Elves Are Not Doomed!

[Storm Raven]

Elves do not spend their time becoming the greatest soldiers, or rack up wealth and resources. What good is wealth for an elf, anyways. They live in tune with nature, they don't have to cover up their complexes, they just don't need it.

And while elves do practice archery and swordsmanship to rather high levels, I see it more of an artistic thing, than purely effective. An elf with decades of training might not actually be that much better than a human, that trained for pure effectiveness. Elven mages would not train battle magic all the time, while a human battlemage might do that.

This is a very D&D inspired viewpoint though. There is nothing inherent in "elves" that means that they 'live in tune with nature and don't need to rack up wealth and resources". Look at Tolkien - in LotR elves are a fading race, grasping on to a fading past, but look at the Silmarillion. In that book elves are greedy, vengeful, prideful and petty. Feanor and his sons don't "live in tune with nature", they are obsessed with revenge and honor. The elves of Gondolin aren't forest dwelling nature lovers - they are city dwellers. Elves carve out mines and fight long wars and so on.

Sure, the neo-hippy tree-hugging elf has become a staple, but that isn't an inherent element of "elvishness" at all. And I think that is the point that the OP is making.

 

[Banshee16]

Edena defined his elves (who, as we may remember, do not exist) as unable by their own nature to build and maintain a civilization, specially by military means, while SHARK defined elves as humans, only much more experienced, powerful, well connected, rich, and military advanced. It's not surprise Edena's elves are doomed while SHARK's elves would thrive.

I like my elves doomed.

Being more advanced doesn't always make a species superior. I think the elves are a good example of that. On an individual basis, sure, one elf might be higher level that one human.

But because they're so long-lived, and they have such low birth rates, they might have an *individual* advantage in terms of personal power/experience, but be at a severe disadvantage against a species like humans who breed so much faster.

If you get two elves who are born in the same year as two humans, and both couples marry, after 100 years, you might have what....6 elves (2 parents and 4 kids)?

Those two humans would result in how many descendents in that time? If you made the assumption that each lives 80 years, and generational length being 20 years, and each child of the original couple produces 6 children, it would be over 7700 people after that time. That's a huge numeric advantage, but I don't think the elves' *individual* superiority would be nearly enough to balance against that.

Long life doesn't always equate with cultural success....but it can help contribute to individual success.

The elves' advantage is that because their members live so long, they can benefit from their experiences in a way that humans never can. Each generation of humans learns from its forebears...but they also waste a lot of time repeating the mistakes of those forebears....afterall, there's the saying about age granting wisdom, but wisdom being wasted on the young, who are too stubborn to benefit from it, and wasted on the old, who no longer have enough time to do so. Elves in the long run wouldn't be as vulnerable to that.

Banshee

 

[Someone]

But because they're so long-lived, and they have such low birth rates, they might have an *individual* advantage in terms of personal power/experience, but be at a severe disadvantage against a species like humans who breed so much faster.

It doesn't matter. In SHARK's world elves are so wonderfulously great that they can work around that and routinely (in the elf perspective) decimate entire human armies suffering negligible casualties they can raise from the dead in, like, five minutes.

(ok, I'm exagerating)

In any case, that's how it works in SHARK's world and game, and that's great. I don't think you're suggesting that SHARK is wrong, that elves in his world shouldn't be doing so well, and that he's having wrongbadfun. I agree with almost none of his points, the same I don't buy Edena's elves, but they have all the right to run their campaings as they want.

