# Race life expectancy issues



## Anthtriel (Nov 3, 2007)

One thing that always bothered me about D&D is the assumption that elves live at least ten times as long as humans do, yet still usually accomplish less in their life.

The common level 1 human adventurer at level 1, about 18 years old knows more (has more skills and a feat) than the elvish adventurer at over a hundred years. What exactly do elves do all the time anyway?

Now I know that 4E won't do what would be required to solve this issue (cut elf life expectancy to 200 years at most), but don't you think it's about time it gets done?
Near immortal elves worked great for Tolkien, but I really don't think it works great for most other fantasy worlds, and it certainly does not work well for RPGs. Not at all.


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## Green Knight (Nov 3, 2007)

> Now I know that 4E won't do what would be required to solve this issue (cut elf life expectancy to 200 years at most)




You wouldn't need to do that to solve the problem. Just make them mature much more quickly. If elves were adults at about the age of 20 rather then 110, then there would be no problem, even if they were to go on to live for 700 years.


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## epochrpg (Nov 3, 2007)

Or they could just make elves better at everything and give them an ECL mod...


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## Relique du Madde (Nov 3, 2007)

Or maybe Elves are extremely slow learners


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## Goken100 (Nov 3, 2007)

In my house rules, Elves get a -2 to Wisdom to reflect being young and feeling immortal and superior.  However, every hundred years or so they'd get a +1 to Int and Wis, so aged Elves would be superior to most of the folks around.  That just won't affect the young Legolas types that are going on adventures.


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## Psion (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> One thing that always bothered me about D&D is the assumption that elves live at least ten times as long as humans do, yet still usually accomplish less in their life.
> 
> The common level 1 human adventurer at level 1, about 18 years old knows more (has more skills and a feat) than the elvish adventurer at over a hundred years. What exactly do elves do all the time anyway?
> 
> Now I know that 4E won't do what would be required to solve this issue (cut elf life expectancy to 200 years at most), but don't you think it's about time it gets done?




Absolutely not. Quite to the contrary, I was aggravated that they cut the lifespan of elves in 3e.

The problem I have is assuming that adult age scales more-or-less proportionally with venerable age. It just shatters my SOD to have 1st level elves and dwarves be over 100 years old.

IMC, I put age categories on an exponential curve. A beginning elf IMC is more likely to be 40 or so years old, rather than 100.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 3, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> Absolutely not. Quite to the contrary, I was aggravated that they cut the lifespan of elves in 3e.
> 
> The problem I have is assuming that adult age scales more-or-less proportionally with venerable age. It just shatters my SOD to have 1st level elves and dwarves be over 100 years old.
> 
> IMC, I put age categories on an exponential curve. A beginning elf IMC is more likely to be 40 or so years old, rather than 100.



That's better, sure, but then unless you do something drastic, there are (or should be), a couple of extremely wise and powerful Elves around, and you have the LotR problem where being something other than a elf, or someone with elf blood or elf connections basically means that you suck.

It's hard (though not impossible) to imagine a world in which 1000 year old elves, who are sometimes more intelligent than humans to start with, somehow get pushed to the side by some upstart humans. How can a human wizard compete with his elven colleague who has done the same thing for a couple of centuries? 
The existing campaign worlds do a very poor job at it (as far as I'm concerned, I suppose the majority disagrees)


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## Psion (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> That's better, sure, but then unless you do something drastic, there are (or should be), a couple of extremely wise and powerful Elves around, and you have the LotR problem where being something other than a elf, or someone with elf blood or elf connections basically means that you suck.




If you don't assume that levels are an inevitable result of age--and given most NPCs are 1st level commoners, why should they--this result is not in the least bit inevitable. If you make elves and dwarves a dwindling race (as in LotR) but humans a populous one, but make level a measure of heroism as much as age, then high level humans are as common as high level elves.

That said, my classic campaign world DOES assume that longer lived races typically do have a few additional levels. Not a lot, mind you... elves and dwarves will be fielding units of 2nd-4th level where humans field 1st-2nd. But I think that's consistent with the flavor of these races having legendary skill.

The idea of social implications you bring up doesn't arise if you don't use the very WotC, very-un-LotR convention of integrated societies.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 3, 2007)

> If you don't assume that levels are an inevitable result of age--and given most NPCs are 1st level commoners, why should they--this result is not in the least bit inevitable. If you make elves and dwarves a dwindling race (as in LotR) but humans a populous one, but make level a measure of heroism as much as age, then high level humans are as common as high level elves.



