Why Half-Elves???

[Zhure]

Sleep becomes a nonissue past L4. If your character wasn't going to survive even that long, he was hopeless to begin with. Next!

Sleep is a killer spell until level 4th level. It targets Will, it's the earliest and easiest "save or die" spell until 4th. You're saying anyone with a poor will save is hopeless?

The +saves bonus is very minor and confined to a very specific group of saves. Since 3E saves are largely rigged, and you're dead meat against anything that targets a weak save, anyway, it's not really useful. Does it even stack with the +2 saves feat?

The half-elf save boost are a racial bonus and they apply to all Enchantment spells, an entire school. Iron Will is an unnamed bonus. They stack.

The low-light vision is rather nice, admittedly, but unless your character is a stealth character such as a rogue, it's not really crippling not to have it. Even as a rogue, there's a +2 dex for going wgith full elf.

Stealth and anti-stealth characters both like low-light. It's really helpful to see the rogues coming. As a half-elf, you don't get the +2 Dex but also don't take a -2 Con and since your favored class is "any," if you're a rogue/non-wizard, you won't take XP penalties.

The +1 bonus to listen/search/spot is basically a nonfeature. The bonus is not sizeable enough to be noticed, and if you don't have the skill anyway, your ability to use these skills are nonexistent. They won't help you qualify for a PrC, and even if you do have these skills, a tiny +1 bonus isn't enough to make a real difference.

A 5% increase is a 5% increase. It's almost as good as Alertness (an underrated feat). For those classes who do get Spot/Listen/Search (Rogues, Commoners, Experts and Rangers), it saves three skill points to compete with the stealthers and for the other classes it gives an edge.

So, we can do a comparison of each of these abilities to the human and elf version.

+Saves:
Vs. Human: This is maybe a halfway version of Iron Will. Maybe counts as half of a feat.
Vs. Elf: Elves get this also.

LowLight:
Vs. Humans: This is maybe a half-feat also. It's not quite blind-fight, and it falls short of Darkvision.
Vs. Elves: Already got one.

Skills Bonus:
Vs. Human: Okay, a total of +3 to skills you may or may not actually have is supposed to somehow be the equal to +4 skillpoints at first level, +1 per every level beyond that, which is equivalent to an entirely new skill you didn't have before? Yeah, right.
Vs. Elves: The elf bonus is better, IIRC.

Bottom line:
If you're going to do something, do it right. Don't do something half-assed and pick the half-elf.

Never understimate the benefits of not taking a -2 Con. More hit points and a better Fortitude save are both excellent Wizardly boons.

 

[Thels]

-2 con means you just have to apply a little higher value to it. Especially with the point buy system it hardly becomes a hindrace (unless you're all into constitution)

If you like Dex, then Dex 16 Con 12 is quite cheaper for an elf than for a halfelf.

And I'd say crossbreeds indeed should be rare. Keep in mind that the common peasant won't see an elf his entire life. Only few people (including adventurers) from the various races would meet up with people from the other races, and even far less people would actually go and have sex with them. In most of those cases, pregnancy probably is something that comes with the package, not something they actually chose for.