Elves And Levels

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Elves And Levels

It seems to me that elves, with their incredibly long life spans, should often reach much higher class levels than the non-humans in the campaign, because if a human can reach 20th level in ten, twenty, or thirty years, how high would elven adventurers be after traveling and fighting for four hundred years?

There seems to be resitance to this by some, and yet logically, it would make sense that elves would be exceedingly powerful compared to other races.

What do you think?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Psion]

First off, levels are more about heroism than experience in 3e. According to the demographic rules in the DMG, a MASSIVE majority of the populace is 1st level.

That being the case, I don't see big chunks of the elven population making it to 20th level.

However, I could see many members of long lived races making it to 2nd or 3rd level, shifting away from the 1st level baseline of the standard rules. This works well for me, because it can reflect that the long lifespans of elves (or dwarves or gnomes) mean something, but without making them unbeatable as NPCs and without giving PCs a reason to think they are that much inferior to the rest of their race.

As for heroes -- yeah, I think that the best elves will be higher level than the best humans, but not as a direct factor. I might assume that high-level non-human NPCs have a factor of XP over humans equal to the root of their "longevity" multiplier. After all, longer life means more risk to get killed, and high level humans are the ones who might have tapped magic to extend their lives.

 

[Michael Sorensen]

While I am certainly inclined to agree (and the same goes for dwarves as well), it would seem to me that Elves would be more risk averse than humans -- low birth rates and long life do not lend themselves to high risk endeavors. Also, it becomes considerably more challenging to advance as you get to higher levels -- hard to find enough powerful foes to really advance quickly. But I could very easily see that a LOT of Elves are up in the middle levels (maybe 7-12 depending on the campaign), which is the only reason they have survived for so long against the hordes of orcs, goblins, and other more fecund races for so long.

I would think, though, that elven mages and clerics have spells and items that humans have not even considered as possibilities. Lots of very beautiful and well thought out creations almost everywhere, although not all necessarily immensely powerful.

 

[maddman75]

I certainly think there would be more high level, powerful elves in the world than men. If nothing else, think about all the great heroes that have lived to a ripe old age in the world of humans. For the last six or seven generations, those heroes of the elves would still be alive!

On the other hand, you do see more risk aversion and avoidance in the problems of the world in your typical fantasy elf. For most levels (and for what most people see) the elves would have about the same distribution as other civilized races. Except that deep in their forests the high level champions rest and live. When threatened, an invading army might see figured emerge that they thought were only myth, very real and still living!

 

[Tonguez]

Hello again SHARK

I recently got to thinking about the relative technology levels of DnD and how this ought to be affected by Long-lived races like Elves.

Then it occured to me that long-life could in fact lead to stagnation!
For instance humans with their relatively short 70 years can only achieve so much, morever people tend to be resistant to changing things that they know work well and are familiar with. However after 3 generations what they each person achieved becomes history and needs to be reinvented. With each reinvention technological gains are made so that every 200 years or so the culture is trnasofrmed by new Tech being introduced.

The same process might occur in Elf society to however the same 3 generations for them is 6000 years.

So anyway we have Elves who might be older than others but who are still just as resistant to change - in fact moreso since they remember the last disaster when that had to go to war 500 years ago (to the average human this is 10 generations) because of this resistance to change Elves tend to have 'stagnant' cultures where they go about their lives in peace and tranquility and don't really gain that much XP compared to other more dynamic groups...

 

[Drawmack]

we had a very intense discussion about this in the house rules forum a couple of months ago. What the boil down of the discussion became is this.

You get xp for challenging yourself with larger and larger risks for higher and higher levels.

Therefor the person who just does a job gets levels very slowly with a venerable human reaching about 3rd level and 5th level is the max because after that 1st level challenges do not give any notable xp to the character.

So yes elves could base at 3rd level instead of first and dwarves at 2nd level instead of first but the rest would be a little % change in the numbers is all.

 

[Zaruthustran]

It seems to me that elves, with their incredibly long life spans, should often reach much higher class levels than the non-humans in the campaign, because if a human can reach 20th level in ten, twenty, or thirty years, how high would elven adventurers be after traveling and fighting for four hundred years?

That's why my homebrew campaign is dominated by elves--they're the most populous race, having cleared out their continent of all monsters and opposing races. The humans are savages that the elves use as slave labor (not literal slaves; more like the absolute lowest caste with almost zero upward mobility).

-z

 

[Dark Jezter]

It would appear that elves should have a lot of high-level characters due to their long lifespans and the fact that they only have to sleep (trance) half as long as the other races do. I mean, being able to function for 20 hours a day, every day, for several hundred years should give you enough time to do just about anything.

But for some reason, in most settings the elves tend to have small, scattered populations when compared to the short-lived humans. My belief has always been that elves, though long-lived, become complacent and lathargic; they feel little urgency to get anything done. There is also the fact that if a human gets killed during a risky adventure, he'll only lose a few decades of life, while an elf could lose centuries. This could definately give an elf pause when faced with the prospect of death.

Humans, on the other hand, prosper in spite of their short lives because they are adapable, ambitous, and full of energy. Humans are competitive, always trying to best each other, which leads to them accomplishing some amazing feats during their limited lifespans. They possess a zest for life that the longer-lived races lack.

Then again, there is also a game mechanics-based explaination about why elves don't have a lot of high-level characters in their societies. Basically, an elf character who spends centuries defending his home from orcs and goblins will gain levels for a while, but going by the EXP rewards chart in the Dungeon Master's Guide, eventually the elf will reach a point where he no longer gains any expirience whatsoever from battling against simple goblins and orcs. His progression stops. At that point, the only way he will improve himself as a fighter is by seeking out tougher enemies to battle against.

 

[Angcuru]

well, the elves may have more time to gain levels, etc. but that is also time in which they are in very real danger of dying.

But yes, the idea that elves are more capable of reaching the higher levels than the other races is true. Longer lifespan=more experience, and not just in battle. One of the reasons that I mainly play elves. I like to take my characters a long way, and the elven lifespan is good for that.

 

[seasong]

Let's assume that 5 in 1,000 people dies per encounter at a CR equal to your level. That's a reasonably low death rate, I think. It's too low, actually, since it would mean a DM would run 50 encounters for a standard party before there was a SINGLE DEATH. But that's okay, it's high enough for my purposes .

With 100,000 adventurers, a total of 6,465 people will die before the population reaches level 2. Another 6,047 people will die before the population reaches level 3. And so on. Assuming adventurers advance at a rate of 1 level per year (which is slow, according to most of the discussions I've been in here on ENWorld), just over 2,000 people will be left alive by the time the human adventurers start having to worry about dying of old age (age 73). Whether they are elves or not.

If the elves do less, and risk less, they advance slower... which results in the same levels as humans. If they do and risk the same as the humans, they are all dead loooong before their longevity becomes a factor.

If they lived for thousands of years, now, that would change things. They could afford to take fewer risks, because they would eventually advance well beyond what humans could manage.