Bards and Elves

[Jack Haggerty]

Gnomes have such a limited favored class to offset the larger number of special abilities they have compared to other races. Someone did a point total for special abilities and the gnome came out well ahead. The only way to balance it is for them to have such a limited favored class.

No... I think you've got it the wrong way around.

They didn't want to get kill the Gnome=Illusionist Sacred Cow, and so had to come up with a bunch of kick arse racial abilities to offset the lousy Favored Class.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

No... I think you've got it the wrong way around.

They didn't want to get kill the Gnome=Illusionist Sacred Cow, and so had to come up with a bunch of kick arse racial abilities to offset the lousy Favored Class.

Either way the direction is irrelevent, the fact remains. That it's part of the balance of the race.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Yep, Gnomes would become an overpowered race if they had a more open favored race choice.

Either way the direction is irrelevent, the fact remains. That it's part of the balance of the race.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Back to the main point though. If you made the favored class of elves to be the bard you would REALLY cut down on how popular the race is.

 

[Umbran]

Why not let them have Sorcerer as their favored class, then?

Because no elf worth his salt would want to face many centuries of life knowing only a few spells, and never be able to change them. An elf needs variety in his life, and the one thing sorcerors don't have is variety. Yes, there's lots of boring time in study to being a wizard, but time is something elves have in abundance.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Except that most sources tend to agree that variety and new things are not what elves are all about.

Elves are about timeless existance and no change. Look at all the major sources and you see elves that have been unchanging since the beginning. Timeless is almost a universal description of elves.

Because no elf worth his salt would want to face many centuries of life knowing only a few spells, and never be able to change them. An elf needs variety in his life, and the one thing sorcerors don't have is variety. Yes, there's lots of boring time in study to being a wizard, but time is something elves have in abundance.

 

[Tsyr]

Except that most sources tend to agree that variety and new things are not what elves are all about.

Elves are about timeless existance and no change. Look at all the major sources and you see elves that have been unchanging since the beginning. Timeless is almost a universal description of elves.

Have you, parchance, read the 3E "Elves" issue of Dragon Magazine? It's a good take on 3E elves, at any rate.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

No, is it a large departure from the literature base used to gauge elves in the past?

Have you, parchance, read the 3E "Elves" issue of Dragon Magazine? It's a good take on 3E elves, at any rate.

 

[Tsyr]

I goes quite a ways to paint elves as sort of "free spirits" and even *gasp* a bit chaotic.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Then as far as I am concerned they are far different from just about every elf I have read about in literature. Which is fine from me, they can make them whatever way they want. It is though a big departure from previous elves.

I goes quite a ways to paint elves as sort of "free spirits" and even *gasp* a bit chaotic.