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Elves start at over one hundred years old.
If a new player asked "How much should I know about the world and its history by default?" when rolling an elf character, what would be a sensible answer?
Because they do not need to know whole history from 100 years, but maybe the crucial events? Few dots in the timeline?
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"You know, I was there for X historical event, that's where I got this scar, but because I never studied it, I don't know anything about it." Elven Fighter.
That's why long lived races in my home games can do knowledge checks regarding historical events untrained up to DC 20
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I don't know. If it is an elf from an actual elf nation, then they would be living in a place that is rather insular and slow to respond to current events (ie- they don't notice many wars unless they go on for over 30 years)
Also, I am living in modern America, but I can not tell you much of anything about that situation we had with Syria. Depending on where you live, what your interests are, and how personally involved you get, you might not know much of anything except "It was a thing I heard mentioned once, but I had to hurry or I would have to skip lunch that day, so I didn't stick around to hear what it was all about".
This may be particularly true since this game, if you haven't noticed, lacks television. And actual long distance communication is still tricky, and might involve quite a few spell caster levels. So you aren't going to hear much about the situation in the next country over unless you personally go there or if you talk with merchants/refugees from over there. I know that, historically, such gossip and such was a much larger part of people's lives than today due to the need to rely on travelers for information... but it still has its limits.
I require elves to be at least level 3 to fix this issue.
I play an elf who is 156 years old. He has long lived amongst humans, and remembers what the world was like *before* Aroden died.
In actual play, I occasionally have him throw in comments about "the gold old days" or mention someone who might help them, only to recall that person has been dead for 50 years (or similar). It's great "color" for roleplaying purposes, but at the end of the day his skill rolls for knowledge and such depend wholy on his stats & skill ranks & bonuses. This said, I gave him a high INT and had him take at least one rank in every knowledge skill as soon as possible, even the ones that weren't class skills, just so I could plausibly play up the knowledge angle.
I agree that by any logical standard, a 150-year-old elf really shouldn't be 1st level. But hey, if the scenario calls for it, go with the flow. Have his 1st-level status reflect him suffering from a magical backlash or grievous head wound of some sort. There are always ways of working the most incongruous details into a gaming session.
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Elves get an Int bonus. Which means they will be more likely than most humans to make DC10 Knowledge checks for "common knowledge." The Int bonus accounts for the accumulated experience of their longer lives.
In part, at best. However, the INT bonus does encourage them to invest in INT, regardless of their actual class, and many of the classes they are likely to choose have a number of knowledge skills as class skills. So that raw INT bonus is likely to lead to a character with greater knowledge than your average commoner.
Many agree that the age "rules" in PF (and in DD3.X before that) are wonky at best. They are hard to reconcile with logical arguments, so most players just take it in stride and roleplay how they think their character should act without too much regard for specific die rolls.
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There's actually a feat for a character that wants to play an elf this way: Breadth of Experience.
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While elves may be long lived they also tend to be isolationists and dismiss non elven societies as unimportant and irrelevant. They probably pay about as much attention to “lesser” civilizations as we do to flocks or birds or herds of deer. Yes, they know that there is a human nation to the south, but may not be particularly interested in who the ruler is or what he does unless it directly affects them. Most elves simply don’t care about what happens outside their own territory.
Also just because you live through something does not mean you will remember everything. How many people know who the prime minister of Canada was 15 years ago? Or what was the number 1 song on the charts 10 years ago this week? Most people don’t remember a lot of the details that don’t directly affect your lives. Elves are not going to be any different from this, and may be even worse.
Even things that directly affect your life tend to be forgotten after time. How many people remember all the names of the kids who were in your first grade class after 30 years? Not the ones that you still know today, but the ones you have never seen since. Most people are not going to be able to remember more than a few names from that long ago. Think how much you will forget after a few centuries instead of a few decades. If you are fairly young you probably still remember a lot of things, but trust me after time the details are forgotten.
