In what edition and book did the elves'...

[The Human Target]

Wow excellent replies folks thanks a lot.

I was wondering where some things originated and couldn't sass this out. My 1 and 2e players handbooks sure don't mention it.

I wonder if its a case of rules confusion resulting in an entirely new concept?

 

[the Jester]

First I saw of it was in 2E's Complete Books of Elves and the introduction of elvin "trance". Prior to that, elves had resistance to sleep, but still needed 8 hours of rest - to my memory.

I believe you are correct. Generally speaking, a lot of the "elves are uber!" ideas came into D&D via the Complete Book of Elves (which is one of the products sitting on my Shelf of Shame for being total unbalanced crap).

Wow excellent replies folks thanks a lot.

I was wondering where some things originated and couldn't sass this out. My 1 and 2e players handbooks sure don't mention it.

I wonder if its a case of rules confusion resulting in an entirely new concept?

Not rules confusion. Someone just loved elves way more than they loved balanced game mechanics, and they got paid to write a book about how totally awesome elves are and how much they blow every other race away in ubercoolness.

I tell ya, that book had a few great ideas- elven archer, bladesinger, lethari, etc- with almost no good execution. But the awesomeness of some of the ideas is obvious because they stuck and are still winking at us two and a half editions later.

 

[Morrus]

First I saw of it was in 2E's Complete Books of Elves and the introduction of elvin "trance". Prior to that, elves had resistance to sleep, but still needed 8 hours of rest - to my memory.

That's my first memory of it, too.