Today on WotC's site they published the 4E PHB elf entry. One thing that stood out:
"Elves mature at about the same rate as humans but show few effects of age past adulthood."
This seems to conflict with Merisiel's backstory. It's just flavor though, but what does Paizo think?
My second question is related to aging. Will you include Aging Effects for Ezren in his stat block?
Also, do you normally include aging effects in NPC stats? If so, I haven't noticed. If not, why not?
Creative Director
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Today on WotC's site they published the 4E PHB elf entry. One thing that stood out:
"Elves mature at about the same rate as humans but show few effects of age past adulthood."
This seems to conflict with Merisiel's backstory. It's just flavor though, but what does Paizo think?
My second question is related to aging. Will you include Aging Effects for Ezren in his stat block?
Also, do you normally include aging effects in NPC stats? If so, I haven't noticed. If not, why not?
On one hand, I really do like the concept of having elves mature at the same rate as humans, since it DOES take care of the weirdness about "what was your elf DOING in all that time," but on the other hand, I also really like the concept of the forlorn quite a lot. In any event, we still haven't seen the 4E rules and the OGL, so we still can't make a decision about switching or not, but if we DO switch, it's looking increasingly like we'll need to be making a LOT of decisions on what flavor to keep and what to toss out to support the new rules. That's not really something I'm looking forward to.
As for aging, yes; when we have a middle-aged, old, or venerable creature's stat block, we generally do apply the aging modifiers. We don't have many characters like this, though, and I suspect that a few of the NPCs we've described as "middle aged" didn't actually have the stat block modifiers (probably because they're one or two birthdays away from that first tier of age).
Ezren has them; Jason Bulmhan just statted him up yesterday, and he's not the guy you want in the front of the party. Ezren. Not Jason. Jason would do quite well at the front of the party, even if he does have reach and can work just as well at the back, reaching over the heads of the humans in the front rank to attack those pesky goblins.
Ezren has them; Jason Bulmhan just statted him up yesterday, and he's not the guy you want in the front of the party.
Nice, I can't wait to see him! When does he make his first appearance? In Pathfinder #7 or a GameMastery module?
In our game, elves mature at double the rate of humans. So, the elven equivalent of a human maturing at 21 would be 42 years.
In our game, elves mature at double the rate of humans. So, the elven equivalent of a human maturing at 21 would be 42 years.
That should be "elves mature at half the rate as humans." Double the rate would mean they mature twice as fast.
One interesting thing to do with elves is to make them mature and age only slightly slower than humans (use the half-elf aging), but just extend the maximum age by a large amount. This would provide a reason why high-level elves haven't overrun the world: By the time most of them have advanced to that point, they are not well suited to withstand the rigors of life outside their protected communities.
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Ezren has them; Jason Bulmhan just statted him up yesterday, and he's not the guy you want in the front of the party.Nice, I can't wait to see him! When does he make his first appearance? In Pathfinder #7 or a GameMastery module?
I'm pretty sure Jason's been at a Convention or two.
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Creative Director
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Ezren has them; Jason Bulmhan just statted him up yesterday, and he's not the guy you want in the front of the party.Nice, I can't wait to see him! When does he make his first appearance? In Pathfinder #7 or a GameMastery module?
He'll certainly be appearing in Pathfinder 7. Not sure if he'll also be appearing in the GM Module before or after that.
In our game, elves mature at double the rate of humans. So, the elven equivalent of a human maturing at 21 would be 42 years.That should be "elves mature at half the rate as humans." Double the rate would mean they mature twice as fast.
Ahhh, right. I laughed at myself when I read your reply. Since you double the age to get the figure, I guess I was stuck on the word double.
It's true - elves are not allowed to drive until they are 36 in England.
Plus they don't get their pension until they're 130.
:)
And if you get sick of changing diapers now, imaging raising a Forlorn.
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I see physical, sexual, emotional and intellectual maturity as different concepts, and play with those to adjust for a believable path to maturity for other races.
Just because human teenagers mature in all 4 aspects at extra fast pace over a couple years doesn't mean every other race has to follow as well. Neither does it mean they need to wear diapers for 10-15 years neither...
I see elves as physicaly and intellectualy maturing about as fast as humans, with sexual and emotional maturity coming slower. They keep their inocence longer. I see them as very knowledgeable, as in unuseful knowledge when times come to adventure. They can read, write and do maths as early as humans, or maybe a couple years later, but mostly before 10. They know a lot of their people's history and learn very long stories, poems, songs, epic, etc., from their culture. They can be already physicaly as strong as adults when they hit 20-30, but can react like children in the face of bad/sad/serious things, acting confused or not understanding why adults are sad/serious, and letting go quite fast if some funnier distraction comes their way.
