must have. Either one is too difficult and it kills you, or you go home and do something else after a while.
BTW, level 60 is nuts.
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Read the Races of the Wild. It discusses how Elves have a need to be better at alot of things. That for one will slow them as they multiclass.
I remember that from the 2E Complete Elf book. Why churn out an inferior work in week's time when you can spend ten years on the work and get something that's "perfect"? The subjectivity of Time is very different for a long-lived race and should relate to the World of Tiers concept I suggested earlier.
The very fact that a level 15 group/PC has to LOOK for a challenege to improve on experience largely speaks to it. The higher level you go, the more difficult challeneges you must have. Either one is too difficult and it kills you, or you go home and do something else after a while.
It's the power ecosystem of PC-classed sentient beings. "There's always a bigger fish".
BTW, level 60 is nuts.
But no more wrong than any other game if everyone is enjoying it.
Look in the archives under the "What to do with half-elves?" thread- it wandered into the super-elf conundrum and answered a lot of questions (at least for me). This question is about like asking, "Why doesn't everyone in the world take PC class levels?" They just don't. Why doesn't every moderate/high-intelligence person become a brain surgeon or something else that makes uber-money? They just don't, for millions of reasons.
I've always just thought that elves, as a whole, lacked the drive or initiative to want to pursue ungodly amounts of power. I always associated this with their aloofness. There are, of course, aberrations to this. I'm sure that if the elves ever over came their natural tendancy to lead peaceful lives of introspection and harmony with nature that they could in fact become the "super elf" threat. It's like the dwarves, they are so busy mining and expanding their empires, for the most part, that they take very little time to consider taking over the world. For the most part the evil varieties of theses races are held in check by the good ones, or by themselves (drow). Again this is all just my thinking.
A bit from my Hoarde
...Elves as a race aren't particularly interested in enslaving anyone.
REPLY: The a conceit of the world as written it is not however a solution as to why it doesn't happen.
I'm not sure I got the point of this response. Elves don't take over because (in part, as a race) they are psychologically incapable of doing so -- that's a perfectly good explanation. Dirt doesn't explode because it's not capable of it.
That's how I solve the elf problem. I'd also point out that there are bigger inconsistencies we sweep under the rug in D&D.
For what it's worth,
Jack
Super-elves?
Kryptonite.
I also like the idea of modifying the stats on elves so that the receive bonuses on certain skills like, knowledge and craft, as well as certain feats and get level adjusted. Does anyone else do this?
Would anyone like to see the elf template I put together?
Or I am better off letting this thread die?
I'd like to see the template. Thanks.
Elves: Level Adjustment +2
Statistics as described in PHB plus the following:
+2 Charisma
Spell-like abilities:
Detect Magic (at will)
Detect Fey Crossroads (at will)
Mage Hand/Prestidigitation/Dancing Lights/Mend (3 times per day)
Cure Light Wounds (once per day/three caster levels)
Feather Fall (once per day/three caster levels)
+10 bonus on a single craft or profession which the character chooses to take 4 ranks in at level 1
+5 bonus on appraise checks related to that craft or profession
+5 bonus on a related craft or profession (i.e. woodworking as the principal craft +10, inlay work as the second +5, with a plus +5 checks to value wooden craft objects) (sailor as the profession +10, navigator as the second +5, +5 on checks to know the cost of shipping goods, passengers, or goods related to equipping vessels of various sizes and compliments)
+5 bonus on perform checks made with a single instrument of the characters choice.
Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Weapon Focus Bow as bonus feats.
Favored Class: Sorcerer or Bard (the magic is in their blood rather than the result of study)
Bows are revered in a manner similar to the way samurai revere their swords. Even peasant weapons are finely crafted and rich in detail.
Classical Elven architecture is typified by great halls of stone and wood that flow and join others halls and functional building with ornate walkways, coupled with frequent interconnecting courtyards, balconies, and gardens.
Public spaces cafes, libraries, tea houses, inns, government buildings, tend to have many alcoves and balconies for private conversations.
