I would say that some of the racial bonuses are learned. This does not cover 100 years but it might help you feel better about the situation. As a long lived race certain skills remain in their memory while others are more difficult and fade with time. The extra feat and skill bonuses for humans represent their extra potential.
The other thing to consider (playing devil's advocate) is that being old doesn't necessarily mean having more knowledge. Especially not knowledge that is either relevant or true.
In real life, I'm sure we all know seniors that we wouldn't exactly consider to be knowledgeable.
I would say that some of the racial bonuses are learned.
Just that the elves do not really get racial boni related to knowledge...
I have been bothered by this for quite a while and my reply is to simply disregard this information from Races of the Wild. I decided for myself (and our group) that while they might physically mature in around thirty years, I assume Elves to mature (in behaviour) much slower.
So while humans are learning a profession or some other useful skills (craft, knowledge, etc.) quite early, the Elves spend their teenage and youth years (20 - ca. 100) playing and joyfully enjoying themselves with their peers, doing very few in terms of actually learning or training. They surely spend some time fencing and practicing archery (hence their free proficiencies), but do not do much more of learning in 80 years than a human in 8.
It's only later on (when they start adventuring and adopt a much more "serious" and "grim" outlook on life) that they reach a learning rate similar to that of the shorter lived races.
Bocklin
Personally, I wouldn't consider their extended life-span as a simple "playing around".
An elf, for right or wrong, perceives the world through a completely unique lens - one that takes years to master. This perception of the world in which they live, matures slowly over their extended lifespans - and also requires a majority of that (adolescent) life to hone their mind toward ignoring enchantments and mind-effecting effects, and also requires years to master the reduced sleep-cycles (they accomplish through meditation).
Also, one should consider that each skill point an elf attains is completely different to a skill point gained by another race. For example, a +1 in swimming for a human is the simple trained ability to swim - whereas, for an elf, it is the devotion to completely master that +1 skill point. What I'm implying here is that an Elf takes time to master each skill point in a unique "Elfy" way. Fine, at the bottom line, this really doesn't make much difference to the game mechanics; but in terms of role-playing, it represents an extended effort to accurately master every single step of the (1) skill point. You can therein apply this to the game-top by putting in extra effort to describe “how” your elf executes his training. For example, “Trismageajustus(!) the Elf, patiently extends his limbs in a beautiful display of the mastery of swimming. Each motion is carefully timed and calculated to exemplify years of mastery to the art. It is easy to tell; he has worked hard on this skill.” (Bit of a rubbish example – but I think you get the point! <smile>)
Good one Lanval
Yes I see elves has having a complex social structure and a somewhat complicated language. Sure they reach physical maturity early but it takes them decades to learn how to be and act like an elf. IMO elves have only one way to skin a cat and it *has* to be done that one way. It takes a while to learn all of the different intricate rituals etc that make up elf life. You *have* to skin the boar this way, you use only this fork to eat this meal, etc.
I would even go so far as to apply penalties to humans etc that interact with elves in their homeworld as the brash humans don't do things the *right* way. Think of the human/vulcan interactions in Enterprise - humans are always treading on vulcan's toes - I know I watch too much tv.
igi
See the superelf thread...similar topic and that discussion should cover many of the questions that you have.
As ever,
ACE
OK I posted this before in the superelf thread, but I was quite proud of my answer so I'm going to reproduce it here! I hope no-one minds too much...
I assume that because of their long lifespans elves don't change much.
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.
I don't think you need to be overly concerned. Your own life should prove to you that you don't just accumlate knowledge and learning without limit.
It would probably be true that elves would forget more than any single human could learn in his life time.
Elves live longer but unless their brain is a hard drive they will forget things that go unused just like anyone else. Think of the things you've learned in school but have forgotten already.
There are some many other factors in this equation besides long life and ways to rationalize something that makes it seem equitable.
As an example, 1000 year old elven smith who learned his craft from his tutor over 900 years ago. Elves, typically, withdrawn from other societies, would be 'stuck' in time as literally dozens of human generations have advanced in rapid successive levels of knowledge passed from one generation to the next. The human's sucked up that knowledge 900 years ago...and pressed on like a wind through time. They met the dwarves, neat..now we learn from them. Boom...on they go to a next generation passing it down again improved and improving.