About what they did before adventuring? They observe and contemplate longer, so they can learn a lot about nature and life without being told. They do a lot of art for the love of art, and do a lot of craft for the fun of crafting things. They lost a lot of time, not feeling the urge to do things faster.
They also have a slower pace of living. Humans die after a few decades, so they must live quickly, with not as much time to lose. Elves have centuries ahead of them, so I can see one sit over a hill and look at the landscape for a full day. And come back every day for weeks before he tires of looking, and feel the urge to go on to do something else. Weeks are like days, Seasons are like weeks, years are like months, decades are years and centuries are decades to the elves.
Well, it's easy enough to house-rule aging to suit your own campaign world anyhow. I mean, you could say elves grow to maturity in 2 years if you wanted to and could make your players believe it. And you could say they don't suffer any of the physical effects of aging--like Tolkien's elves. In game terms, I don't think it makes a lot of difference whether "adulthood" for a specific race lasts 20 years or a millenium--most campaigns take place over the course of less than a decade of game time, and if not, and you want to keep the elven PCs around and retire the human ones, you bring in new human heroes to accompany the elves at whatever level they are. Or whatever. I mean, I don't see revised aging tables as the main issue with conversion, since they are inherently tailorable to the campaign world with minimal game effect. Elves' long lifespan doesn't count as an advantage when people are figuring up ECL or CR.
As for the other ways in which races are changed, modified, or re-categorized (viz. gnomes as "monsters" vice PC race), that could be a bit more trouble. I suspect Paizo will want to put out some kind of a "campaign guidebook" detailing all of this stuff, but as usual are stymied by WotC not showing any of its cards yet.
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I don't like that they gain their adult body at the same rate as humans, that just messes things up. If they're not consider adults until they're 80-100 (depending on the game world) then there's a lot of time in which they're sitting around, fully developed physically doing nothing. Being trapped in a child's body for 80 years prevents that problem. :P
I don't like that they gain their adult body at the same rate as humans, that just messes things up. If they're not consider adults until they're 80-100 (depending on the game world) then there's a lot of time in which they're sitting around, fully developed physically doing nothing. Being trapped in a child's body for 80 years prevents that problem. :P
Gah!
Puberty that lasts 20-40 years...
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I actually find it much easier to believe that a person who lived for centuries would spend 60-80 years being idle, as in the Corum novels by Michael Moorcock or Tolkien's elves, much more satisfying than it taking someone 80 years to become knowledgeable enough to become a mage. 80 years? No wonder humans are the dominant race. Elves are vulnerable and intellectually stunted for 60 years.
That doesn't make any narrative sense to me at all. So I have always played it that the 0-20 age rate is the same as humans, then they slow down.
You have read the drizzt novels right? :)
Oh, that was priceless . . . Dear diary . . . I can kill ancient white dragons, mariliths, and balors, but I just can't tell Catti-brie that I like her. And I don't know how to tell Bruenor that Alustriel touched me in an uncomfortable way . . .
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Oh, that was priceless . . . Dear diary . . . I can kill ancient white dragons, mariliths, and balors, but I just can't tell Catti-brie that I like her. And I don't know how to tell Bruenor that Alustriel touched me in an uncomfortable way . . .
You have read the drizzt novels right? :)
*takes a bow*
You forgot to mention that icky encounter with the sister that was more of a mother to him after he graduated High School. ;)
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and if not, and you want to keep the elven PCs around and retire the human ones, you bring in new human heroes to accompany the elves at whatever level they are. Or whatever.
Or could even have the children/grandchildren of the human heroes fighting alongside their dad's former adventuring companions (like Aragorn/Theoden)
I never felt that Races of the Wild depicted Elves as being idle during their formative years. Quite the opposite I took a lot from it and it helped me come up with many back stories for my Elven characters. I had one who was a scout who before he'd ever even adventured had crafted his own armor, bow, arrows, built a home, etc. Which took a lot of time with no ranks in Craft yet, let me tell you. With help from Races of the Wild I learned that most elves must learn to do things for themselves or at the very least are shown something by their elders and then expected to master it, and this is done several times throughout their formative years. See that 200' tall tree? Climb it and survey the land. But master, I have never climbed so high! Well then you had best take your time... Youngling returns several weeks later... master I have done as you asked. Good child, now did you see the Shining Lake that makes up the western boarder of our lands? Yes, master. Good, and what landmark lies beyond. I do not know master. Then you had better look again... (and so on)
I have a SOLUTION to the "why don't high-level elves rule the world" question.
