More time does not yield more improvement for adventurers though. Only challenging, near-death experiences yield improvement. The limiting factor isn't time but survival.In terms of ADVENTURERS, the elves could have MUCH higher level examples, being so much longer lived than the other races. If an elf continuously improved himself and didn't get killed, he would be WAAAAAAAY more powerful than what a human could hope to become, by natural means. Simply put, more time to improve=more improvement.
This has been pointed out a few times in this thread, most recently by bmcdaniel:
Now, for non-adventurers, folks who take non-violent risks and face non-violent challenges, then, yes, longevity should pay off handsomely.Long-lived elf adventurers are not generally higher-level than human adventures because VERY VERY FEW adventurers die of old age. For both elves and humans there is an almost perfect correlation between their death rate and their rate of xp advancement, because xp are earned for taking possibly fatal risks.