I need them to be balanced between each other in first place, with normal races in second.
I wanted to create two Elf races that might evolve from our good old elf, and that would likely create standard elf if they'd cross-breed.
High Elf
Proud rulers of an elven society, they are smart and wise, but ruthless.
+2 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Con High Elves rule, not work. Strong mind and fragile bodies.
Medium: High Elves are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal speed: Elves have a base speed of 30 feet.
High Elven Immunities: High Elves are immune to magic sleep effects and get a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.
No sleep: High Elves do not sleep, never. They cannot sleep willingly nor cast spells with sleep effects. They refresh by 4 hours of meditation instead. They still need to rest full time to regain spells and daily abilities.
Fey Blood: Being connected to the spiritual world, High Elves are recognized as both Fey and Humanoid by all effects that would work only on one of them, like favored enemy feature of ranger or bane spells. High Elf cannot suppress this effect, unless such option is gained by other means (ie UMD skill or class feature)
Fey Step: High Elf can step thorough spiritual plane, effectively disappearing from where he is and appearing in any place he have line of sight to, no farther than 15ft away. He can do so as his move action, instead normal movement. To use fey step again he needs to rest calmly (without making any rolls or being attacked) for 2d6 rounds. Fey Step can be used number of times equal to Cha bonus, minimum 1, per day.
Weapon Familiarity: High Elves are familiar with longswords, rapiers and all fencing weapons with "Elven" description.
Low Elf
Bitter and beaten, but still proud, they are flesh and bone of Elven society, working hard to get their place in the world.
+2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con Fast hands and strong spirit in fragile bodies.
Medium: Low Elves are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal speed: Elves have a base speed of 30 feet.
Low-Light Vision: Low Elves can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Elven Magic: Low Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance. In addition, low elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Spellcraft skill checks made to identify the properties of magic items.
Keen Senses: Low Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception skill checks.
Light Step: Low Elves ignore difficult terrain effects caused by vegetation and can make Acrobatics check to move on narrow surfaces at full speed instead of normal half speed.
Weapon Familiarity: Low Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.
No sleep and fey step are extremely powerful. You really are into ECL +1, level adjustment +1 level. Light step may not matter in many games but it is strong, very strong. There is a lot of difficult terrain that would and should slow down elves.
It can also be argued, that arrogance is a lack of wisdom, it shows a fixated view of superiority and not understanding all that is and what is actually truth.
The race should be balanced to the other races first, or with a level adjustment, before they are balanced to the others.
I am earnestly offering a suggestion. In your world, don't have elves. It is done to death and it seems you are simply making them stronger so they can have more of what is in the elven fluff. This won't be balanced without adjustment. I've made a portion of a world that has fey, has plant people and monster aplenty, but no elves. Never looked back, it is great to really get away from what is standard fantasy (what a sad term that truly is).
OK, nerfed No Sleep, Fey Step and Light Step.
Are they balanced to each other now? And how about standard elf?
Don't forget both of "my" subraces don't get something standard elf gets. High ones does not have low light vision and elven magic, and are unable to cast some spells, ever. Low ones does not gain immunities. Both gets only partial weapon training.
Races "originated" from D&D 4e game that get wild and purely storytelling when we hated the rules.
If you really want to make cool elves though, and I can't believe I am helping you, keep in the really good stuff that you want, fey abilities and what not, but take away some of the rest.
For instance, maybe they get no bonuses or penalties to ability scores. Shock. They are pulled negatively and positively, but they rock some great special abilities, teleporting nature communing, charm casting cool chaps.
I added the woad warriors from 3.5 into the common races for my game. They get a tree jumping ability, so stick with it, and keep the range good, just swap something else out entirely.
How exactly do these two races interact? Is it a caste system? Are the low-elves slaves to the high-elves? If the high-elves are closer to the fey why not just add a fey template to them (check fey-touched from the SRD)?
Alternatively, you could separate them by the magic users and martial minded races, and have one get the proficiencies and the other get the elf magic.
> Is it a caste system?
Yes
> Are the low-elves slaves to the high-elves?