That said, and since I have some spare time I'll willfully jump into the "elves are so and so" trap and make my contribution. I don't buy that an elf long life and experience in his craft would immediately translate into a racial superiority into that craft. Many radical innovations in the fields of technology and science are brought and invented by people who is relatively fresh in that field: they come without preconceived notions and aren't afraid of breaking the old and trusted ways. Also, experience and specialization in one area frequently invites stagnation - excellency in one craft doesn't grown linearly with the years practicing that craft, so even if an elf lives ten human lives it doesn't automatically mean he's the equivalent of ten humans. So while the elves may be wearing delicate, artistic, state-of-the-art chainmail of finely made rings and wielding bows of exquisite facture, the humans will be bringing full plate to the field and siege machines the elves woul not thought to be possible. Human battle wizards would be also wielding magic the elves never have seen; and magic shown by the elves will be quickly copied and adapted by young human wizards, while the reverse will not be true. The elves' tactics may be great at first, but after a few decades the lesser races will learn all they can do and will be more prepared, and so on.

Elves may be also individually rich, but again it doesn't immediately translate into a rich elven kingdom. Nation wide wealth are more related with trade and mass production, not possesion of luxury items: that's just smoke and mirrors. The elves' wealth will evaporate in the blink of an eye, should a war erupt.

Elves may be attuned to the natural world and have allies, but humans are notorious for their ruthlessness and desire to win at any price. They won't hesitate to turn the elven forests into a desert and ally with whatever power they have to in order to win.

I've ignored D&D rules for the moment. D&D contradicts in some cases my assertion that excellency grows linearly with experience: in fact, is grows faster than that. However in D&D terms you don't get experience for living long: you get experience for taking risks. The more risks you take, the more experience and power you adquire. Also, the more risks you take the more likely is to die. And the adquisition of power can be very quick, so quick that life expectancy isn't really important. This means that the number of powerful individuals belonging to a race only depends on the number of people of said race willing to bet their life into the levelling lottery. Who's more likely to do so, a long lived, filthy rich elf, or a human that in many cases will have little to lose?

 

[Herobizkit]

The druid part interests me. Druids live in the woods and love nature. Elves live in the woods and love nature. I wonder how the two get along? I wonder if elf-friendly powers would be more likely to be reincarnated than elf-hostile powers?

IMC, Elves are all Wild Elves (Grugach) and their favored class IS Druid. Much more savage and brutal with a hint of real world Native American spirituality/beliefs. I could also see the same variety of Elves existing in a jungle setting with the same mentality as the ancient Aztecs.

 

[Choranzanus]

There is nothing inherent in "elves" that means that they 'live in tune with nature and don't need to rack up wealth and resources". Look at Tolkien - in LotR elves are a fading race, grasping on to a fading past, but look at the Silmarillion. In that book elves are greedy, vengeful, prideful and petty. Feanor and his sons don't "live in tune with nature", they are obsessed with revenge and honor. The elves of Gondolin aren't forest dwelling nature lovers - they are city dwellers. Elves carve out mines and fight long wars and so on.

Sure, the neo-hippy tree-hugging elf has become a staple, but that isn't an inherent element of "elvishness" at all. And I think that is the point that the OP is making.

A bit of trivia: The word "nymph" was often translated as "elf" into germanic languages. This alone talks volumes about mythological elves. The Tolkien elves might not be like that or you might want to see them differently, but to say elves are not inherently connected to nature is really way off. It is more accurate to say that over time elves have become more like humans than the other way around.

I would like to point out that "elves are archers" comes directly from Legolas inspired elves; in fact the D&D elves are essentialy Legolas clones: dextrous archers. Their innate magicalness is supressed.

 

[Storm Raven]

A bit of trivia: The word "nymph" was often translated as "elf" into germanic languages. This alone talks volumes about mythological elves. The Tolkien elves might not be like that or you might want to see them differently, but to say elves are not inherently connected to nature is really way off. It is more accurate to say that over time elves have become more like humans than the other way around.

And in Celtic myths, elves are best equated with the sidhe, who had limited "natural" connections. Rather, the sidhe were scary alien beings who were generally capricious and difficult, and lived in an alternate world that could only be accessed at certain times and places.

So there are certainly traditional versions of elves that have little to do with the neo-hippy tree-huggers we see in D&D.

