Again, that's 1) a human taking a feat, and 2) a feat tax. I should be able to be a half-elf AND have a 1st level feat. Don't tax me. Give me a real half-elf.
in that regard, I agree with you, but as it seems, we will NOT! get a "real" half-elf, just either one or other mechanics.
with you picking flavor how much elf or human you are on the scale.
Hack to that would be to spend your 1st level feat to get the features of both:
Again, that's 1) a human taking a feat, and 2) a feat tax. I should be able to be a half-elf AND have a 1st level feat. Don't tax me. Give me a real half-elf.
Creature Type : Humanoid Size : Medium (about 5-6 feet tall) Speed : 30 feet Life Span : 200 years on average
Special Traits
Combat Dilettante: You know weapon mastery in one simple weapon or one cantrip from the cleric, druid, or wizard class. Darkvision : You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. Dual Heritage: You can take feats that have either elf or human as a prerequisite (as well as those specifically for half-elves), as long as you meet any other requirements. Extra Language: You know one additional common language. Fey Ancestry : You have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Charmed Condition on yourself. Skill Versatility: You gain Proficiency in two skills of your choice. At the 5th level, you gain Expertise in a skill you have Proficiency in.
HALF ORC
Traits
Creature Type : Humanoid Size : Medium (about 6-7 feet tall) Speed : 30 feet Life Span : 80 years on average
Special Traits
Darkvision : You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. Dual Heritage: You can take feats that have either human or orc as a prerequisite (as well as those specifically for half-orc), as long as you meet any other requirements. Furious Assault: When you hit with an attack roll, you can make the hit a critical hit instead. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest Relentless Endurance : When you are reduced to 0 Hit Points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 Hit Point instead. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.
Doesn't matter. It's still creating a human or elf and spending a feat to be substandard instead of just starting as a half-elf and having a 1st level feat. I don't want to start by being human or elf. I want to choose half-elf.
Doesn't matter. It's still creating a human or elf and spending a feat to be substandard instead of just starting as a half-elf and having a 1st level feat. I don't want to start by being human or elf. I want to choose half-elf.
Doesn't matter. It's still creating a human or elf and spending a feat to be substandard instead of just starting as a half-elf and having a 1st level feat. I don't want to start by being human or elf. I want to choose half-elf.
charm and sleep resistance,
darkvision
2 skills
elvish, common, one extra language
Inspiration on start of adventuring day (to make up for the loss of +1 attribute increase since 2014)
You get your feat from background.
You are happy?
And if it was a feat (prerequisite human, only available at 1st level):
You gain:
darkvision
1 extra skill
charm and sleep resistance
elven language
That taken as a human in 2024 results in
charm and sleep resistance,
darkvision
2 skills
elvish, common, one extra language
Inspiration on start of adventuring day.
You still get your feat from background.
you are unhappy?
If it makes sense to you, ok. It does not make a lot of sense to me.
You insisting that you lose a feat is factually incorrect.
Then again WotC might decide that Eberron is 'problematic' and give it the Dark Sun treatment in the future. (Also gives them an excuse to kill off Artificer for good which I'm sure they'd love).
I doubt it. There seems to be some back-pedaling and spin-doctoring about the half-race options by Jeremy Crawford, plus Eberron has been their second most popular setting after Forgotten Realms over a decade.
I honestly don't even know why half elves were a thing. Because Elrond got mentioned as being one off hand in a way that doesn't really get explained? Because someone know Tanis would be written in the future to coin a hot new sad boy? I have no idea. They were like... the sexy species for some reason?
It's a bit complicated because Tolkien's world-building was messy, redactive, and not as ground-up and unified as people here often advocate for. He did not originally intend for the Hobbit and later the Lord of the Rings to be part of his "elf epic" the Silmarillion. Retconning was involved. In an older draft of the Silmarillion, Elrond was the mortal son of Eärendel who stayed in the Beleriand and ruled over the remaining elves. Then later Elrond was rewritten to become the founder and first mortal king of Numenor. When telling the story of the Hobbit, he used the name Elrond for a character at Rivendell. He was very likely not meant to be the same Elrond as in his "elf epic" story, as while he is "half-elven" he may have been mortal.
