Reading over the races section (which is pretty uniformly a migrane inducing headace--warforged and tieflings? *sigh) there is one idea there I really like.
See I've always disdained the whole "elves are everything" garbage that has trickled down from musty old Tolkien and his ideas of elves of immortal sublime grace who are the masters and inventers of everything--and boy are they pretty. They love nature so much they frolick around naked in it. They love swords so much they dance with them. Mmmm and even their hardtack is mighty tasty--one small mouthful can sustain a grown man for a day. Boy, those elves lemme tell ya. You just want to feed them screaming to a manticore--head freakin' first!
Then I read the 4th edition take. Elves are now two different races. The "elf" elves are still xenophobic jerks who live in the woods hunting by stealth and defending the native woodlands of their home, smug in their own superiority--but thing is now it's mostly just cultural. They don't seem like immortals, or the founders of magic and civilization. They're mostly dreadlocky tribals. I can handle that.
Eladrin by contrast are urban and cosmopolitan. They love humans and other races, or really anyone who will talk to them. They love to talk. That's why they know so much. Maybe they didn't create magic per se, but their great loves for thinking and talking have certainly made theirs the best. They are great artists, philosophers, alchemists, and politicians. They love ideas and the people who love ideas. All of the accomplishment of the elves, but friendly and not-so-arrogant. They are more than happy to share a town with you without calling you "unwashed slave race" at every turn.
I may just really like these new elves.
I've never understood elf hate. I think it comes from people playing them badly; if your character is hundreds of years old, and very knowledgeable, then of course he must be an arrogant snob! And a weed. And (most insidiously and distastefully of all) a bit gay - which as we all know is icky wrong!
IRONY ALERT.
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"Hi, my name is Ray, and I hate D&D Elves"
Actually, whenever I say this cheers abound because everyone hates D&D Elves.
Low CON, live forever.
200 years old, 1st level.
Invented arcana and archery and aesthetics.
Wise nature custodians -- playful epicureans.
202 years old, 16th level. Um...
Elven food, wine, architecture, art, etc.: the best, most advanced.
It's ALL bs, man
Meanwhile, my only legitimate gripe about dwarves is that though they live in mountains and grow no grain, they make the best ale. THAT'S bs.
-W. E. Ray
"Hi, my name is Ray, and I hate D&D Elves"
Meanwhile, my only legitimate gripe about dwarves is that though they live in mountains and grow no grain, they make the best ale. THAT'S bs.
-W. E. Ray
My dwarves grow barley on high mountain terraces. They brew stout lagers (great for cold brewing) and make whiskey that will curl the hair on a halflings foot (yeah we still use tokien halflings).
--The Osquip--
PS Our dwarven whiskey works just like alchemists fire :) I even had a creative dwarven rogue take a hit from his flask, and spit the concoction through his torch to incinerate a swarm of wasps heading his way!!
Now see, that's cool.
I've always struggled with this. I WANT dwarves to be the best in beer, but how? I don't see them growing barley on the mountaintop; they're all, "Let's find mithril and iron ore," not, "Lets plant flowers for hops." But it's still cool.
Well they have to grow something. I guess it depends on your dwarves. Mine are more akin to Dragonlance hill dwarves. Small settlements on the surface aimed at agriculture, with big underground "mountain strongholds" controlling each dwarven region.
If you have a dwarven society that is almost entirely subterranian, I could see a problem. How DO you feed an entire city that exists underground, away from green growning things? Well I guess you could resort to magic, or the classic "mold anf fungus" diet, but that always seemed trite or boring to me.
--The Osquip--
Oops I think we hijacked this thread. What were we talking about originally? Elves? I hate those pointy eared jerks. Or, I guess I hate all the pointy eared drizzt clones I ran into in the RPGA. Jeez, you think with all the great literature out there, people could come up with more interesting elves to play. With the first published setting in 4th edition being forgotten realms, I guess we can all look forward to an army of Drizzt clones rearing thier ugly heads again. Just for variety, perhaps my next elf will be a slyvan elf warlock/cleric who delights in crushing all the small fuzzy woodland creatures and sacrificing thier life essences to Jubilex to feed his gods ever-present hunger.
