The problem with elves take 2: A severe condemnation [merged]

[mmadsen]

In the real world those nations tend to have a very big technological advantage, an advantage the elves do not have in D&D. Elven swords are in no way better than orc swords (or not so much better as to give them a big advantage).

Elven swords are not better than orc swords? In any Tolkien-esque campaign, it's elven swords that are the magic swords found in the barrow wight's tomb. They are the long-lived race that understands magic, the technology of D&D.

Does it say somewhere that in D&D there are trees which grow coal and iron?

Why are coal and iron so important? And why are you ignoring human capital -- sorry, humanoid capital -- and pretending raw natural resources are all that matters? The elves have a society where everyone is a productive adult for hundreds of years. That's worth quite a bit.

And what would the elves trade for the diamonds, not to mention all the other ressources they need? Meat, hides and wood? That are rather cheap ressources and could not support the import of large amounts of expensive ressources + generat enough additional income to finance a big wizard training program.

First, as others have pointed out, meat, hides, and wood are tremendously valuable in a pre-industrial economy. Second, I think you answered your own question: To finance a "big wizard training program" they can trade the products of wizardry. It looks to me like the elves have a well-educated society, where they invest tremendously in their people's skills, while the humans and orcs are still living in a feudal or pastoral economy.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

You want to know why the elves are doomed? Why 3rd Edition elves are doomed, despite the fact they can take any class and reach any level? Ok, let's try this again.

The 3rd Edition Player's Handbook grants elves some abilities, but does not grant them other abilities. RAW.

- Elves do *not* have any special immunity to disease, magical or mundane. (Indeed, that -2 to Constitution would increase their susceptibility.)
- Elves do *not* have any special immunity to parasites.
- Elves do *not* have any special immunity to poison.
- Elves do *not* have any special immunity to cold, heat, or the effects of sunlight.
- Elves have low-light vision, but not darkvision.

Thus:

Elves must select carefully what foodstuffs they will eat, cook appropriate foods and meat, and otherwise prepare food like anyone else would have to. (And nowhere in the 3E PHB does it say elves can eat special foods that humans cannot, including special fungi or roots or anything else from the forest.)
If elves choose to eat uncooked, contaminated, or infested foodstuffs, they are subject to poisoning (and death), parasites, and debilitation just like anyone else.
And oh yes, elves have to eat just as much as anyone else their size (nowhere in the 3E PHB does it say elves need eat less) or go hungry, grow weak, and finally starve.
If elves drink stagnant water, they can enjoy dysentary like everyone else. Fresh water? If it's ok for humans, it's ok for elves, then.

Elves freeze like anyone else in the winter. Yes, winter. Small thing, that. No winter coat? No gloves? No cap? No boots? Welcome to the wonderful world of frostbite, hypothermia, pnemonia, and death.
Elves are subject to heat weakness, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke like anyone else.
Elves are subject to sunburn like anyone else. Enough sunlight, and they contract cataracts, glaucoma, and blindness like anyone else.

Elves tire out, just like anyone else. In fact, they tire out more quickly, because of that -2 Constitution. If the average elven Constitution is 8, I'd say they tire out all too fast.

And heck, elves cannot see in the dark. They can see in low light, but not in total darkness.

-

But elves do live longer than humans. That, they do. Even though their lifespans are shorter in 3E, those lifespans are still much longer than humankind.
There is no rule saying elves cannot have as many children as they want in 3E. So, perhaps they can have one child per year, every year, for their whole reproductive life. No rule says otherwise.

It makes for something new and different:
Elven Family = Father (age 300), Mother (age 298), First Child (age 250), Second Child (age 249), 3rd Child (age 248), 4th Child (age 247), 5th Child (246), down to Last Child (Age 1) and then First Child of First Child (Age 200), 2nd Child of 1st Child (Age 199), 3rd Child of 1st Child (Age 198), down to Last Child of First Child (Age 1), and then First Child of Second Child (Age 199), Second Child of Second Child (Age 198), down to Last Child of Second Child (Age 1) and on to First Child of Third Child (age 198) ... all the way down to Last Child of Third Child (Age 1) ... then on to First Child of First Child of First Child (Age 150), Second Child of First Child of First Child (Age 149) ... then on to First Child of First Child of First Child of First Child (Age 100) ... then on to First Child of First Child of First Child of First Child of First Child (Age 50) ... and finally to First Child of First Child of First Child of First Child of First Child of First Child (Age 1)
I don't know how many elves that comes to. A lot. That is a new definition in Extended Families.

