So yeah, went and read the Ampersand article on elves. Okay, now understand I really hate elves. If they made the t-shirt, I would buy it. That said, these elves are okay.
Gone is the 200 year old starting character who invented everything. A 4e elf barely lives 200 years, and start adventuring right along with everyone else. Nice. They're perceptive, and can help out their friends spotting things. Their uncanny abilities now have nothing to do with spotting hidden doors without looking, and instead they get the nifty ability to precision place one good hit in a battle (basically, a free reroll). They don't trance, it doesn't look like.
And now, finally they've been given a little color beyond "better than everyone". They're a bit kendery even. Their emotions are mercurial, and their attention spans tend to snap around wildly, giving them a very wild animal feel--intently watching and sniffing at some broken branch that suggests the passage of an enemy, then suddenly snarling and leaping up with hackles raised, then immediately laughing and hugging their unexpected friend once they realize it isn't an ettin afterall.
Their love of dance and nature is more the simple halfling joy in small pleasures rather than some enigmatic spiritual flowerdancing. They aren't the masters of everything even. They're just solidly faithful and sneaky, with the natural bonuses granted from keen senses, good sense, and limber limbs.
I like these new elves.
I LOVE the new elves.
There, I said it.
WOOT!
Hmm, I don't mind the 'start normal speed, then slow down' Though it does invalidate a lot of the last 25 years of fiction. I wonder if it's going to be a universal thing or if each campaign setting will ammend it differently.
Well every edition has caused problems with the fiction. With third edition it was mostly trying to winnow out the Great Wheel and cross-setting references--or trying to extricate the hobbits and replace them with the more grizzled, opportunistic, svelt halflings. Honestly I'd advocate just treating the 4e fiction as it's own thing with roots that go back into retcon revised histories of their own. Let 3rd edition be it's own separate thing.
Then again, there's a reason in setting for all of this--and a really good one! Got me to really admire the heck out of the D&D designers for it.
Blame Vecna!
See, the series of events that propelled him to godhood (due to his ascent into Sigil) also caused a cataclysmic chain reaction of changes throughout the multiverse--changes that would seem like "the way it'd always been" to all those within the setting when they looked back on them. According to the resolution section of the final adventure of the trilogy (Die Vecna Die, if I recall correctly) it is said that the cascade of radical cosmological upheavals would continue for ages to come. This really could just be another instance of that.
I LOVE the new elves.
Yeah. This stuff is freaking awesome! If the rest of 4e is a tenth this good then my optimism will not have been in vain.
Dude, I haven't been this jazzed to play an elf...well since Pathfinder. Heh.
I think they're pretty good. I just wish they didn't have "Eladrin", too.
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And now, finally they've been given a little color beyond "better than everyone". They're a bit kendery even. Their emotions are mercurial, and their attention spans tend to snap around wildly, giving them a very wild animal feel--intently watching and sniffing at some broken branch that suggests the passage of an enemy, then suddenly snarling and leaping up with hackles raised, then immediately laughing and hugging their unexpected friend once they realize it isn't an ettin afterall.
About time! I've been playing elves as chaotic and fey and more than a little bit dangerous to be around, as originally described in 1st Edition, *since* 1st Edition.
If 4e manages to kill the sorts of fluffy-bunny stereotypes that cropped up as a result of the 2e Complete Book of Elves, that's a *huge* plus in it's favor!
I LOVE the new elves.
There, I said it.
WOOT!
[sarc] Yes, that's indeed a shock. [/sarc]
Perhaps you have a specific change that you like?
Do you mean "sarcastic" or "ironic"?
;)
I like the 'distancing' of the eladrin from the mundane world into the feywild, which seems inspired by the Celtic otherworld.
Hey! Somebody corrected the intentional misspelling in the title of the post! That's funny.
...now understand I really hate elves.
That's OK -- they hate you, too :P
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Do you mean "sarcastic" or "ironic"?
Since you, to my knowledge, have not posted a single thing about 4E that hasn't been unbridled adulation, it was definitely sarcastic.
Ironic would be if you regularly stated a distaste for or trepidation about some of the announced changes, and then turned around and said, 'But, I like this! There, I said it!' as it would actually be some sort of surprise that you would say such a thing, instead of being kinda obvious.