"[Elrond] was an elf-friend — one of those people whose fathers came into the strange stories before the beginning of History, the wars of the evil goblins and the elves and the first men in the North. In those days of our tale there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors, and Elrond the master of the house was their chief. He was as noble and as fair in face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.”
Elrond is described as fair as an elf-lord, which implies that he isn't one, in a list including wizards, dwarf kings, and summer. Elrond being described as an "elf-friend" would also be unusual for an elf, as we see it mostly used for non-elves. Bilbo and Gimli are both described as elf-friends in LotR. Elendil's name (kinda) means "elf-friend." Aragorn is also an elf-friend. And the language here in the Hobbit seems to imply that people descended from elves and humans were more common.
But when Tolkien began synthesizing the world of the Hobbit and the Silmarillion while writing Lord of the Rings, Elrond became an elf due to story reasons. Now he had to change things around in his older "elf epic." So the Elrond of old got split into two characters: Elros and Elrond. They were still both born from Eärendil (changed spelling), but all "half-elves" now had to choose the fate of elves or the fate of humans. Elros chose to become mortal and founded Numenor. Aragorn (and the royal line of Elendil) descend from Elros. Elrond chose to become an elf. (Given how Tolkien views humans as having a special fate over elves, I kind of think that this makes Elros wiser than Elrond.) The choice also extends to elven children of Elrond, and we know that Arwen chose humanity. We don't know what his sons Elladan and Elrohir chose, though we do know that they stayed in Middle-Earth into the Fourth Age.
I have said elsewhere that I think of D&D half-elves not so much as Tolkien's "Gotta choose: are you man or are you a muppet?" Instead, they seem better suited for characters like Aragorn, who are counted among the mortal "race of men," but who exude a majesty of the Numenoreans and Elves and blessed with long-lives, wisdom, and stature. So I prefer my half-elves less like Elrond Half-Elven in LotR but, instead, more like Elrond the Half-Elven in The Hobbit, Elros Half-Elven, the Numenoreans, and the Dunedain.
Look, I took the concept of fey descent and descendants who lack the power the defined their ancestors, and ran with it in my own work and I still don't know what the source material or its progenitors was actually trying to do; the last three editions made them 'the bard race', which... okay?
I was okay with that because it also made them the Sorcerer race and later a choice for the Warlord race, the latter of which works remarkably well with my own sense of half-elves as Numenoreans/Dunedain.
In terms of representation, they're better than horcs, but man... I'd love to see a story of being mixed that's not entirely about how sad I'm supposed to be. And the narrative is so... weird. I've never been rejected by my literal family for being 'half', but by communities who see me as wholly one or the other. I know other people have other experiences, but it's just so off to me. Especially as a species-wide schtick. Who are all these millions of elves and humans who will gladly sleep with the other, but are then shocked that a child of such a union has feature of the other parent?
I don't exactly mind half elves being included and they're not really taking up a slot because unlike classes, we're allowed to get new species. But at the same time, to make something a core species, I feel they need a strong reason for being and helves just don't have it.
See Eberron. The Khoravar carry themselves with pride (if not arrogance) because they believe that two important prophetic half-elf figures 2000 years ago received a vision from two of the gods of the Sovereign Host that they were "the true children of Khorvaire," as they originate from two different species from two different continents who mass-migrated to Khorvaire. The supermajority of Khoravar in Eberron were born from two Khoravar parents, and that has been true for 2000 years. Also, half-elves of House Lyrandar are the unofficial civic administrators of Valenar, since the Tairnadal elves find such things boring and beneath them. Not a sad half-elf story in sight.
In Lord of the Rings, are humans, elves and orcs all different species? Or are they the same species and can interbreed? I know Tolkien referred to all of them as different "races" rather than "species".