I pity elven women, in this case. Childbirth is hard enough for human women. Take that -2 Constitution, and the ladies have a real problem. Especially if they wish to bear several hundred children in their reproductive lifetime.
Assuming that there is food aplenty, help available, no wars or other dangers, and everything is otherwise going perfectly, of course.
Why, under this scenario the elves might even keep pace with humans, in terms of population!

-

Since the elves have no special immunities or powers, are stuck with the Human Condition, and have that -2 Constitution problem in addition, a couple of things come to mind immediately:

- Mortality in childbirth is serious. Elven women have a fair chance of dying with each birth. Elven women who keep having children do die from it. If they don't keep having children (some sort of birth control) they are just very ill during each and every pregnancy.
- Miscarriages are common, and produce additional fatalities among the mothers. Stillbirths occasionally occur.
- Child mortality is severe. A sizeable proportion of all elven children die before elven teenagedhood, stricken by illness or infections and unable to survive them.
- Accidental death claims some of the remaining children. They have much longer, as children, to have accidents. And those accidents happen. Other children survive their childhood accidents, but are maimed for life.
- Starvation and plague sweep the elven community (just like with humans: nothing in the RAW says the elves some special protection against this) and large numbers of elves of all ages die.

The elves can choose to live in the city. Or the country. Or the forest. Or even under the mountains. All this still happens.

And what a pleasant existence they are enjoying ...

Remember that there is nothing in the RAW that says elves must be communal. There is nothing in the RAW that says they need be good, altruistic, nice, or even reasonable.
Perhaps some of the children decide to turn on their parents. Parents come to loathe their brothers and sisters. Child turns on child. Jealously turns to anger and hatred. Feuds and battles break out. Communities shatter and their people disperse.
Normally, elves are conceived of as sticking together, but nothing in the 3E RAW says they must do so, and so ... they don't stick together! (Anymore than they must live in forests.)

-

The Race of Man, is not reasonable.
The Race of Man, has this bad tendency to lord it over, despise, and kill those of other races.
But don't take that from me. Take it from a majority of the realms, nations, cultures, and human peoples of the various settings. They'll inform you that, elves are not welcome in their lands (even the nice Knights of Solamnia will do this.) Maybe elves can visit, if they behave themselves. And maybe visiting elves go to the Arena (Hillsfar on the Moonsea.)

The elves could go to war to obtain lands held by humans. They could even win, crush the humans, drive them out, and take all for themselves.
Or elves can go to war against other races, and take their lands, so they have a home for themselves.
Or they could skulk in the few human lands where they are actually welcome. And in the lands of the few other races that will grant them a welcome. (This does not ensure they will be treated well ... it merely means they can actually live there without fighting a war to do so. The way humans carry on, elves can expect only the unexpected, and the unexpected could be very bad indeed. The other races are probably no better.)
If they will not do that, they can ... like the gully dwarves ... skulk and rot in the places of the world nobody else wants, places virtually uninhabitable for humanoid types (including elves.) In which case, disease, plague, and starvation will be more prevalent than ever before.

What a wonderful existence ...

-

However, this assumes the other races will leave the elves alone. The other races, generally will do no such thing.
Humankind is warlike. In all the settings, in most fantasy novels, and in historical reality, humankind is warlike (your campaign might be an exception, of course.)
Humankind, just might make war on the wretched elves. Scratch a lot of humans, and scratch a lot of elves.

The drow are generally stronger than the elves, in military prowess (this need not be so in your campaign) and so they come to the surface and kill elves, but the elves have a hard time returning the favor.
The drow really, really hate elves. So they attack. And attack. And attack. Scratch more elves.

Whole races and religions hate elves, simply because they are elves. The clergy of Hextor think elves make good target practice. The orcs think elves are best in the stewpot. The illithid don't hate elves, they merely think of them as Snackthings.
These religions and races are on the constant offensive against elves (and, typically, a lot of other peoples and realms.) Scratch more elves.

This list goes on. And on. Until no matter which way the elves turn, no matter where they look, no matter where they go or what they do, they are facing enemies.
The elves will sometimes give war, until no elves remain to fight. Other elves run, and keep running, until they somehow find a hole so deep nobody can find them in it (but something inevitably does ... ) Others hide behind benevolent humans and dwarves and others, until those benevolent people stop being benevolent and evict the elves, or they are themselves overwhelmed by enemies and they and the elves fall (how long, for example, can Silverymoon hold out?)

