It is confusing, though. How does it work?
Let's say you have a thirty-year-old elf boy (who is, physically, a small child) and you send him to human school. If he learns at the same rate as a human, he'll have graduated long before he achieves physical maturity. But based on the starting ages, they appear to learn at around a fifth the rate of a human (when not adventuring). So that suggests they'd have to spend five years taking the same classes over and over before they're ready to advance to the next year, and it would take fifty years to gain a basic education. How would such a child appear to a human observer? Exceptionally dim, or with some kind of severe Attention Deficit Disorder?
Like a moron.
That's because ultimately... you can't stop thinking of elves as other than pointy eared Humans, perhaps with a touch of Spock. So you impose Human developmental standards upon them.
Not really. I mean, a chimpanzee is ready to adventure at age 9. So a slow-maturing elf would be wretchedly stupid by comparison.
IQ tests were originally devised to determine whether military recruits had suitable intelligence for certain tasks, and how quickly they could learn. A race of slow-learning elves would rate an IQ less than 60 on a human test. I guess you can call that a "imposing a human developmental standard." But when someone can't learn skills at a good rate, that's called low intelligence.
So I hope you understand that, while it may be perfectly believable/realistic/worthwhile to picture elves as a race with a different rate of mental maturation, in doing so, you are making them a race of incompetent morons. By definition they would be just vastly less intelligent than other people. If you're fine with that, then there's no problem. Your elves are played by Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. That is a perfectly valid worldbuilding choice.
The reason I brought up chimps is because any organism has to mature at a rate high enough to survive, and intelligent creatures need to do a lot of learning. If elves take decades to gain the mental acuity to learn any useful skill, I'm really curious what their survival strategy is. Unlike, say, chimps or dog, elves don't have racial hit dice and a strongly templated group of abilities. As elves are evidently mean to be a learning race, I have to wonder why they would be so bad at it.
Dogs aren't particularly sapient. Chimps are not technological. Goblins, well, they're imaginary, but are less dynamically social than humans and are generally considered less mentally flexible (i.e. superstitious). Naturally, each increase in sophistication requires a longer period of learning. But it's not an explosive process. Elves, after all, don't have +8 Intelligence, it doesn't take a human twice as long to be a mature adult as a chimp.
You could say that elves are emotionally infantile for decades. It's not flattering, but you could say it. Even so, they can still learn skills. But an elf that can't learn skills is, in fact, stupid. Chimps may be mature at 9, but they aren't learning multiplication stables. What exactly do elves bring to the table, that they can't be a 1st level wizard, or even a warrior, by the age of 40?
If elves take decades to gain the mental acuity to learn any useful skill, I'm really curious what their survival strategy is.
Once elves reach adventuring age, they become more focused and have no mental difficulties compared to humans.
When they become high level characters, they continue to live for the next couple of hundred years, only growing wiser and more powerful over time, protecting the next generation as they slowly mature.
I'm definitely more down with the "life begins at 70" take on elves. An elf is considered mature when they've outlived a pine tree, when their first love is as clear as day but as distant as your grandfather's first county fair, when they've taken on a vocation, learned it like a human master, and then started their real learning. They're supposed to be forlorn, detached, and aesthetic. Not helpless grubs.
I do refer to a 50-yearold that acts like a 5-year-old as emotionally infantile.
Ten year old humans do become warriors. We discourage it, but it does happen.
I'm not saying I can't accept this developmental course of "a fantasy race," I'm just saying it doesn't work for me for Pathfinder elves. Tekumel has a bunch of weirdies, but none of them purport to be "high elves."
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My general philosophy is that they're mentally capable fairly quick, but not physically (and thus emotionally due to hormones) mature for longer. And that they could learn as quickly as humans do...but Elven parenting techniques favor a less structured approach to the point where they let the kids go pick flowers for a week if they feel like it (which makes a lot of sense for a long-lived CG culture).
