So is an 18-year-old elf in diapers?

[Vindicator]

Since elves reach adulthood at around age 100 (I believe, at least according to the PHB), how mature is an elf at, say, 18? Or, to put it another way, if I wanted to make the elven equivalent of a teenager, how old should he/she be?

I ask because I'm making a 1st level elven hermit/druid who lives in the woods and was abandoned by her parents at a young age. When I told the DM she's 18, he said, "Dude, elves don't even reach adulthood until after 100...so at 18, they're basically little kids." I thought, "Interesting point..."

 

[el-remmen]

I think it is just that elves have a much more protracted and infdulgent adolescence than humans generally have.

Maybe much like how when you get your Bar Mitzvah you are considered "a man" technically, but you still are not one for many years yet in how you are treated - it is backwards for elves -with the ritual into a adulthood coming when you are *done* growing up, instead of when it begins.

I think an 18 year old elf would not be in diapers - but he or she would be so immature mentally (by human standards) they might appear drugged out or even retarded. The elf would be impulsive, curious, emotional, self-centered . . .i.e. like a child in many ways only because they have not let go the wonder that gets beat out of a human child by the time he or she is 16 or 18.

Just throwing ideas out there. . . I think you should make your elf slightly older and he can still be abandoned by his parents - as perhaps an 18 year old elf would not have the mental resources to survive long on their own - or would be so feral and fey as to be scary.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

When my wife made her elf an impulsive teenager, she set her age at about 70 years. She was smart, but she was very impatient (especially for an elf), impulsive and easily distracted by interesting things she had never seen before.

That said, my thinking is that an 18 year old elf is mush like a percocious (sp?) 6 year old human with a great grasp of language. Will make really silly jokes, laugh at the slightest things, want to be the center of attention etc. etc.

 

[barsoomcore]

Elves should always be in daipers. Scrawny suckers just can't be housetrained....

 

[d20Dwarf]

I tend to think it works best if all the races have reasonably similar rates of maturation, and then just live in adulthood and old age for different periods of time. I can't see a 70-year-old elf still being a teenager, or for that matter a 20 year old elf being still like a toddler. The societal drag from such a prolonged adolescence would be intolerable, and the capability for mayhem from physically mature but emotionally immature children would be too great. If you're going to have them emotionally develop slowly, then they should do so physically as well.

To me it just works out better to have them mature within their first 20 years at the most, like humans, and then to live longer lives.

 

[eris404]

I ask because I'm making a 1st level elven hermit/druid who lives in the woods and was abandoned by her parents at a young age. When I told the DM she's 18, he said, "Dude, elves don't even reach adulthood until after 100...so at 18, they're basically little kids." I thought, "Interesting point..."

I'd ask the DM how much work has he put into elven culture and biology or ask him if you can create something, because there are a lot of ways this can be creatively interpreted. You could decide that for every five years in game time that an elf ages about one, which could mean that an 18 year-old-elf would be the equivalent of a human 3-year-old physically and mentally. On the other hand, there is a comic book called Poison Elves, in which the elves age the same way as humans do until they are about 12 years old. After that, the aging process slows down for them and they age about 1 year for every 17 human years. In those terms, an 18-year-old elf would be roughly the equivalent of a human 12-year-old. Or you could decide an elf ages as a human does until she reaches about 18 years old, then the aging process slows down so much that it is barely noticeable to other races.

Or maybe I'm making too much of this. Um, just go with what Thornir Alekeg said and make her 70.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Elves should always be in daipers. Scrawny suckers just can't be housetrained....

They can be housetrained, but it takes time. If they go on the rug, just rub their nose in it until they learn.

 

[Bloodstone Press]

I prefer the idea that they mature slowly both physically and emotionally. So at 18, an elf might be similar to a 6 year old human, both in physical development (size small), and in emotional development.

 

[d20Dwarf]

I prefer the idea that they mature slowly both physically and emotionally. So at 18, an elf might be similar to a 6 year old human, both in physical development (size small), and in emotional development.

How does a society like that function? They have to care for children for 70 years or so?

 

[el-remmen]

The societal drag from such a prolonged adolescence would be intolerable, and the capability for mayhem from physically mature but emotionally immature children would be too great. If you're going to have them emotionally develop slowly, then they should do so physically as well.

While I can see what d20Dwarf is saying from convenience's sake. I think part of the fun of creating non-human societies/cultures (for a DM) and playing one (for the player) is the otherness and alien-nature of it.

It should be a little weird, and different. One of my great pet-peeves are folks who play elves as if they were humans with low-light vision and +2 Dex modifier (extend that to any of the other races).

I'd rather look for reasons why things how they are and bind them together to make it make sense. .

For example: Could not the slow development of elves explain their reclusive nature? Would it not be too dangerous to let other races around their vulnerable and often unpredictable youths? Could it explain their low population as death at an early age might be more common? Etc. . . Etc. . .