Crazy Jerome
First Post
(Psi)SeveredHead said:
Trouble is, if you want to skip JRRT (which I don't, more about that in a moment), and you want to sort of scattershot bracket the wide variety of "magic using fey" into a racial niche, then you have essentially two routes to go:
1. Sidhe, and their less obvious counterparts.
2. Occasionally nasty, trickster (and not practical joker style, but meaner), almost amoral, magic using fey. In myth, these are usually short, when they aren't really part of the Sidhe option.
My problem with the Sidhe option is that it doesn't solve the main problem with "elves are immortal beings practically nursed on magic, but we made them a balanced player race." Because the Sidhe, as a group and individually, are very powerful. That brings us back into the stuff like ECL that I understand 4E has managed to drop. Or put another way, I don't mind Sidhe as monsters, but I don't want them watered down to the point where they can serve as a player race. The gnome (leprachaun, fairy, little people under the hill) option doesn't have this problem, because in myth, these creatures have been all over the map, as far as power is concerned.
So from my perspective, the designers made a tremendous choice in shunting elves proper into "wild, pointy-eared tree huggers." If some of them happen to become very powerful in magic, well, to my mind this actually fits Middle Earth better than them having some kind of native overt magic. (Saying that the woodland elves are so silent because of native, subtle magic and skill instead of mere skill is fine. That' s just flavor, and doesn't suggest every elf patrol good have a guy that can throw lightning. If individual elves become great casters, then they stand out.) Then the designers turned around and nullified the best part of that change--taking the overt magic out of the elf--by putting the eladrin in. Plus, I still think "eladrin" is one of the silliest names for a main player race, ever.
Now, if you've made it that far, I've just been talking about this from what would make sense to most people. What I really think they should have done is made an arrangement with Monte Cook to use the Arcana Unearthed/Evolved "faen", which are basically little people done right. The "Loresong faen" is an analog to the gnome, and a better representative of the "little people under the hill" than the gnome proper. (Quickling as analog for halfling doesn't work as well outside of AU/AE. I don't like halflings as riverfolk, but they do have a niche.) And that's actually what I'm going to do--give the faen the powers of the eladrin, and call it a day's work well done.
Then I'll take advantage of most of the mechanical goodness in 4E, and have some very definite niches to pick from as player races:Elves - long-lived but mortal woodland, were once fey, but have lived too long in the world to be called that any longer. Have intermarried with other mortal creatures and gained greater stature. (No need for "half elves"--elves are already part mortal. Note that this is getting away from Middle Earth, but that's fine, since Middle Earth elves don't work very well as a playable race in D&D. Or maybe you could say they are Mirkwood elves.)
Halflings - little people that ages ago mostly lost their fey connection, but haven't intermarried with other mortal creatures.
Dwarves - stone made flesh, pretty much straight out of Middle Earth. They aren't related to anyone, which is part of what makes them interesting.
Faen - little, fey people that are still that way--including "gnomes".
And of course, humans. Then I'll throw in AU/AE litorians in place of tielflings, and do some combination of the dragonborn and AU/AE drachna and mojh, as well as standard lizard folk, for my reptile race.
Seven races, each with a nice niche. You might say that my "gnomes" took an alias, and then killed the eladrin and tielfings and took their stuff that was worth taking.
Last edited:
