Holiday Present - The Elf PHB entry

[KarinsDad]

I think the idea is that the elf is acting like a watch dog or something... and people notice the elf's ears twitch or somesuch....it's a rather odd ability.

Except that it only works for non-elves. Other elves cannot see his ears twitch. Neither can enemies who know about elves.

Except that it only works for those within 5 squares. Allies outside 5 squares, even sharp eyed ones, cannot see the elves ears twitch.

This is the problem with trying to explain or rationalize an illogical ability. There is no explanation that is satisfactory. The ability exists because a designer thought it was cool and for no other reason.

 

[Anthtriel]

I wonder if I will bother house rule the resistance to sleep, etc...

I think not having it kinda makes more sense anyways....same with the detect secret doors.

Most of these minor boni were artifacts anyway. They don't appear in any other fantasy I'm aware of, and even in D&D fantasy they are usually too minor to ever matter. For my groups, they were usually stuff you would write on your character sheet and then forget about. It's hard to imagine that anyone but a hardcore grognard would be outraged about this change.

For the life expectancy, I can understand how people don't like it, but then I will and already have, in another thread, strongly defended that choice. Simply because I'm convinced that the standard D&D setting doesn't work with 1000 year old elves. At all. Once you look closely at elven communities, the inner logic that makes the setting believable breaks apart.

 

[Green Knight]

Except that it only works for non-elves. Other elves cannot see his ears twitch.

They don't need to. Their own racial Perception bonus is better.

Except that it only works for those within 5 squares. Allies outside 5 squares, even sharp eyed ones, cannot see the elves ears twitch.

Would anyone really be able to notice something like that from 30 or more feet away?

 

[Zweischneid]

Except that it only works for non-elves. Other elves cannot see his ears twitch. Neither can enemies who know about elves.

Except that it only works for those within 5 squares. Allies outside 5 squares, even sharp eyed ones, cannot see the elves ears twitch.

This is the problem with trying to explain or rationalize an illogical ability. There is no explanation that is satisfactory. The ability exists because a designer thought it was cool and for no other reason.

Is it? I think twitchy ears are quite satisfactory. It may not be perfect... true... but than again, it's only a game and hence it doesn't need to be.

 

[Dausuul]

Because we've already seen 'feat' bonuses. This is a 'racial' bonus. Even if their are only 5 distinct types of bonuses in the first books, this sort of thing tends to creep. And once you're adding +5 or so to your basic bonuses, you're pretty much past the randomization limits of a d20 roll, all the time.

Its also just annoying to keep track of something a specific as
if there is an elf
and I am not an elf
and I am with 5 'squares' of said elf
and the elf is a friend
and I am making a perception roll
I get a +1.

or I can just ignore the whole thing and not care that there is a whole 5% variance.

The level of annoyance far outweighs the actual benefits.

Seconded (thirded, fourthed...). I take a very dim view of any situational bonus that just gives you +1 to something. If it's not an absolutely constant, all-the-time thing like Weapon Focus, it's not worth the trouble of tracking it.

The rest of the race looks very solid, though. Especially the Elven Accuracy--that's how one should handle minor bonuses. Instead of a +1 that you have to keep track of all the time, you get to re-roll every so often. Probably comes out to the same thing statistically, but it's soooooo much less bookkeeping, and a lot more fun to use.

(Oh, put me in the "elves should be immortal" camp. But I plan to do some re-fluffing of all the races anyhow--what I'm doing to elves is peanuts compared to what I'm doing to dragonborn--so that's not a big deal.)

 

[Green Knight]

I hate the suggestion that elves now make "good clerics".

What's wrong with that?

I hate how they've lost their resistances to charms and paralysis.

Aren't those things which one avoids with a Will Save? And aren't Will Saves improved by a higher Wisdom score?

I hate how, given the new height and weight, every Elf would look like a Holocaust survivor.

I can't tell from the illustration whether or not they're still the ugly bug-eyed aliens of 3rd edition. Given what I seen so far, I have little hope.

Here're a pair of pics, so you tell me.

 

[Imaro]

Okay, read over it and will say this...

Group Awareness...
Don't know about this one. As others have said it will be a pain to keep track of if this type of bonus if they are widespread, and/or stack. I also think another aspect that may be problematic is that combats are suppose to be with larger numbers of opponents in bigger areas and encourage more movement. If this is the case it could easily become a situation where different PC's are steadily moving in and out of the areas of each other's aura like abilities...and that just seems way too problematic to keep track of in a combat that's suppose to be flowing and fast.

It also is kind of a headache because it depends on another character to be aware and coignant of what each PC is doing, and if he/she is occupied with something else in combat the player may not even remeber to inform the other PC's of this ability. I can see alot of..."Oh wait my Group Awareness should have gave him a +1 to perception, so he shouldn't have been surprised." type exclamations. It puts a DM in a bad position because it wasn't the player who missed the rolls fault, it was another PC with the ability who should have announced it before the rolls were made.

I usual only comment on the things I don't like about 4e (doesn't mean I don't like 4e but I see no reason to discuss something if I've already made up my mind I like it.). But I just want to say "THANK YOU WotC.". Finally elves have the same range of skin tones as human beings. I always loved this about Earthdawn (where you could actually have an elf that had the skin tones of a black/native american/asian/etc.). I know it may seem insignificant or trivial to some but I, being a black gamer, am truly happy that the only dark-skinned elves are no longer regulated to the Drow. Way to go WotC.

 

[delericho]

In Races and Classes they explain that they have given all the standard races a bit of a boost in power to make it easier to include other races which in 3e might have had a +1 or +2LA penalty.

A good reason for the change, IMO. The power creep doesn't bother me much, if at all. I just thought it was worth noting.

2) it prevents them busting the 'expected' DC cap for their level. They can't do 'better than their best' but they are much more likely to get close to their best. It also helps prevent masses of small bonuses stacking up so that impossible feats are regularly achieved.

Interesting point. My preference would still have been for a +2 (ish) bonus, and the elimination of a lot of the other minor bonuses from the system, but this implementation isn't too bad... as long as each character only picks up one or two 'reroll' abilities. YMMV, of course.

 

[ForumFerret]

Two minor things:

Perhaps the ally-perception-bonus only affects non-elves because they've kicked stacking to the curb and you only take the highest bonus to any particular roll? I can see where that would alleviate a lot of 3.5's issues with myriad small bonuses adding up to very significant bonuses. In this case, as noted above, an Elf's own +2 to perception would trump the +1 he received from an ally. As this is -always- the case, they just account for that in the racial write up and say that elves are unaffected by this ally bonus. (This is pure conjecture, I can't remember anything at all about stacking in 4e being discussed from official sources.)

On another note, for the 'never cuts living trees;' maybe elves are treesingers, a la Lioal? Some kind of magic that allows Elves to cause trees to spontaneously grow the items they need while still alive? I'd like to see a mention or write up of -some- kind of explanation for it from WotC, but if they don't I'll be instituting something along these lines. Otherwise there's no way an arboreal city could function.

 

[Hussar]

Something to remember about the "squares" bit. That ties in very nicely with the DDI. And, if you play on a VTT, you have a map all the time. Everything will always be in squares. I'm fairly sure, as well, that you will be able to overlay templates of auras right onto the virtual tabletop, and/or set the die rollers to automatically detect the auras.