As Charlie Bell said elves do get a bonus to INT so are better at knowledge and craft skills than an equivalent human is. The bonus to INT also means that elves do in fact have more skills than other races. Many skills especially INT based skill are quickly forgotten if they are not used. Maybe the reason elves get a +2 bonus to INT is they spend many decades in school studying various subjects. While they have forgotten a lot they still retain a great deal, and it also help to develop their critical thinking and reasoning abilities. They are not any smarter than any other race just better educated.
I do tend to have elves be somewhat insular, but here's the thing: remember that up until X age (whatever that starting age is, 90 or 120 or 150), they are still children / adolescents / teenagers. Even if we tend to think that anyone at that age should be adult and wandering around the world for 40 years, they're not; they're elves, with a much longer lifespan, and a much slower rate of development. It may be a matter of maturity (up until that point they're flighty and don't care), it may be a matter of knowledge-editing (removing unneeded memories every 2-3 days, keeping only the most useful/precious) and thus skills have to be muscle memory, not active memory, but whatever the reason, they're not 'adult' until that point. "Oh, that was ninety years ago. I remember that - I was playing with my dog, and Mom and Dad were a little upset because of something. I guess that was it."
If they want to play someone much older who is only starting to adventure but who, for sake of the discussion, was active at the time, then something like this occurs: "Oh, the battle of Dagorlad. Yeah, that was really chaotic. We were out to take Sauron down for good. I guess it worked, 'cause he hasn't been back."
Stuff, as Charlie says above, that you can get on a DC 10 or DC 20 check - popular, basic information.
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One thing to remember is that Elves AGE slower than humans. That means everything is slowed down for them. So while Infancy takes 1-2 years for a human (depending on how you define infancy) it takes 5-10 years for an elf, meaning that it takes them 5-10 years just to learn how to walk and say the simplest of phrases.
Takes them until their 50 to start realizing how the world works, 75 to really start to know their own bodies and how to start making their own life choices (again, depending on which parenting books you read).
So while an Elf may have been around for a while, that doesn't nessissarily give him/her an edge in knowledge, as it takes them much longer to learn 'the basics.'
Plus, as others have mentioned, the Elven nation (Kyonin) basically has closed borders and is very insular, so there is that as well.
VampByDay II never pictured it that way. Maturity is based on a lot of different things for a lot of different creatures. For example horses don't live that much short than humans but if the horse isn't walking within five minutes you're concerned.
I Think of it more like the late years of maturity. I don't expect anyone who's 17 going into their first year of college to succeed (not that I'm surprised if they do) but the mentality is shifted drastically if you've gone into the work force for a year and then come to college at 18, even more so if you go to Europe for a year to travel, then work for a year then come to college at 19. But for humans these things are not assumed or mandatory. Especially in the arts where creative peak is 23-27. But for an elf maybe summer break for public school is a year long. Maybe it's expected that they take a year off between grade 8 and grade nine to learn about family values and history. Maybe a prerequisite to college is a ten year term doing a real manual labour job. Suddenly your equivalent to a 17 year old going to college at the earliest usually possible is a 44 year old going to college at the earliest year possible and all they wanted to do was be a baker but now that baker has so much more like knowledge and experience equivalent but they're not even wize enough to vote yet.
As far as GMs who care about their own created story and the player does too I've experienced large amounts of in character knowlegde that was fun but wasn't a mechanical bonus. Someone in our group was raised in a city that we were in and so he knew a short cut to the next town over. Ask for plot relavent information instead of mechanical bonuses and I'd bet my silver that a GM would be willing to give it to you and happy at that. Our groups main GM wrights so much lore on every worl D he creates that there are pages and pages of information that we never even encounter.
how well was your elf paying attention to what was going on(as in how many ranks of knowledge: history do you have?)
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Elf children in a public school setting would spend three weeks on the "cut out a pumpkin for Halloween" exercise. All the elflings* make beautiful pumpkins with amazing colors and as much creativity as they'd like under the gentle guiding hands of their instructors, and then, the day before Halloween, half the elves get bored and start working on Valentines Day poems. The instructors simply nod, knowing that Halloween will come again in eight or nine years, and move on to the next lesson (tying shoes, which also takes weeks and weeks and during which those shoes get tied in all sorts of pretty ways before some of the elflings* decide flip-flops are better anyways, never mind that it's winter. It's the first-grade classroom that never ends.
