Reworking of Races, Subraces and Existing Campaign Worlds

[Notmousse]

Tolkien's list is a holy mess. But dividing elves into 2 categories (not counting Drow) fits both his work and the common perception of the various subraces in D&D. We can have the woodsy elves, and the secluded mystical eladrin. Why are people getting into such an uproar over terminology?

Personally I'm getting in an uproar because there's already 2 elf races, and we don't need any more dagnabit!

Honestly I was going to keep an open mind about 4e till I got some more information, and look what it's got me, more F'n elves!

 

[Aeolius]

Or like having Deep Sea Elves (Dargonesti) and Shoal Elves (Dimernesti) from Dragonlance?

The Abyssal (Deep Sea) Elves in my GH campaign looked something like the critters from (appropriately enough) "The Abyss".

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Player 1: "Bloody elves..."

That's Warcraft, isn't it?

 

[Scribble]

That's Warcraft, isn't it?

Nah.. it's what happens when Santa goes postal.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I like many of the changes apparently being done to races thus far, such as the splitting of the elves into Eladrin (what used to be arcane/civilized elves) and Elves (the naturalist elves) on top of the Drow. Nevertheless, I wonder whether this is going to be shoehorned into existing campaign worlds. For example, the Forgotten Realms has a history of numerous elven subraces, and it would make little continuity sense to get rid of them in favour of the new system. There are also the Planetouched, in FR. Aasimar, it seems, may bear some similarity to the new Eladrin, yet due to continuity reasons, I would still rather keep the aasimar in the Realms, even though I like what they are doing with the races in core.

A rose by any other name.

 

[Mkhaiwati]

Personally I'm getting in an uproar because there's already 2 elf races, and we don't need any more dagnabit!

Dagnabit was a dwarf, I believe.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Dagnabit was a dwarf, I believe.

Must be. Only a tone-death race would get names like this.

 

[grimslade]

Why would here have to be any change to the sub-races other than denying the plethora of stat changes? A moon elf is now an eladrin for stats but in game she is still a moon elf. Green elves use elf stats. Dang, the Realms will never be the same if I can't get a +2 to charisma for my electrum elf. Using history and backstory seems to work for all the various human cultures. I suppose the sub-races will have to cope with simplification.

 

[Uzzy]

As long as there are proper cultural differences between the various Elven subraces, I've no problem with there being mechanical differences too. The Realms accomplished this for the most part, thanks to Races of Faerún and other previous works, particularly Elaine Cunningham's Evermeet. (Novel, that is)

As for when the Realms is going to be set, I'm pretty sure it will be 100 years in the future. The recent novel Stardeep has quite a few mentions of the aboleths and their coming in 100 years time (and why), which makes me think 'Why would they be putting these plot points in if they weren't going to use them?'. The 100 years leap would also let WoTC solve some of the 'problems' they perceive with the Realms.

 

[Aeolius]

Green elves use elf stats.

There are those green elves, again... source?