And when all these problems are not besetting the elves, there are the monsters who live in the wild. Such as ankhegs. Remorhaz. The occasional owlbear. A dragonturtle, accidentally disturbed. Strangleweed. A purple worm or two. A young dragon, asleep and accidentally awakened (and enraged.) Same hazards in the citiy, or country, just different monsters. Nowhere is it safe.
Meanwhile, the elves still must eat. And survive the cold. The heat. Illness. Plagues. Or such simple hazards as having to cross mountains, swamps, and deserts in their path.

Oh, such a wonderful life!

The Road to Extinction is not quick and easy. It is slow, and it is painful, and it goes on torturously until the very last elf is put out of her misery.

-

But the elves wanted all those abilities humans had, didn't they? They wanted to be able to become any one of the character classes, have unlimited level advancement, have the potential for great champions and rulers, to reign supreme over the lands.
Be careful of what you ask for.
The elves got all the powers of humans in 3E. But they got all the problems of humans in 3E.

If you go by the *classical* depiction of elves, they wane and fail very quickly.
That is, if they have 2 children per thousand years, they are exterminated very fast.
If they insist on living up in vulnerable treehouses out in the middle of the Dreaded Wilderness, they fail and fall more quickly (one thing about forests, they *burn*.)
If they are gentle, peaceful people, unwilling to be ruthless and hard, they collapse all the faster.

And if they play human - that is, if they behave like humans - they lose also. Because there are more humans than elves, and there will always be more humans unless elven females can survive having hundreds of children, and somehow raising all of them at once.
Humans can overpopulate like bunnies and get away with it. Elves can try that stunt ... I'm not putting any money on them succeeding.

3rd Edition simply did not give the elves the means to survive.
It gave them the freedom, and the problems, of humans.

 

[mmadsen]

Edena, again, you've typed a lot, but I don't see a clear argument. Elves are like humans, but less hardy, so they're doomed?

 

[thedungeondelver]

I'm not trying to be harsh but most of Edena's stuff is tl;dr for me. But something did catch my eye vis a vis the whole "elves are DOooooOOooooooOOOMed according to the 1e rules!" thing...

And its this:

Any time someone says to me "I want to play a demi-human" in the games that I run, I always recommend that they take thief as a multiclass. Dwarf fighter? Dwarf fighter/thief. Elf magic-user? Elf magic-user/thief. Unlimited advancement as a thief makes for a formidable ally (or enemy) in any race, and couple that with the wicked fighting abilities and general toughness of, say, the...oh, I don't know...ELVES...who get a +1 to-hit with all swords and all bows ('cept crossbows), have nearly total surprise when wearing leather armor and moving alone or with their own kind similarly clad. Then there's noticing concealed and secret doors. Then there's infravision. Then there's the whole "I'ma gonna live for four thousand years give or take" thing they have going on. Man, they aren't doomed. In fact, I'd say that elves have whatever world they live in on a string. Take an elf, say he's got the requisite 19 INT to get up to that 12th level magic user. But couple that wicked-bad spellcasting ability to thief abilities. Now that elf magic-user can make himself utterly undetectable without magic, and with magic he is entirely and completely and for all practical purposes invisible. You can't see him, you can't hear him, he can be in your throne room during the highest most top secret meetings listening in on everything and giving the information back to his own kind so they can plan accordingly.

If you've got the Hand of Vecna to back your awesome plans up, unless you've already stuck it to your arm, then our buddy the elf m-u/t is probably going to find out where its at and take it with him on his way out.

Moreover, the elves have a thousand or more years (again, in some extreme cases, nearly four thousand years) to wait you out, or to plan to undo whatever you might set in to motion.

That doesn't sound like a doomed race to me.

So you could have a group of elves, with literally a hundred hit points, 6th level magic at their disposal, lord knows what kind of magic items they've dug up along the way - no, this is not a doomed race.

Moreover, on that food tip? Dude. Elven fighter/clerics. Creating food and water on a daily basis since CY1!

I mean ultimately if in your world(s) you say "ELVES ARE DOOMED, PERIOD!" then...well, in your world they're doomed, period. That doesn't make it so by default, and, it isn't by default. Even Gary stating flat out "This is a humanocentric game" doesn't mean they're doomed. It means they're not human.


Now yes, Gary pushed for a humanocentric vibe in 1e and frankly I don't have a problem with that. But nowhere is there even the undertone that elves are DOOOOOOOOMED, MAN! in any of the stuff I've read for 1e. Hell I can't wait for the chance to play again just so I can play a x/thief multiclass elf.

 

[mmadsen]

Where do you get this from? Elves do not have any forest related abilities. They are not more suited for a live in a forest than humans or orcs are.