*Elf children? I don't know the term.
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*Elf children? I don't know the term.
Blights? Abominations? Century screamers?
*Elf children? I don't know the term.Blights? Abominations? Century screamers?
Now now. It might not be 20 years in diapers.
They might grow up relatively quick at first, and then spend 50 years in teenage angst.
"Like...GAWD!...I am going to like...totally go out adventuring and be a super cool hero once I get old enough to leave. Maybe find a handsome human hero to make my parents like...TOTALLY PISSED!"
Now now. It might not be 20 years in diapers.
They might grow up relatively quick at first, and then spend 50 years in teenage angst.
"Like...GAWD!...I am going to like...totally go out adventuring and be a super cool hero once I get old enough to leave. Maybe find a handsome human hero to make my parents like...TOTALLY PISSED!"
In one of my settings, elves are actually permanently stuck as teenagers. It's horrific. :P
Lemeres, I like the idea that they never have left the teenage angst stage. Arrogant, cooler than you, know everything, "I'd explain it, but YOU probably wouldn't understand anyway."
An elf spends weeks staring at an elven painting, letting the subtleties of each emotion sink in....they live in almost xenophobic enclaves that pays no attention to the nonsensical whirling of lesser races.
They have ambition, but a human physically cannot understand the level of patience (if you can call it that) of the average elf. A human may work feverishly to advance his career for 40 years before he has to call it quits, an elf doesn't mind backpack hitch hiking through Europe for 100 years to "find himself" before he focuses on more practical things. (as if elves are ever really practical)
That's how I normally like to play them. High elves.
And it would explain why they don't all start at level 8.
But I really like the idea of races being more than just stat differences. There are inherent psychological and behavioral differences. Some break the mold. Just as some humans never care about practical matters, and spend their whole life contemplating reality, some elves might get that wild hair of adventure, and join in the whirling fires of adventure.
They have ambition, but a human physically cannot understand the level of patience (if you can call it that) of the average elf. A human may work feverishly to advance his career for 40 years before he has to call it quits, an elf doesn't mind backpack hitch hiking through Europe for 100 years to "find himself" before he focuses on more practical things. (as if elves are ever really practical)
I think they have to take pratical considerations for their impractical goals.
"Now, where am I going to get all the materials to make this LITERALLY ivory tower? I suppose I will have to start up an elephant farm, and I should be done in about 50 years. Well, at least taking the animal husbandry courses will only take 4 years. "
Of course, this begs the question of how the hell an Elf functions in a party of "mayflies" that go from apprentice to demigod in the space of a few months.
Because everything they've been practicing for the last ninety years snaps into focus.
Of course, this begs the question of how the hell an Elf functions in a party of "mayflies" that go from apprentice to demigod in the space of a few months.Honestly, how does anyone function in a party that goes from apprentice to demigod in a matter of months.
I don't know about that. I can honestly say I've never played in a group where there weren't breaks - typically every couple or three levels at the very least - for anything between months and years. Spells need to be researched, items created, skills learned ...
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My group does not typically take long breaks in the campaign. Even when we do get breaks, they tend to be measured in weeks, not years. It's typical for the campaign to last less than two years, even when we run level 1-15.
We're about to hit an unusually long several-month break in the current campaign - after gaining 10 levels in maybe half a year.
I believe several APs are also written to span 12 or so levels within a year.
One thing to remember is that Elves AGE slower than humans. That means everything is slowed down for them. So while Infancy takes 1-2 years for a human (depending on how you define infancy) it takes 5-10 years for an elf, meaning that it takes them 5-10 years just to learn how to walk and say the simplest of phrases.
(...)
So while an Elf may have been around for a while, that doesn't necessarily give him/her an edge in knowledge, as it takes them much longer to learn 'the basics.'
