Improving the half-elf

[Omnifarious Grey]

Half-Elves are one of my least favorite aspects of 4e. Even their description says "Born heroes and leaders who combine the best features of humans and elves." Yet they have nothing in common with either parent! I also don't like how eladrin are left out. Why are half-elves possible but not half-eladrin? In the past, most half-elves had high elf (eladrin) parents. Pairings of humans and the very reculsive wood elves (now just elves) were quite rare. Here's how I would have made half-elves:

Ability Scores: +2 Dex, +2 to one other ability score of your choice
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Low-light

Languages: Common, Elven. I see no good reason why they should get more languages than anyone else.

Bonus At-Will power: Same as humans. I don't see any good reason why half-elves should all be partially-mutliclass characters. I think it makes much more sense for them to have a certain degree of human talent and drive instead.

Dual Heritage: You can take feats that have either human, elf or eladrin as their prerequisite (depening on your parent race), as well as those specifically for half-elves, as long as you meet any other requirements.

Fey Origin: Same as the Elf and Eladrin trait.

Trance: Same as the Eladrin ability. I prefer to give Elves this ability as well instead of their +1 perception "aura", as I despise such abilities.


I think this makes half-elves a good blend of humans and elves/eladrin. They get the best ability score selection and feat selection of any race, but they lack the human's bonus feat, skill and +1 defenses. Likewise, they don't have the skill bonuses, weapon proficiencies, fey step, speed, or elven accuracy of their other parent. This makes half-elves a good, versatile race, without making them a superior choice to humans or elves, IMO.

Why would you really want to ever pick human rather than this? A bonus feat? +1 to all defenses? I don't mind giving that up for the extra +2 to Dexterity in place of those. This would then be one of the better race options for practically any class.

 

[Ixis]

I think Grey is right in that a lot of the suggestions here are making half-elves a little too overpowered. My only complaint with the half-elf currently is they feel a little bland compared to the other races. Conceptually (as in, outside RP fluff) I see them as a strong role player race, with benefits to social situations, multiclassing, etc. I don't know how or what half-elves are "supposed to be" in a campaign, or how they act traditionally, but I see it as WotC described it I guess: "caught between two cultures."

The bonus to +Con is about the only thing that really makes no sense to me. I guess WotC was thinking that the Con is from the human while the Cha is from the elf... Or something... I don't see anything wrong with just replacing the +2Con with a +2Dex and calling it a day. It favors the rogue, which would lead to a situation wherin a half-elf inherited his father's nible dexterity but grew up in the poor part of town where he learned to use his cunning charisma to his advantage.

 

[Neil Bishop]

I've been thinking of having the ability bonuses be +2 to any one ability of the player's choice and +2 to an ability for which the parent elf race gets an ability bonus (IMC I use the full range for 3.5E elven sub-races). At this point, I don't even care if these bonuses are combined into a single +4 but I say that because:

1. we are in the early days of changing over to 4E; and
2. none of my players EVER plays a half-elf. Not ever in the 20+ years we have played together.

 

[Kzach]

Why would you really want to ever pick human rather than this? A bonus feat? +1 to all defenses? I don't mind giving that up for the extra +2 to Dexterity in place of those. This would then be one of the better race options for practically any class.

Because a feat and a skill and an extra at-will and +1 to defences has a far greater impact on the versatility and survivability of a character than does one +1 bonus from a stat.

I like Falling's take although I also like the Dilettante ability. I think everyone else is placing far too much import on the overall benefit of an ability boost.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Why would you really want to ever pick human rather than this? A bonus feat? +1 to all defenses? I don't mind giving that up for the extra +2 to Dexterity in place of those. This would then be one of the better race options for practically any class.

Which would you rather have, a bonus feat, bonus skill and a +1 to all defenses, or a +2 dex, fey origin, dual heritage and trance?

I think the human comes out ahead.

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

Which would you rather have, a bonus feat, bonus skill and a +1 to all defenses, or a +2 dex, fey origin, dual heritage and trance?

I think the human comes out ahead.

That +2 dex can give you a bonus to reflex, bonus 1 to initiative, bonus to dex based skills, bonus to attack rolls for a class that uses it as well as a bonus to damage, not to mention if you use a class that can get bonus abilities based on powers that use dex secondary.