Forever experimenting and making the next leap in understanding. The elf may look upon the his human counterpart in contempt or awe for he hasn't been exposed to this environment and cannot fathom how this 40 year old upstart would dare compare his work of generations his 900 year dedication yet the human has the advantage of literally hundreds of minds working and teaching on the same task that the elf learned from only his single master.
Yes, it is possible that the elf traveled the world and exposed himself to other cultures...but at the rate of change for his human contemporaries it would seem like utter chaos to his already long life.
In the beginning, elves probably seemed like gods to early humans, but in that 1000 years of a single elven life humans moved from one generation to the next in a natural progress that would rapidly eclipse and surpass elves. In the end, it is likely that elves and other long lived races would struggle to match the racial knowledge of the shorter lived races. An elf would likely take 20 years to perfect his spell..an average human would probably consider 20 days too long.
You could make an arguement that elves, due to their long lives, are technologically disinclined and disadvantaged (thus their propensity for arcane magic as the leveler of the playing field).
My main point, is that you shouldn't make it into something bigger than it is or try to apply a strict logic to it. As a DM, adopt how you want to rationalize the game mechanics and press on and enjoy your gaming.
My two cents: Elves have strong ties to their race's ancient society and learn a great number of things that aren't relevant to adventuring. They're very patient and aren't in any hurry to improve themselves like humans are - an elven saying might be, "You cannot speed up the growing of a tree by pulling on the leaves".
Even when elves adventure, they don't do it without a reason, and that reason is usually something beyond "to get stronger and richer really quickly". A human might adventure for the sake of adventuring, but it's extremely rare that an elf will think this way.
I like the suggestion above that elves consider the form and grace of their skills to be equally as important as the function. When an elf learns to fight, speak or swim the elven way, he wishes to do so in the most graceful, beautiful and proper manner that he can. He takes to archery and swordplay as much to improve himself spiritually as to fight. Fighting merely to survive, like a human, is what animals do.
Okay I'm going to answer this question from two perspectives. First, a patch to help explain things then; second my real feelings on the matter.
First: Elves are flightly, at least to the perceptions of others. Their cultural position is that for an elf, life is a matter of centuries. In the first hundred or so years an elf isn't expected to contribute much. It's like summer vacation back when I was in school. There were no expectations on me, and my needs were taken care of, so I just hung out. Could an elf be ready to adventure at 25 were he raised in another culture? Probably. But elves raised in their homeland are coddled for the first century or so. Plenty of time to contribute later.
Second: D&D was first a wargame. There's a lot of things that don't make a whole heckovalot of sense that only recently have been getting some love, smoothed over into a more reasonable, less game mechanicky world. Age is one of those things. If it were just elves, I'd fully be behind my above statement, but then it takes dwarves 50 years to be useful--and their culture is distinctly NOT frolicky. A dwarf is probably hard at work at learning a trade at an age that would seem cruel to a human. So why does it take 50 years to become as cool as a 16 year old human? No good reason. There's a lot of patches and attempts to reconsile it, but it's really a relic. Elves and dwarves are supposed to be impressivly old thanks to Tolkien, so the thought was to just start them off old without really thinking about it. At the time, all D&D was about was crawling around mazes killing goblins and no one really took it too seriously. It's only now in retrospect that these problems are recieving serious attention. Unfortunately I don't think there's any good solution.
Personally, I wouldn't consider their extended life-span as a simple "playing around".
An elf, for right or wrong, perceives the world through a completely unique lens - one that takes years to master. This perception of the world in which they live, matures slowly over their extended lifespans - and also requires a majority of that (adolescent) life to hone their mind toward ignoring enchantments and mind-effecting effects, and also requires years to master the reduced sleep-cycles (they accomplish through meditation).