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I actually like Tolkien Elves. They work for Tolkien. As part of his stories, they made sense and were kind of cool.
That being said, they don't work for D&D. It was a mistake to try and marry the concept of a well-nigh immortal race with a game that has character's going from lowly nothings to history altering champions in just a short amount of chronological time. They would have been better off leaving the elves as an NPC race.
I actually like Tolkien Elves. They work for Tolkien. As part of his stories, they made sense and were kind of cool.
That being said, they don't work for D&D. It was a mistake to try and marry the concept of a well-nigh immortal race with a game that has character's going from lowly nothings to history altering champions in just a short amount of chronological time. They would have been better off leaving the elves as an NPC race.
Yup. Tolkien's elves are a ripoff from Norse mythology, in which the elves are a divine race, servants of Frey, who are immortal, superhuman, and even have their own plane. But nothing says "unplayably high level adjustment" like a Tolkien elf. So what's a 3e designer to do?
I don't "get" elf hate, either. I agree that they need to be a bit more focused, but largely, I don't mind them the way they are. Why can't they be the creators of civilization and magic? Why is this a bad thing? Theoretically, someone had to do it. Why not elves?
Meanwhile, my only legitimate gripe about dwarves is that though they live in mountains and grow no grain, they make the best ale. THAT'S bs.
-W. E. Ray
Shrooms, man. Shrooms.
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I don't hate elves, but I get elf hate.
They're too freaking perfect.
They're svelte, good looking, they live forever. Ever see an elf with a boil on his cheek? They don't even get acne.
They live hundreds of years and don't even get hemorrhoids. Why? They have -2 con. -2 con and not so much as a hemorrhoid.
Their only seeming imperfection is arrogance in some dungeonmaster's and/or author's worlds.
If a mongrelman accomplishes something, you have to cheer. The decks are stacked against mongrelmen. Hell, even drow are all good looking. They're supposed to be cursed by the gods, right?
So, oh, yeah....I gets me some elf hate.
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I'd like to see D&D elves changed to a more Fey-like creature; just get rid of half elves altogether maybe.
On dwarves and shrooms; yeah I've thought about it, more like roots in my mind. It's just, well, dwarves drink ale -- not, Underdark spirits. I don't know, I really like dwarves; it's just that one thing that's always kind of rubbed me wrong.
In defense of elves, Greyhawk always had a nice variety of them, such that we weren't left w/ only 1 archetypal caricature. Rare, aloof masters (Grey Elves, or is that Gray?); woodsy but not uncivilized (High Elves); reclusive & woodsy (Wood Elves); and just feral (Wild Elves, or Grugach). I never had a problem distinguishing between them; they always felt different. I think too many people are colored by the elves of the LOTR movie trilogy, or Driz'zt from FR; they don't all have to be like that in your D&D. You can also branch out and find radically different presentations of core demi-human races if you look for them. Hell, look what Dark Sun did.
I'd like to see D&D elves changed to a more Fey-like creature; just get rid of half elves altogether maybe.
See, I don't like this. I like elves as being the proginitors of culture and magic (at least, that inherited by the humans). I like elves being wizards and having towers, and I like them being the "fair folk" (at least in appearance, and as they present themselves).
They have -2 Con but never look ill. So? Most fantasy humanoids are portrayed as being beautiful, unless the artist went the totally opposite direction and made them hideous (which there is absolutely no precedent for with elves). Besides, that strikes me as something more Charisma linked (see: orcs and half-orcs; and don't tell me that Charisma penalty represents a lack of "presence;" orcs have the same type of negative, but powerful, presence as a demon, and demons have impressive Charisma scores).
But elves are frail physically; i.e., when they do get sick, they go down hard. Don't adapt to environmental change well. Etc.
As for arrogance: that's how humans percieve it. If you lived 800 years and saw the humans rise and fall like gnats, their kingdoms and politics changing with the seasons, all while destroying your native forests in their frenzy and greed, how much respect would you give them?
