Holiday Present - The Elf PHB entry

[WhimsyTheFae]

Re: Forgetting the +1 Perception bonus.

If Perception is a "passive" ability, the person who has to remember is not the player. Its the DM.

That's my job, and I personally think I can handle it.

I run things like this: I'll remember the penalties, you remember the bonuses.

Not that I never remind players of bonuses or they don't honestly subtract their penalties, but in my games the responsibility falls on the benefitting party. That way, it's known up front, if you forget a bonus, oh well. You didn't have it on that turn. Likewise, if I forget a penalty, you got lucky. In the end, they're all just modifiers to a somewhat significant range of random numbers.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Or you can do it the easy way...

"You're all hanging out close enough to the elf." or "You're all not hanging out close enough to the elf."

Its still a sorry +1 bonus (ie, not worth keepign track of). It reminds me of affiliations. Cool concept, but frequently lame implementation. Am I really going to remember that I get a +1 to make pancakes on Tuesday?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I don't really like the reduced lifespan. Realistically, a 1000 year lifespan translates to about 300 years anyway, since you can only go about that long before something most likely kills you, but the idea that there might be a 1000 year old Elf King is kind of appealing.

It really screws with the concept of "ancient history", and limits the types of stories you can tell. "Oh, something happened 300 years ago dyuring the dark ages? No problem, we'll go ask by uncle about stories his dad used to tell him."

 

[Traycor]

I'm generally liking it.

The elf-aura shouldn't be that hard after years of D&D...

DM: Everyone, perception checks!
PC1: *rolls* ah, that's a 20.
PC2: Everyone remember there perception bonus?
Pc1: Oh, sorry. 21.
DM: You see...

We've been doing that since Bless in 2e...

Yes, but there are going to be lots of auras now. It's going to be a chore to remember 10 or 15 different aura powers all going on at once. Especially if the group gets seperated (as seems to happen to my players all the time) then we either have to parse out the aura bonuses, ignore them, or grant them regardless of range.

Bleh. I like auras, but not when they give a +bonus. I'd rather it granted party members a perception reroll or something like that.

 

[Nine Hands]

I just want to say, this model of thiking irritates me to no end. How do you judge the merits of a game if the answer is always "just change it.". By this logic there's no reason to pick any one specific roleplaying game over another. Exalted is D&D...just change it to a d20 system, remove charms and replace them with feats and play in Forgotten Realms instead of creation???

Sure why not? I know many people who run games outside of the original system they were designed in. GURPS Star Wars, GURPS Forgotten Realms, Fuzion Rifts, etc.

The system is just a way of expressing things at the table, game systems can be changed, tweaked, massaged, etc to fit the concepts the GM and players want.

Its the game master and players that make a game work, not a game system.

 

[Pinotage]

There. A one-time bonus I don't need to keep track of. Someone's an elf? Everyone gets +1 to Perception. Over, done, let's pay more attention to the fun stuff.

This is the most sensible suggestion. If I ever get to play 4e, I think this will make a good house rule. Anything that results in easing game play and preventing interuptions gets my vote. I can just see thousands of gamers on Saturday night saying, "Remember, I'm an elf, so you can all get +1 Perception."

Much better to just leave it as a static bonus that always applies to allies of the elf.

Pinotage

 

[Incenjucar]

The thing with the bow proficiency is that it forces house ruling any time you have a non-standard background for an elf.

If you have an elf raised by different races, if the elf's culture simply does not have bows for some reason, if there's nothing to make bows out of, etc etc etc.

Culture-based standard racial abilities are annoying, not game breaking, but annoying. :\

 

[Silent Cartographer]

On balance, me likey mucho grande! Not perfect, but the flaws are small to meaningless, IMO.

I hate... I hate... I hate... I hate... I hate... I also hate...

Heh. We get it that you hate. A lot. You could probably power several small desktop accessories off that much hate. In fact, I've just started a pot of tea off the residual intertubes hate-runoff from your post. Kthxs!

I agree with the clumsy no-cut-living-tree color text problem, but almost every race description I've ever read included a "detail too far" like this. This barely registers as an itch. Everything else I'd change falls into this same category of easy-peasy, zero rules footprint stuff.

Regarding Perception Aura, I agree that this is the weakest racial feature. Bless-like bonuses can be useful, but are almost always annoying, too.

However, watching the simulationists decending on this feature like buzzards is a little boggling to me.

If you guys get really bored, I have some dancing angels and pins that ought to keep you busy for a long time. I think 4th edition is going to contain a bunch of gamist features like this, and I can just see the closet simulationists rushing into street, wailing and gnashing their teeth this summer.

Its an abstraction, folks. As some have suggested, just think of it as a Leadership-style of race feature, where Legolas' good habits and clean living inspire his compatriots to be just a little like him.

Mmmm, tea...

 

[Silent Cartographer]

Oh, and in regards to lifespan, I like the Shadowrun approach to elven lifespans. Best of both worlds...

 

[Wormwood]

Did the Alertness feat granted by a wizard's familiar cause this much kvetching back in 2000?