Holiday Present - The Elf PHB entry

[Aloïsius]

Stop saying they are anorexiac. In 3e every character suffered from obesity Remember that in a fantasy setting, most people are not going to work in car, don't eat pizza while watching TV and don't drink more coke than water. Those are elves, not humans.


There is a strange little thing in the fluff : every godess is refered as god rather than godess. Does that means they will take the extrem opposite road to 3e, when gender instability was rampant ?

 

[med stud]

Stop saying they are anorexiac. In 3e every character suffered from obesity Remember that in a fantasy setting, most people are not going to work in car, don't eat pizza while watching TV and don't drink more coke than water. Those are elves, not humans.

This is pretty interesting really; in many Western countries, more people are now obese and overweight than having a healthy weight. This sometimes make people getting misconceptions on how much a healthy human being should weigh.

 

[Festivus]

"Shifting" sounds like what you do when you take five-foot steps.

It's a lot nicer name for it at any rate.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

This version of the elf would easily have a +1 LA in 3.5e, if not +2. I guess this is healthy power creep?

In Races & Classes, this is exactly what they said they would do.

 

[Zweischneid]

This is pretty interesting really; in many Western countries, more people are now obese and overweight than having a healthy weight. This sometimes make people getting misconceptions on how much a healthy human being should weigh.

True... but a long-term nutrition shortage the type you'd see in the middle-ages stunts growth, not the height/weight relation. So if food is scarce in elven-country, they should be shorter, not necessarily so much thinner.

Also, there's still the majority of people living in non-western countries. They are not THAT thin, unless they suffer a more acute famine.

Also note that they've given you the average.. skinny elven maids are goin to weight even less.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Mmm, that's crunchy.

I think after waiting this long for something substantial, I'm failing to see what I do or don't like about the elf at this point.

Indeed, it should be difficult, given how the design team has said that the rules depend a lot on each other. Seeing this out of context makes it hard to judge.

 

[mhensley]

I wonder if this is the "Friday thing that will blow people away" that The Rouse was talking about.

It's nice, but it certainly doesn't blow me away. Nothing really unexpected here IMO.

 

[Doug McCrae]

They are also horribly anorexic.

This is the noughties. Thin is in.

As a counterbalance it would be great to see a PC race that's really fat. I mean frickin huge. 500lbs and none of it is muscle. Wonder how many people would want to play em.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Oh and for the record I dislike the aura type ability; it is another way for wotc to boost mini sales. A rather cheap way, and does not make much sense in game.

The aura ability is a way for players to have characters that, through the rules alone if nothing else, depend upon and support each other.

This is a game that is for advanced players and beginning players. That the rules themselves provide a reason for characters to be together is a good thing. This will help player bonding in the new edition.

It's a small bonus and thus it is probably only useful at low levels. This means that it really only occupies the attention of the game at the low levels and when forgotten at higher levels it won't matter very much.

It is, however, a mechanism to make sure that beginning players think about the other characters in the group. That's a good thing.

 

[Drammattex]

Very cool!

I love the sample characters. The sample character stats in 3e were rarely useful to me, and I never read them. These little character sketches give some cool character ideas, and actually seem to encourage role-play and story for your character. Cool!

Suggestion: Rewrite the third one. It's vanilla boring.