And I've seen them attacked on being attuned with nature, too, as if that were some kind of sin. What's wrong with elves being able to live more harmoniously with the natural cylces of the world than humans? Again, for someone who relies on nature much more for their survival (i.e., healthy forests), they have a vested interest in making sure the "balance" stays in place. And look at what humans have done to this world; is it so much of a bad thing, or so insulting, to have a race which doesn't destroy their home? Or so unbelievable that if elves lived so long they would see the effects of neglecting the environment and change their ways, unlike the humans who can't see more than 10 years into the future, if that?
I know this is going to be taken the wrong way, and maybe I shouldn't be saying it, but I will anway with this preface and another: I don't mean any offense. However, I feel that a lot of elf hate comes from people looking at the lore around elves and just pushing it away, rejecting it, saying, "No, that's stupid!", rather than finding a way to make it work. Now, I'm all for calling things stupid and rejecting them, but when it's such a basic element of the game, I feel a few more pains should be taken to find a way to accept it.
Regardless, I still don't understand elf hate.
Hear hear! Or maybe in the case of elves 'ear, 'ear.
I hate elves for the same reasons everyone else has said. I don't really care enough to get rid of them in my campaigns and I've never outright forbidden anyone from playing an elf. In my current home campaign, I kept them as the all-knowing superbeing race but then had them disappear completely thousands of years before the present day by packing themselves off into their magical glass cities in their twilight demiplane (like the Star Elves from FR) when the horrid unthinkable god of aberrations came to wipe all life off of the planet. They left everyone else high and dry when they could have lead the fight. So now their descendents (half-elves) bear the brunt of a lot of racism and scorn. But that's just my campaign and I wouldn't propose that it should be the standard.
What also bugs me is that they come in flavors. It's a race with so many interpretations that, in order to encompass all of them, some campaigns require a subrace for evil elves (because it's unthinkable that a large percentage of elves could possibly be evil, so we need black ones to fill that role), two kinds of wild elves and then a bunch of scholar elves. Rather than making seperate nations or tribes with different specialties, we need five different subraces. Blech. But that's just my opinion and, like any bias, it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.
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I'd like to see D&D elves changed to a more Fey-like creature; just get rid of half elves altogether maybe.
On dwarves and shrooms; yeah I've thought about it, more like roots in my mind. It's just, well, dwarves drink ale -- not, Underdark spirits. I don't know, I really like dwarves; it's just that one thing that's always kind of rubbed me wrong.
I've actually felt that mechanically, Half-Elves make a better Elf, and Elves make a better "Faerie plane" race.
Possible Hijack: Is Al Gore an Elf?
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They have -2 Con but never look ill. So? Most fantasy humanoids are portrayed as being beautiful, unless the artist went the totally opposite direction and made them hideous (which there is absolutely no precedent for with elves). Besides, that strikes me as something more Charisma linked (see: orcs and half-orcs; and don't tell me that Charisma penalty represents a lack of "presence;" orcs have the same type of negative, but powerful, presence as a demon, and demons have impressive Charisma scores).But elves are frail physically; i.e., when they do get sick, they go down hard. Don't adapt to environmental change well. Etc.
So if they get sick, and go down hard when they get sick, how's there so many damn hundred plus year old elves around that still look like 30 year old supermodels? It's not a function of charisma, it's a function of constitution. Charisma has nothing to do with the body's resistance to illness.
If you live for hundreds of years and never get sick, you should have +2 to constitution.
They have -2 Con but never look ill. So? Most fantasy humanoids are portrayed as being beautiful, unless the artist went the totally opposite direction and made them hideous (which there is absolutely no precedent for with elves). Besides, that strikes me as something more Charisma linked (see: orcs and half-orcs; and don't tell me that Charisma penalty represents a lack of "presence;" orcs have the same type of negative, but powerful, presence as a demon, and demons have impressive Charisma scores).But elves are frail physically; i.e., when they do get sick, they go down hard. Don't adapt to environmental change well. Etc.
So if they get sick, and go down hard when they get sick, how's there so many damn hundred plus year old elves around that still look like 30 year old supermodels? It's not a function of charisma, it's a function of constitution. Charisma has nothing to do with the body's resistance to illness.
If you live for hundreds of years and never get sick, you should have +2 to constitution.
