Holiday Present - The Elf PHB entry

[Bishmon]

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

I'm guessing most people just put the bonuses provided by the familiar on their character sheet and then stuffed their familiar in their character's backpack or whatever to ensure that the familiar was always nearby.

With another party member, though, it's not quite so easy. I don't think the party elf would take to kindly to being shoved into a backpack so his aura bonus is always nearby and therefore in effect.

Personally, I like the idea of just giving his non-elf allies a +1 to perception. Maybe I'll put some time on it if new PCs keep leaving and joining the party, like in order to get the +1 bonus, the non-elf character has had to have gained a full level with the elf in the party.

Alternately, I might just bump up the elves' racial perception bonus to +3 and just get rid of the aura ability altogether.

I doubt I'll leave it as it is, though. I just think its clunkiness isn't worth what the ability adds to the game.

 

[HeinorNY]

Perception Aura: I said it 4 pages ago and it bears repeating. Dodge is one of the most commonly houseruled rules in 3x...period. The top reason mentioned for this is because people constantly forgot to include their +1 bonus. And let's not forget:

1) That's an AC bonus. The critical barrier between life and death!
2) Its your own ability. This isn't some bonus you got from a buddy, you spent a feat on it.

Even with that, people couldn't remember it. Now we have a tiny little +1 bonus on a skill check from another person. I guarantee it will be forgotten in many parties.

I personally like the idea of auras, but if your going to do it, at least make it worthwhile to remember. When I play a bard, I've had to constantly remind my party about their +2 or even +3 bonus to attack and damage. But with such a nice bonus, at least its worth my time.

But the perception skill is used differently than dodge...
Most of the time people remember the dodge bonus when they start using and then they just forget it, but you don't need to remember the Group Awareness bonus in every round, you need to remember it just before the combat start, when the party make the perception rolls.
Also, the dodge bonus is a passive bonus that works against one opponent. If you have 4 opponents attacking you, you will probably forget it because it's an excpetion in the combat routine. A bonus to a skill, and in the case of the Perception skill, considering its uses in the game, will rarely be the exception.

-Party is attacked by hidden enemies, bonus ON
-Party searching for a trap/secret door, bonus ON
-Party listening behind the door before kikcing it, bonus ON

Players won't need to remember it because most of the times it will be available, actually, they will just have to remeber when not using it, in the rare cases the party is not together.
Dodge feat is a bad example because how and when it works differs completely.

 

[Delta]

R&C talks about (makes it sound like it was still in the discussion stage at the time of the R&C's writing) making some skills, like Perception, passive "defense" values. Essentially, the DM notes the "take 10" score for the PC's, and this is what he rolls against for active uses of opposing skills, like Sneak. (One advantage of this mentioned is you don't alert the players that something's up asking them to make a roll.)

To me, it's amazing how the 4E changes are almost unanimously the exact opposite of what I'd like to see done with the D&D game. If true, here's another one -- my past analysis decided it was best for my game & players to do the exact mirror-image of this idea, namely have everyone "Take 10" on Sneak-type/protective actions, and have "Cooperative Bonus" rolls for all the Perception-type/detection actions.

http://www.enworld.org/archive/index.php/t-11017.html

 

[Delta]

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

No, but the Bardic Music morale bonus sure did.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0034.html

 

[Emirikol]

Okay, now I'm curious.

I'm sure it will get around at some point. It has to do with all the evidence in the 4E write up (released today) why elves are clearly "frolicky." Strange stuff.

jh

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Hm...

I vote with those who find rerolls and aura effects to both be a minor pain. They're not unworkable, but they require more attention to mechanics.

Also, other than the Dex bonus, I don't see what's so stealthy about them. They're still human-sized, and they get bonuses to perception rather than not being perceived.

Generally speaking, I don't like the word "squares" instead of feet, though I admit it makes no practical difference since it is easy to translate.

Not cutting living trees is BS, unless they have some kind of racial feat that lets them shape living wood (which isn't a bad idea, albeit not original).

Also, just as a nitpick, I think of an "average" as a single value rather than a range of values, e.g., 115 lbs. rather than 100-130 lbs.

 

[maggot]

This elf entry isn't bad. I'm surprised at the +2 Wis as it seems to say that elves are really good clerics. But it makes sense for elven rangers, and fits the perception and enchantment save bonuses they used to get.

I'm really surprised at the reroll an attack bit. That seems out from left field.

But what really surprises me is the conditional +1 bonus. I hate conditional bonuses and have house ruled them all away in my 3.5 games (elves just get +2 will save instead of +2 on enchantment), but now they have a conditional bonus based on distance. Talk about slowing the game down and taking up extra char sheet space.

Now imagine that every races has these kind of things. Yuck. yuck. yuck. If I ever run 4e, I know something that is going immediately into the house rules.

 

[Banshee16]

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."

300 years ain't ancient history though. 3000 years? That's a different matter.

And frankly, in a world where you've got races that can live from 700-2500 years (or more), even that isn't much. Have you looked at the Grand History of the Realms? There are things in there that were occurring 33,000 years before the present day.

I *like* that broader reach.

Especially now that I'm reading Stephen Erikson's Malazan series.

I like to do histories for characters etc. One of the characters in my Midnight game is a Caransil Dragonborn, descended from Zardrix. It was fun mapping out generations of ancestors, to figure out where the character came from, and can create a lot of opportunities for roleplaying.

And, as others have mentioned, the idea that you could have an elven king who is 1000 years old is appealing.

According to these new rules, characters like Kith-Kanan from Dragonlance, who lived like 1200 years or so, were apparently freaks or liches or something. Or you've got to rewrite the whole thing.

It's a useless change that doesn't really accomplish anything useful, but can have a lot of impact over other aspects of the game. So I question why it had to be made.

The flavour text is cool though. Particularly for the Eladrin. Makes them more like the mysterious noble fey who live under the hill..that kind of thing. Or like those from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell....hiding in some ruined castle in another world, the bodies of human knights hanging like piniattas from trees around the crumbled ruin.

Banshee

 

[Clavis]

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 haven't even gotten started. I've just put on some old Rollins-era Black Flag, and now I'm really getting my hate on!

For instance, I didn't mention how much I HATE Tieflings as a core race. Or how much I HATE removing Gnomes from the PHB. Or how much I HATE the idea of a Golden Wyvern Adept. Screw it, I think I HATE just about everything that I've read about 4th edition, including the idea that a 4th Edition was needed at all.

That felt good.

 

[Kintara]

I haven't even gotten started. I've just put on some old Rollins-era Black Flag, and now I'm really getting my hate on!

For instance, I didn't mention how much I HATE Tieflings as a core race. Or how much I HATE removing Gnomes from the PHB. Or how much I HATE the idea of a Golden Wyvern Adept.

So I guess you didn't enjoy the latest cartoon?