As for being only 1st level after 100 years...most people never go above 4th or 5th level no matter how long they live, and are no more than 2nd or 3rd well into middle age. Which isn't that big a difference. Age has very little to do with level, as every 20th level PC who gets that way in their early 20s proves.
If elves let their kids spend a week picking flowers, those kids would know a lot about flowers. Now, elves may be completely different, but if you give humans a lot of unstructured time, an enriched environment, and the attention of interested, nurturing adults, they learn a lot, very quickly.
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It is confusing, though. How does it work?
Let's say you have a thirty-year-old elf boy (who is, physically, a small child) and you send him to human school. If he learns at the same rate as a human, he'll have graduated long before he achieves physical maturity. But based on the starting ages, they appear to learn at around a fifth the rate of a human (when not adventuring). So that suggests they'd have to spend five years taking the same classes over and over before they're ready to advance to the next year, and it would take fifty years to gain a basic education. How would such a child appear to a human observer? Exceptionally dim, or with some kind of severe Attention Deficit Disorder?
He's going to be a really unhappy kid. He can probably learn just as fast as the other kids, if he really really has to. He'll have a lot of trouble focusing though - prone to daydreaming, distraction and so forth.
Elves take a long time to mature because, why wouldn't they? Elven society may be under pressure from orcs and humans and such, but they've been under that pressure for centuries and they aren't on the verge of collapse yet. Because the older elves are also pretty good at steering their society through those rough spots. They've had centuries to cultivate alliances, collect artifacts, figure out where the bodies are buried, obtain or create strategic points, collect lots and lots of wizard spells... if you think about the sheer amount of firepower stored in the scrolls of the elves - that's pretty scary. You might not want to be standing nearby if a group of elves thinks they're at risk of extinction, and that it's time to pull out the last resort stuff.
So basically, young elves normally lead fairly sheltered existences. They mature slowly because elves have that luxury.
It takes them a long time to get an education because there's no pressure on them to graduate in four years; it's like an entire civilization with a college trust fund. There's time enough to bask in the sunlight, play some music, try some hallucinogens and maybe do some studying this month.
This slow rhythm is healthy for elves. If you're going to live for centuries, you don't want to rush growing up. If you're forced to grow up before your time, you're going to be weird with all kinds of internal unresolved issues.
Like I said before. Take a Mozart kid, with parents who insist on having their kid perform the violin for adults across Europe. Blend that with a child soldier. That's how messed up an elf will be if he's forced to grow up at a human pace. He might end up educated and smart, but he's not a happy camper.
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If elves let their kids spend a week picking flowers, those kids would know a lot about flowers. Now, elves may be completely different, but if you give humans a lot of unstructured time, an enriched environment, and the attention of interested, nurturing adults, they learn a lot, very quickly.
And how many skill points is knowing about 30 different kinds of flowers by sight and smell and no other facts about them?
And actually, come to think of it, the Feat Breadth of Experience simulates this kind of learning environment really well...and is available to only Elves at starting ages. Just have them take that and things might make more sense to you. Or heck, give it free in replacement for another Racial Trait like Weapon Familiarity (you spent your time learning non-Martial skills...)
Speaking of which, there's also the archery and sword training. That'd take a fair amount of time. Especially the archery...learning to use a bow is a very long process.
And how many skill points is knowing about 30 different kinds of flowers by sight and smell and no other facts about them?
Feel free to explain how this is relevant to our discussion.
It seems even weirder to me if none of these "young, but essentially as physically and emotionally mature as an adult human" elves rebel against their culture and go out on adventures. Given that set up, I'd expect most elven adventurers to be below 40.
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As for 10 year old humans becoming warriors, that's true. It could happen among elves at that stage of development too. And they'd think about the same of it as we do.
It appears to me you've answered your own objection. I would expect some, but not many, elven adventurers to be under 100. Just as there are human adventurers that might be 10 or 14 or whatever.
You'd really call a 50 year old elf who physically looked and acted like a 5 year old "emotionally infantile" rather than just thinking of him as a child? (Assuming rough proportionality, I'd actually think a 50 year old elf would be more like 7, but the point holds.)
You probably would, too, if you had to interact with them. Imagine a fifty year old to whom you had to explain repeatedly not to waste their allowance. For thirty years.
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Feel free to explain how this is relevant to our discussion.
Uh...because I gave an example of kids going off to learn useless stuff, then you said it was useful? Not everything one does is equally educational...if Elves tend to spend a lot of time on the less educational stuff, that helps explain things.
Also...I had a whole rest of a post you completely ignored there.
The aging system just feels arbitrary where other races are concerned. Its only real purpose seems to be to replicate the human aging process, with proportionately "bigger" numbers.
The average human adventurer starts their career at between 17 and 21 years old. That's just under 20% of their natural lifespan, using average numbers (adventurers apparently live for a remarkably long time). Their "peak years" (before they start "losing a step" physically) also amount to about to roughly 20% of their natural lifespan - 14-18 years, depending on their profession. Their Middle, Old, and Venerable Age periods last longer than their childhood and adventuring time periods combined.
That's fair, I guess. I could quibble and argue that the five years between 35 and 40 really only affect the most elite athletes, that fit warriors have not been affected by that period of their lives, and that the equipment an individual in a martial profession has historically carried always ensured that they couldn't get that extra second in the 100 yard dash (or whatever) to begin with. But, whatever. Close enough, I guess.
What's arbitrary and kind of weird, though, is the need to transpose that same aging process to the elves. An elf's starting age is also a little less than 25% of their natural lifespan. Their peak years, believe it or not, amount to 30-50 years (!) depending on their profession! They then spend about 375 years, on average, as Middle-Aged, Old, or Venerable individuals.
That's silly. And it's not unique to Pathfinder. The Dungeons and Dragons game, over several editions, basically took incredible longevity - the thing that made the elder races special in so many different milieus - and took the magic out of it.
Where the learning and maturity angles are concerned, I always thought Tolkien's take was the best. While it takes elves a longer time to physically mature (they reach adult height by their fiftieth year?), their mental development and maturity occurs on a much faster pace, so that they appear much older than they actually are to non-elves.
Feel free to explain how this is relevant to our discussion.Uh...because I gave an example of kids going off to learn useless stuff, then you said it was useful? Not everything one does is equally educational...if Elves tend to spend a lot of time on the less educational stuff, that helps explain things.
Also...I had a whole rest of a post you completely ignored there.
How is that useless information? Being able to identify thirty flowers puts you that much closer to being able to describe their properties, understand seasonal changes, etc. I don't understand how you equate "information about nature" with useless. Knowledge (nature) is a skill in Pathfinder. Are you trying to make a point beyond "you can't usually gain a whole rank of skill in a week?"
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They are a different race with different cultures and outlooks. I guess the best way to look at it and how i have looked at elves was compare elves to loial in WoT series. He was 90 years old in the series and to the humans, he was very knowledgeable and wise BUT in his culture and society he was basically treated as someone who isnt quite an adult. Maybe and taking this from the same character, maybe since they live so long they arent as hasty as humans in getting the bug to go out adventuring and shorting their lives. Maybe 120 is just what their society woukd reconize as an adult but at a younger age than that woukd still be considered an adult to humans. They may just take their time living so many years before they based on their society view of age finally decide to go off when they are looked upon as adults whereas their actual mentality and maturity woukd have wayy been over due if a human was to see and talk with them.
And at least quite a few of us consider this a grave mistake as far as the asismar and tiefling are concerned. (I do believe the elemental plane touched are of a more human scale). And the Creative Director seems to share that opinion to the point where it may be fixed in ARG errata.
The ARG numbers are way off, and it's unfortunately spread a lot of confusion. Tieflings/aasimar/planetouched actually age like their parent race.
