Are Half-Elves Boring?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Good grief, I didn't even notice people were still responding to this Thread! >_<

[Keith Greer]

I've gone ahead and removed the posts that tried to circumvent the potty filters, were overtly sarcastic, and that generally added nothing to the discussion. Please refrain from posting things like this again as it is a violation of our policies and grounds for removal if continued. -KG

[Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti]

Most of my characters tend to be elves or half-elves, with the occasional human or another ancestry.

[keftiu]

Typical half-elf lore - either the "beautiful, charismatic hybrids" or the "outcast from two cultures" - does very little for me, personally. I'm much more fond of what I've seen in Eberron and an obscure corner of the Realms (Aglarond!), where we see attempts to forge a distinct cultural identity outside of either parentage for them as a whole. Eberron even gives them a new name that some use: Khoravar, as a people unique to the setting's main continent of Khorvaire.

[dirtypool]

The last time I was doing a little world building for my game I toyed with the notion of Half-Elves actually being celebrated and even highly honored among Elven society.

Elves are long lived enough that they often come to take on roles of stewardship over the temporary and short lived things of the world. They preside over enough endings that they would either come to avoid them or highly cherish them.

In a society where endings are celebrated, someone who can stand astride the long lived world of elves and the fleeting world of humanity would be seen as unique.

[Kobold Catgirl]

They're only half-boring.

Other half, also boring.

[Tender Tendrils]

I think pretty much the main draw of half-elves is that you can have an elf (well, half an elf) with a beard.

[AceofMoxen]

Honestly, the only thing boring about half-elves is if they are over-used to the exclusion of other races. This is a problem in 5e, where their stat bonuses are just too good. They seem a little overused in PF2, but not as badly.

[Freehold DM]

AceofMoxen wrote:

Honestly, the only thing boring about half-elves is if they are over-used to the exclusion of other races. This is a problem in 5e, where their stat bonuses are just too good. They seem a little overused in PF2, but not as badly.

mm. That does bring back some memories, yeah.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Alternate cultural/bad-pseudo-science/comic book origins for half-elves and the subsequent setting narrative surrounding them:

1. In ages past humans and elves worked together to create magic in the Prime. Alas, the short-sighted humans corrupted the gift they'd been given and across the world elves began leaving for "the West" (or whatever). The humans captured many of the elves and extracted from them their immortal Essence in truly cruel ways. The humans attempted to infuse themselves with Elven Essence and the resulting half-elves are a mockery of everything true elves stand for. Not only that but among the learned of these lands, half-elves are a cursed reminder of the hubris that nearly wiped humans from the face of the earth.

2. Half-Elves are the result of exposure to the weird radiations of "The West" (or whatever), the true elven homelands. It is a genetic affliction, most common in places where the planar veil between the Prime and these homelands is thinnest. Within humans, somehow their adaptable genetic makeup allows them to survive. Sadly, prolonged exposure to this ambient radiation can prove fatal in other races. Royal "GoFundMe" coffers have been opened in several kingdoms to finance arcane and divine research into sealing these planar tears once and for all as well as to pay for the care of those non-humans in their final stages.

3. Elves do not sleep, they merely enter a trance-like state. This is because, when they first came to the Prime they DID in fact sleep. Unfortunately, their dreams mingled with the dreams of humans, causing the bizarre hybrid known commonly as the half-elf to be birthed forth into the waking world. These dream creatures and their elven progenitors were seen as a threat to the tribes of humankind and were hunted nearly to extinction. Modern elves have adopted their trance-state as a form of self preservation, while half-elves trained themselves to adopt a single skill, such as disguise or stealth or even survival, so that they could endure on the fringes of human society.

I mean, there's probably plenty of ways to make the half-races into something more interesting if the standard Core depiction of the culture bothers you. "Half-elves" don't even have to be part elf at all; they're merely called that because of a passing resemblance to elves. In point of fact they are...

Infused with the power of the Fey

Cursed by a vengeful demigod

Descended from an ancient race of shapechangers that lost their ability to shift forms

Are an intelligent fungal spore that infects humans, changing them irrevocably

The result of an alliance between the Cooshee, the "elven dog" and humans during the stone age

As for how half-elves are perceived in modern culture, you can make that up too with your GM. Maybe they're revered athletes in society, or they've created their own culture, gods and kingdoms. Perhaps they are sought the world over as mentors in their field of "skill focus." They don't have to be boring unless you want them to be.

