Elves - Love em or Hate em?

[Tarkus]

I used to hate elves because they think they are so much better that humans and well, I AM human!

Elf: "We elves are faster, smarter, wiser, and prettier. We live ten times as long (or forever in some cases) and we don't age physically. Plus we are better dancers, and we all have beautiful melodic voices."

Me: "The rules don't say anything about that!"

Elf: "So? Don't forget we make the best mithral armor and weapons in the world."

Me: "How? You guys don't have a forge! You live in a freakin' tree!"

Elf: "That's right we live in the forest and dance by moonlight, we are the best druids and the best rangers after all."

Me: "Aasimars have higher wisdom wouldn't they be better at those classes?"

Elf: "But we are peerless archers! We can shoot farther, faster and more accuratley."

Me: "Half-orcs can do more damage with a composite bow and githzerai would hit more often because of their higher Dexterity."

Elf: "But we are the best magic-users in the world!"

Me: "How so?"

Elf: "Well we don't sleep, we meditate!"

Me: "There's a difference?"

Elf: "Of course there's a difference! You're just jealous because you can't see or hear as good as we can! You wish you had a totally broken and wholly unexplained ability to see secret doors!"

Me: "I'm hanging up the phone now."

Yea I used to hate elves, to this day I have yet to read any book with an elf character that I didn't make me want to just slap them in the face and then violently shake them while saying, "What is wrong with you!? Why are you acting this way!?" but I'm getting kind of burned out on the whole elf hate thing and I've now progressed to a state of apathy with a hint of nihilism.

I voted Don't Care.

 

[Sejs]

Elf: "So? Don't forget we make the best mithral armor and weapons in the world."

Me: "How? You guys don't have a forge! You live in a freakin' tree!"

Yeah, that one always kinda sat oddly with me as well. "We make all this mythril stuff!" Uh huh.. and where do you get and make all this exactly? There a lot of elven mining operations going on that nobody knows about? Bunch of pointy eared waifs slogging it out down in the mines cursing their con penalty when the black lung rolls around? Late nights smelting ore with the assistance of frolicking woodland creatures, that sort of thing?

 

[Kanegrundar]

I want to point out that dwarves aren't much better in that regard. And that races of stone had extra dwarves while races of the wild didn't have another elf.

True, which surprised the heck out of me. Maybe they added the dwarf sub-races to make up for not having a new race in any of the FR supplements past the Player's Guide.
Elves at least got the silly Star Elves in Unapproachable East!

Kane

 

[RedWick]

I'm by and large indifferent to elves or any of the other typical fantasy races. To me though, I honestly don't see enough of a difference between humans and how elves, dwarves or any number of ther other typical fantasy races are portrayed to warrent the need for them, other than just out of convention.

Then again, I'm also one of those diceless freaks (though, I'd go crazy without chucking dice around every now and again ). But really, I love seeing game worlds which make use of grossly non-standard fantasy races, because there's so much that's unknown still. With an elf, I can know what to expect and it's kinda boring.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Isn't that like saying Japanese people are lawful? Stereotypes are stupid, IMO. There might be more lawful dwarves than lawful humans, but they are definitely not all lawful.

Dwarven culture is a Chinese-Saxon hybrid, not Japanese. Silly humans...



I have to say, I probably do with dwarves what a lot of people seem to with elves. Dwarven culture as I envision it usually represents everything I admire and put on a pedestal and as such dwarves tend to excel on the national scale. The rules take care of dwarves excelling on a personal scale.

 

[Bront]

Not to hijack this thread, by why all the dwarf mechanical hate? Granted, a Dwarf is the ONLY race I haven't played in 3.5 core, so I'm not intimately familiar with them, but still, I never thought they were that great.

 

[greywulf]

Love them......

....but I couldn't eat a whole one.

 

[Drugged Dwarf]

I hate them. I hate them with such a passion it annoys me. NOt becasue of stats or anything like that, just that A) ALL my friends love elves in any game that they play, so I end up being the lone dwarf that everyone picks on, and b) I have pointy ears. *sniff*

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

For that matter, how does anyone know if a dwarf is going to behave very differently from a human?

Simple. Their biology is different. They will behave differently than we do for the same reason we behave differently than cats.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Not to hijack this thread, by why all the dwarf mechanical hate? Granted, a Dwarf is the ONLY race I haven't played in 3.5 core, so I'm not intimately familiar with them, but still, I never thought they were that great.

There's the fact that their bonuses should give them a LA of +1, but they don't. Con bonus is a big plus, and Cha bonus won't hurt you in a fight (unless you're a sorc or bard, and those aren't exactly dwarven archetypes. For paladin you can always get a Gold Dwarf with dex penalty instead), +2 to almost all saving throws (magic and poison - there's not so much more).

Then there's the fact that even though they were one of the most powerful races to begin with, they were more or less the only ones who got even more in 3.5 (weapon familiarity, no getting slower in armour and stability bonuses)

Then, they're better than any other class as a warrior with one-handed weapon, shield and heavy armour. They are as fast as everyone else, get great saves, make more damage (because they'll use a dwarven waraxe, others have to use a feat for that).

And then there's the fact that the whole race, from the stats to the way they are usually portrayed, are one big excuse to have a munchkin dwarf tank - d10 weapon (but I get weapon familiarity with it), heavy armour (I'm slower than others, but don't slow down in it, why shouldn't I take it), great saves (+2 on almost everything), especially fortitude, and nothing to be "wasted" for social skills (hey, I don't like to talk, I'm a dwarf. Plus I get a penalty on cha, anyway). This will lead to a char who can have cha as a dump stat, and max out dex at 12, opening up generous amounts of ability score resources for str and con (which gets a bonus).

Other than that, I have no problem with the dwarven mechanics.