Hobbits are Back!

[Sammael]

I'd honestly like to see whether 5E will address the discrepancy between this and the Knowledge skills, especially History.

Me too.

 

[Nivenus]

I'd honestly like to see whether 5E will address the discrepancy between this and the Knowledge skills, especially History.

That's an interesting point and is probably one of the few examples where a skill bonus would legitimately make sense as a biological factor of race, rather than a cultural one.

 

[ferratus]

...LOADS of contingencies planned. Our own race gave birth to a number of magnificent strategists and thinkers who had the opportunity to shine during several decades of their lives. Now imagine if Plato, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, DaVinci, Tesla, Napoleon, or Robert E. Lee had lived for 500 years? What sort of plans and advances would they had created?

Isaac Asimov thought about this, and his conclusion was that the pace of human development would actually slow down. This is because old farts tend to be set in their ways, but don't move aside for the new blood and the new ideas.

I would resist making a snarky comment from 4e fans on this point though, so we can be polite to our elders.

 

[Yora]

Elven perception of time is really different than ours. To a (classic) elf, what happened 500 years ago is but a generation away; he may have heard first-hand accounts from his parents or relatives. On the other hand, we (humans) have trouble determining the exact nature of events from just 100 years ago.

I follow a different approach. I can barely remember what was two months ago. I know the facts, but they are just as much "active memories" as things I've read or seen in movies. 10 years ago in school, that could have been the life of an entirely different person. So when you're a 500 year old elf, all that matters to the person you are now are the last 50. Everything before that is a past lifetime.
If you live more than a century, and so does everyone else you know, it is impossible to maintain some sort of social stability. When you are 100 you meet a new friend who is 300, but as elves, there's no difference between you. But he will have died at age 500 when you are still just 300 years old. And if you live 5 to 10 times as long as a human, that means you will experience 5 to 10 times as many situations in which you could be fatally injured, fall in battle, or succumb to disease. Which would mean an elf has only 10 to 20% the chance to live long enough to die from old age than humans do. So it is relatively save to say that by the time you're 500 years old, pretty much everyone you knew in the first 100 years of your life is dead. And think about it if you want to marry:Fat chance finding someone whose age is within plus/minus 10 years of your own. And then she is eaten by a wolf 4 years later. Your children were killed by orcs at age 400, some of your grandchildren fell of a really high tree at age 300, and so on.
The only way to stay sane is to let the past be the past, and start anew over and over.

 

[Banshee16]

I don't see a problem with elves being venerable for a really long time. Recent research into aging actually suggests that humans plateau after age 90, and don't "age" after that, theoretically making long venerability a possibility. (Alzheimer's is a worry, but seems to be a separate thing from the body aging.)

What I do see a problem with is that players always want to tell their story with elves or dwarves or whatever, and age requirements can be hard to rationalize. In keeping with this being "your favourite edition, all over again" of D&D, I'd say the designers should just open it up to the players. Want to play a hundred-year-old elf? Just write that on your character sheet. Want to have a sixteen-year-old elf at the same table? Just do it.

Humans hit middle age in game at 35. They hit venerable at 70. With max rolls they can live another 40 years. This means they can exist in the venerable state for a max of 36% of total lifespan. And they hit middle age 31.8% of the way through their total lifespan.

Elves hit middle age at 175, venerable at 350, and can live up to 750 years. Thus they can exist in a venerable state for 53% of their lifespan.....and hit middle age at a meagre 23% of the way through their total lifespan. That's weaksauce.

Just fix the aging chart. Make middle age around 240 years, and venerable around 480. Make maximum age 480+3d100. That would fix the problem.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Elven perception of time is really different than ours. To a (classic) elf, what happened 500 years ago is but a generation away; he may have heard first-hand accounts from his parents or relatives. On the other hand, we (humans) have trouble determining the exact nature of events from just 100 years ago.

Along with the perception of time comes another side-effect of longevity: elves do not rush into things. Like, ever. This is both a blessing and a curse, of course, but it stands to reason that they have...

...LOADS of contingencies planned. Our own race gave birth to a number of magnificent strategists and thinkers who had the opportunity to shine during several decades of their lives. Now imagine if Plato, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, DaVinci, Tesla, Napoleon, or Robert E. Lee had lived for 500 years? What sort of plans and advances would they had created?

