Elves are Broken :p

[Wicht]

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.

This is one assumption I might challenge. Being high level is not necessarily the same as being willing to venture outside of one's comfort zone. The most experienced soldiers are those with combat experience. But they are also often the ones with the greatest desire to settle down and live in peace. Thus we hire young inexperienced boys and train them to fight our wars.

Motivation IMO is as, if not more, important than level in NPCs.

Having considered the matter now in depth some, I think I will go ahead and make most of the hunters about 5th-7th level. They have after all been hunting for hundred of years, defending their lands against goblins and humans alike. I don't necessarily buy the elves are lazy theory. And, in the wake of a goblin attack, these hunters will take steps to help defend their town, which is good because the attack force includes a troll and several wargs. In other words the NPCs can be there to save the PCs when things get too rough. But when it comes to hunting the goblins to their lair, that is a job for younger more enthusiastic elves.

 

[Wicht]

Also, in defense of Dangerous Denizens, the deer is listed as a 2 HD creature with 3 attacks (1 Gore, 2 hooves) This coupled with its speed (50 feet) would make it a somewhat difficult encounter if the deer was for instance charmed to attack. CR 1 might be generous, but I would hate to be a 1st level fighter on the ground and facing down an angry deer alone.

 

[DMScott]

This is only fair as deer is what is normally hunted in forest climes in order to provide meat.

I don't think this holds true historically; a solo hunter is more likely to be hunting critters along the lines of rabbits. Hunters today go after relatively big game, but that's because they have considerably better equipment and they're hunting for trophies or enjoyment rather than survival.

The deer in Dangerous Denizens has a CR of 1 or 300 experience for a 1st – 6th level character.

In order to be a CR 1 critter, it has to be a challenge that would consume about 20% of the resources of a party of 4 level 1 characters. Or alternately, to be about a 50/50 proposition for a single level 1 character. So unless about half the elves die on their first hunt, the CR 1 assumption doesn't seem justified.

That said, it's a staple of my campaign that the average member of a long-lived race is higher than 1st level. It makes sense to me, and it gives a game justification for elves, dwarves, etc. to be more competent than the average human, which matches a lot of fantasy fiction.

 

[Hardhead]

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.

An elf who is 110 is eqivalent to a 15 year old human.

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.

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*.

And I REALLY REALLY REALLY hate the "elves are exactly like humans, but they live longer" mentality that seems to have infected D&D. How booring is that? Why not just play a human with pointy ears?

Elves live for hundreds of years should be better practiced at anything than a human is. If that means that an NPC elf is a couple levels higher than a NPC human, then what's the big deal? It makes more sense.

 

[hong]

An elf who is 110 is eqivalent to a 15 year old human.

Really? None of the elves _I_ know told me that. Clearly you must know more elves than me. Or perhaps I'm just not talking to them right.


Hong "needs to do more talking to the faeries" Ooi

 

[Hardhead]

Really? None of the elves _I_ know told me that. Clearly you must know more elves than me. Or perhaps I'm just not talking to them right.


Hong "needs to do more talking to the faeries" Ooi

I got that from the SRD, on the age table. The elf line starts at 110, the human starts at 15. To be a little more precise, an elven sorcerer starts at an age of 114 - 134. A human starts at 16-19.

 

[hong]

I got that from the SRD, on the age table.

The rulebook got discarded somewhere about the 2nd post in this thread, kiddo.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Deer, in general, will flee when attacked, and will only fight back when cornered or in a rut.

Or, as has been demonstrated, if you put on a football helmet, soak yourself in Rutting Deer scent, hand your video camera to your wife, and hang out in your back yard long enough.


Wulf

 

[DonAdam]

The mechanics of D&D are not meant to model everyday life, but rather adventuring. There will always be problems with trying to make it fit the life of a commoner; try pitting two commoners in a fight with one another and see how long it takes for one of them to end up knocked out, and then compare that to fights in real life.

Want another headache? If we were really trying to be realistic with the mechanics, at least 50% of commoners would be clerics of a chaotic deity. A chaotic deity would not care about the structure of her church, and so anyone with an 11 wisdom would be a fool not to worship her fervently enough to gain low level spells. Try to imagine a medieval world in which a significant portion of the population can cast create water and purify food and drink. You have a totally different world.

I know Ebberon seeks to address this, but even that setting will just have to fiat the state of society; there is simply no way to effectively model it. All they can shoot for is flavor.

The genre that D&D mimics assumes that heroes are few and far between; the mechanics that apply to the PC's, then, should not be applied universally.

 

[Dark Jezter]

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*.

Here here! One of the reasons I don't like Elaine Cunningham's novels is because she seems to have an "elves (and especially drow) are better than humans at everything they do" mentality. Nothing in fantasy fiction annoys me more than super-elves.

If you REALLY want to be annoyed, you should read the 2e AD&D suppliments The Complete Book of Elves and Evermeet: Island of the Elves. Those two books portray elves as being so perfect in every way that it's sickening.