Holiday Present - The Elf PHB entry

[TwinBahamut]

It's worth noting that, in all likelihood, we're far below our potential technology level...

This would only really be true if all of human history only occurred in Europe, and the Middle East, India, and China did not exist.

Rome was still struggling to catch up to a lot of the developments in those regions when it collapsed, and a lot of the knowledge of classical Europe was preserved and vastly expanded upon in the Middle East. Not to mention that the "Dark Ages" showed the development of a lot of things that did not exist before.

As a whole, the idea that mankind somehow regressed significantly after the fall of the roman empire is greatly exaggerated, and is mostly a product of Eurocentric thinking and an overstatement of the technological and intellectual achievements of Rome. I mean, in the middle of the so-called Dark Ages, China came close to triggering the Industrial Revolution...

 

[Dausuul]

As a whole, the idea that mankind somehow regressed significantly after the fall of the roman empire is greatly exaggerated, and is mostly a product of Eurocentric thinking and an overstatement of the technological and intellectual achievements of Rome. I mean, in the middle of the so-called Dark Ages, China came close to triggering the Industrial Revolution...

Agreed. "Dark ages" in the real world are much less widespread and dramatic than most people think; technology trends upward pretty steadily. Sometimes there's a burst of progress, sometimes a period with very little, but it's rare to see things actually go backward.

However, D&D has other ways to explain a worldwide "dark age"--from the spectacular, such as a portal to the Abyss being opened and unleashing a horde of demons, to the subtle, such as the machinations of Asmodeus steadily extinguishing the lights of knowledge and civilization so that his minions can establish control.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Only at some tables.

At my table, I have the players roll most of their perception-like rolls.

You missed the point of the post to which you replied.

"Perception as a passive value" means Perception as a defensive score, like AC - a value which the DM "attacks" with an NPC's Stealth skill. So the DM "has" to roll it, otherwise the players know there's someone out there who might be stalking them.

 

[Imp]

This would only really be true if all of human history only occurred in Europe, and the Middle East, India, and China did not exist.

Rome was still struggling to catch up to a lot of the developments in those regions when it collapsed, and a lot of the knowledge of classical Europe was preserved and vastly expanded upon in the Middle East. Not to mention that the "Dark Ages" showed the development of a lot of things that did not exist before.

As a whole, the idea that mankind somehow regressed significantly after the fall of the roman empire is greatly exaggerated, and is mostly a product of Eurocentric thinking and an overstatement of the technological and intellectual achievements of Rome. I mean, in the middle of the so-called Dark Ages, China came close to triggering the Industrial Revolution...

But unless you actually have a world-spanning campaign setting that point is neither here nor there – it's fairly difficult in a campaign to span an area much larger than Europe anyway, except for Jaunts To Exotic Foreign Lands some of which may have Mystical Technology which can just underscore the dark-age atmosphere of the main setting... and in any case the "points-of-light" campaign building that they're encouraging this time around is a dark ages (or possibly Bronze-Age) setting. That's one of its limitations.

What was the point of all this? Terribly long timelines? That's something that I've been solving lately by cyclical rise-and-decline-and-falls. It is also interesting to have truly ancient elven swords be bronze, or corroded to near-formlessness (but still effective and magical). Ever read the Grasscutter stories in Usagi Yojimbo? Like that.

 

[Henry]

As a whole, the idea that mankind somehow regressed significantly after the fall of the roman empire is greatly exaggerated, and is mostly a product of Eurocentric thinking and an overstatement of the technological and intellectual achievements of Rome. I mean, in the middle of the so-called Dark Ages, China came close to triggering the Industrial Revolution...

A professor of mine about 15 years ago used to refer to this as "The Petrarchan Screwjob." It still amazes me some of the "modern" concepts and inventions that did originate from AD 500 to 1000. (CE, AD, etc.)

 

[Plane Sailing]

"Perception as a passive value" means Perception as a defensive score, like AC - a value which the DM "attacks" with an NPC's Stealth skill. So the DM "has" to roll it, otherwise the players know there's someone out there who might be stalking them.

One of the side effects that I like about the times when passive perception is used is that one roll tells you how many of the party have spotted things and the people who have invested in decent spot skills don't get shafted by continually rolling badly on the spot checks. If the average guy sees it, then the spotmeister has seen it too.