The elven people were once numerous but have been ravaged by a plague that decimated their population. As a result elves are now relatively rare. This tragedy has also fractured the elven people culturally, approximately 50% have marshalled magic (and the concentration of wealth that resulted from the plague and defection of survivors) to create a culture and lifestyle that is an idealized version of elven culture prior to the Plague. Approximately 15% of the elven population determined that the Plague was set among them as a punishment from their Gods for not sufficiently revering and protecting nature and its treasures, these elves have formed clans/tribes similar in their style to the Native American Indians of the temperate forests of North America. These sylvan elves tend toward sorcerous, druidic, and bardic magic, and use these magic to ease their impact on the land. The Sylvan elves tend toward weapons of wood, leather, and stone (though crafted with great art) and live in an uneasy truce with their more urban brethren). Another 10% of the Plague survivors too believe that the Plague was a curse or trial sent by the gods but rather than returning to the wild, they have chosen the path of religious zealotry. They have chosen the clerics robe and evangalize on behalf of their gods, some preaching to the "decadent" survivors in elven cities, some taking the word to non-elven populations, some building missions and temples in non-elven lands (the concentration of wealth that resulted for the Plague has made these missions and temples power entities in the communities where they stand). And roughly 25% have moved into non-elven lands and have tried to integrate into those communities in a manner similar to any other ethnic group (though an ethnic group with education, skills, and wealth, starting businesses, and becoming part of the local fabric).
Elves have conflicts with every race of man. Some communities fight to protect their ancestral lands from encroachment by those who think they are weak and can no longer hold their lands since the plague. In many cases this makes sense because the lands lie fallow and the buildings decay unoccupied, but the elves fight anyway.
In active communities they fight to hold the land they live one (particularly from Orcs, Men, Gnomes, and occasionally Halflings).
The elves of the forest have a particular animosity with goblin tribes as they compete directly for the same lands and water resources.
The cultural style for these elves is Celtic (like in the stories about Cuchulain) but with certain aspects of fuedal Japan (a culture that supports masters of flower arranging, tea ceremonies, etc. a culture with a lot of emphasis on etiquette and manners).
I tried to post this with the other core races but I think that post was too long. The other baseline races in this world are gnomes +1, orcs +1, goblins +3, halflings +0, and humans +0.
In TSR's D&D, demihumans had strict level limits, based largely on the notion that if they didn't, these long-lived creatures would quickly level-up so much that they'd rule the world, with humans as either an enslaved underclass or an entirely extinct "failed race." Level limits make this a non-issue. If a human can reach level 20+ during his lifetime before old age brings an end to the ability to adventure successfully, an elf that lives ten or more times as long should have no trouble making level 100+ during that time.
In WotC's D&D, there's no limit to the levels that demihuman characters can attain. So what had been done to circumvent the "superelf problem?"
Hi all:
I am new here however I have been playing RPG's since before DnD 1st edition and I have to say that after first edition the whole system got screwed up...It was as if a bunch of people had great ideas but neither of them were talking so nothing formed into a single cohesive unit.I slightly digress here though, sorry, I think that the one thing that is being overlooked in this question is the unknown equation of the players and the GM. Any good GM uses the rules sets as a guideline and nothing more.
In a good group there is a synergy where the players and the GM are operating as a single unit. This being said the players know the boundries of what can and cannot be done and in reality one of the things that draws a good group is fun which, if the GM is doing his job means a great character death or one that focuses on extremely dumb mistakes. Yes there is always the potential for overpowered characters however there are many variables that follow...The chance mistake...The exceptional GM who changes tempo, style and target of their campaigns and then ultimatly there is the desire that players and GMs' have to 'try something new'
These solutions have been used as far back as I can remember and I have to say that the unpredictable nature of a Characters life and choices and outcomes are what makes the games fun. I know that as a GM I have never had any complaints.
The whole super-elf problem is one of the biggest Tolkienisms of the game. Tolkien's own super-elves have so innundated the creative and conceptual foundations of modern fanatasy literature and roleplaying that people have real problems rationalizing their long lives when creating a balanced campaign.
I think more people should think outside the box when it comes to elves, and not be tied down by the belief that elves have to be the greatest race on the planet. Here are a few examples from my own campaigns that deal with the elf age issue:
1. I run a highly dangerous ice age campaign in which all of the humanoid races face a day to day struggle to survive not only the elements, but also the monsters and races that are better adapted to the eternal cold than they are. In this campaign elves can live to be over 1,000 years of age, but seldom live past 200 before they perish from something (I reiterate the fact that this campaign is highly dangerous).