 It works to some extent for warrior types, but is quite hard to justify for wizards and the like. You could say that some are more talented than others, but then elves are usually portrayed as more capable in magic than humans. And even if you assume humans are the best wizards, it still hardly justifies the extreme difference in time available. It doesn't pop up in LotR that much, because magic is weaker and less accessible. Elves don't benefit that much from knowing tons more than humans (and even then they are portrayed as superior to humans in virtually every way, and every powerful human has elf blood).



			
				Psion said:
			
		

> The idea of social implications you bring up doesn't arise if you don't use the very WotC, very-un-LotR convention of integrated societies.



That's precisely my problem. Long aged elves are a staple that has been copied in nearly all fantasy. But to make that work, the game world needs to accommodate it. Elves and elfen society needs to be very different.
As Fantasy slowly (finally) starts to develop away from Tolkien, some staples need to reexamined, to make sure they still work. It is my belief that thousand year old elves don't work, don't work at all, in a world where they live and work side by side with normal humans, as is the case in current Forgotten Realms and Eberron.


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## DevoutlyApathetic (Nov 3, 2007)

I've always gone with the assumption that elves are not just long lived humans with pointy ears but have a much different mentality than humans.

Chief among the changes is that they are far too complacent by humans standards.  Less likely to apply themselves as rigorously as humans, far more likely to accept things as they are.

Of course, my elves are typically the "Dying of the Light" kind.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 3, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> That said, my classic campaign world DOES assume that longer lived races typically do have a few additional levels. Not a lot, mind you... elves and dwarves will be fielding units of 2nd-4th level where humans field 1st-2nd. But I think that's consistent with the flavor of these races having legendary skill.



That's in interesting idea. Dwarves aren't really better miners or craftsmen than humans, and elvens aren't better at spellcasting. Most of them are just older and have more experience in their chosen professions. 

Though this means that an Elven 1st level character is a very rare sight. Maybe it's not that bad - after all, PCs are always a rare kind of people.



> Chief among the changes is that they are far too complacent by humans standards. Less likely to apply themselves as rigorously as humans, far more likely to accept things as they are.



Dwarves live in a fixed, strict society (Lawful Good). THey follow a set of rules, that inhibit them to advance. A Dwarf Craftsmen has to learn 200 ancient techniques to craft a Dwarven Waraxe that his ancestors invented, but each of them still gets the same job done. 
A Human would just pick up one of the techniques and go to the next step of learning.

Elves live in a free society with little rules and guidance (Chaotic Good). Since they have an incredibly long life, there is no rush to find your "place in life". They experiment with dozens of things, never concentrating long enough to pick something up. 
A Human knows that he has only a few decades to live, so he picks up a a job soon, to ensure that he has a legacy to give on.

These are approaches to compensate them, but they still require a lot of suspension of disbelief. 
I'd prefer if all humanoids with normal Intellectual Capabilities would become adult between 15-30 years.


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## Psion (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> It works to some extent for warrior types, but is quite hard to justify for wizards and the like. You could say that some are more talented than others, but then elves are usually portrayed as more capable in magic than humans. And even if you assume humans are the best wizards, it still hardly justifies the extreme difference in time available. It doesn't pop up in LotR that much, because magic is weaker and less accessible. Elves don't benefit that much from knowing tons more than humans (and even then they are portrayed as superior to humans in virtually every way, and every powerful human has elf blood).




Again, this seems to me to be something that is entirely the province of the GM. You can mash around these numbers any way you like. If elves are 1/10th as populous as humans, but you give them just as many high level wizards as human settlements 10x the size, then there are a comparable numbers of human and elven high level wizards. That alone would be noteworthy to those keeping count. You could go so far as to make high level elven wizards twice as common; it would fit the in-game flavor, but the numbers are such that the GM can grab human or elven wizards as desired.



> That's precisely my problem. Long aged elves are a staple that has been copied in nearly all fantasy. But to make that work, the game world needs to accommodate it. Elves and elfen society needs to be very different.




That, I can only agree with. The way that recent products have plopped different races together like they were just humans of different hair color strikes me as bland at the very least. But as has been noted in another thread, simulationism is becoming less of a concern in the current spate of designers, and I imagine we will only see that trend continue.


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## Abstraction (Nov 3, 2007)

They spent all their time playing video games and watching movies? There's nothing that says elves spend their time _useful_ ways.