Next, we come to material wealth. Which, in most accounts of elves, they have no desire for. It is fairly alien to play a member of the race that is entirely devoid of the drive to accumulate wealth.

What do elves want then? Knowledge. Perfection. Harmony. Not necessarily in that order. And they want the other races to recognize them as their superiors. Which irks the other races, of course, mainly because it is true, to a point.

So, please don't play elves as pointy-eared humans.

I don't think all elves are like that....nor would they need to be. They might not like some of the newer cultures.....but that doesn't necessarily mean they think they're superior. They might just want to be left alone. Some might have those feelings "my father was building cities when your ancestors were still trying to learn how to make fire by rubbing sticks together".

I like the idea of elven culture being *old*. They might recognize the numeric superiority of humans, and resent the lost of ancestral homes, but want to be left alone. In Birthright, the elves actually hunted down and killed humans who entered their lands, and were very isolationist, aside from individuals involved in trade, research, etc.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Isaac Asimov thought about this, and his conclusion was that the pace of human development would actually slow down. This is because old farts tend to be set in their ways, but don't move aside for the new blood and the new ideas.

I would resist making a snarky comment from 4e fans on this point though, so we can be polite to our elders.

Exactly....hence elven isolationism. They may have been advanced before, but they've fallen behind in hidebound, traditional ways that are thousands of years old. Heck, they could live even longer (like 1st Ed. lifespans of 1800 years) and they're so set in their ways that they still refuse to change, even as their nations crumble around them.

I'm reading the Malazan Books of the Fall series, and the Tiste Andii are similar in some ways....at least by virtue of being the long lived or immortal nonhuman race. The Nonmen of Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series are similar. In both cases, they're actually immortal, and it doesn't always work in their favour. Many members of the race could be considered almost suicidal, born down by the pain of accumulated loss from millenia of life. The Nonmen actually have to forget their pasts, in order to retain their sanity. Those who recover their memories are considered highly dangerous, because it typically drives them insane.

Banshee

 

[Glade Riven]

I do like how Dragon Age subverted the trope of Tolkien-esq elven culture, but both Dragon Age I and II's art direction was heavily similar to a lot of 4e art (for good or for ill, depending on your POV).

One aspect in my own campaign setting with elves is that there are a number of ethnicities that don't have different mechanics. They are quite "racist," but only verses other elven ethnicities. There is no expectation that non-elves must act like elves. Divine casters gain their powers through philosophies instead of deities, as well as considering the deities of other races to be little more than a representation/anthropomorphisim of a particular philosophy. Loosely influenced by Confusionism & Budism.

I don't expect 5e to break out of the box on this - too many people like their D&D archetypes or their Tolkien archetypes (and confuse the two). One thing I liked about Eberron is that Wizards did break out of the box for many races with that setting.

 

[Hussar]

/snip


I would love to see artwork in the new edition that presents a wide variety of what elves could look like. Long ears, short ears, tall, short, feline features. I think that's what Jeremy meant when he said they took 4E too seriously. 4E had a very set way of expressing each race. The tieflings bothered me especially, how they all had the same horns. I had always depicted tieflings as being extremely varied in how their fiendish blood manifested itself (often not physically at all), but 4E sort of said "this is what tieflings look like now.

/snip of lots of good stuff.

I understand where you're coming from and largely I agree. However, this is where the business end gets a bit sticky. If tieflings can look like anything, then it makes it really hard to have "iconic" images and it can create confusion among consumers.

You look at a picture of Tordek (the dwarf from 3e) and yup, that's a dwarf. No mistaking that at all. But, if halflings can be stout, broad, and bearded, it becomes trickier to depict the difference. Is that mini a halfling or a dwarf?

While I totally understand where you're coming from Jawsh, there also has to be some recognition of the marketing end of things as well. I mean, stepping over to a more visual medium - MMO's - and you see a pretty standardized lineup of iconic races. Tauren look a certain way. Night elves look a certain way. That sort of thing.

It's a fine balancing act.

 

[Hussar]

Banshee16- oh yeah. The Tiste are an excellent way of describing elves.

Only problem is, they make really, REALLY poor PC's. I mean, even standard, unnamed Tiste are far and above superior to anyone else around them. Fine in a story, but, as a PC, problematic.