 

[Kintara]

One of the side effects that I like about the times when passive perception is used is that one roll tells you how many of the party have spotted things and the people who have invested in decent spot skills don't get shafted by continually rolling badly on the spot checks. If the average guy sees it, then the spotmeister has seen it too.

I like the idea, as long as one side has something to roll. If something is merely hard to find instead of hidden, it would seem a little strange to roll for it as the DM. I would be fine with it, but it might be too weird for D&D.

 

[Will]

As an aside, the book 'Ancient Inventions' is pure awesome, and really inspires for some of the technology you might see in historic games, particularly if you start dosing in magic.

Romans, for example, had obstetric equipment unmatched until the last century or so. Ancient Indians had cosmetic surgery and dissolvable sutures (made of ant heads... weird, but it worked).

It's worth reading to fill your head with bizarre ideas of what you might find in a gnome dungeon, or whatnot...

 

[Blue]

Some good, some bad, some tangents.

It’s got things I like and things I don’t.

I really like the bonuses-only. I can’t say the number of times I haven’t played a race/class combo because of a penalty (like a half-orc paladin), but I don’t mind playing a race that doesn’t get a bonus (like a dwarven cleric). Someone pointed out that it makes it easier to balance vs. what previously would be a +1 LA. Good!

On the other hand, one I don’t that’s also in SAGA is assuming that combat is the default. Speed is only listed in squares. I want things like hourly walking as well as combat. One that could be bad is that it just mentions low-light. In SAGA the racial entries mention low-light, but only it’s affects on combat, ignoring all other uses.

I’m a fan of the (assumed) slight increase in move. That’s fits, and makes them unique.

The age thing helps run them in the same game as other races. (And, as people mentioned, it can change for a world. For example, in my campaign they are truly age-immortal, but eventually feel a Tolkien-esqe call because there are only so many elven souls to go around and they may need to die before any new elves are born.)

Group awareness seems a bit backwards. You want game design of racial characteristics to support racial feel in play. Here you have perceptive folks who favor rogues and rangers – who usually won’t be scouting ahead of the party since then the party is too far away to get the Group Awareness bonus. In other words, that bonus engenders the exact opposite game action (sticking them in the middle of the party) as the class description would lead you to expect (scouting around). That's a design boo-boo, but not a killer.

People are talking that the feat isn’t all that fantastic. I wonder if the number of racial feats means anything, like Shifter feats in Eberron. That would allow weaker feats, but any of them build on your elfiness. Elf-ness. Elveness. Elfhood. Faeriness. You know what I mean.

The loss of the resistances and such don’t bother me. It will make the existing campaigns I run/play in harder to convert (as will the rest). But since I’m okay with them killing some sacred cows, I’ll accept that it will be hard to convert anyway so that’s not a point against.

Though I was sort of hoping with all of the sacred cows they were doing away with that they’d separate racial bonuses from cultural bonuses. “The elves of the south are masters of bows, while the elves of the mountains are canny trackers one and all. And all elves have eyesight that make eagles seems half-blind.”

Sure, you can house-rule it, but if you just separate it you can make things easy. “I’m a half-elf fully accepted into the elven community since birth. It took me just as long to grow up as the full blooded elves. But somehow, I never learned how to use a bow.” Or things like an elf reincarnated (if that still exists) into another race. They lose the racial bonuses, keep their cultural bonuses, and don’t get the cultural bonuses the other race would have available.

Okay, wandering off track.

I sort of wish the racial bonuses were higher. +1 and +2 have some meaning at low levels, but get lost in the noise at higher levels. Make that you're of a race mean something up through paragon play at least.

All in all, that's a race I would play, and I think it's about a 7 out of 10 in terms of being "all that" that 4ed is trying to be over 3.5.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[Glyfair]

Though I was sort of hoping with all of the sacred cows they were doing away with that they’d separate racial bonuses from cultural bonuses. “The elves of the south are masters of bows, while the elves of the mountains are canny trackers one and all. And all elves have eyesight that make eagles seems half-blind.”

Changing that would require a major paradigm shift for D&D and I think we would have heard about it. It would have added another thing to choose during character creation (choose class and culture) since everyone should then get something specifically for their culture. DMs would also have a huge amount of prep work since they would have to design "culture packages" for every backgrounds PCs would want to take.

Fantasy Hero did it pretty well. They had package deals for both racial characteristics and cultures. However, choosing and balancing such things were at the base of the Hero system. D&D isn't built quite that way, and I think we won't see it soon.