Yes, but neither of them would use such a rude term. Hydraulic despotism from Dune, that sort of mechanism. High Elves controls artifacts that allows survival in world where magic went very, very wrong, and Low Elves are free to either stay and obey or go and try to live on their own - and that's almost sure death. Some still try and survive, and that makes magic sing in Low Elves veins. High Elves are so protected that they lost their natural knack.
> If the high-elves are closer to the fey why not just add a fey template to them?
It gives what I actually wanted to remove, like dex bonus and low light vision (no use for ones who have slaves for manual labor and to perform all nightly works).
> Alternatively, you could separate them by the magic users and martial minded races
Won't work, it's masters / slaves relationship with slaves so dependent on masters they are actually willing to fight for them.
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Well I'm not entirely sure what makes these different races then. If you think about the real world, societies with caste systems tended to be within one culture.
Bloodcarver wrote: Some still try and survive, and that makes magic sing in Low Elves veins. High Elves are so protected that they lost their natural knack. I'm confused, the low-elves are more magically attuned because they operate away from the artifacts more often? The artifacts are what are keeping the high-elves protected? Would other races get some kind of magical aptitude?
Also why wouldn't the high-elves need to sleep? It seems like it would be more beneficial if it were the workers who only needed half as much sleep/meditation/rest. That, plus their low-light vision and long lifespan, would would give them a massive advantage, as far as building, farming, and where other manual labor is concerned, over other cultures.
So why are the high-elves the ones in power? Were these two races originally one species before magic went wrong? If they do not share a common ancestor, why are the both called "elves"? If the high-elves were always the custodians of these artifacts, did these low-elves arrive after the calamity or were they always thralls to the high-elves? If they arrived later, why not have a different race entirely?
I don't see much that is separating these races as individual races at the moment, but perhaps if I knew more about your setting I could offer more advice. Could you define the duties of the individual castes for me?
the low-elves are more magically attuned because they operate away from the artifacts more often?
World is mostly destroyed by wild magic. Central artifacts of each Elven city suppress magic, both wild and usable.
Would other races get some kind of magical aptitude?
Yes. Or they are extinct.
Also why wouldn't the high-elves need to sleep?
As far as I play in our company elves never needed to sleep, really. In Faerun books it's the same. So from my point of view it's not that I'm giving that bonus to high elves, it's I'm taking it out from low ones. And low ones simply does not have minds disciplined enough to medidate - flaw that opened them to the dreamworld.
So why are the high-elves the ones in power?
Low elves was originally wild ones. Woodland villagers, hunter-gatherer culture. High elves was the ones that lived in the city and practiced old traditions, so when the troubles begun, they was able to prepare. Why they rule? They was organised. And if they are beaten, wild magic will enter the city and pretty much kill everyone. Low elves riot means narrowing the shield to only protect palace. And now, quite some generations after initial changes everyone are so used to that order to not argue.
Last but not least, low elf revolution is main plot of ongoing campaign ;)
Were these two races originally one species before magic went wrong?
They share a common ancestor, but they split much much earlier. Think like Moon and Soon elves from Faerun - related, but different. Both arrived to the world from Fae plane of existence before it collapsed, but ones wanted to explore new world and blend with it's nature (wild, then low ones), and others kept together and practice old ways (high ones).
Could you define the duties of the individual castes for me?
High Elves are beaurocracy and divine magicans, with Council and Order being two most powerful political entities. They keep the food flowing, cities protected, centrally directed economy working, population low enough to not starve and so on.
Low Elves are guards, scouts, laborers, farm workers and craftsmen. Some try to be divine magicans, but if discovered, are executed as cultists, or adopted by high elves families and ensured not to breed - the latter if Order feels need for more power.
Both castes give their arcanists to Spiral Towers - magical order that keeps aside from normal cast system but still is under Council (but not an Order, no matter what Order wants to think). While divine artifact provide normal but suppressed magic field in cities themselves, Spiral Tower provides means to keep enough ground safe for them to have any significant agriculture at all.
I don't see much that is separating these races as individual races at the moment
Think white and black humans. "Whites can't jump" and black would usually have hard time on Siberia. And most tenacious runners are from one of the Indian tribe. Not much, really, but enough to give different mechanical bonuses, right? And enough for some of our ancestors to establish master-slave relationships, cast systems and so on. And really, those who was weak and did nothing was the rulers then!
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