need a more powerful elven race

[Animal]

first of all thanks for the input guys. you all helped me a lot and bring out many interesting ideas which i could ponder over.
here are my thoughts. now, imho, leshay, eladrin and other megabeasts seem just TOO powerful to be a normal "race", living in forest retreats side by side with mortal civilizations. i really think i should settle with a template. half-celestial seems to be a good start, maybe i'll just modify it a bit. furthermore, i'm going to break these templated elves up in monster levels like in savage species. so that the first level elf (a very young one) would be not much more powerful than a human. after all their power is not all inherited, but mostly gathered during their long lives.
while my npc elves age they would gain elven "monster levels" PLUS class levels, thus making them progressively stronger than human as they move past age categories.
on the other hand, such elves could still be a viable race for PCs, who could just take a 1st level elf and advance it by class levels.
what do you guys say?

 

[szilard]

Didn't think of this before, but one thing that I've seen done is make all elves gestalt characters... gestalt bards, to be exact. A gestalt bard isn't usually that great (since bards are more well-rounded), but it means that elves will be at least competent in melee, magic, and skills... and the flavor works well enough.

In the game I saw this used in, action points were used... and elves got less of them than other races. They were reasonably balanced.

-Stuart

 

[Darklone]

Great idea Szilard... especially bard is a very fluffy class for Gestalt chars. Skills, many nice utility spells and two good saves really boost many otherwise boring classes (like clerics) and add interesting options and fun to otherwise boring classes (like clerics).

 

[Animal]

aye, that sounds pretty interesting too. although that variant instantly barrs this race for PCs.

 

[mvincent]

Use the stats for eladrins in the Monster Manual but remove the alternate form.

Agreed. Indeed, the Eladrin are simply a more intelligent version of elves in 4.0.

Another option is to use gray elves from the MM (which have a bonus to int)