Pathfinder 1E [Pathfinder] Elves / High Elves

[Sedric the Hero]

I am planning on running a Pathfinder Zeitgeist game..and I was wondering are the High elves a different race than the standard Elf in the Pathfinder Core rulebook? I mean they mention there are elves that call Risur home...are these High Elves or the "standard" elf?

I would assume they are different because the High Elves seem to be longer lived than regular elves...I gather this from the fact they have virtually no females and are still around 500 years later after the death of their Goddess (standard elves are considered venerable when they are 350 years old).

I was actually hoping the typical races available(along with any small differences from the standard race) would be spelled out in the Player's Guide. Of course the GM can still feel free to allow any race he wants to.

 

[benfromidaho]

Hey there Sedric, glad to hear you're running ZEITGEIST in Pathfinder. My group is rolling up characters tomorrow. Anyway, you've got the right of it, the elves of Risur are different than the Elfavarian "High Elves." RangerWickett essentially likened the Risuri elves to "Wood Elves," but feel free to do what makes sense. On your note about the typical races available, I'm allowing all the Core Rulebook races, and Aasimar and Tieflings, since their bonuses aren't really any better than any of the Core Rulebook races. I hope this helps.

 

[NykeYoung]

If you want to go by the old D&D 3.5 SRD, High Elf is the default elf, while Wood Elf is a variant race.

You could go several ways with this:

• The elf races are identical except for appearance. I believe, with referring the non-high elves as "elves", this was intended.
• Add +2 Wisdom to the Wood Elves' ability scores and have them be the non-high elves.
• Make up a new High Elf race.

 

[Rugult]

The general idea for Pathfinder is that the High Elves / Wood Elves are simply the same race (see Elf). This is to make the setting work with the main core books, an assumption we run off of when designing the adventures.

One thing that GMs could do to add variety would be to use some of the alternate racial options presented in the Advanced Player's Guide; particularly the Lightbringer and Woodcraft options.

Otherwise, we just make the assumption that they are different ethnicity of elves in the PF version.