Racial Archtypes taken when not of that race.....

[Jacob Saltband]

So what I'm reading here means that a half-elf can use an elven curved blade without needing an exotic weapon feat, is this correct?

[blahpers]

How so? Elves only treat it as a martial weapon through a racial trait. Half-elves count as elves, but they do not get all of the elf race's racial trait.

Basically, counting it as a martial weapon is not intrinsic to the subtype "elf", but to the racial trait "elven weapon familiarity". Half-elves do not get that racial trait. Heck, even some elves don't get it.

Edit: If your half-elf has the alternate racial trait "ancestral arms", that would work--and, in fact, this is probably what the racial trait was intended for.

[Rysky]

Jacob Saltband wrote:

So what I'm reading here means that a half-elf can use an elven curved blade without needing an exotic weapon feat, is this correct?

No, it nowhere says they gain proficiency in weapons with Elven in their name like Elves, the closest is the Ancestral Arms alternate racial trait.

[Kazaan]

PRD wrote:

Elves

Weapon Familiarity: Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), longswords, rapiers, and shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.

Three things to note here.

1) Weapon Familiarity is a Racial Trait keyed to Elves. There are versions for other races such as Orc, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnomish, etc. There is not a general rule outside of these races that states anything about automatic proficiency or changing proficiency type with particular weapons. You require this specific Racial Trait in your race's block of rules element that apply to them.

2) Even Elves aren't "automatically proficient" with ECB or any other "Elven" weapon. They treat them as Martial weapons, meaning that a class with blanket martial proficiency (ie. fighters and other martials) will be proficient based on their martial proficiency, but classes that do not grant blanket martial (ie. Monk) remain un-proficient. So, for Elves, being a Fighter, Ranger, etc. and training to be proficient with "all martial weapons" covers Elven weapons like ECB for them whereas for other races, it is an Exotic weapon and Fighters wouldn't automatically cover them.

3) You can use a weapon for which you lack proficiency; you just suffer -4 to your attack roll for doing so.

[thorin001]

It also allows you to take the Martial Weapon Proficiency for racial weapons at 1st level for non martials. Exotic Weapon Proficiency has a BAB +1 requirement, so you would have to wait.

[Jacob Saltband]

I didnt think you could but needed to be sure.

Thanks for the info.