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## 0bsolete (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> It works to some extent for warrior types, but is quite hard to justify for wizards and the like. You could say that some are more talented than others, but then elves are usually portrayed as more capable in magic than humans. And even if you assume humans are the best wizards, it still hardly justifies the extreme difference in time available. It doesn't pop up in LotR that much, because magic is weaker and less accessible. Elves don't benefit that much from knowing tons more than humans (and even then they are portrayed as superior to humans in virtually every way, and every powerful human has elf blood).




My ingame explanation for this is fairly basic. Humans accept things as they are without questioning. A human is born in a town where everybody worships Pelor? He's going to almost certainly end up worshiping Pelor to a certain degree. A human finds out that if he smelts ores in method X they are better than method Y. The reason why doesn't matter, it just is and thats useful. Elves though, are philosophically minded. They grow up with parents who worship Corellon Larethian and they question every aspect of it and see if they personally want that. They notice that smelting method X is more effective than Y and so they write it down and study and contemplate why its more effective. A couple years spent and haven't figured it out? Thats fine, you have all the time in the world but you'll figure it out one day. 

Comparing this to wizards though. A human wizard figures out that if he does X,Y and Z he gets a fireball. Thats wonderful and useful, perfect. Next spell. An elven wizard figures out that if he does X,Y and Z he gets a fireball, but what if he tweaks it and does R on top of that? Wow, the fireball that is more blusish. But you know, purple is a far better color, so lets spend four months finding out a way to make the fireball purple.

Basically, human wizards see a tool. They use that tool, bend it to their will and make it their own to do what they want as quickly as they can but an elf sees an artform and something wtih untold possibilities and they want to explore every single aspect of that artform. For this reason, all my elven NPC's have a handful of spellbooks, one is for war, another for illusion, another is for cooking and household cores, yet another is just random experiments. You walk into a human wizards tower  and everything has a purpose, but in an elfs you might have a teleporter or a reverse gravity spell just because its kinda fun. They spend centuries perfecting an art, humans spend decades using a tool.


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## Kahuna Burger (Nov 3, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> The problem I have is assuming that adult age scales more-or-less proportionally with venerable age. It just shatters my SOD to have 1st level elves and dwarves be over 100 years old.



If you were a dog, it would probably shatter your SoD to have humans who aren't potty trained at 2 1/2 to 3, but there's quite a lot of them.    Prolonged infancy is one of the things that allows human intelligence and adaptability, why not an "advanced" race with an even more prolonged one?


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## Banshee16 (Nov 3, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> Absolutely not. Quite to the contrary, I was aggravated that they cut the lifespan of elves in 3e.
> 
> The problem I have is assuming that adult age scales more-or-less proportionally with venerable age. It just shatters my SOD to have 1st level elves and dwarves be over 100 years old.
> 
> IMC, I put age categories on an exponential curve. A beginning elf IMC is more likely to be 40 or so years old, rather than 100.




That's what Races of the Wild does in 3E....and, for that matter, it's what was done to Dargonesti elves (Dragonlance) in 2nd Ed. in the book "Otherlands".  It has always worked far better than having elves who take 20 years to get out of diapers.

It's very simple, really.....elves are physically and mentally mature by age 35-40.  They might not be considered culturally mature though...sort of like how in our world in some places, people aren't fully adult, and allowed to drink until 21, and in others, they can when they're 18, or possibly younger.

I think that among NPC elves, you might have some who follow their culture's norms, and they are the 110 year old lvl 1 characters.  But among PCs, they stand out, and might buck the trend....so you have your lvl 1 40 year old elf.  Coincidentally, the PC elf is also the one who is lvl 10, and has fought in a few wars already, who points out to the old human vet that he is 90 years old, even if he looks like a 16 year old kid.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 3, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> If you were a dog, it would probably shatter your SoD to have humans who aren't potty trained at 2 1/2 to 3, but there's quite a lot of them.    Prolonged infancy is one of the things that allows human intelligence and adaptability, why not an "advanced" race with an even more prolonged one?




Because in humans, our prolonged childhood is because we're born incomplete.  The brain isn't fully developed/matured yet....but we've evolved that way, because physiologically, the head size of human babies would be too large, if it contained a fully developed brain, and consequently couldn't pass through the birth canal of the mother, without killing her.  We've simply adapted biologically to the best way possibly, at this point in the evolution of our species, to create children who can survive upon birth, without killing the mother.