This is one of the most ludicrous extrapolations which the age categories lead to. I'm willing to believe that Elven "teenagers" are flighty, impulsive airheads who don't really concentrate on anything long enough to learn about it, but not that they spend their first "5-10 years" in diapers just learning how to walk. Nothing in the primary literary sources suggests such a thing, and I don't recall reading it in any extant DD of PF books. It seems to come up regularly on the forums, though, as some people see this argument as an explanation for the artificial and ill-conceived age categories.
Yes, I know, narrative logic doesn't really apply to RPG campaigns, where a character can spurt from naïve farmboy to godlike superhero in a few short months of game time. But don't expect everyone to expect that a 10-year-old elf needs his bottle and a change of nappies every few hours.
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Well just because you lived through an event does mean you correctly intrepid the events in the correct manner, or that you were aware of all the details. Most characters start at level 1 so it's assumed that your PC doesn't have a centuries worth of adventuring, and were assisting a general cause a coup or saving a city from the invading horde.
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In the Ultimate Campaign rules for child adventurers, 55 is the given age for child elves. Half the starting age, just like all the other races. They're treated the same way as 8 year old human, same stat adjustments and everything else. Not like perpetual teenagers, but as young children.One thing to remember is that Elves AGE slower than humans. That means everything is slowed down for them. So while Infancy takes 1-2 years for a human (depending on how you define infancy) it takes 5-10 years for an elf, meaning that it takes them 5-10 years just to learn how to walk and say the simplest of phrases.
(...)
So while an Elf may have been around for a while, that doesn't necessarily give him/her an edge in knowledge, as it takes them much longer to learn 'the basics.'This is one of the most ludicrous extrapolations which the age categories lead to. I'm willing to believe that Elven "teenagers" are flighty, impulsive airheads who don't really concentrate on anything long enough to learn about it, but not that they spend their first "5-10 years" in diapers just learning how to walk. Nothing in the primary literary sources suggest such a thing, and I don't recall reading it in any extant DD of PF books. It seems to come up regularly on the forums, though, as some people see this argument as an explanation for the artificial and ill-conceived age categories.
Yes, I know, narrative logic doesn't really apply to RPG campaigns, where a character can spurt from naïve farmboy to godlike superhero in a few short months of game time. But don't expect everyone to expect that a 10-year-old elf needs his bottle and a change of nappies every few hours.
With that kind of maturation rate, elves would probably just cast endure elements on their infants and leave them naked in the yard, rather than inventing diapers at all. Look, I'm not saying elves are negligent parents, the yard would be fenced in; you should see how Hivers treat their children.
Speaking seriously, in Pathfinder elves are aliens. Like, aliens-from-another-planet type aliens. I have no trouble whatsoever imagining they would take decades, rather than years, to mature, or that their brains would function in such a way that they were mechanically (like, game mechanically) similar to humans despite their long lives.
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I may be repeating a bunch of already stated rules/factoids, but I thought I'd throw these in anyway:
1. You may make knowledge checks of DC 10 without training. This, combined with the ability to take 10 when not distracted, means that you can call upon common knowledge, allowing you to:
- Identify a mineral, stone, or metal
- Identify construction as unsafe
- Determine a creature's ethnicity and accent.
- Know recent and historically significant events.*
- Know local laws, rulers, and popular locations
- Identify common plants and animals.
- Know current rulers and their symbols
- Know the names of the different planes
- Recognize a deity's symbol and clergy
Further, while the DC to identify a monster is 10 + CR, that DC assumes you want to know that monster's abilities and weaknesses. Further, any race that would have creatures with a CR of below 1 (basically weak monsters and 0 HD races) could be identified as a whole. Thus most races can identify each other (assuming they aren't panicking and have an Int score of 10 or better) 100% of the time.
2. Elves reach adulthood at 110, where as humans reach adulthood at 15. I don't know about you, but at 15 I was just beginning to seek things outside of my immediate world that weren't mere curiousities: politics, world history, structured math and scientific experimentation, and the beliefs and cultures of others. So it would make sense that an elf would thusly live in 110-ish years of blissful ignorance (assuming they don't start adventuring as youth) of most of the world, including the intricacies of arcana, anything past the basics of dungeoneering, etc.