I actually like that these races live so long. It makes some sense to me, the immortality inherent in their outsider/elemental/undead heritage combined with the relatively short life of a human creates a life that is long, but still mortal.
But the long development state they go through is either a question I find more interesting than adopted elves, or just an error.
I could see these races growing to maturity at the speed of humans, reflecting that part of themselves, and still having long lives, reflecting the other influence in their makeup.
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How is that useless information? Being able to identify thirty flowers puts you that much closer to being able to describe their properties, understand seasonal changes, etc. I don't understand how you equate "information about nature" with useless. Knowledge (nature) is a skill in Pathfinder. Are you trying to make a point beyond "you can't usually gain a whole rank of skill in a week?"
It's useless on it's own. It can be used as a basis for further study, certainly, but it might not be. And even if it is, it's hardly the most efficient way to learn such information. A person studying a text on said flowers in an organized manner could learn all the information on their properties in a much shorter amount of time.
So, if the Elf uses methods that take five times as long to learn the same information...learning only one fifth the amount per year is reasonable.
Also, you still haven't even responded to the rest of my posts beyond this single specific point...
I don't have a very definite picture in my mind of what aasimar and tieflings are supposed to be like, to me they are still "Planescape races."
How is that useless information? Being able to identify thirty flowers puts you that much closer to being able to describe their properties, understand seasonal changes, etc. I don't understand how you equate "information about nature" with useless. Knowledge (nature) is a skill in Pathfinder. Are you trying to make a point beyond "you can't usually gain a whole rank of skill in a week?"It's useless on it's own. It can be used as a basis for further study, certainly, but it might not be. And even if it is, it's hardly the most efficient way to learn such information. A person studying a text on said flowers in an organized manner could learn all the information on their properties in a much shorter amount of time.
So, if the Elf uses methods that take five times as long to learn the same information...learning only one fifth the amount per year is reasonable.
Also, you still haven't even responded to the rest of my posts beyond this single specific point...
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. You seem to be basing your argument on the notion that this kind of unstructured learning is inefficient. However, I think you're completely wrong. Thus, I would have no reason to believe the flower-picking elves would take five times as long to learn stuff. I think they would be terrific botanists with far superior knowledge.
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. You seem to be basing your argument on the notion that this kind of unstructured learning is inefficient. However, I think you're completely wrong. Thus, I would have no reason to believe the flower-picking elves would take five times as long to learn stuff. I think they would be terrific botanists with far superior knowledge.
There's a huge difference between unstructured learning (which works great, potentially anyway) and unstructured activity, which doesn't. A kid who's allowed to study whatever they want (but is required to study something) will wind up learning quite a bit, but a kid who's allowed to do whatever they want regardless of it's educational value will not, in fact, learn nearly as much (at least not on average).
There's a difference between the two, and the I'm saying elves are more in the second category than the first.
This I agree with very much. Given my druthers, I'd stretch the adult age category for elves quite a bit, taking some off both ends.
Hmm. Actually looking at the age tables, for every category except adult, Elves reach it at almost exactly 5 times the human age. They become adult at over 7 times human adulthood (15!). Knock that down to 75 and things fall in line. They also can live about twice as long proportionally at Venerable.
The rest of the issues we're talking about don't go away, but it fits better.
Personally, I'd favor the Tolkien approach for the elder races, but this is certainly better than the status quo!
Deadmanwalking, RJGrady, help me out: is there a source that explicitly states that it takes 100+ years for an elf to mature mentally and psychologically? I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I can't help but feel that the age used by the most famous roleplaying game ever (Pathfinder, and before it D&D, AD&D, etc.) uses one of the age ranges Tolkien ascribed to elven physical maturity (50-100 years). I know that slow physical maturity is still a span in the works for some, but I can't help but feelt hat eliminating this hurdle solves a lot of problems.