Elves in the game don't really have larger brains.  If they did, they'd likely have several edges that humans don't, and would have an ECL as a result.

I'm in favour of simply reducing the minimum starting age for elves.  That would deal with the whole problem.

I suspect that at this point, the designers have simply carried over conventions created during an earlier edition (2nd Ed.), and somehow it became a "sacred cow".  Just like their short stature, and their reduced lifespans.....Elves did, afterall, live upwards of 1200-2000 years in 1st Ed., and I don't think they were as short as they're described now.  And in the novels, among printed NPCs etc. how many elves are actually as short as described in the PHB?  Very few.  Drizzt is described as 5'3", and in the Dark Elf Trilogy, he isn't described as being a giant among his people, yet FWIR, the height charts in 2nd Ed. showed male drow as maxing out at 5' tall.  There was another drow in that series who *was* described as exceptionally large, and he was like 6'.  In Dragonlance, Laurana is depicted as 5'6", and her brother Gilthanas is even taller.  Yet according to the height charts, neither is capable of achieving such a height.

Or, if you look at the history of Dragonlance, Kith-Kanan, Sithas, and Sithel all lived over 1000 years each....which is beyond the absolute maximum age described in the PHB's for 2nd and 3rd Ed.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 3, 2007)

Abstraction said:
			
		

> They spent all their time playing video games and watching movies? There's nothing that says elves spend their time _useful_ ways.




I read an article that studies have shown that youths who play video games, particularly shooters, where pinpoint accuracy is important, develop exceptional hand-eye coordination and motor skills, which are *highly* important for certain professions.......like brain surgeon .

Just because the media wants us to believe there's no value in some of these things, doesn't mean they're right.  

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> As Fantasy slowly (finally) starts to develop away from Tolkien, some staples need to reexamined, to make sure they still work. It is my belief that thousand year old elves don't work, don't work at all, in a world where they live and work side by side with normal humans, as is the case in current Forgotten Realms and Eberron.




I guess that works for you then, since they haven't had 1000 year old elves in the rules since 1st Ed. 

Banshee


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## KoshPWNZYou (Nov 3, 2007)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Elves live in a free society with little rules and guidance (Chaotic Good). Since they have an incredibly long life, there is no rush to find your "place in life". They experiment with dozens of things, never concentrating long enough to pick something up.
> A Human knows that he has only a few decades to live, so he picks up a a job soon, to ensure that he has a legacy to give on.




Precisely. The typical elf can stare at a lake for an entire day admiring its beauty and serenity. The typical human looks at it for a few minutes then says 'oh yeah, I'm going to be dead, like, tomorrow, so I'd better go continue my sword training...'


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## Banshee16 (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> That's better, sure, but then unless you do something drastic, there are (or should be), a couple of extremely wise and powerful Elves around, and you have the LotR problem where being something other than a elf, or someone with elf blood or elf connections basically means that you suck.
> 
> It's hard (though not impossible) to imagine a world in which 1000 year old elves, who are sometimes more intelligent than humans to start with, somehow get pushed to the side by some upstart humans. How can a human wizard compete with his elven colleague who has done the same thing for a couple of centuries?
> The existing campaign worlds do a very poor job at it (as far as I'm concerned, I suppose the majority disagrees)




Birth rate....simple as that.  And possibly, they're less aggressive.  In RL, cultures that were less aggressive tended to lose out through much of our history.  They'd get conquered by other cultures more willing to take what they wanted.

Elves might live long, and have great "scientists", but if two elves marry, and start a family, after 100 years, those two elves might have created 3-10 new people (assuming either a fruitfull elven couple with 10 kids, or two generations, with them having 3 kids, and each of those kids having 3 kids)

If two humans marry, and start a family, after 100 years, those two humans might have created like 500 descendents (assuming 4 generations of 25 years each, 5 children each generation, 5x5x5x5).

Those are very rough numbers but it's just to try and demonstrate the example.

How many children you have should have no bearing on how powerful you are fighting that blue dragon.  But neither should whether you live 100 or 1000 years.....aside from having more time to become a better dragonslayer.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 3, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> Again, this seems to me to be something that is entirely the province of the GM. You can mash around these numbers any way you like. If elves are 1/10th as populous as humans, but you give them just as many high level wizards as human settlements 10x the size, then there are a comparable numbers of human and elven high level wizards. That alone would be noteworthy to those keeping count. You could go so far as to make high level elven wizards twice as common; it would fit the in-game flavor, but the numbers are such that the GM can grab human or elven wizards as desired.