2. I have another campaign in which elves only live to be 350 years old. After that time passes they metamorphose into creatures of light and air known as the alfar (I stole the name from norse mythology). These strange fey creatures are ammoral and aloof, and cut off all connection with their elven relatives to dwell with the rest of the alfar in their hidden cities (consequently the alfar also make up a great deal of the epic level encounters in my world, as they pursue their strange and mysterious goals).
3. I once began creation on a campaign where elves lived as long as humans, and were simply a subrace of humans that evolved to live amongst the trees. This was before 3rd edition came out and made me drop the idea to run Greyhawk (since with the new rules I didn't want the hassle of creating my own campaign world).
just my 5 cents ;-)
I just recently started posting on this site and came across this thread and I find it interesting. There were some interesting points made but I think the problem is just that the PBH and other books don't have the space to make too much reality out of fantasy.
I created an NPC 3.5 ed that was 100th level (wiz/sor/spellfire/archmage) just as an excercise (I was remembering the old Bloodstone Pass adventure book that had a 100th level paladin as a prerolled PC). I gave him a history and reasons for his level and age was one (human but 2200 years old). In thinking about this I thought of the superelf problem and here are my ideas.
It says in the books that the elves are contemplative and take a long time to do anything. So for politics I would think that they spend a great deal of time and thought on what this decision will affect two centuries from now etc and then two centuries later the problem has changed around them making the decision moot. But in PC classes and such think of it like this: a human wizard learns his two spells he can cast at first level and then levels up to get more power as soon as possible, an elf however wants to learn every spell and more importantly why the magic works. "Why does a fireball use bat guano and sulfur instead of tar as components?" etc. Basically due to the human's short life span he is a meta gamer, he doesn't care why he can blow things up he just wants to know how. Inevitably the elf realizes how much his power affects the world (think Dark Sun setting) and doesn't throw around the big guns. Also the elves craft High Magic which generally has a very costly component (usually the lives of several powerful elves) and keeps their numbers down.
Someone above mentioned money and the wealth that comes with time. My response to this is: a minimum wage job over 2000 years still lands me in a pathetic little apartment up to my eyeballs in debt. And even in long lived societies someone has to muck out the horses stalls. In all the books I have read with elves in them it states that they "grow" their homes out of the trees or out of crystal and stone. How much does it cost to grow a mansion? High level wizards charge a premium price just to cast detect magic what will they charge to grow a mansion out of trees? Their economy would take into account time. What are the taxes on a 10,000 year old estate? What's the interest on a 300 year mortgage? With so many years of economic decisions to make they are more likely to hit a disaster (natural or poor choice) that bankrupts them; wastrels in the family; war etc. You would see a tiered society just as we have. (rich elves still want to keep the status quo)
Despite their long lives in general elves only have one or two children. And their biggest enemies, orcs, seem to sprout fully adult from the trees every season. The idea of 'culling' has not worked with orcs so why would it work with any other race. And all of the great epics show that enough throw away orcs can over come any fortification or master swordsman etc.
Last the elves are for the most part a race that leans towards good so they don't tend to enslave and conquer. This also makes them great heroic martyrs. They tend to throw themselves on the blades of their foes just to save the girl. Or they die to the last trying to hold an already fallen city.
In the thread everyone seems to be dealing in absolutes: All elves live to be 1200 years old so why aren't they all epic level whatevers? I'm not picking on your theories Kyr (they just summed up everyone else's and had serious thought in your rebuttals) but your personal discipline has led you to a remarkable juggling of "classes" in your real life. But how many people have you seen in your martial arts training quit? How many failed teachers were there from your graduating class at school? How many people failed in bussiness that you know? Then ask yourself how many people can list all three of those as successful "classes" in their life. We think of D&D PCs and NPCs by what/who we interact with in the game but how many NPCs are there in the town that have no useful information?, no description? How many people do we not see in the towns that our characters pass through?
This goes back to what you said earlier about real life with science making longer living people: the superelf isn't the problem; think of the damage a short thinking 1000 year old human can do. He strives and strives as if he will live a short time but instead will live forever, a race like this would be made up of all epic characters. How fast would we screw up our world then?
WOW, I need to lay off the caffine and go to bed. MY brain hurts just reading what I wrote (ranted?).
A number of people have complained that the superelf is an artifact from Tolkien and the influence of Lord of the Rings and the fantasy genre in general. While in may be the case that Tolkien has had a diproportionate influence on fantasy literature and gaming, it seems to me that his work has more verisimilitude than most in part because the longer lived the race the more sophisticated it was at whatever it did.