Clerics. Elves are lower in population, so larger percentages of their populace can be tended to by clerics. Also, they're a very clean people. :)
What also bugs me is that they come in flavors. It's a race with so many interpretations that, in order to encompass all of them, some campaigns require a subrace for evil elves (because it's unthinkable that a large percentage of elves could possibly be evil, so we need black ones to fill that role), two kinds of wild elves and then a bunch of scholar elves. Rather than making seperate nations or tribes with different specialties, we need five different subraces. Blech. But that's just my opinion and, like any bias, it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.
Okay, this I agree with 100%ly. That's why in my homebrew, there aren't any subraces save drow (and technically sea elves, but they come up so rarely in any setting they're hardly worth mentioning). Wood elf? High elf? It's all cultural for me. They're exactly the same race, can breed just fine, and, other than hair color and typical dress, are totally indistinguishable from one another. They certainly have the same stats.
I don't have a problem with elves in my settings, but then I spin them.
The elf fluff = what elves think of themselves.
The elf mechanics = the truth.
All their pretense is just that. They're mostly just skinny with pointy ears. Most are more strange looking than they are beautiful. Their claims to "better magic" are totally bogus. Their cities are different for being built into living trees, but it doesn't make them "closer to nature" as trees magically mutated to have living rooms in them tend to be weaker to disease and kind of screwed up by the process. Basically they can spot things some other folks can't, they are a little more nimble and a little more frail. That's it. They do live longer, but that's just given them a shoddy work ethic that makes them play more than most folk. That's my D&D elf.
Granted my hope is that the 4th edition elves and eladrin can actually BE like their flavor text because the more reasonable writeups can actually be reflected by the rules. Not to mention I actually like these elves so I don't have to work them around to make them paletable.
I agree with pretty much everything Saern said above.
As for the point were elves have lower Con and live for a long time; this supports the idea that they live away from everyone and are disdainful of others.
Why would a long lived race who is susceptible to disease and depends on magic freely associated with unclean and/or unsavoury individuals or races?
I would say they wouldn't. Lower Con would mean lower hit points so why risk your incredibly long life to an knife from a stranger? It would also mean lower Fort saves so would you risk disease carriers?
Also having a long life span were your people lived in balance with nature and were over all good people that enjoyed recreational and intellectual interests might cause you to look down on other races as dirty young children (Average adventure starts from 16-22 years old).
I look at these things not as hindrances but as facilitating roleplaying and adding depth to the race instead of them just being skinny people with pointy ears.
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What also bugs me is that they come in flavors....in order to encompass all of them, some campaigns require a subrace for evil elves (because it's unthinkable that a large percentage of elves could possibly be evil, so we need black ones to fill that role), two kinds of wild elves and then a bunch of scholar elves. Rather than making seperate nations or tribes with different specialties, we need five different subraces. Blech. But that's just my opinion and, like any bias, it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.
Okay, this I agree with 100%ly. That's why in my homebrew, there aren't any subraces save drow...Wood elf? High elf? It's all cultural for me. They're exactly the same race, can breed just fine, and, other than hair color and typical dress, are totally indistinguishable from one another. They certainly have the same stats.
I like that idea, too. I could never get my head round the idea of a subterranean race with jet-black skin. Surely, the drow should be pasty-white, or even translucent-skinned, with big bulgy eyes like frogs or angler-fish. Like the Morlocks in H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine'...see how many fanboys want to play them then!
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I agree with pretty much everything Saern said above.
As for the point were elves have lower Con and live for a long time; this supports the idea that they live away from everyone and are disdainful of others.
Why would a long lived race who is susceptible to disease and depends on magic freely associated with unclean and/or unsavoury individuals or races?
That's true, but it only takes into account communicable diseases, and not carcinogenesis and the body's natural tendancy to break down over the years. A lower constitution, generally meaning that somebody is less resistant to disease, should naturally lead to a higher degree of morbidity as time goes by. If not, then at least Saern's idea of a higher number of clerics to keep everybody artificially in good health wipes that away.
Every fair-skinned elf should probably go to about age 150 before they get melanoma.The drow, however, don't have a caring cadre of clerics; they should be a sickly lot.
I like that idea, too. I could never get my head round the idea of a subterranean race with jet-black skin. Surely, the drow should be pasty-white, or even translucent-skinned, with big bulgy eyes like frogs or angler-fish. Like the Morlocks in H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine'...see how many fanboys want to play them then!
