Elves are Broken :p

[Lord Pendragon]

Interesting thread. But personally I don't worry about giving commoners levels at all. The level system is for extraordinary individuals...the PCs. Not for bit players. The peasants are exactly that--peasants--and don't have levels at all. Only the PCs and certain special NPCs are put into the level-based system.

It's basically the same as the item creation rules (magical and mundane,) or the cost of things in general (dozens of gold pieces for a small boat?) All of these systems were built to be PC-centric. Trying to extrapolate the entire game world using them is bound to lead to disaster.

For the PCs, use the game rules. For the rest of the game world, use your head.

 

[FireLance]

Anyway, the CR of a deer, as given by the FR sourcebook Silver Marches, is 1/6. And I agree with Kamikaze Midget. The hunters would only get XP for killing the deer if it attacked them for whatever reason.

 

[Malk]

i also agree that it would be a very stupid elf indeed who gained a level in such a way...and i would wonder that he could survive that long anyway

 

[Dark Jezter]

Keep in mind that the average 1st-level elf commoner only has 1 hit point. NPC classes don't get maximum HP at 1st level, and the low constitution of elves means that they'll have have less hit points than other races.

If the deer attacked, there's a good chance that there would be one less elf in the world.

The average elf IMC is only a 1st-level commoner. Elves may be longer-lived than a human, but they're complacent, slow to learn, and (for lack of a better word) lazy most of the time. So, even if an elf commoner is 150 years old, they've rarely accomplished more in their life than a 30-year-old human commoner.

 

[Hardhead]

Personally, I don't see a problem with elves generally being higher level than humans. They're supposed to be makers of wonderous art, supernaturally quiet in the forest, ect.

 

[Steverooo]

Do your kids hunt alone? No?

Remember; Elves are children until at least 114 years of age. I doubt that they are hunting alone, either, and I doubt that they are hunters, by that age (with a few exceptions for apprentices).

I disagree with the assumption that you only gain experience for the first few times you hunt, though. You say that you hunt, so I think you know better...

In D&D, you get experience for overcoming challenges. Finding game is a challenge, stalking it is a challenge, bringing it down is a challenge, getting the meat back to the settlement is a challenge... and all of that assumes a "normal" trip, without any appearance of the "X-Factor". And in D&D, that pops up nearly every episode!

If you hunt, in real life, then you propbably know that you learn a little bit of something just about every time that you go out... Maybe about your prey, maybe about your equipment, maybe about the area you're hunting, maybe even about something you're not even interested, at the time. All in all, though, it adds up over time.

Yes, it is pretty ridiculous that a 125-year-old Elven Rogue with a 12 INT knows less than a 16-year-old Human Rogue with the same INT, even though he's lived eight times as long! I, too, have been wondering what the Elves (and Dwarves) have been doing, all those years! (My answer has been submitted to the ENWorld Player's Journal, and I'm currently waiting to see if "Racial Background Skills" will appear there, or not).

In any case, in your specific situation, if the Elven Hunters are 9th level, then the PCs really aren't needed, except maybe as messengers... Not really where you want them to be. Just make them lower level, with high Knowledge (Nature) and Survival skill.

 

[I'm A Banana]

For every 10 years a human spends doing something, an elf spends 100.

A human who is 5 years old is like an elf who is 50.

A human who is 50 years old is like an elf who is 1000.

A human takes one day to, say, make a chair.

That same elf would take two weeks.

The difference is that elves really REALLY like to take their time with things...it's ingrained in their biologies even. That's why an elf takes about 200 years to reach puberty...their bodies advance MUCH slower than a human's.

In exchance, the things elves do are generally quite beautiful...they make sure to get the most out of their everyday Take 20 attempts on, say, cooking a meal. This makes a REALLY FRICKIN' GOOD MEAL. But it's still just a meal.

Personally, I don't see a problem with elves generally being higher level than humans. They're supposed to be makers of wonderous art, supernaturally quiet in the forest, ect.

That's because they take two weeks to make what a human would do in a day, and they take extra time and care in being stealthy where a human wouldn't. It's not because they're inherently *better* at being anything than a human is. It's because they're patient.

At least, that's how I define it IMC. And a big part of that is because I REALLY REALLY HATE the "bad ass elf syndrome" that plagued everything since Tolkien developed an unhealthy fetish for pointy ears. Elves are not naturally better because they have more time. They're just naturally *slower*.

 

[Buttercup]

So you are saying that elves really are broken?

Yes. That's why elves are not, and never will be, a playable race in my world.

And leaving it alone isn't as fun as puzzling it out.

Granted. But I think even CR 1/2 is too high for a deer. Heck, that's higher than a kobald, and deer don't generally fight back. Try CR 1/10 and crunch your numbers again.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

From the 3.0 DMs Guide pg. 167

An encounter so easy that it uses up none or almost none of the PC's resources shouldn't result in any XP award at all.

And remember that your world moves based on what you as the DM decide is appropriate for the encounter, in other words there are many factors that can bump up XP or knock them down. I assume the deer in Dangerous Denizens is a rabid deer infested with Lyme disease carrying ticks, with adamantium tipped antlers and a taste for blood. If they are your standard run or freeze at a sound and jump into the path of oncoming cars kind of deer, a CR 1 is ridiculous. Perhaps they forgot a decimal point and it should be 0.1.

Lastly, elves are broken if you assume them to behave like humans. Elves have this funny tendency to take their time in the world, not rush things. They don't wake up in the morning and say "I've got 12 items on my 'to do' list for today, I'd better get moving" If they behaved like humans, elves would be the most powerful humanoids in the land just because of the XP they could earn in a lifetime. PC elves are usually young and get caught up in the "excitement" of the human paced world, so they live that life for a while. But adventuring elves get bored with adventuring, or they get tired of the frantic human pace and they give it up after a hundred years or so to work on some art, or scholarly studies or whatever.

 

[hong]

That's because they take two weeks to make what a human would do in a day, and they take extra time and care in being stealthy where a human wouldn't. It's not because they're inherently *better* at being anything than a human is. It's because they're patient.

I assume they mature just as fast as humans, so an elf would be an adult after about 20 years. Then they have about 20 more happy fun years, and that's followed by the mother of mid-life crises. Imagine being stuck in the job you're doing now for the next 1,000 years, with no hope of release. You can't even resign and go on a cycling trip around Australia, like some d00d did for National Geographic some years back, because the monsters there will eat you. That's enough to put anyone in a blue funk.