Either "Stone of Farewell" or "To Green Angel Tower" dealt with this in a way.  In one of those books, the Sithi (elves) went to war against the Norns, and by the descriptions of it, all of those combatants were "heroes".  It was like reading the Illiad......all of these Sithi and Norns were veterans who had fought in many conflicts, and were supremely skilled.

Yes, they could live longer (Sithi were immortal)....but they probably didn't have an ECL.  It's just that even though they had a much smaller population, a much higher proportion of the population had high character levels.  By contrast, the humans had a massive advantage in population and birth rate, but tonnes of commoners and lvl 1 or 2 warriors.  Statistically, yes, they had their vets and heroes etc......but because a hero would have a career spanning maybe 25 years, and then retire, have children, and die, they're always recycling their heroes.

By contrast, the elves might start at lvl 1, but their veterans who are lvl 3's are still in condition to fight again in 25 years, and the survivors of that conflict are now lvl 6.....so that after centuries, instead of having masses of fresh young lvl 1 talent, they've got a small group of lvl 10 veterans who are incredibly skilled.  Not invulnerable, and a human lvl 10 hero can still be a match against them....but the humans just can't put together entire units of these guys.

Banshee


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## Stalker0 (Nov 3, 2007)

There is also the consideration that as far as adventuring goes, elves and dwarves have a lot more to lose than humans.

I mean from all intensive purposes the adventuring lifestyle is CRAZY. You fight weird monsters that can kill you with a glance all to acquire wealth and fame and the like. That's a lifestyle few would choose.

Elves and Dwarves are probably less likely to adventure than a typical human. Humans have "nothing to lose". Elves have that 1000 year life to worry about, why risk cutting it short with adventuring?

That partly explains why a lot of high level characters are still humans, that kind of risk and danger promotes higher levels than the elf who just sits around and hangs out.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 3, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> How many children you have should have no bearing on how powerful you are fighting that blue dragon.  But neither should whether you live 100 or 1000 years.....aside from having more time to become a better dragonslayer.



Which matters quite a lot. Especially, as I pointed out, for professions more dependant on experience. A 50 year old master craftsman/wizard/pretty_much_anything is considered very much superior to his 20 year old neophyte colleague. But compared to his 500 year old colleague, who, contrary to the human, doesn't suffer from age deterioration, that master must look like an absolute beginner. Living hundreds of years is crazy. Usually, humans do something and get better and better until they start getting worse, due to age. As knowledge expands and humanity advances, there is less and less time for an individual to have a decent grasp of a discipline and still advance it. Eliminate the age problem, and slap hundreds of years on top of that, and who knows where we would be?
If Newton, Da Vinci or Descartes were elves, they would still live, and god knows where science would be. 

I appreciate the whole "elves are completely different", "elves don't singlemindedly set themselves to a goal" argument. That works, but it makes elven society entirely alien to humans. You cannot have elves living in the same towns, they need to be much more than humans with pointy ears, very hard to portray correctly. This is an assumption that is just not there in modern fantasy.

And I would argue that Tolkien already does this to some extent. And the elves are still superhumans who do everything better than humans. The only humans in LotR who can hold a candle to elves are themselves of elven descent and have abnormal life spans. 
Sure, they are pushed to the side by the sheer mass of humans to some extent, yes, but even then, they are a notable power, and would be much more if they would actually care and not just set sail.

Eberron never made assumptions like that, and FR in 3E actually made a point to make elves interested in the world around them, and to integrate themselves into human cities. Modern fantasy elves are not the Tolkien elves, they are human with pointy ears who live hundreds of years and still don't accomplish much, because they are somehow ridiculosly incompetent.


Adding to that, I stopped seeing any reason why you would need to have elves that live that long anyway, just because Tolkien did it that way back then. The benefits (completely different, alien society) are not really employed anymore, because people have grown sick of the reclusive elves slowly sailing away we had for 30 years.


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## coyote6 (Nov 3, 2007)

I'd rather have elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. all mature only a little slower than humans. The current set up bugs me (so I changed it  ).


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## howandwhy99 (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> One thing that always bothered me about D&D is the assumption that elves live at least ten times as long as humans do, yet still usually accomplish less in their life.
> 
> The common level 1 human adventurer at level 1, about 18 years old knows more (has more skills and a feat) than the elvish adventurer at over a hundred years. What exactly do elves do all the time anyway?
> 
> ...