By the rules, Mongolian humans have no steppe-related abilities, Arab humans have no desert-related abilities, and Inuit humans have no arctic-related abilities, but obviously those groups all flourished in their respective lands by becoming specialists in surviving in those regions.

By the rules, elves may have no racial bonuses to living in the woods, but they -- at least wood elves -- have a society that obviously specializes in living in the woods. Presumably a typical elf is not a wheat farmer who raises a few chickens, and who fails to thrive, because he's trying to grow wheat and raise chickens in the woods.

 

[Halivar]

You dismiss factual information in favor of the ludicrous points you're making, and yet claim to be using (unsupported) facts yourself?

Threadlock in 3...2...1...

I believe EoN is responding to PoH's claim that elves have the same basic situation as the US (slower growth rate, but still significant military might), so it appears that's the point you're defending, so I'll respond to that.

Growth rates aside, the US has the third largest population in the world. Therefore, I must defend EoN's assertion that it is not a valid comparison to elves, who are described in most high-fantasy settings as being not only slower in reproduction, but much smaller in numbers.

 

[Halivar]

The elves of Tolkien's Third Age are clearly doomed and fading. They resemble the Ancients, Greek and Roman, from a medieval perspective -- once great, but now gone -- and they serve as a metaphor for magic, which fades and disappears as we grow up.

The elves from Tolkien's First and Second Ages are more like the epic heroes of myth and legend, with great powers and great passions -- they're much more like D&D characters.

This was really insightful. I liked this post.

I wish 3.0/3.5 elves reflected this, however. In the RAW, they seem just like humans. Blegh. I'd like either cool and flashy, or old n' busted. D&D elves are just plain (rules-wise, and IMO).

 

[Hussar]

This is completely baseless, there's no demographic information that has been established for elves AFAICT. It's possible that all the elves in someone's campaign world are 10th level wizards. Your assuming differences in human culture are due to some biological attributes? What role does culture and society play in any particular group, like elves, being good at magic? And could that role be far more important than a +2 intelligence bonus?

This is a very salient point. The demographics guidelines in the DMG are not the only demographics that can possibly exist in D&D, simply one version. If we apply the xp rules to elves, suddenly things look a lot better for them.

Imagine for a second that our 1st level elves (of whatever class) go out and hunt boars (CR 2) once a year. After about 10 years, they are second level. They do that again and ten years later they are third. Move on to bears. So on and so forth.

Now, every middle aged elf is a high double digit classed NPC. 200 years pass and they've gained about 18 levels. Take a population of 10000 and look at how many middle aged people you have - say 1/8th (high attrition) That still gives us over a THOUSAND 18th level NPC's.

No force on the planet would mess with them then. It's like having very large nuclear arsenals. Any assault would result in immediete obliteration.

Elves are now free to frolic as they like.

 

[Wolfspider]

This is a very salient point. The demographics guidelines in the DMG are not the only demographics that can possibly exist in D&D, simply one version. If we apply the xp rules to elves, suddenly things look a lot better for them.

Imagine for a second that our 1st level elves (of whatever class) go out and hunt boars (CR 2) once a year. After about 10 years, they are second level. They do that again and ten years later they are third. Move on to bears. So on and so forth.

Now, every middle aged elf is a high double digit classed NPC. 200 years pass and they've gained about 18 levels. Take a population of 10000 and look at how many middle aged people you have - say 1/8th (high attrition) That still gives us over a THOUSAND 18th level NPC's.

No force on the planet would mess with them then. It's like having very large nuclear arsenals. Any assault would result in immediete obliteration.

Elves are now free to frolic as they like.

And the winner is!

 

[Roger]

Tell me then: how do *you* work things out?
From what sources do you derive your conceptualization of elves for the game?
What kind of elven society, culture, and civilizations have you created?
How do your elves cope with their antagonists in your campaign setting?
What sort of future do your elves look forward to?
What can PC elves in your campaign expect to deal with, directly related to their heritage as elves?

It's sort of interesting that, as far as I can see, no one has answered you on this.

As far as my own campaigns have gone, I haven't really done much in terms of creating societies and cultures for any of the races in any meaningful way. People live in the quasimedievaloid default setting. Elves hang out in the forest and do elvey things. They shoot their enemies in the face with arrows, mostly. As far as the future goes... there really isn't one, as such. Things tomorrow will be mostly the same as they are today. In a hundred years things might change, but my campaigns don't run on that sort of scale. PC elves don't have much especially to worry about. The odd orc might preferentially target them, all other things being equal. They might run into a drow ranger with favoured enemy elf. But no more so than any other PC race.

I'm happy with this approach, my players are happy with it, and it's all good.


Cheers,
Roger