Also, one should consider that each skill point an elf attains is completely different to a skill point gained by another race. For example, a +1 in swimming for a human is the simple trained ability to swim - whereas, for an elf, it is the devotion to completely master that +1 skill point. What I'm implying here is that an Elf takes time to master each skill point in a unique "Elfy" way. Fine, at the bottom line, this really doesn't make much difference to the game mechanics; but in terms of role-playing, it represents an extended effort to accurately master every single step of the (1) skill point. You can therein apply this to the game-top by putting in extra effort to describe “how” your elf executes his training. For example, “Trismageajustus(!) the Elf, patiently extends his limbs in a beautiful display of the mastery of swimming. Each motion is carefully timed and calculated to exemplify years of mastery to the art. It is easy to tell; he has worked hard on this skill.” (Bit of a rubbish example – but I think you get the point! <smile>)
My only problem with this is now your stepping on the players toes - if I say my Elf is brash and hot headed I'm not sure that its the DMs place to say - no you can't be...your an elf. Furthermore the whole concept kind of falls apart when the elf character is going to become awesomely powerful in...oh the next year and a half or so. It soon becomes apparent that our elf character is vastly more skilled then the vast majority of his peers - obviously nearly every elf everywhere else, with the sole exception of those at 15th level or so are unbelievably lazy to the extent that's basically unfathomable by the human mind. I mean their mostly what? 400 years old - but our brash young hot head has learned more in a year and a half then the vast majority of them will probably ever manage to even come close to - after all he's heading for 20th level at a breakneck pace.
I definitely see the issue with starting with few skill points as well - some one mentioned all the things one has forgotten from school etc. over the year - sure that's true, but think of the vast number of things you have learned as well. If you bother to play with an instrument for even about a year or so you'll probably be a passable amateur with that instrument - if you've even once made your own clothes you probably learned a heck of a lot - most of it a human would not forget - if he or she waited 10 years before deciding to make another set of clothes they may be a little rough around the edges - but it'd still be possible to make them. I've forgotten everything but the basics of my stats courses - but I could probably get myself back up to the level I left school at in little more then a a few weeks - maybe a month of brushing up.
The obvious answer is that Elf's simply have learned nothing in the 90 or so years growing up - they played no instruments, unless the player sunk stats into it etc. We know from the experience system that they are perfectly capable of learning as fast as a human and they have been around for 5 times as long - but they know less...ergo they must have sat watching grass grow most of the time - and no thinking when watching the grass grow - would not want any insights creeping in - OK we'll allow the elf to think but absolutely no profound thoughts only inane and trivial thoughts allowed - real insight is represented by wisdom and Elves are not particularly known for their wisdom.
Drittz who is as I recall something like 40 to 50 years or so is still learning what its like to be an elf (a dark elf but still elf). He knows that he will out live all his human friends and even posable his dwarf freinds too. In the Two swords books he meets a way older elf female and she imparts some of she has learned over the years to him. Also why just stop at elfs with there life spans, why not dwarfs. They live a good while but they get not knowledge bonus and there more rigite in what they do in there lifes. How about Dragons do any of them get a bonuse to knowledge? Well thats just my reasoning. I may be wrong.
Drittz who is as I recall something like 40 to 50 years or so is still learning what its like to be an elf (a dark elf but still elf). He knows that he will out live all his human friends and even posable his dwarf freinds too. In the Two swords books he meets a way older elf female and she imparts some of she has learned over the years to him. Also why just stop at elfs with there life spans, why not dwarfs. They live a good while but they get not knowledge bonus and there more rigite in what they do in there lifes. How about Dragons do any of them get a bonuse to knowledge? Well thats just my reasoning. I may be wrong.
Have you ever seen how many skill points a Dragon gets...its amazing - My players are raising a baby Dragon - It gets a skill point a week in its first year of life - and learns like six languages.
Quick glance at the Monster Manual and I get Dragon Skill points of (6+int modifier)*(HD+3)
So a Wyrmling Brass has (6+0)*(4*3) = 6*7 = 49 Skill Points
Bet your players wish they had this many skill points when they were born.
Anyway I agree that the issue crops up with Dwarves as well - but my feeling is its something of a matter of degree - Its hard to swollow that our newly minted Dwarf Adventurer has so few skills but Dwarves start adventuring much younger then Elves so the problems don't seem quiet as glaring.
Actually the problem can be addressed in 3rd edition through level adjustments - give Elves a slew of skill points to reflect their age and then simply charge elf players a level adjustment penalty - one could do the same with Dwarves as well. Though how many skill points would be something of a tricky question - as a ball park figure I'd say something to the tune of 12 skill points were worth a +1 level Adjustment - maybe more if the DM assigned some of them to represent 'what all Elves' or 'All Dwarves' know.
I'd think this would also have the iconic effect of making Elves and Dwarves level more slowly then humans which is probably part of the fantasy theme for these races most of the time. Of course this does impact their playability - it'd take some balancing to make the Races still seem like a comparable deal to a human or Half-Orc.