Ironically, before Ed brought "his" Realms into 100% compliance with 1st edition AD&D, his "dark elves" sounded a lot like this. He mentioned a pale, creepy, mutated strain of elves that lived underground, but "drow" were the standard of AD&D, and his "Morlock" elves hadn't figured too prominently in the Realms, so there you go . . .
Possible Hijack: Is Al Gore an Elf?Elves usually have their facts correct.
heh
And yes Heathansson I was assuming that the elves used magic to artificially keep themselves in their preferred 'flawless' state. Which they will lash out at anyone who implies that this is unnatural (they still have ego after all).
As to the drow well that I must agree with that point. Drow or "Dark Elves" make no sense. The whole black from the taint of their past sins is possibly to close to real racist reasoning. It in theory could be explained as a product of their environment, maybe some sort of camouflage to blend in with drab rock and shadows. Of course that would lead to more of a dark grey elf, not black. The colour black stands out in shadows so you would want dark browns, blues and greys (why a 'ninja suit' would never be solid black as it provides too much silhouette against an almost black background).
I think the male drow should be ugly and/or possibly scarred from all those "lessons" as to their position in drow society. Female drow on the other hand should be beautiful, to reflect the hubris of Lolth and to cruelly mock the scarred lesser males.
That is unless you assume the priestesses use beauty as a form of reward (and being scarred and ugly as a form of punishment).
Drow High Priestess: "Stay in Lolth's favour and you will not be hideous. Earn her appreciation and you will be beautiful. Earn her wrath though..."
After all cruel god plus selfish population equals shallow and cruel. Kinda like the modeling world plus hollywood plus high school.
As to the drow well that I must agree with that point. Drow or "Dark Elves" make no sense. The whole black from the taint of their past sins is possibly to close to real racist reasoning. It in theory could be explained as a product of their environment, maybe some sort of camouflage to blend in with drab rock and shadows. Of course that would lead to more of a dark grey elf, not black. The colour black stands out in shadows so you would want dark browns, blues and greys (why a 'ninja suit' would never be solid black as it provides too much silhouette against an almost black background).
I knew it was only a matter of time (in this thread) before someone made this argument. I'm afraid "Dark Elves" make perfect sense, and it has nothing to do w/ modern concepts of racism, my friend. The term comes from Old Norse mythology, "Svartalfar", and an even more literal translation would be "black elves". The fact that they were subterranean comes from the fact that they lived in "Svartalfaheimr", or "World of the black-elves". Guess who else lived there? Yes, that's where the dwarves came from as well.
Here's something else most D&D players would be unaware of. It's distinctly possible that dwarves and black-elves were one and the same race, in terms of Old Norse mythological thinking. They didn't have Tolkien back then to clearly distinguish between the 2 groups :)
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Ironically, before Ed brought "his" Realms into 100% compliance with 1st edition AD&D, his "dark elves" sounded a lot like this. He mentioned a pale, creepy, mutated strain of elves that lived underground, but "drow" were the standard of AD&D, and his "Morlock" elves hadn't figured too prominently in the Realms, so there you go . . .
I could swear that the original book covers for the Drizz't novels and the Mezzobaranzan box set had pale-skinned drow, but no-one believes me, or dismisses it as a trick of the lighting. I later saw a dark-skinned Drizz't, and was surprised to find he was FR, not Greyhawk...
Thanks for confirming I wasn't mad!
Ironically, before Ed brought "his" Realms into 100% compliance with 1st edition AD&D, his "dark elves" sounded a lot like this. He mentioned a pale, creepy, mutated strain of elves that lived underground, but "drow" were the standard of AD&D, and his "Morlock" elves hadn't figured too prominently in the Realms, so there you go . . .
I could swear that the original book covers for the Drizz't novels and the Mezzobaranzan box set had pale-skinned drow, but no-one believes me, or dismisses it as a trick of the lighting. I later saw a dark-skinned Drizz't, and was surprised to find he was FR, not Greyhawk...
Thanks for confirming I wasn't mad!