[Ian G]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

They don't have to be boring unless you want them to be.

THIS!

RPG species are only boring if you make 'em boring. Even humans can be pretty cool with some interesting culture behind them!

[DeathQuaker]

Half-elves are one of my favorite races to play. It's fun to play around with backstories... one might be raised by humans and have a particular experience, another by human and elf parent, another by elves, another by half-elves... so there's a lot of potential cultural variety when in many (though not all) fantasy worlds all the other non-human races get only one culture/ethnic background. And I can decide--am I gonna play someone who's totally accepted and happy in their world or someone who feels like they belong nowhere? Both can be fun. Mechanically they can be over or underpowered depending but generally for me it's more about "can I make them work for my concept?" and often the answer is yes. I also just think they're pretty.

Other people may not like to play half-elves. That's okay too. There are other races I don't like to play that other people love. Tends to be how it works.

[Today is a good day to... halp]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

I mean, there's probably plenty of ways to make the half-races into something more interesting if the standard Core depiction of the culture bothers you. "Half-elves" don't even have to be part elf at all; they're merely called that because of a passing resemblance to elves. In point of fact they are...

Heck, going by this train of thought and the fact that 'Sylvan' exists as a distinct language, mebbe you could reskin Half-Elves as being this 'Sylvan' race instead [prolly keeping Elves and Humans infertile to each other?]. The Half-Elven racial traits of leaning more towards the Human side or the Elven side could be explained away as being distinct subraces of Sylvan- similar to the D&D depictions of Tallfellows and Stouts for Halflings. ;)

[Tender Tendrils]

Ian G wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

They don't have to be boring unless you want them to be.

THIS!

RPG species are only boring if you make 'em boring. Even humans can be pretty cool with some interesting culture behind them!

All that this is saying is that half-elves/humans can be interesting if you do a ton of extra work.

Sure, you can make them interesting, or you can take an ancestry that is already as interesting as the most interesting possible half-elf and put that amount of work into making that character more interesting (or just save yourself the effort and be content with a base character that is still interesting with no extra work).

[DeathQuaker]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Ian G wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

They don't have to be boring unless you want them to be.

THIS!

RPG species are only boring if you make 'em boring. Even humans can be pretty cool with some interesting culture behind them!

All that this is saying is that half-elves/humans can be interesting if you do a ton of extra work.

Personally I put the same work into making a half-elf character as I do any other. Which some might consider a "ton," but for me it's more having a "buttload of fun" than doing something that feels like a chore. Making backstory is 90% of the fun of character building IMO. YMMV.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Y'know what's funny? I'm in the same boat as DQ, I do a "ton of work/buttload of fun" when making characters or, more importantly, creating a homebrew setting for my games, and it is usually the players that obsess over RAW and following the letter of the game system that then complain. My comments here are anecdotal and not meant as an indictment of anyone here.

Still, the handful of players at my table that come to mind who either are bored with the "common" races in my PF1 games or get kind of annoyed by the oddities like reskinning monsters, creating alternate race trait characters or what not are the same folks that feel half-elves should run like they're presented in the CRB for PF1, period.

Anyway, I personally like to mess with characters' "origins" all the time, a habit I picked up from years of running/playing Marvel Super Heroes. For PF1 I basically take the race traits for the character I'm making and muse over how the PC got them.

Say I choose to drop Multitalented (they don't get 2 favored classes) and instead take Blended View (they get Low-Light Vision and Darkvision 60'). In the race trait it talks about Drow parentage, and that's cool... but what else might've happened:

Martza, NG Female Humanoid (Half-Elf) Magus 1:

Martza, a human girl of particularly ignoble birth, was sold to the mages of the Ioun Tower at the age of 13 to settle her father's debts. The transmuters took the lass, along with several other adolescent children from throughout the land to perform experimentations on them. The goal, as always, was a fusion of magic and mortal into beings powerful enough to combat the seemingly endless nightmares of the Abyssal Scar.

