What's in an elf?

[Lanefan]

What's in an elf?

Blood, I hope. And internal organs. Some spindly little bones. Possibly even a soul, or spirit, of some sort; though with some I've met 'soulless' would be a very apt description.

Lan-"you know, we really should pull a few apart and find out"-efan

 

[Minigiant]

What I'd do to elves is remove all the cultural aspects from the race and make the base race (and all races) focus on genetics. All skills, likes, and proficiencies would be due to genetic ease rather than cultural ingraining.

All cultural aspects would be regulated to themes.

And Elf would be Agile (+ Dexterity), fragile (- Constitution), fast(+ speed) have good vision (low light vision), be natural archer due to nimble fingers ("good with bows"), and have lived for more than a century before ever adventuring (bonus skill form them)


So our lofty woodsy elf would be an elf with the wilderness theme would get a bonus to stealth, perception, and survival.

And our magical haughty elf would get the arcane theme and also get the language, spell knowledge, and free spells.

 

[Khaalis]

I think each race can be boiled down to a "default" basic race and then be expanded into different sub-races. Fantasy Craft had a good concept for this with Species feats being used to create sub-species.

Example - Ef
The base elf focuses on the core of the species, which in this case is their longevity, unearthly beauty, senses, and grace - but also their more frail physical form. Due to their longevity they gain increased WIS but are also more aloof (penalties to certain skills). Due to their grace and beauty they are faster than humans, and gain a bonus with certain appearance based skills. They also have keen sight and hearing, but suffer a penalty to CON and don't heal as easily.

Some example Sub-Species are Wood Elves, Gray Elves, and Dark Elves. For instance Wood Elves gain bonuses to tracking, improved DEX, bonuses with stealth and survival, but also suffer a penalty to INT due to lack of more formal education as other elves.

 

[kitsune9]

I like the elves in Iron Kingdoms, Dragon Age, and Eberron myself. The elves in Dragon Age were pretty cool because of their oppressed backgrounds that actually made me sympathetic in that I generated a character to play one.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

O, be some other race!
What's in a race? that which we call an elf
By any other name would dance as neat;
So Eladrin would, were he not Eladrin call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title:--Eladrin, doff thy race;
And for that race, which is no part of thee,
Take all my elf.

 

[Izumi]

I think the perfect rpg Elf can see in the dark, swim underwater at great speeds, talk underwater as if they were on land, and only need to surface for air about once an hour. They need to spend a few minutes catching their breath afterwards though. They also look like tall fair-skinned humans with pointy ears, and have an affinity for magic and nature. They whine a lot when not allowed to be frivolous. Good luck asking a serious question because you'll probably get laughed at. They often live in valleys near rivers and lakes.
They are skillful in combat, act like its a wonderful game, and mysteriously don't mourn the dead at all.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

My preferred way of doing things, would be that every race has several racial bonuses you can get but you can only pick one or two of them.

For example...

Elf:
+1 dexterity
+1 speed
Low-light vision
Choose one from the following:
[A] Arcane Talent
Heightened Agility
[C] Nature Talent

OR

Dwarf
+1 constitution
-1 speed
You do not get a speed penalty for wearing heavy armor.
Low-light vision
Choose one from the following:
[A] Stone Sense
Giant Killer
[C] Weapon Talent


This is the vaguest of examples, but that is a way of solving identity issues some races have.

I would love to see this as core in 4e. It would clear up racial bloat significantly and make it easier to deal with half-breed. A while back I had worked up some house rules for 3x that did this, over here. One of the concepts I used was to define a game term of 'blooded'. This allowed for expanding weapons to target racial types, unique spells, etc.