As you seem to be quite enthusiastic in your support of the new edition, hopefully you won't see this comment as some sort of insult, anymore than I would consider it an insult for you to mention that I have an unbridled adulation of dark chocolate, 'cause, it's true, and I'm not ashamed of it. :)
I like the 'distancing' of the eladrin from the mundane world into the feywild, which seems inspired by the Celtic otherworld.
Now that I agree with. I've used elves that way for years, as an older fey race, wild and otherworldly, with the 'standard' elves in the PHB as half-breeds tied to this world instead of the fey realms they originally came from. (Making half-elves either completely redundant, or an even more watered-down elf-blooded person.)
The bits about rampant emotionality, again, very much like a fickle fey, also fits well with my own interpretation of elves, which, since 1st edition, where originally described as chaotic, unpredictable and not safe to be around when their emotions peaked. (Something that has been increasingly watered down throughout the editions, IMO, and, especially in the realms, led to descriptions of them living in societies that were achingly lawful. Even the Drow have been depicted living in accordance to strict laws and traditions! Apparently, the FR definition of 'chaotic' is 'doing what you're told.' I wish my kids were more 'chaotic...')
It's flavor stuff, not so much rules stuff, but it's welcome. If 4E manages to present some equally compelling flavor text for halflings (who have also been jerked around from edition to edition, from hobbits to kender), I'll be suitably impressed.
It's interesting to bounce around these 4E topics and see how many people are willing to admit to items about 4E that they are intrigued by, and items that they don't care for, while others seem to be 100% for the new edition or 100% against it.
Back when 3.0 upgraded to 3.5 I like a lot of the changes (to the Ranger and Monk, for instance), and disliked one or two others (Damage Reduction, for example, which a dev diary laughably claimed was changed to eliminate the 'golf bag of weapons' syndrome *which didn't exist until they created it by adding DR/cold iron, DR/silver, DR/adamantine, etc!*). From 2nd Ed to 3rd Ed, I had some doubts, but ended up finding the new system *vastly* better than the old, and, indeed, wished they'd gone *further* in getting rid of stuff like alignments and turning Vancian spellcasting into one option among several. (Sacred cows that sound like they are getting one step closer to the meat-grinder with 4e...)
So it's kind of strange to me to see someone who is 100% for or against 4E, when we haven't even seen it all yet. I can't wave pom-poms in support of it, because I may hate it (or enough parts of it to make it unusable for me). I can't pour gasoline on the fire and burn my WotC books in effigy, because I may love it (or enough parts of it that I end up playing 3.75, stealing the juiciest parts to use in 3.x games).
I'll take your comment as irony as sarcasm implies "irony with intent to insult or belittle" and I certainly wouldn't want to belittle your love of dark chocolate in return. Hey, I like it too.
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I'll take your comment as irony as sarcasm implies "irony with intent to insult or belittle" and I certainly wouldn't want to belittle your love of dark chocolate in return. Hey, I like it too.
Thanks to this, I looked up sarcasm, and discovered some awesome sites full of Mark Twain quotes. You've made my day!
I gotta' say I went on and read the big flavor disertation on elves, eladrin and elves, and I gotta' say it's looking more and more like eladrin are the repository for all the stuff about elves I never liked. Good flavor text though. Really nicely written and some of the best art I've seen for 4th edition--lovingly done with a soft hand unlike a lot of the more garish video-game manual looking stuff.
Personally at this point I'm moving closer and closer to adulation every day. I'm not quite there yet though. I like a much more cinematic, dramatic kind of game and it seems like 4e is going for a much more video-game mechanicky, dungeon rompy kind of game. Likewise there seems to be a tad too much porting in of other people's IP than I would really want. I do admire their verve and guts to do something new though, to really shake things up and change things. That much I really do like. That and as time goes by and more gets explained, stuff that I really hated (like core tieflings, for example) is starting to look better and better.
Blame Vecna!
See, the series of events that propelled him to godhood (due to his ascent into Sigil) also caused a cataclysmic chain reaction of changes throughout the multiverse--changes that would seem like "the way it'd always been" to all those within the setting when they looked back on them. According to the resolution section of the final adventure of the trilogy (Die Vecna Die, if I recall correctly) it is said that the cascade of radical cosmological upheavals would continue for ages to come. This really could just be another instance of that.
Crisis on Infinite Planes?