Most did not survive; they were the lucky ones. Those who did, like Martza, were blessed and cursed by what they endured. In Martza's case, along with the weird energies that warped her body into the "sylvan" image she exhibits today, her eyes were removed and replaced by a pair of glowing green organs, devoid of irises.

When the tower fell a year ago, Martza's luck continued and the young woman fled, taking with her all that she'd learned as a Magus in training. Unfortunately for Martza however, there are few places among the Lost Lands that will tolerate her... unnatural appearance. Fearing the dauntless hordes of the Scar, the young Magus escaped to Endholme, hoping to lose herself in the teeming masses of the cosmopolitan Free City of Merchants.

So... Martza was born a human, sold to a group of Transmuters and outfitted with a pair of "eyes" that granted her the powers she has. However, the GM (me, in this case) knows that those eyes also transmit what the character sees to a crystal ball item of some kind. Of course this item is currently in the hands of some kind of antagonist.

However, the GM also knows that when I made this character I gave her a pretty unique "origin" and wants to keep the fun going. On the one hand, Martza suffers a -2 on some Charisma based checks like Diplomacy if her eyes are visible and to date no amount of Illusion or Transmutation spells are able to remove their unsettling appearance, however as the campaign goes on the GM might also hand out stuff like Detect Magic at will, Clairvoyance 1/day and so on to offset this penalty.

That took me about 10 minutes to come up with. The GM will have a couple extra powers to contend with when they design encounters. I don't see that as a TON of work, though others' opinions will vary, but Martza now is a very unique character for an entire portion of the campaign to revolve around, all because I chose a different way of explaining an Alternate Race Trait.

[Tristan d'Ambrosius]

I know a Psylocke and Mojo reference when I see one.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Can't put anything past you T d'A!

Still, the point stands; pulling that together with some... inspiration from my childhood took all of like, 10 minutes. You can go that way with lots of characters. You don't even have to change their starting package.

Take a bog-standard half-elf wizard (universalist). Possibly the most generic character you can think of; a Core race, Core class, no bells or whistles.

The race has Medium size and a 30' move; no great shakes. They also get Low-Light Vision and Keen Senses; possible animal infusion? Immune to Sleep effects and +2 vs Enchantment; maybe something to do with Dragons instead of Elves? Finally they get a free Skill-Focus and they can pick 2 different classes for FCB; the memories of a past life?

From the initial class you get Bonded Object or a Familiar at level 1. There's a vaguely supernatural element to play with right there. What if you didn't choose it; it chose you? Perhaps that's the catalyst for your racial abilities, rather than being born of an elf and a human?

Now you can take any Medium sized, 30' movement race, likely human but who knows, and just SAY that instead of getting that race's starting package, when your character bonded with their object or familiar SOMETHING happened that turned them into this thing. It awakened secret knowledge in your brain, gave you access to a language you didn't know before, modified your senses, and so on.

Suddenly you're not JUST another half-elf wizard, you're something the game world has never seen before. It happened recently enough in your life that you still remember a time BEFORE you had glow-in-the-dark eyes or could hear twice as well as other mortals, giving you built-in roleplaying fodder. Your GM can tie the transformation into your current state somehow to the campaign at hand; you were made this way for some purpose, which is gradually revealed to you over the course of the game.

[Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti]

Does she manifest the focused totality of her psychic powers too ;)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Blimey, I didn't realize people were still replying to this!

DeathQuaker wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Ian G wrote:

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

They don't have to be boring unless you want them to be.

THIS!

RPG species are only boring if you make 'em boring. Even humans can be pretty cool with some interesting culture behind them!

All that this is saying is that half-elves/humans can be interesting if you do a ton of extra work.

Personally I put the same work into making a half-elf character as I do any other. Which some might consider a "ton," but for me it's more having a "buttload of fun" than doing something that feels like a chore. Making backstory is 90% of the fun of character building IMO. YMMV.

I just really worry that my backstories are turning out very similar to one another, that I have a "type" that I keep going back to over and over, and that means that I'm not a good roleplayer, as the way I see it the mark of a good roleplayer is versatility in the kinds of characters you can play as, being as comfortable roleplaying a goblin wizard as a half-elf cleric or a dwarf rogue.