Actually, I know what you are talking about, but by this time the drow pictured were suppose to be standard drow. Ed's dark elves went away when the first boxed set came out, but for some reason, the covers to the "Legacy of the Drow" series and the Menzoberranzan boxed set gave Drizzt a very strange complexion which wasn't all that dark (and was kind of oddly purplish). Also, the first picture of Drizzt, Larry Elmore's picture of Drizzt on the cover of the Crystal Shard makes him look like he has an "African-American" complexion rather than an actual, literal, black skin.
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...same stuff as I did....
Whoah! Cross-posting! Freaky!
Time to go slap my FR-loving buddy Matt, and tell him I wasn't hallucinating...
That is unless you assume the priestesses use beauty as a form of reward (and being scarred and ugly as a form of punishment).
Drow High Priestess: "Stay in Lolth's favour and you will not be hideous. Earn her appreciation and you will be beautiful. Earn her wrath though..."
After all cruel god plus selfish population equals shallow and cruel. Kinda like the modeling world plus hollywood plus high school.
Wow. I like this a lot. Throw in the black skin thing and I think that makes a great explanation.
Drow aren't CURSED with black skin and white hair. They have been blessed by their goddess to look like her. Her features come more with being turned into a giant black widow demon-goddess than anything racist. Beauty as a form of blackmail to keep her people in line is just awesome. It explains away a lot of what seems like art bias and fanboyism and gives it core of horrible reality that I love. It also give a nice sinister overcast to drow society.
Too bad 4th edition is getting rid of drow entirely.
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So if they get sick, and go down hard when they get sick, how's there so many damn hundred plus year old elves around that still look like 30 year old supermodels?
I'm sorry i have to interject with a brief threadjack here: but '30 year old supermodels' ? I'm guessing you have not lived here in Gotham (ok New York) or Paris. Our supermodels are mostly 17. It's my job to get them through the velvet ropes.
Ok threadjack over, carry on.
The arguments about why elves have a negative racial modifier to Constition are all based on a human understanding of human physiology. If a race is naturally immune to disease and aging (as Tolkien's elves appear to be) then having a robust constitution/immune system is unnecessary. However, as Con also affects sturdiness against physical attacks, it makes sense why a race of svelte immortals that are not affected by the same ailments as human would have a -2 penalty to Con.
The arguments about why elves have a negative racial modifier to Constition are all based on a human understanding of human physiology. If a race is naturally immune to disease and aging (as Tolkien's elves appear to be) then having a robust constitution/immune system is unnecessary. However, as Con also affects sturdiness against physical attacks, it makes sense why a race of svelte immortals that are not affected by the same ailments as human would have a -2 penalty to Con.
The unfortunate thing is we are talking about D&D elves not the Tolkien elves they are based originally opun.
Elves in D&D do have:
Immunity to magic sleep effects, and a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects.
The bonus against enchantments can easily be explained by the fact that they live such a long life and have a deep rooted sense of self.
The immunity to magical sleep is explained (or at least used to be) by the reverier they put themselves into nightly. It is exactly like normal sleep but instead of falling asleep the meditate on their memories, which allows them to resist magical sleep. It also explains why they have a such a deep sense of self.
But if you don't accept that just notch it up to feyish blood. After it is magic we are talking about.
I also remember reading that the elves whenever possible use clerical and even wizardly help to ensure that their children are born as flaw free as possible. After they don't breed as often as humans do (at least don't get pregnant as often).
I love elfs. They taste like chicken.
I love elfs. They taste like chicken.
Really?
I always thought they were like tofu. Depends what you cook them with.
Oddly, I pulled a bit from Tolkien to deal with elven age gap. Namely, they age as fast as humans until they reach adulthood. At that point they age very slowly (though the Tolkien elves are actually immortal).
This means that adventuring elves are still young, while a village elder could be close to 100 or so. This means a lot of elves tend to be set in their ways when dealing with "younger" races.
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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Too bad 4th edition is getting rid of drow entirely.That's 2 disturbing statements about 4e I've found in this thread: Warjacks as a base race, and no Drow.
Is there any hard fact supporting this? If so, can you cite it? I can't imagine WOTC would eliminate the core race of their cash cow Drizzt...
The unfortunate thing is we are talking about D&D elves not the Tolkien elves they are based originally opun.
