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

[Fifth Element]

Have the core books offer templates for the elves and other PC races.
These templates would be higher than ECL0. They would grant the core races extraordinary and supernatural abilities. They would grant feats and skills. They would grant a great deal of backstory and description.

So you want to use racial paragon classes? Go ahead.

As for needing a template to grant backstory and description, that's seriously flawed. The backstory and description of any character should not be up to the rules. It should be up to the player's creativity, and the DM's input.

Unless you mean something else by that comment, in which case, please clarify.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

(looks at the posts above)

Pardons all, but tired here. Let me get back later, and answer your posts.
You're all making good points. Good points indeed. I just need to rest my eyes a bit, here, before making more commentary.

Yours Sincerely
Edena_of_Neith

 

[Jim Hague]

See above. I make no such (obviously and patently absurd) claims. But a baseline must be used, for the debate. We cannot debate what is undefined. We will get nowhere. Example: the RAW do not state elves live in forests. Many house rule that elves do. But we cannot debate it, for one side will simply claim it's not in the RAW, and the other side will claim the RAW are irrelevant, and the chaos will go from there. Indeed, it's already happened ... in this thread.

Except that you have, and continue to do so - elves cannot compete because humans reproduce faster, therefore must have more high-level characters, etc. That's been the crux of your entire argument - that the generic PHB elves are doomed because other generic races in the PHB and MM have such an overwhelming advantage. You've made the claim, based your entire thesis off of it. I'm sure others would be happy to quote you...there are examples aplenty by you in this very thread.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

The races of the wild states that elves can adventure at age 20.

Thus I would would presume that the rest of their 90 years to adulthood is cultural, and not really physical development.

Thus 3.5 elves are not doomed.

 

[shilsen]

This is why I didn't want to post my idea here. This thread is such a morass I wonder how many people have given up on it.

*raises hand*

I pop in once in a while and read some of the posts, but not all of them. And I'm barely bothering to skim Edena's ones, since they seem to always be a reiteration of the same points with no additional argument or evidence to back them up. And there's not much incentive (at least not for me) to post an agument any more myself, since just abotu everything that needs to be said seems to have been, and the same dead elven horse is still being kicked.

 

[fusangite]

*raises hand*

Well, let's do it. I'm thinking that the interesting issues here are what races correspond to in D&D. Are they like human societies, human phenotypes, human lineage sets or like radically different species (a la Empire of the Petal Throne/Glorantha)? What kind of generalizations can we make about their members?

I'm about to start running the first game I've run in 5 years in which there have been multiple possible PC races and over the past five years, my thinking has shifted. What do you think, shilsen & dmh? What did you guys want to discuss in this potential thread?

 

[Fifth Element]

and the same dead elven horse is still being kicked.

Hey, the point is the elves aren't dead, remember?

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

It was Moon-Lancer that came up with the rebuttal against my MRY point.
And although the source Moon-Lancer cited is not core, it is close enough. I'll take it at face value and concede the debate.

 

[fusangite]

It was Moon-Lancer that came up with the rebuttal against my MRY point.
And although the source Moon-Lancer cited is not core, it is close enough. I'll take it at face value and concede the debate.

Edena, I hope that you will proceed with the extra abilities for elves in your own setting. It sounds like an idea that will make you happy as a GM, whether it is objectiely necessary or not. Don't let the rules get in the way of your vision for your campaign world.

 

[Banshee16]

.....