As an aside, someone asked earlier how the elves could be viable given the disadvantages of their aging process. This is completely an in-house thing, but I always picture that the "higher" of the "elder races" (e.g., elves, dwarves) always have levels in the Core Classes, whereas the other races default to the NPC classes. And even then, I cap off the NPC classes at level 5 or so, so as to prevent hedge wizards, unremarkable artisans, and conscript soldiers from ever truly trumping those with exceptional training, abilities, etc.
At the end of the day, I just can't fathom creatures who can live for upwards of two-three centuries not focusing even a percentage of their energies toward training or education that matters. That's not to say that there won't be lazy (or what have you) exceptions to this rule. I just don't see a dwarf with a martial inclination becoming a warrior as opposed to a Fighter (for instance).
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I teach. College and high school at different times. Those education classes occasionally come in handy. Not often, but hey, once in a while... Maturity is tied to physical development. Little kids, not so mature, big kids a bit more. Even when outwardly physical growth has finished the brain is still getting it's final adjustments (the latest estimate is that it finishes at about 20 years of age give or take a few). It's why apparently physically mature people (in their teens) can do some incredibly immature / stupid things (in adult eyes). Of course some people never seem to get by that :)
The reason you can't remember everything from babyhood on is the physical reorganization of the brain due to growth. If you're stretching out the physical growth you are stretching out that continual, necessary, disorganization of memories / information. And the immaturity we associate with youth. Education is building a foundation on sand. That's why it takes a relatively long time in humans. That and the complexity of the information imparted (necessarily for our society) and the lack of instinctual actions use in a complex society. In our society education is necessary to function as an adult, so we do it.
No matter how much information you throw at a physically / mentally immature person, limited amounts will be retained especially in a form to be readily usable and it is, as a result, more difficult for them to make use of what they do have. They absorb background information, fundamentals / basics because we throw it at them repeatedly, stress it constantly and they use it constantly. Reinforcement. Or if you prefer the dirtier term, repetition.
I know everyone can trot out child prodigies as counter examples, but that's the point of being a prodigy. They are different. Most people move more slowly.
So, Elves maturing (and learning) slowly makes sense to me in terms of the time it takes them to grow up. Once they hit maturity they learn (level up) as fast as humans. As for survival strategies, I think having very high level parents (due to the time they have) more than compensates for the long childhoods they have.
Speaking of education, I'm off to pick my oldest up at her college...
While I favor the Tolkien method, I think you nailed it succinctly and accurately, R_Chance. :)
Having, e.g., Elrond Half-Elven and a bunch of elves sitting at level 10-whatever as uncles, aunts, cousins, etc., would certainly go a long way toward facilitating an overly long developmental period. But again, I would definitely want to see the "peak" years for elves extended. 35-50 years out of an average of 410-425 adult elf years (versus 14-18 out of a possible 69-73 for a human) is just a painfully short period of time.
Cosmetic differences don't make up for the fact that their physical attributes do decrease. And besides, this isn't just about elves; Dwarves suffer from the same silly proportionality as elves, and their "peak years" are only a bit better.
Their peak years are still longer than the average human's total lifespan.
I don't mean to sound rude, but... what about it?
Unless there is an in-game relationship between elves and humans that drives some relationship between how each ages, there is no need to even take into account what the elven prime is compared to the human or the dwarven or what have you. This isn't about whether something is "fair". It's about whether it "makes sense" within the context of the race itself.
Either way you cut it, it's silly for a game system to arbitrarily say that elves spend 20% of their average lifespan becoming physically mature, only about 9% of their average lifespan at their physical peak, and then 70% of their average lifespan in a declining mode. It's silly for that same game system to arbitrarily say that dwarves spend 15% of their average lifespan becoming physically mature, about 20% of their average lifespan at their physical peak, and almost 65% of their average lifespan in a declining mode.
I say "arbitrarily" because no real reason is given as to how they arrived at these ranges. We're talking about a copy and paste from an earlier game product, but applied to a game world with its own deities, creation mythos, etc.