Yes, this is why in my campaign world, to fit the more Middle Earth-like "flavor" of the world I was striving for, I had to re-engineer all of the races including elves, half-elves, humans and dwarves. Since all of the races had at least a +1 LA (the humans were modelled after Numenoreans like Aragorn, Boromir and Elendil) I decreased the LA of all races by 1 and either increased the toughness of encounters or decreased their CR (as appropriate) with few problems.
Since we've been talking about elves, they ended up with a more abilities than just their -2 Con, +2 Dex, sleep immunity and charm resistance. This included a small number of low-level, thematically based spell-like abilities (sky/mountains, wood/wilderness, moon/water and sun/artifice); a favored environment bonus; a small levels of DR/Cold Iron; Spell Resistance; an endure elements effect (Ex not Su); and immortality (they do not acrue the negative effects of aging, do not die of old age and are immune to diseases and afflictions). They acquired a +2 Level Adjustment (+3 in a standard campaign) which balanced them out. This removed them from the list of starting races available at 1st level which helped to make them rarer as they were in Middle Earth.
Before the 4E announcement, I was about to revisit the racial changes so that the Level Adjustment was reduced or eliminated in favor of bloodline-like racial levels. However, after I heard the news (and that races were being overhauled in 4E to make them actually have an impact after 5th level) I decided to put that on hold until I see what 4E does.
I also had a "Passive XP Over Time" system worked out which I applied to NPCs that determined their level based off of Wisdom and age. For humans this generally placed them at level 2 between 18 and 24 years of age whereas elves tended to have an ECL of 4th to 5th level by maturity. This did a perfect job of explaining why it is that elves seemed to be better than humans at everything — they were simply higher in level due to their great lifespans and experience. If You actually encountered an elven youth (elves physically grow at about the same rate as humans) then You'd have a much different story on Your hands.
If I hate anything about how elves are handled in D&D, it's been the fact that they are about as common as humans and are often treated as pointy-eared humans who live a long time.
I agree with pretty much everything Saern said above.
As for the point were elves have lower Con and live for a long time; this supports the idea that they live away from everyone and are disdainful of others.
Why would a long lived race who is susceptible to disease and depends on magic freely associated with unclean and/or unsavoury individuals or races?
That's true, but it only takes into account communicable diseases, and not carcinogenesis and the body's natural tendancy to break down over the years. A lower constitution, generally meaning that somebody is less resistant to disease, should naturally lead to a higher degree of morbidity as time goes by. If not, then at least Saern's idea of a higher number of clerics to keep everybody artificially in good health wipes that away.
Every fair-skinned elf should probably go to about age 150 before they get melanoma.
The drow, however, don't have a caring cadre of clerics; they should be a sickly lot.
Your theory would be extremely plausible except that THERE IS MAGIC IN D&D! So a race that is suppose to be magical can't be resistant to diesases but a regular guy off the street can go to college and hurl fireballs? Am I missing something here?
I like elves. I just wish that they were an NPC race. I don't like the idea of 100 year olds being considered teens when they have already reached puberty at 20. I also don't like 100 y/o 1st level adventurers. I have tried to restrict elves to 5th level in a game before, since that makes much more since flavor wise to me. since elves are aloof and stay seperated, one would never encounter a 1st level elf. The first level elf would be stuck at home for another 100 years before he is allowed on patrol and allowed to the borders. That was my problem with elves. The mechanics didn't fit the flavor.
Now my issue with Elves. Why is it that the elves who live underground with no access to the sun are dark skinned, yet the elves who live on the surface under the sun all day are fair-skinned? That is the real BS. I happen to think that black skin is not "evil." Considering how many people go to the beach to tan or pay good money to lie in a device to darken their skin, or even go as far as to buy a cream to darken their skin, the fairest (palest) skin can't possibly be the prettiest. And I have always thought that elves should be an NPC race, but most gamers will not buy into that idea.
Now my issue with Elves. Why is it that the elves who live underground with no access to the sun are dark skinned, yet the elves who live on the surface under the sun all day are fair-skinned? That is the real BS. I happen to think that black skin is not "evil." Considering how many people go to the beach to tan or pay good money to lie in a device to darken their skin, or even go as far as to buy a cream to darken their skin, the fairest (palest) skin can't possibly be the prettiest. And I have always thought that elves should be an NPC race, but most gamers will not buy into that idea.