Skill are not that big an issue most times, and most heroic feats are nothing to get worked up over. The defenses is one of the only big impacts (rarely feats as well) and despite what you may think, a bonus +2 to a stat is always a good thing.

 

[Ixis]

Let's compare the two:

In Icicle's suggestion you get the +2 Dex and the freebie +2, humans only get the freebie +2, so as far as ability scores are concerned Half elves are ahead. Though humans do get the +1 to all defenses.

Half elves get low-light vision, humans have normal vision

Both would get the same number of languages, and really they hardly matter.

Both gain a bonus at-will, nice.

Dual-heritage: Half elves can choose from more than twice the number of feats while humans gain an extra one at first level. That seems fair to me.

Fey origin as opposed to natural. Meh.

Trance, which is sorta good since you can take an extended rest and not get ambushed. Humans gain an extra skill which would be nice except they're thrown around like hot-cakes if you take the right background. Actually, the extra skill would benefit the half-elf more in my opinion (as far as the whole "a little bit of everything multi-classer" is concerned.)

In the end what really matters in my opinion is the +1 to all defenses compared to the +2 Dex. Ability wise that means Half Elves get a +1 to another defense and added attack potential whereas the humans just get the +1 to all defenses. I'd say the half elves pull ahead of the humans value-wise, but I wouldn't always choose a half-elf over a human, especially if I wanted to play a defender class. In this case humans will always have an advantage over half-elves as far as defense goes, and then humans become better at multiclassing in my opinion.

 

[keterys]

Dual-heritage: Half elves can choose from more than twice the number of feats while humans gain an extra one at first level. That seems fair to me.

They really can't - bonus feat is far better than any number of improved Elven Precision feats. Maybe you'll take Wild Elf Agility, but the human feats are just more usable so many half-elves won't go beyond them.

Trance, which is sorta good since you can take an extended rest and not get ambushed. Humans gain an extra skill which would be nice except they're thrown around like hot-cakes if you take the right background.

Or just keep a watch. A bonus skill is more valuable than Trance. Most backgrounds actually give you more skills on your class list, which the human bonus skill is perfect for - they don't actually give you more skills.

In the end what really matters in my opinion is the +1 to all defenses compared to the +2 Dex. Ability wise that means Half Elves get a +1 to another defense and added attack potential whereas the humans just get the +1 to all defenses. I'd say the half elves pull ahead of the humans value-wise, but I wouldn't always choose a half-elf over a human, especially if I wanted to play a defender class. In this case humans will always have an advantage over half-elves as far as defense goes, and then humans become better at multiclassing in my opinion.

It's pretty much +1 Defenses and either a feat or skill vs +2 Dex _or_ a secondary stat. For some characters it's +1 Def, Feat, _and_ Skill vs. +2 Dex/secondary stat. If you're an Int based character (Swordmage, Wizard, etc) then that's an awesome trade. If you're a rogue, the human +2 is in Dex so it's either Str or Cha that's left out but that's still good for a +1 to that defense and secondary applications. If you're not Dex-based, say a fighter then it does make it easier for you to get prereqs for feats and give you 1 better Reflex.

But, mostly I wanted to point out that your trades for the skill and feat were far insufficient.

 

[Elric]

Samurai's house rules for half-elves had them getting +2 Cha and their choice of +2 Dex, Con, or Wis, which is a nice increase in their versatility without going all the way to giving them a bonus ability score of their choice.

 

[Zero Cochrane]

Half-elves in 4e are just plain weak. They get fewer than half the perks that any other race gets. I suggest two simple solutions that won't require you to rewrite your NPCs.
1) Allow a half-elf to apply a +2 bonus to any two ability scores of his choice, instead of to Constitution and Charisma. This reflects an inheritance of human adaptability, and lets you customize them to be more elf-like if you want to add the bonuses to Dexterity and Wisdom. Wrt NPCs, you can simply assume a typical half-elf chooses to apply the bonuses to Consitution and Charisma.
2) Allow a half-elf to take a free elf or human feat of his choice. This simply supplements the rule that allows a half-elf to take these feats. Again, you can use this to make your character more elf-like or more human-like.