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Message: <blockquote data-quote="amethal" data-source="post: 2448140" data-attributes="member: 22784">Disclaimer - Forgotten Realms has a lot of features I like, but I won't mention them because complaining is more fun ......Things about Forgotten Realms I don't like :-1. I'm not bothered about having lots of different Elven cultures, but why do they always have to have different ability score adjustments i.e. mechanical differences instead of flavour differences? (Star Elves get +2 Charisma instead of +2 Dexterity - CHECK)2. Elven sub-races with racial ability score modifiers that make little sense. (Star Elves are "graceful but frail"; they apparently have that special kind of grace which makes them more clumsy and less dextrous than standard elves, but allows them to be better at personal skills - CHECK)3. Forgotten Realms has far too many lost and vanished races, ancient ruins etc. for my taste (Star Elves used to live in Yuirwood, then retreated to an extraplanar refuge 2000 years ago - CHECK)4. Loads of "playable" races that seem designed to cater only for players who want to play "freaks" (Star Elves haven't been seen for 2 millennia, but now a few are deciding to see what the world outside their borders is actually like - the text strongly implies that there are probably only a handful of Star Elf adventurers, and states that they have little understanding of other races and particularly distrust humans; what the heck is a Star Elf doing in the party? - CHECK)5. New races which break the "rules" for racial ability score adjustments established by other books and rarely broken elsewhere (Star elves get +2 to a casting stat without a level adjustment - CHECK)Star Elves also annoy me in new ways :-They are from the extraplanar realm of Sildeyuir - which as far as I can tell is not described in the book at all. So you have a character who knows nothing about the Realms, and a player who knows nothing about his character's homeland.They don't get elven bow and sword proficiencies. Why not? Did they never know how to use them, or have they somehow managed to forget them in a mere 2,000 years of exile (these are Elves, so its not that many generations).They get the ghost touch ability between sunset and sunrise. Where did that come from? Its due to "a magical affinity for starlight" - but as far as I can see works fine underground, on cloudy nights etc. Why do these elves get a supernatural ability? Because they are a sub-race and it seems once you are a sub-race you have the potential to do anything the designers can imagine.They are also do not strike me as very flexible. A race that gets -2 Con and +2 Cha (and no martial weapon proficiencies from race) does seem to be kind of pushing you in a certain direction. Its like someone suddenly thought "Hey, Elves might not make the best sorcerers; we'd better design a new sub-race with a charisma bonus to make sure Elves are best at everything."Its that last point that really gets me, and I like Elves.</blockquote>

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