 

[sniffles]

One thing to do "mechanically" that would make the elvish walk up to the elvish talk, so to speak, would be to raise the average level of elvish NPCs by +5 or so over the human average, to reflect their long lives and experience.

Remember that the racial baseline stats do not have to indicate a typical member of the group, any more than typical humans are necessarily 1st level commoners. In my games, most competent adult humans are 3rd-5th, with elites being in the 7th-9th range. So most competent adult elves would tend to be 8th-10th, by virtue of being centuries old.

I also assume that elves have human-like development, reaching physical maturity around 20 years -- they just tend to spend the next 50-100 years in their home realms rather than setting out to see the world. One NPC in my game is an elvish fighter/cleric who left home early -- 50 years old and 1st level -- because she felt "called".

-The Gneech

This and Drowbane's earlier comments about the mechanics of the race not supporting their reputation for a magical nature got me thinking. I've always found it frustrating that the mechanics don't support the long lifespan or the reputation for magic. Favored class: wizard isn't enough to say that they're naturally magical.

I like your take on their maturation process, Gneech. That better explains why a 120-year-old elf isn't already 20th level.

Or perhaps the elves we see as adventurers are the Forrest Gumps of their people and all the other elves are epic-level NPCs...

Just as an aside - if a player wants to run an elf who really is exemplary of the "magical nature" stereotype, use the elf wizard substitution levels from Races of the Wild. Yesterday I rolled up an elf wizard using those substitutions, and combined with a 20 Int this means my new PC can cast six 1st-level spells per day as a 1st-level character.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Shark, that was a very well thought out and in-depth post. Cheers to you. (big thumbs up)

And Piratecat, thanks for the welcome back. Glad to see you again!

Yours Sincerely
Edena_of_Neith

 

[Banshee16]

It doesn't matter. In SHARK's world elves are so wonderfulously great that they can work around that and routinely (in the elf perspective) decimate entire human armies suffering negligible casualties they can raise from the dead in, like, five minutes.

(ok, I'm exagerating)

I must assume you're exaggerating, because unless I missed something, that's not quite what Shark was saying..

In any case, that's how it works in SHARK's world and game, and that's great. I don't think you're suggesting that SHARK is wrong, that elves in his world shouldn't be doing so well, and that he's having wrongbadfun. I agree with almost none of his points, the same I don't buy Edena's elves, but they have all the right to run their campaings as they want.

I lean more towards Shark's view than Edena's...but I don't entirely agree on all points.

That said, and since I have some spare time I'll willfully jump into the "elves are so and so" trap and make my contribution. I don't buy that an elf long life and experience in his craft would immediately translate into a racial superiority into that craft. Many radical innovations in the fields of technology and science are brought and invented by people who is relatively fresh in that field: they come without preconceived notions and aren't afraid of breaking the old and trusted ways. Also, experience and specialization in one area frequently invites stagnation - excellency in one craft doesn't grown linearly with the years practicing that craft, so even if an elf lives ten human lives it doesn't automatically mean he's the equivalent of ten humans. So while the elves may be wearing delicate, artistic, state-of-the-art chainmail of finely made rings and wielding bows of exquisite facture, the humans will be bringing full plate to the field and siege machines the elves woul not thought to be possible. Human battle wizards would be also wielding magic the elves never have seen; and magic shown by the elves will be quickly copied and adapted by young human wizards, while the reverse will not be true. The elves' tactics may be great at first, but after a few decades the lesser races will learn all they can do and will be more prepared, and so on.

This is where I feel that your argument goes off the tracks a little. I can understand your contention that long life doesn't necessarily lead to mastery of a skill. Real life would be a good example of that, given the number of people who do an average job at something for years, because they don't really care enough to learn to do it better.