However, the point I wanted to make here was that Tolkien was by no means the originator of the Superelf. The elves of folklore - are in many ways superelves, the elves in much of irish folklore are celtic gods that with coming of christianity "lost" their divine status to become elves. The elves of scandanavian folklore were likewise powerful magical beings. These superelves are the sources Tolkien drew on when creating his world.
As for crappy jobs and minimal pay - that may be true - but the rules of compound interest are - impressive, even with regard to trivial amounts when the time frames are centuries. And unless one assumes that both wisdom and intelligence are in someway monumentally impared - elves would understand that situations in flux require attention in relevant time frames - they may not take the same amount of interest in some of those issues as a shorter live race but they would certainly understand both long and short term issues and planning. As for growing homes - sure that can take a long time - but yoju have to live somewhere in the interrum.
To take an example - to remain healthy you eat 3 times a day (yes there other choices - 5 times, 1, fast for a couple of days, blah, blah, blah - you have to eat at some kind of regular interval), to spend a decade to get the meal "Just Right" is not a viable option. Every day you go through the process of meal preparation multiple times. I think it is safe to assume that repetition brings improvement. I don't cook often but each time I do I get better at it, sometimes I make mistakes - I learn from these too. I would suggest that this is true of professional pursuits as well (in my experience it is more true). Many people have indicated that they think their is a plateau - I would suggest that while their may be palteaus there is also an end too them and that while improvement may slow - or come increments if it ever actually ends that is a fault of character.
Kyr, you really shouldn't use our mythology to talk about how super elves are because in almost all mythological stories there is very little distinction between elves, gnomes, dwarves, and the other mythical races (dryads, nymphs, goblins, etc.). By rights dwarves, gnomes and goblins should be as long lived as elves, as magical, and as powerful. Its fantasy literature that has made elves what they are today, particularly Tolkien's influence. Simply make your elves 3 foot tall with pointy ears and pointier shoes? Then no one will care that they live to be 10,000 years old. They will be too busy laughing!
Kyr,
I liked your variant elf race that you posted earlier on this thread. That's pretty well thought out and something worth considering--just make elves ECL +2 like you suggested. Good idea, I didn't read it until just now.
you really shouldn't use our mythology to talk about how super elves are because in almost all mythological stories there is very little distinction between elves, gnomes, dwarves, and the other mythical races (dryads, nymphs, goblins, etc.). By rights dwarves, gnomes and goblins should be as long lived as elves, as magical, and as powerful.
One does notice that the deeper you dig into the origins of these real world mythologies, mostly we're talking about the same creature with 70 different names. Researching this left me rather underwhelmed and gypped. (Apologies to the Tzigani)
The need for these brownies, dwarves, faeries, elves etc. will never die so long as we lose our car keys and feel the need to chalk our thoughtlessness up to metaphysical pranksters.
Woke up in the woods naked? Explain to the wife that the grog had nothing to do with it.
"It was a dryad made me do it!"
Kyr, you really shouldn't use our mythology to talk about how super elves are because in almost all mythological stories there is very little distinction between elves, gnomes, dwarves, and the other mythical races (dryads, nymphs, goblins, etc.). By rights dwarves, gnomes and goblins should be as long lived as elves, as magical, and as powerful.
I guess that depends on your folklore professor and which culture at which time you are talking about. I am of the opinion that myth and folklore are great inspirational sources.
Further I think that while this thread is focused on elves (since they are the extreme) the same considerations would have to be made for other races.
The races are as they are for game balance reasons.
The real issue could the game be improved by addressing the issue. I think the answer is yes. When I play elves - and I like to - I try to come up with backstories that explain why this individual isn't wonderful at something - a character that couldn't quite cut it in normal elven society. Then I give NPC elves a few characters levels. This is the easiest way to address the issue and apply some logic to the context.
Kyr,
I liked your variant elf race that you posted earlier on this thread. That's pretty well thought out and something worth considering--just make elves ECL +2 like you suggested. Good idea, I didn't read it until just now.
Thanks.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Another thing to note about the super-anything syndrome and 3.5: With the commoner classes in the rules actual heroic classes now denote rare heroes of exceptional ability not just people who have been kicking around for too long. Not all members of any race are going to progress at the same speed.