Long lived races work for RPGs.  Just check out World of Darkness.  Advancing generations is practically the point of the game.  

Elves, like turtles, live a long, long time.  And both essentially do very little moment to moment.  Elves frolic, carouse, dance, sing, and basically do what we'd consider wasting your life away. 

It's the opposite for races with shorter lifespans than humans.  They've got what?  10, 20 years before they die of old age?  Time to get busy living.  Midlife crises could hit in your teens.  

Just think about how you'd change your life, if you were certain that instead of having 30 years left you had 3.   Or 300.  Or 3000.  Or... Life expectancy changes your motivations.


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## Clavis (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> The common level 1 human adventurer at level 1, about 18 years old knows more (has more skills and a feat) than the elvish adventurer at over a hundred years. *What exactly do elves do all the time anyway?*




I figure elves spend most of their childhood (and most of their lives) taking drugs, having sex, listening to music, and making art. When death is a thousand years away, and you live off of the bounty of the forest, what's the need to do anything else?


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## Anthtriel (Nov 3, 2007)

Clavis said:
			
		

> I figure elves spend most of their childhood (and most of their lives) taking drugs, having sex, listening to music, and making art. When death is a thousand years away, and you live off of the bounty of the forest, what's the need to do anything else?



That's great for those elves who live in secluded forests, like in Tolkien. Not so great for elves who live in human cities, or constantly battle orcs. Like ... uh ... the elves of the Forgotten Realms, or the Elves of Eberron.


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## KoshPWNZYou (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> That's great for those elves who live in secluded forests, like in Tolkien. Not so great for elves who live in human cities, or constantly battle orcs. Like ... uh ... the elves of the Forgotten Realms, or the Elves of Eberron.




But war and city-living drag down life expectancy anyway. If they're constantly battling orcs, how long are even the most capable combatants going to last? And in a medieval city how often do even short-lived people die of old age?


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## Anthtriel (Nov 3, 2007)

KoshPWNZYou said:
			
		

> But war and city-living drag down life expectancy anyway. If they're constantly battling orcs, how long are even the most capable combatants going to last? And in a medieval city how often do even short-lived people die of old age?



Well great, if they all die before they turn 100 they don't a life expectancy beyond that anyway, so we should cut it.


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## KoshPWNZYou (Nov 3, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> Well great, if they all die before they turn 100 they don't a life expectancy beyond that anyway, so we should cut it.




Oh, I think it serves its purpose. The whole 'long view' thing is part of what distinguishes them (the Galadriel-esque wood-dwellers, at least).

But you're picking out a couple of unorthodox examples of elves. The D&D elf (my Eberron knowledge is not expansive) usually keeps a distance from cities. The city-dweller is going to be a rare example, and needs to be treated more as if he/she is a human. And if elves are -constantly- fighting and have been for centuries how are they going to have time to establish an 'elven identity' as opposed to a 'battle-hardened identity?'

A more common scenario is a prototypical elven society with some border skirmishing against monsters and a few wars scattered over the course of a few centuries. They might have a general or two who managed to survive all of them, but those few wars weren't enough experience for 20 levels of Fighter. You'll always have an ideal amount of fighting to limit experience -- too much limits survivability while too little limits practice.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Nov 3, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> I read an article that studies have shown that youths who play video games, particularly shooters, where pinpoint accuracy is important, develop exceptional hand-eye coordination and motor skills, which are *highly* important for certain professions.......like brain surgeon .
> 
> Just because the media wants us to believe there's no value in some of these things, doesn't mean they're right.
> 
> Banshee



In Korea playing video games is a lucrative career path.  The best gamers (almost always playing Starcraft) can make a fortune in corporate sponsorships.  They recruit them in their early teens, and retire them around age 18 or so, when the reflexes start to slow down.  After that, they're usually scooped up by brokerages in order to train them to trade stocks.  Having the kind of brain that's used to the kind of quick integration of multiple strings of data in real-time that professional gamers have is apparently a real advantage when you need to make educated judgments about stock trades in the short time you have before the window of opportunity has closed.


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## Winterthorn (Nov 3, 2007)

*Excellent topic! Let me share my recent brainstorm...*

I think this topic actually touches on many levels of the game and speaks of many solutions:
1) DM's camapign interpretations/DM's worldbuilding,
2) house rules,
3) in-game explanations,
4) alternative game design/game mechanics, 

and combinations of the above.