The "half-elf bastard of a human noble and an elven dignitary" concept IS a cliché, isn't it?

[keftiu]

I care less about versatility and more about how well someone can roleplay the characters they've chosen to play, personally. Should a GM have a decent amount of range? Sure - though I have my favorite archetypes I keep returning to.

One of my regular players loves to play characters who are both exceptional at violence and have a troubled relationship with the violence they enact. They dial these two elements up and down; the animated bronze statue who hated the weak humans who crafted her was different from the street rat who wanted revenge on the crime boss who killed her best friend, and both were different from the corporate experiment out for the blood of the state that let it exist as property... Versatility? Not necessarily (though there's a lot of nuanced difference between these characters!), but she's consistently one of the strongest roleplayers at my table. Her characters come through clearly and feel like real people with real, justified feelings, consistent motivations, and interesting sources of drama.

[Kobold Catgirl]

What Keftiu said, 100%. I absolutely have a type in my roleplaying, and I'm fine with that, because I want to play characters I enjoy and relate to.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

So...am I a boring roleplayer because most of my characters fall into the special-snowflake half-elf category?

Ir race is the only thing that people remember about your characters then it doesn't matter which one you pick: they will all be equally boring.

I should maybe be the last person to say race doesn't matter when making a character, but I know from experience that memorable characters are memorable characters regardless of race.

[David knott 242]

I have noticed that I tend to prefer playing characters who look human but actually aren't, with typical characters being a kitsune, an aasimar, and a lapith. The changeling, gillman, and two half-elves moved slightly away from that, as anyone who examined them closely could see that they weren't fully human, but they were human looking enough that few people bothered to do that.

The only one of these characters to draw a lot of attention was the lapith, who found reason to spend a lot of time in centaur form.

[Ashbourne]

The current game I'm in an elf has a crush on my shirren character, think It's likely to just stay a crush but has brought up the question in the back of my mind what in the world would a 1/2 elf/shirren mix end up like. From the shirren perspective, a longer life span would lead to more options...

As for the original question, "Are Half-Elves Boring?"
Sticsticly speaking 1/2 of all elves are more boring than the other 1/2 of all elves.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

SilvercatMoonpaw wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

So...am I a boring roleplayer because most of my characters fall into the special-snowflake half-elf category?

Ir race is the only thing that people remember about your characters then it doesn't matter which one you pick: they will all be equally boring.

I should maybe be the last person to say race doesn't matter when making a character, but I know from experience that memorable characters are memorable characters regardless of race.

That's the thing: the majority of the characters I think about are future tense, not played yet, hypothetical. They're primarily conceived with play-by-post games in mind, which treat recruitment like an audition, and I get anxious when I see other people's submissions and they're things like tengu, ganzi, poppets and such. I feel like the guy who came to a potluck dinner, and everyone is bringing unique, flavorful homemade dishes and I'm the guy who just walked in with a pizza, and not even a good pizza, like a store-bought frozen one that got left in the oven too long.

[keftiu]

I don’t think you’re boring for rocking a half-elf. I’m constantly vocal about wanting more weird Ancestries, but the bulk of my PCs are humans, because those cultures usually get the most depth in the lore.

[captain yesterday]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

SilvercatMoonpaw wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

So...am I a boring roleplayer because most of my characters fall into the special-snowflake half-elf category?

Ir race is the only thing that people remember about your characters then it doesn't matter which one you pick: they will all be equally boring.

I should maybe be the last person to say race doesn't matter when making a character, but I know from experience that memorable characters are memorable characters regardless of race.

That's the thing: the majority of the characters I think about are future tense, not played yet, hypothetical. They're primarily conceived with play-by-post games in mind, which treat recruitment like an audition, and I get anxious when I see other people's submissions and they're things like tengu, ganzi, poppets and such. I feel like the guy who came to a potluck dinner, and everyone is bringing unique, flavorful homemade dishes and I'm the guy who just walked in with a pizza, and not even a good pizza, like a store-bought frozen one that got left in the oven too long.

As someone who has been to countless Midwest potlucks over my life I can say with complete certainty that the guy that brings the pizza is the most popular person at the potluck. Even if it was frozen it's still more edible than Lutefisk and zucchini pancakes.