The real thing that has always governed NPC power (at least in my games) is what makes sense for the story and the power level of the PC's. I've had (NPC) veteran heroes who in thier prime might have been a 5th level fighters or higher who due to age (I know strictly by the rules this is wrong) are now 5th level or lower warriors.
Unlike a PC, NPC's need not follow the strictest interpretations of the rules. Instead they need to be dramatic and believable.
The question is: What is most dramatic for this adventure? Super Elf or Venerable commoner.
Really, the super-elf issue is easily addressed. Everyone from Kyr to myself has talked about how to fix the super-elf problem. The question is how individual DM's want to handle elves in their campaign world (if its even an issue).
Actually Yamo's original question has nothing to do with the elven mindset or an elves abilities. The rules make it difficult enough for NPCs to reach 10th level, let alone 100th. You would need to kill an entire pantheon of gods (probably all the elven ones) to even reach 50th level! Yamo would never have asked the question if he realized just how difficult epic level play is. I mean 12 pit fiends is only an EL of 27!
Sorry to resurrect this one but I just read through it and it's a very interesting discussion. I would like to add the way I rationalize the fact that elves do not rule the world despite having ridiculously long lifespans.
In my world elves live to be very old, as is usual in most fantasy settings that include them. But I assume that because of this they never change.
Think about, for example, martial arts techniques. They have been perfected over thousands of years of use in life and death situations by dedicated warriors. Those techniques that didn't work were cast aside. After a while it was discovered which techniques work best. That's why in martial arts it is important to stand in exactly the right way, hit in exactly the right way, there is not much room for expermimentation. The best way has already been found, and with all due respect for those martial artists who attempt to innovate nowadays, I would prefer to trust forms that have evolved in actual battles over centuries rather than a technique that seems like a good idea to someone who is essentially an athlete playing a game.
OK, what I am getting at is that to the elves, EVERYTHING is like this. They have found the best ways of doing everything millenia ago, but they are still limited by their physiology. So the average elf is extremely efficient in thought and action, reflected in their DEX bonus. They have been taught to be like this by their elders according to long and unchanging tradition.
And they don't trust new ideas. Experience has taught them that the ways their culture has developed are the best they can be. They live in the now, as this has been proven to give them the best chance to respond to any situation.
So this peak elf with all of it's race's knowledge about how to hunt, how to fight, how to use magic, is the basic elf in the PHB.
This means "why aren't they better than everyone?" is not really the right question. They ARE better. All the things that are often taken to be some sort of inborn racial ability like their secret door detection, weapon proficiencies, charm resistance, meditating instead of sleeping, all of these things are the result of their long lives and their perfected way of doing things rather than their physiology.
OK, but you might ask how can they advance if they do everything right first time? I'll return to the martial art analogy.
If you take a boxing class you are shown exactly how to punch. This technique is known to work, and now you know how to do it. If you have to punch someone it will probably work. But if you actually go in boxing matches your level of expertise will skyrocket because you'll learn instinctively when to punch, when to duck, etc. But once you know how to punch correctly there is not much you can do to make your punch better besides practicing it over and over again. There is a limit to skills themselves, not the people who learn them.
This is what happens when an elf gets class levels. From this point on their basic knowledge is refined by experience. The difference between an elf and a human is that their basic method is maybe better, though probably not as the thing about perfection is that there is only one way to do it. Humans probably do things much the same way, after all they both have similar humanoid physiology.
So the way I see it 99% of elves are very reluctant to try new things as they think they already know how to do everything, and with pretty good reason. This makes them poorly qualified to be adventurers compared to some other races. They are like zen masters who live in a world of perfectly trained reactions and have no interest in trying to see if anything can be improved upon. In many ways they are very primitive, moreso even than humans, as the simple ways have proved to be the best. They are almost like animals, perfectly adapted and evolved to flourish in their environment to the extent that they hardly ever need to think or invent.
Whew that was a long post! Hope someone found it interesting :)
Oh, and in answer to the actual question, what has WotC done to circumvent the problem?
Nothing really. I think if they even thought about it at all, they decided that probably no-one would think about it too much, and if someone did they would probably be creative enough to solve the problem for themselves, as many of us have done.