I too have felt there was damage to my suspension of disbelief whenever the question of a non-human race's age was compared to "experience" and knowledge. And I think the principle cause of this effect was the gradual diminishment of mechanical and conceptual distinctions between humans and other races. Look at the 3E rules that separate humans from elves: a couple of +2 racial bonuses, bilingual but less diversity in bonus languages, low-light vision, and a few weapon proficiencies, and some rarely used racial special abilities. These differences are mechnically trivial, especially as one gains levels, in the sense that advantages only occur under a few specific circumstances - mostly when dungeon delving as low level adventurers - and otherwise they are just humans with pointy ears. Dwarves and the other classic "demi-humans" are no better mechanically speaking. (That's been my expereince in many games as DM or as a player.)

This problem of weak distinctions between races is underscored by the nature of this thread's topic. While one can adequtely argue that elves are very different from humans in their development - as the tables on racial ages strongly suggest - my experience tells me the differences are effectively feeble in practice. 1st level elves can adventure with 1st level humans who are 1/5th their age, but the in-game explanations can look like trite, convenient excuses - very unsatisfying to me. I know some of this in 3E is designed to protect game balance between players, but there's a lack of luster and logic. It just shows that endless choices in a game system actually risks a loss of distinction and undermines flavour. The bigger the buffet of combinations the bigger the mess. 

So all we are left with to explain this is to invent some deeper convoluted reasoning or create our own interpretations in our campign worlds. Or something more radical: start seriously tweaking the rules on races.

My preference: look back at earlier editions to re-examine what made races more distinct then than now. (I expect going forward 4E will be even worse on racial distinctions; I bet we'll just have funky looks, very weak racial rules, and racial backgrounds of low relevence while in actual play). Earlier editions don't offer precise answers (and have their own logic problems) but many players and DMs definitely felt that elves then were really different than humans.

Since 3E gave us a whole host of fully detailed game rules that we can more easily tinker with, I'm on the path to creating more profound changes to races to account for differences - so elves are no longer humans with pointy ears. Not only that, but as we are dealing with the genre of fantasy, we can more easily justify racial differences in rules built from ideas stemming from fantasy. (The trick to making fantasy logic "work", IMHO, is to make it consistent!)

I'll have to post my details on this later (and in the HR forum), but I'm all for reintroducing limits upon alignments*, classes, and even levels in classes, predicated upon racial physiological, psychological, and cultural differences! For starters we can easily double almost all the race-based skill modifiers so the mechanics are genuinely and continuously relevent in-game. Give long-lived races, especially elves, lots of racial skill modifiers (mostly bonuses, but penalties could be a good idea too - e.g. if elves are typically aloof, give them a racial penalty on diplomacy skill rolls, that way half-elves can play a more significant social role considering they have a bonus to that skill).

So why not re-introduce limitations and also award bonuses predicated on the fantasy race one chooses to play. Those limitatation and bonuses, if planned well, can expain a great many things about age vs knowledge/experience. If these changes are logical and wholely playable, then maybe the distinctions that make an elf very different from a human can become very relevent to the in-game experience. Grant a racial bonus to elves for their decades of study of Spellcraft (and a penalty for dwarves for their many years of lack of interest in Spellcraft). Give elves a racial bonus for Use Magic Device. Give some sub-races of elves a racial bonus to Knowledge (arcana). These, and other potential changes, are not game breaking bonuses, but more defined advantages that can be countered by "realistic" limits on class options, etc.

Then there's the question of overall game balance itself: well, if need be, I'd favour implementing Level Adjustments (for ECL) where it would be most effective and fair. 3E has given us the rule set that allows us to make effective and playable changes borrowed upon ideas from past editions. Now "ancient" elves in a low-level adventuring party can be made to "work" without contrived explanations. Race limits can add to fun and be logical, and can therefore enrich the flavour of the game. The details are up to our creative imaginations. What will happen in 4E relating to this topic? I really don't know.