I would only offer that that's not my argument. :)
That is to say, my argument has nothing to do with what a race can or cannot do. I'm not trying to argue that an elf's CON should or should not be higher, or that a Dwarf can or cannot survive thanks to his CON. I'm simply trying to say that, as things stand, the age limits offered don't really make sense... and they hinge on "because".
Nothing precludes someone from running a classic game as things stand. You can roll up your elf, write in the appropriate age in the character sheet, and have fun. If a player starts asking questions about development, though, or if they want their character to start early, etc., there aren't easy answers. This topic is proof of that. There aren't any explanations as to *why* these creatures age/mature/physically develop at such a slow rate compared to other races, but are somehow able to keep pace during their adventuring days.
That's all I'm getting at. :)
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. You seem to be basing your argument on the notion that this kind of unstructured learning is inefficient. However, I think you're completely wrong. Thus, I would have no reason to believe the flower-picking elves would take five times as long to learn stuff. I think they would be terrific botanists with far superior knowledge.There's a huge difference between unstructured learning (which works great, potentially anyway) and unstructured activity, which doesn't. A kid who's allowed to study whatever they want (but is required to study something) will wind up learning quite a bit, but a kid who's allowed to do whatever they want regardless of it's educational value will not, in fact, learn nearly as much (at least not on average).
There's a difference between the two, and the I'm saying elves are more in the second category than the first.
So, you're saying elves do the equivalent of dropping their kids in front of the boob tube.
I don't buy it.
So, Elves maturing (and learning) slowly makes sense to me in terms of the time it takes them to grow up. Once they hit maturity they learn (level up) as fast as humans.
"Elves less than 100 years old seem stupid by human standards. Like, really stupid."
Don't get me wrong, I understand the basic concept as an idea, but nothing anyone has proposed feels at all right to me. I won't say "realistic" or "right" or "logical" as this is fantasy. Decades long neoteny for elves feels absurd and breaks verisimilitude. For me.Well unfortunately for you it's also a longstanding fantasy trope.
Personally I think it is unfortunate for those who rigidly stick to that longstanding trope. I don't even have elves or dwarves/long loved races in my homebrew.
This is akin to saying "fireball spells and zombies break verisimilitude for me because thermodynamics." Fortunately, you have, I imagine, the capacity to create whatever world you wish when you GM.
No, this is the exact opposite of what I am saying - that is why I purposefully avoided "right", "logical" or "realistic". I used versimilitude to indicate "within the game" not "in comparison with reality".
Mostly though Shadowdweller, I think this is a personal preference thing. And as I said, I don't even use elves or dwarves, so the point is moot.
You could certainly play it that it's a cultural thing that 'normal' elves are perfectly ready to go adventuring when they're in their forties, but it's incredibly rare. Consider: about 50% of adventurers are dead within a year. You're in your physical prime, and will be for another hundred years. Why would you rush into danger? Why not first spend seventy years living a fun life in the elf lands, perhaps raising a couple of children of your own?
So, Elves maturing (and learning) slowly makes sense to me in terms of the time it takes them to grow up. Once they hit maturity they learn (level up) as fast as humans.
"Elves less than 100 years old seem stupid by human standards. Like, really stupid."
Not really, but you don't seem to understand physical development and the roll it plays in memory, maturity and processing. I've always thought the long maturation period of Elves, building that body carefully, is why they would outlive humans. As for intelligence, an Elf at the same developmental stage as a human is as bright, or maybe more so (+2 intelligence) than a human. And you would probably think an Elf and a human at the same stage were of an age if you saw them together without knowing their calendar ages. Elves do take longer to pass through the stages of maturity. Their development takes longer, but they also live longer. It seems like a reasonable trade off, more than compensated for by the knowledge and skills they have the time to gain after they mature. Obviously, ymmv.
...because adventuring may not be something you do because you WANT to do it, but because you NEED to do it? Because a world of dragons, liches, evil gods and assorted monsters doesn't let people sit in flower fields and doze off for a hundred years?