I think this covers the dark skinned thing pretty darn well:
Drow aren't CURSED with black skin and white hair. They have been blessed by their goddess to look like her. Her features come more with being turned into a giant black widow demon-goddess than anything racist. Beauty as a form of blackmail to keep her people in line is just awesome. It explains away a lot of what seems like art bias and fanboyism and gives it core of horrible reality that I love. It also give a nice sinister overcast to drow society.
As for pale skin well they might just not be tanning people. This doesn't mean they are goths or fair red heads mind you. As I recall elves run the range from pale (like other races especially those individuals with cloistered careers like wizards and some clerics) to a working mans tan (rangers, duids and other outdoorsy types). They just don't soak up sun for fun (as a general rule but there is always exceptions to the rule). Maybe they just don't tan easily. They are a different race after all.
Heck if I was playing I wouldn't mind if I couldn't play elves. But then again I wouldn't mind if you took away dwarves, or gnomes, or halflings (I wouldn't even notice if you took away half-orcs). As long as you took only one to two (at the most) away at a time that is. And there would need to be an in game reason (world wise or campaign wise). But then again the great thing with running your own game is that you can play the game that makes sense to you not the one I want or the one Uber McHackistan wants. (No offence to the rest of the McHackistans).
I would argue getting rid of elves and dwarves as player races (well...not getting RID of them, so much as making them extreme player options). The thing is that they're so much out of synch with the normal lifespan and lifestyle of normal "folk" living out in the middle of nowhere separated from everyone but their own kind and a scant few visitors. I think that's plenty of campaign reasoning.
Personally I would like to see new races get the spotlight. Ones that are out there already, that are fun and cool but don't get much attention. Dromites are awesome. Xephs are great. I like the idea of focusing most on those races that live closest to human lands, and who live lifestyles most like human lifestyles. That puts warforged and tieflings right out--but the eladrin seem nicely appropriate. Maybe if the dwarves could be similarly fissioned we could have a bit of both--playable races that are fun and ethnic but not beyond the pale, and those strange xenophobic guys way out in the hinterlands.
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Now see, that's cool.
I've always struggled with this. I WANT dwarves to be the best in beer, but how? I don't see them growing barley on the mountaintop; they're all, "Let's find mithril and iron ore," not, "Lets plant flowers for hops." But it's still cool.
Thanks to the glory that is/was 3rd edition, dwarves have their own druids.
'Nuff Said.
Well I found out a couple of things since the last few articles have come out. First off the eladrin are actually what most of you guys have been talking about wanting. Elves are pretty much what they are in 3rd edition. Eladrin are fae elves that make their homes in the Faewild (or however it's spelled) and are even more mystical and magical and whatnot than the Elves. Congratulations (now I'm gonna' go find me a throw-up bucket...heh!)
Also it would appear there's no warforged as a standard class. Thankfully they've been shoved back into Eberron where they belong.
The drow thing was just me messing with you guys. Naw, best as I know they're still around. Like they would get rid of Drizzt. Come on, guys!
I don't hate elves. Never have. The problems were just that the stats in 3e were sub-optimal, and that some players and Authors overdid the aloof part (read: portraying them as bloody arrogant bastards) and other people thought that this was always the case.
But really: Will making two of the races in the PHB be elf1 and elf2 - and using up twice the space they used to - really help against the elf hate? I think it's the opposite: Elf bashers will get new ammo.
Just for the notes: While I don't hate dwarves, I hate their 3e mechanics, and I hate how I've seen most dwarves played and portrayed in 3e fiction. But you just have to realise that this is not a dwarf problem, but an idiots-playing-twinked-dwarven-sociopaths problem, and you're fine.
Then I read the 4th edition take. Elves are now two different races.
I have to admit Grim, you've got a point. This is probably the first non-mechanic thing I like about 4E. Odd, the edition that deathknelled Greyhawk, mutated FR, said that I am a fool for liking the previous edition and is making every freelancer/3rd party publisher nervous and starting to look elsewhere has good elves.
Go figure.