At least in Eberron, the elves really are higher level. A band of middle-aged Valenar elves might be 5th level fighters. The Undying Court are upwards of 12HD each and by definition are over four hundred years old. For Eberron, level 12 is very high level. In comparison, most humans would be lucky to reach third or fourth level in expert or warrior by the time they are elderly.
Regardless of which race they are, the player characters are extraordinary members of that race. They are the olympic athletes and Nobel prize winners of the world. They might be able to go from 1st to 20th level in under eight years, where a normal elf would have taken a lifetime to reach 10th level and a normal human would reach 3rd during his. Level limits don't really apply to the player characters.
As for why the elves haven't taken over and enslaved the humans by now, there are a few reasons. Humans tend to dominate large areas relatively quickly by reproducing faster and taking advantage of risky opportunities, so there are simply more of them than anything else. None the long-lived core races want to conquer the humans, either. The dwarves, elves and gnomes are good-aligned, the half-orcs and half-elves are too few, and the halflings just aren't the conquering type.
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I thought about this for a while, and I think the no XP for things 8+ CRs lower than you really takes care of it. I mean, not only do you have to continuosuly adventure to hit epic levels, you also need to do it in weirder and weirder places. A level 20 Elf Fighter needs to kill 128 kobolds at once before getting the lowest amount of XP he can get for an encounter.
That means you really, really, need to seek out Super HIgh Adventure to level... which most people probably won't bother with. I mean, at 30th level in an on crack kind of game I played once, we killed a DEvastation Centipede, 2 prismasaurs, and a Paragon Tarrasque.
And, we STILL didn't level. How much of that stuff can a campaign world have without being really silly?
In WotC's D&D, there's no limit to the levels that demihuman characters can attain. So what had been done to circumvent the "superelf problem?"
As said, it was purely for mechanichal reasons there were level limits back then, but now D&D is alot more customizable and generic, so there's no need.
As for as plot wise go, elves are frail and fairly arrogant, a combination of thier holier then thou attitude can put a thorn in alot of sides. (Hense thier constant war with orcs.. and disgust for dwarves..) And they're meek, so they can't just go out adventuring willy nilly, low con score means low hp, low hp means you come across a dire bear and you is dead.
There are more convient and better abilities asscosiated with races then being able to age increddibly slow-like..
Also there's the whole deal with elves having a bad Con score and a favored class with a d4 hit die. The average 5th level elven wizard has all of 9 hit points. At 10th level this has increased to only 17. That's right, at 10th level they are only one critical hit away from being killed by a 1st level human barbarian.
Also there's the whole deal with elves having a bad Con score and a favored class with a d4 hit die. The average 5th level elven wizard has all of 9 hit points. At 10th level this has increased to only 17. That's right, at 10th level they are only one critical hit away from being killed by a 1st level human barbarian.
Heck, a raging half-orc barbarian could do it without a crit, if he just rolled max damage with that greataxe.
Course that argument would be good, if not for the terrible "Batman syndrome" of the average D&D player, always always ALWAYS giving the wizard full knowledge of a situation and prep time.
OFCOURSE if you give them prep time the wizard will undoubtedly win! Just like Batman!
Course that argument would be good, if not for the terrible "Batman syndrome" of the average D&D player, always always ALWAYS giving the wizard full knowledge of a situation and prep time.
OFCOURSE if you give them prep time the wizard will undoubtedly win! Just like Batman!
Ahh, but that's what illusion magic is for. In this case, you make the barbarian third level (still CR 7 below the wizard) and give him a hat of disguise. And make his weapon one of those from the Spy issue, that you assemble shortly before combat. Who would suspect the innocent-looking guy in a Scholar's Outfit of being a rampaging murderer wielding an axe the size of a hobgoblin?
In other words, if your wizard always knows what's going to happen in time that he can prepare the perfect selection of spells, chances are that either the DM is giving too many clues, or the wizard is reading ahead in the adventure. The closest you'll find to infallible divination magic is True Seeing, and that's got a high enough material component cost that the wizard's not going to be casting it without reason.
If he can prepare the right set of spells, though, of course he's going to win. You can almost expect a well-prepared, strategically sound group to take down a CR 3 to 4 higher than their level if the dice fall reasonably. "Hey, their's a cleric in the group. Maybe we should cast Death Ward..."
Superelves. The bane of my particular player group, in which elves are hated with a furious passion usually reserved for dead german fascists.