So, assuming that: most elves age 100 to 135 (average starting age of elf in a trained elf class) are working on their first rank in knowledge skills, and will have an additional rank of skills beyond the average for other races. On average, they are slightly more intelligent than the average tween to average 23-ish year old adult human, but not anymore socialably mature or observant, and their average tendency is toward fantastic arts and crafts taking years to make. Further, unlike aging humans, they don't feel the same push of mortality: they still have literal centuries yawning before them, possibly a whole half millennia.
*For longer-lived races, 'recent' would be a bit broader of a term. At least 30 years or so for an elf (about 4 years for a human.)
There are three components to consider when talking about aging and maturity. The first is physical maturity. This is primarily measured by how long it takes the race to physically mature enough to reproduce. The second is mental maturity this is measured by how long it takes for a reach the point where their minds are fully developed and are capable of functioning as a full member of their race. The last is cultural maturity. This is pretty much an arbitrary age that where the person gains the full rights and responsibilities of the race.
Humans usually reach physical maturity around 16 or so. Mental maturity is assumed at 18. Cultural maturity is around 21 which is usually the legal drinking age. It was pointed out earlier that elves are actually aliens from another planet. That being the case it would make sense that they reach these stages at a different rate than humans. They may reach physical maturity relatively quickly, but take longer than humans to develop mentally. By all accounts elves coddle their children so cultural maturity may take much longer than humans. The starting age given in the books is probably cultural maturity.
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Humans usually reach physical maturity around 16 or so. Mental maturity is assumed at 18. Cultural maturity is around 21 which is usually the legal drinking age.
Actually mental maturity appears to be reached closer to 25. It's just subtle changes in your 20s.
No reason elves couldn't have a later cultural maturity, though.
In my current setting, elves reach physical maturity around 60 (with early development and puberty only being a little slow, and the phase corresponding with 5-11 in humans representing a proportionally longer time for elves). Mental maturity kicks in around 110, and cultural maturity ranges from 60-150. Starting ages are shifted somewhat to account for the fact that rogues and sorcerers can pop up around the end of physical maturity, but wizardly and priestly training takes mental maturity.
EDIT: with respect to the OP's question, mental maturity is more relevant than cultural maturity in determining what an elf will know about. Mental maturity increases understanding and potentially interest. However you certainly can be aware of stuff that happens before you actually become mentally mature - assuming immature elves are not isolated by culture.
Cultural maturity is around 21 which is usually the legal drinking age.
Humorously no, it's usually 18. Despite the fact as weirdo states, mental maturity finished "around" 25.
I always find it odd that this topic comes up every once in a while and its always about elves. Dwarves live very long lives too, compared to us humans and no one ever asks how much they're supposed to know or how to make sense of a being of their years being on the relative same level as a human many years younger. No one ever seems to bother and I wonder why.
That was slightly off-topic so lets move on! For many people the relative age (and so the rate of maturation in the full sense of the word) of the longer lived races compared to humans creates a sense of dissonance. It feels off.
Now some posters have correctly mentioned the fact that these races are alien (literally in the case of elves, but I'm not looking for the literal sense of the word.) to us. Their longevity alone already causes major differences in the way they perceive the world compared to us; and that is merely a single factor causing a single difference among many factors and differences. Though its tricky to keep this in mind it is possible. Some reasonable and some less reasonable possible explanations for their comparative lack of knowledge in this context have already been given. Use them if you want to use these races as they're described according to the canon.
A much easier solution is to just do away with the 'exactly relative' maturation rates. Elves and dwarves and what have you grow at the exact same rate as humans up until adulthood at which point the longer lived races' aging process begins to stagnate. Voila, no more 'but I've lived 3 of your lifetimes already, why am I just as dumb as you?!' crap. As far as I'm aware this doesn't take away from anything really. Sure, the alienness is slightly diminished but it is still present and relevant, but everything else remains as it was, like human ambition and drive to accomplish. I don't know about you guys but it just seems to be the best solution to this 'problem' to me.