Elves gain one percent of the XP other races gain. Problem solved! =)
I'm kind of neutral on the whole elf maturity thing. It kind of depends on which flavor you like. But however you go, I think it should be consistent.
I agree that an extremely long-lived person is likely to "take things slow" and may not rush to accomplish things with any urgency. This is one factor that can be used to explain why long-lived elves don't take over the
Another factor that could explain the lack of huge elven empires is an extremely low birthrate.
I don't think it makes sense if there is a big disparity between their physical and emotional maturity. I don't like the idea of physically mature but emotionally childish elves wandering the woods for a century waiting to work up enough gumption to get their first class level. It's just kind of silly.
If you think elves should mature at a "normal humanoid rate" and then just last longer, that's fine. If their childhood lasts a century, that's fine too. It would help explain a low birthrate. If your little sprout is dependent on you for a century, it limits how many kids you can have, and it will take you around 200 years to become a grandparent. At which point a human is pushing up daisies with potentially hundreds of descendents.
So in summary:
If elf PCs start adventuring at age 20 along with the humans, etc, that's cool. If the campaign lasts, they'll probably all hit epic levels by 30 (if not 21!) and aging effects won't come into it.
If elf PCs start adventuring at age 100, that's fine too. I don't think the explanation needs to be overly elaborate. "What were you doing for all that time?" "I was a child, I did what all children do; I just did it for longer than a human."
Warning - Speculation to Follow:
We know that in 4E, "Elves" are the woods-dwelling, nature-connected aspects of prior editions' elves, and "Eladrin" are the arcane-magic, ancient-empires variety, or at least that's how I understand it? (Also could be read as, "Elves" = wood elves, "Eladrin" = high elves.)
So maybe in 4E, the "default" is that "elves" mature as fast as humans, but "eladrin" take much longer to develop.
If this turns out to be true, Pathfinder could end up referring to both races as "elves" and could retain the concept of the Forlorn even if it fully embraces the new fluff. In fact, elves and eladrin could both be the same race, with "eladrin" traits as a recessive-gene sort of thing, where normal "elf" families sometimes produce a slower-to-develop child with the "eladrin" traits. Personally, I think this could allow for some really interesting character concepts...
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Creative Director
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We know that in 4E, "Elves" are the woods-dwelling, nature-connected aspects of prior editions' elves, and "Eladrin" are the arcane-magic, ancient-empires variety, or at least that's how I understand it? (Also could be read as, "Elves" = wood elves, "Eladrin" = high elves.)
I can pretty much guarantee that's not really the way elves will break down in Golarion. We've already established what they're about in Golarion, not only in the stuff we've printed so far, but also in the stuff we've developed behind the scenes or haven't yet printed. We still haven't seen the 4E rules, so I can't really comment on how the new non-outsider eladrin stuff will fit in to Golarion, or indeed if we'll even go with eladrins in this role at all.
Warning - Speculation to Follow:
We know that in 4E, "Elves" are the woods-dwelling, nature-connected aspects of prior editions' elves, and "Eladrin" are the arcane-magic, ancient-empires variety, or at least that's how I understand it? (Also could be read as, "Elves" = wood elves, "Eladrin" = high elves.)
So maybe in 4E, the "default" is that "elves" mature as fast as humans, but "eladrin" take much longer to develop.
If this turns out to be true, Pathfinder could end up referring to both races as "elves" and could retain the concept of the Forlorn even if it fully embraces the new fluff. In fact, elves and eladrin could both be the same race, with "eladrin" traits as a recessive-gene sort of thing, where normal "elf" families sometimes produce a slower-to-develop child with the "eladrin" traits. Personally, I think this could allow for some really interesting character concepts...
If I remember correctly, or if what I read was correct, 4e Elves will have a life span of 200 years, while Eladrin and Drow get 300 each. Not much of a difference.
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Creative Director
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Even if you guys do go 4E you can just ignore the core PHB/DMG/MM anyway can't you? Assuming it's like the 3E rules on publishing that is. WoWRPG and Everquest d20 have their own PHBs, MMs and DMGs couldn't you guys just put out your own and then none of us will have to give Wizards a dime?
Assuming the 4th edition OGL works as the 3rd edition one did, yes, we can do that. We haven't seen the 4th edition OGL yet, though, so at this point we can't make plans for stuff like this.
He'll certainly be appearing in Pathfinder 7. Not sure if he'll also be appearing in the GM Module before or after that.
His stats (at least at level 8) are in J3: Crucible of Chaos