And why I wonder? I got into AD&D relatively late, after a good many years of Worlds of Darkness and Cyberpunk under my belt. For my money starting out I just wanted to play a human. Why? Well elves were flighty, girly, malnourished humans. They didn't seem particularly fantastic. They had a +1 Dex and suffered a -1 Con. Likewise dwarves were crude, rude, fat and hairy. Gnomes were goofy old yoda-esque guys. Halflings were short fat homebodies. Humans were where it was at for me coming into AD&D. Granted my attitudes have matured a bit from these thumbnail appraisals, but still.
The short answer is humans are better than elves because they get another feat at character generation, more skill points, and suffer no class preferences.
The problem with elves that I have is quite another one. They start out being like 120 years old right? What have they been doing all that time? One-hundred-twenty years with no levels to show for it? Talk about living in their mom's basement. How's that for a level adjustment. If you want to talk about the part of the D&D universe that just don't make no sense to me. This is where the problem is--not "why are elves so cool" but rather "why does it take an elf 120 years to figure out what end of the arrow do you put into the bow, when a human is ready to adventure in 16"
Wow. Humans really are the master race.
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I think a sci fi author and an statistician got together and the question came up of immortality. Turns out that even if people end up licking the old death by natural causes quandary, death by misadventure will do them in at about age 500-600. So the longer Mr. Superelf lives, the more likely he will accidently be done in by a tree falling on him. I know that he probably has a high reflex save, but he can fumble...
With regards to drow, I recall hearing that Lolth likes to cull them before they get powerful enough to challenge her suzerainty. There's probably one or two 83rd level elves somewhere in the multiverse, but they're just beyond it all. They're not worried about any of it.
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The problem with elves that I have is quite another one. They start out being like 120 years old right? What have they been doing all that time? One-hundred-twenty years with no levels to show for it? Talk about living in their mom's basement. How's that for a level adjustment. If you want to talk about the part of the D&D universe that just don't make no sense to me. This is where the problem is--not "why are elves so cool" but rather "why does it take an elf 120 years to figure out what end of the arrow do you put into the bow, when a human is ready to adventure in 16"
The idea that I always heard was that because elves lived so long, they took longer to mature than other, shorter-lived races. The lesson was - The longer your life expectancy, the longer you were a burden to your parents.
What do I think of that explanation - H&!%~!@+$!
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With regards to drow, I recall hearing that Lolth likes to cull them before they get powerful enough to challenge her suzerainty. There's probably one or two 83rd level elves somewhere in the multiverse, but they're just beyond it all. They're not worried about any of it.
Actually, I think that is the Githyank Lich Queen who culls folks before they get strong enough to challenge her. Lolth is already a goddess: a vile, putrescent, loathesome abomination of a goddess, but a goddess nonetheless.
The whole super elf thing isn't a problem, really.
Think about this, most high level characters are extremely high level because they have adventured for some time at some point. Elves as a whole are not an adventuring type, not so much as ambitious humans are.
Also, if a character RP an elf right, then they should advance in levels at the same rate as a human only between larger intervals of time. The thing about elves is they take their sweet time on EVERYTHING. You don't see elves rushing around to get things done like, say, a human in New York city. It just doesn't happen, not unless an elf was raised in Waterdeep by humans or something but even still. Knowing and feeling you have nearly 5-10 times the lifespan of humans gives you a superiority over what you accomplish.
An elf goes and crafts mithral full plate. That crafter will most likely take his time not only making it useful for combat, but making it as artistic as possible. A true beauty and masterpiece. Most likely, such an elf should take 20 on the skill check. Though you can't do that with Craft, then an elf would most likely keep rolling till he gets a 20. Or take so much time into Crafting the armor that, essentially, you could house rule that he takes a 20. Of course...the time would be twenty times more than normal! Whereas a human could so in maybe a month of time (more or less depending on his crafting skill) an elf would take twenty months or more on one suit of armor!
Unless of course it was war time or some other calamity. But most of the time, elves don't see a reason to rush things. This can go into leveling. A proper player of an elf character would take ten times as much downtime compared to the other characters. Sure, this involves no gameplay for the elf character which isn't fair, while the others adventure like crazy or vice versa. So elf characters are basically the exception to elven society, as all player characters should be. An ambitious, adventuring elf PC would definitely fit the mold of superelf, but not NPC elves.
Pretty much, depends on the setting, elven society in your world, and how well the character actually RPs.