Up until the 1900s (and even today in many parts of the world), an individual is considered an adult somewhere between the ages of 13 and 15. The clearest example of this is the age at which Jewish adolescents celebrate their Bar (and Bat) Mitzvahs (which might be the most well-known passage-into-adulthood celebrations in Western civilization): 13. At that age, a boy or girl is considered adult; in pre-industrial societies and crafts, the boy has been learning a trade for three years and could easily be considered ready to become a journeyman, while the girl most likely has had her first monthly courses. And it's after that point that they can get married.
The generally-South-American Spanish-speaking world has a similar ceremony/party, mostly exercised for females; the 'Quinceanera', the birthday party for a fifteen-year-old, her 'coming out' party. After this point, she's considered eligible to be married, and the match-makers start looking around.
I personally have the demihuman infancy-toddler-child-adolescent sequence start at 'x1.0' and increase it slowly. (Having human-8 equal elf-55 throws a wrench into it, so I toss that wrench out. :P :) ) So human and elf spend 2 years as infants; humans go to age 5 as toddlers, while elves go to age 10. The 'child' developmental stage would go to age 8 for humans, but age 24 for elves; the 'youth' stage goes to 10 for human, 50 for elf. Finally, the 'adolescent' goes to 15 for human, and 105 (or 110) for elves - 55-60 years as a 'teenager', equivalent in time span to the entire rest of their lives at that point. An elf, however, might not be ready for adventuring until they hit that adolescent/teenager phase; the bones just aren't ready for it, whatever you want to say.
The numbers I used were off the top of my head. The exact numbers are not really important, what is important is that maturity is not just a single stage. Different races may reach each of the stages at a different rate. Even in real life these stages are not set in stone. Strange as it sounds the average age for puberty is now younger than it was a two hundred years ago. But a two hundred years ago people where considered adults at an earlier age.
There is also no reason a race could swap around the order of reaching each of the stages. Maybe goblins reach mental maturity before they reach physical maturity. An orc could be considered an adult before he reached either physical or mental maturity.
The way I run things elves reach physical maturity around 30 years of age. Mental maturity takes a bit longer. Part of the reason it takes longer is due to elves spending more time learning different subjects. This is reflected in their bonus to INT and bonus to enchantment. My elves are not genetically smarter than other races, simply better educated and taught more discipline. Around 80 or so the elf is a mentally mature elf. The remaining time before an elf is considered an adult is to allow the elf a chance to decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives.
My elves also don’t go thru puberty so don’t have the sudden growth spurt. They grow steadily at a rate slower than a human. This also explains the slim build and lower CON.
I also consider the starting ages for those raised in the culture of their race. If you were raised by another race it may be different and you should trade out some racial abilities. I allow some flexibility with this.
I always find it odd that this topic comes up every once in a while and its always about elves. Dwarves live very long lives too, compared to us humans and no one ever asks how much they're supposed to know or how to make sense of a being of their years being on the relative same level as a human many years younger. No one ever seems to bother and I wonder why.
Dwarf starting age is 40 and some.
Common attitude is to treat all dwarves like middle-aged people, all in all.Elves starts way older if you go by the rules.
I know a few real people who stagnated for decades. Ok, they learned something during the time, but they mostly spent their time on repetitive stuff, tried to ignore anything beyond their personal little world and finally forgot several things. As a nerd, I find this undesirable for myself - I need new input at a reasonable rate to be content. But others might be content with their life and don't feel the need to expand it. Or they are afraid of new information because it could question their lifestyle...
I'd think elves belong to the first category: They live a good life, so what's the point of caring about anything else? If you know you might live for centuries, there is simply no need to hurry. Compare this to real life examples where someone thought he'd have to die and later discovered he doesn't have to. Boy, some of those people become quite ambitious...
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Trees live a long, long time. They must have the best Knowledge checks of all.
Trees live a long, long time. They must have the best Knowledge checks of all.
"As well as 'em blasted pointy eared pansies that hug 'em"
-Krog Thunderbeard, dwarven blacksmith