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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 3554183" data-attributes="member: 7883">I must assume you're exaggerating, because unless I missed something, that's not quite what Shark was saying..I lean more towards Shark's view than Edena's...but I don't entirely agree on all points.  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.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.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</blockquote>

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