But to start going down that path really throws the whole paradigm out the window, because D&D depends on it.....whether for elves or any other race. The aging rules are built the same way, making it a truth within the game that wisdom comes with age, when in many cases, this is not true.....and in a biological sense, it is very much not true, as the brain (and body) start degrading after about age 25 in RL humans. So you either keep the paradigm, or you don't, and D&D keeps the paradigm.

I think it *can* be explained that elves become master of their crafts not *only* because of their lifespan, but because of their lifespan, when combined with the fact that many tend to be perfectionists.....so they won't do a sloppy job. Elves are willing to spend 10x as long making something as a human, in order to get a better end result. Of course, this can be maladaptive. There have been companies out there who have produced products that are so good and well-made that someone can buy one copy of the product, and have it last for years. Unfortunately, that creates a very limited market for their products when compared to companies that build things that are "just good enough", and consequently have planned obsolescence built in from the start.

So yes, elves can become better....but so can a human who devotes himself exclusively to a skill. And even in RL, I'd contend that the person who comes in with no training, and makes a breakthrough or whatever in a product, or art, or something, is an outlier, rather than the norm. My annecdotal experience in life is that people with no training can sometimes generate great results at something through sheer natural talent, but that over time, when you average out day by day performance, they're still not as reliable as someone actually trained in the trade.

Elves may be also individually rich, but again it doesn't immediately translate into a rich elven kingdom. Nation wide wealth are more related with trade and mass production, not possesion of luxury items: that's just smoke and mirrors. The elves' wealth will evaporate in the blink of an eye, should a war erupt.

That's probably true. Not only that, but elves aren't traditionally depicted as a people with strong, centralized governments that feature progressive taxation, and the redistribution of wealth, and consequently, they probably don't have supremely wealthy, powerful nations.

Elves may be attuned to the natural world and have allies, but humans are notorious for their ruthlessness and desire to win at any price. They won't hesitate to turn the elven forests into a desert and ally with whatever power they have to in order to win.

I've ignored D&D rules for the moment. D&D contradicts in some cases my assertion that excellency grows linearly with experience: in fact, is grows faster than that. However in D&D terms you don't get experience for living long: you get experience for taking risks. The more risks you take, the more experience and power you adquire. Also, the more risks you take the more likely is to die. And the adquisition of power can be very quick, so quick that life expectancy isn't really important. This means that the number of powerful individuals belonging to a race only depends on the number of people of said race willing to bet their life into the levelling lottery. Who's more likely to do so, a long lived, filthy rich elf, or a human that in many cases will have little to lose?

Humans may be rapacious, all-consuming two-legged locusts who are unwilling to admit being defied or stood up to....but that doesn't mean they are invulnerable.

Eventually, they run out of space and resources. And on a man-to-man basis, they're probably far less formidable than elven warriors. Human armies would be comprised of thousands of lvl 1 commoners and warriors, whereas the elves can probably field entire units of blooded, lvl 4 warriors who've each fought in several wars. And the elven natural advantages of night fighting would be something they'd be ignorant to avoid.

If the humans are willing to be as dirty as reducing the elves' forests to desert, the elves would be foolish to close with the human forces in daylight. A smart elven general would probably do most of the fighting at night, and at a distance of 50-60' Flaming arrows into human tents while they're sleeping, using low-level spells to create mists which infest the human encampment, and cause issues with being able to organize a counterattack, etc. Or something as simple as using the fact that the elven soldiers need only 4 hours of sleep to ensure that the humans only get 4 hours of sleep a night, and consequently are perpetually exhausted, and stumbling around in the dark, and more liable to make mistakes. I'm thinking that even when outnumbered, tactics like these would allow the elves to pose a severe threat to the humans.

In the end, they are what you make of them. I don't like the idea of elves as victims. I don't want them to rule the roost either. I see them as having some very natural, significant advantages in some areas, and deficiencies in others.

Banshee

 

[Slife]

Of course, human armies would have a big advantage from the extra feat. A human wizard can take precocious apprentice and a reserve feat at first level. This is a huge advantage.