-W

*example: if alignment really matters as a game concept, I'm having it that elves absolutely cannot be Evil but not immune to "falling", and drow are absolutely always Evil but still redemable. How? Elves of any sub-race who "fall from grace", actually transform into drow! (Although the idea is that such an occurance is very rare and the stuff of legendary tragedy.) And a drow who, through some incredible act of heroism, redeems herself/himself, actual tranforms into an elf (sub-race dependent on campaign conditions and DM's guidance). That's an example of fantasy logic that can work. It has a lot of interesting potential relating to both magic and divine influence/campaign world history. Lots of symbolism at work. (The same fantasy logic can be employed on dwarves vs duergar.) 
Humans, in comparison, are allowed to be any alignment (but a DM can say "no Evil in the PC party please"), and thus retain the realism of the trials of being human that we all know so well from real life.


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## Kahuna Burger (Nov 3, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> Because in humans, our prolonged childhood is because we're born incomplete.  The brain isn't fully developed/matured yet....but we've evolved that way, because physiologically, the head size of human babies would be too large, if it contained a fully developed brain, and consequently couldn't pass through the birth canal of the mother, without killing her.  We've simply adapted biologically to the best way possibly, at this point in the evolution of our species, to create children who can survive upon birth, without killing the mother.
> 
> Elves in the game don't really have larger brains.  If they did, they'd likely have several edges that humans don't, and would have an ECL as a result.



of course not, that's OUR reason.   

My point is that in another species there no particular reason for them to have the same length of infancy/adolecence/maturity as humans. If you want them to, fine, but there is nothing SoD blowing in principle about a species with a 100 year adolescence. Green sea turtles are thought to reach sexual adolescence at 25 years. Egg layers, no head issue, they are just different. 

I guess it just seems strange to me because I constantly read complaints of fantasy races being just "humans with funny ears" etc, so to see complaints that having something actually significantly different about them is bad for SoD seems so far to the other direction....


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## Clavis (Nov 3, 2007)

Clavis said:
			
		

> I figure elves spend most of their childhood (and most of their lives) taking drugs, having sex, listening to music, and making art. When death is a thousand years away, and you live off of the bounty of the forest, what's the need to do anything else?






			
				Anthtriel said:
			
		

> That's great for those elves who live in secluded forests, like in Tolkien. Not so great for elves who live in human cities, or constantly battle orcs. Like ... uh ... the elves of the Forgotten Realms, or the Elves of Eberron.




Actually, I figure the city elves have even MORE reason to live that way. After all, there's a lot of money to be made selling entertainment, drugs, and sex to humans! I see elven neighborhoods in human cities as similar to Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. And I also see human clerics condemning the elves as examples of laziness and immorality.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 3, 2007)

@Winterthorn: If you give elves all kind of racial abilities, you risk giving them too many abilities that never actually come up. And those are bad design. The ideal ability is one that is relevant as often as possible, yet still isn't broken.
Also, contrary to what designers may want you to believe, ECL doesn't work. Maybe sometimes for warrior characters, if the race doesn't have any particularily problematic ability, but otherwise, LA just sucks. Especially for casters. Which are very common among elves. Also, people hate racial limits. You won't get much support for reintroducing them.
You are right that there is currently some disconnect, elves have that huge difference to humans in their life expectancy, yet 3E lacks the rules and flavor to make it work (that 2E arguably had to a greater extent). But given that the 2E rules very extremely unpopular, and everyone rejoiced when level limits got the axe (and elves stopped sailing away, but I'm not as sure of the reactions), I think just cutting the elf life expectancy is the easier way out.


For the purpose of this thread (well, being able to decently reply), I actually just re-read all the racial entries in the Races of Eberron and Races of Faerun books.

And what I found out was thus:
In Eberron, most of the elves are NOT reclusive and do NOT spend most of their time singing and jumping around. There is one reclusive elven nation, but also one that is very aggressive and expansionist. Most of the other elves, making up about 8% of the entire population of most "human" nations are explicitly mostly defined by the values by their nations and explicitly have much more in common with the humans of those nations than with other elves.

In the Forgotten Realms, the issue is less severe. In Races of Faerun, there even is a paragraph asking what elves would accomplish if they had human zeal. Nevertheless, it is explicitly stated that moon elves, the most numerous elf subrace outside of Evermeet, are just as likely to live among humans as among elves. There even is a notable example in the Silver Marshes.
Sun Elves are sufficiently reclusive, but then it is explicitly stated that they are not lazy at all, but study very hard. Though, similar to the point raised in this thread, they are described as perfectionists, so it is imagineable that sun elf wizards will research less effectively than his human counterpart. Their wizards still have four hours per day, +2 intelligence and a few hundred years over their human colleagues, but then the Forgotten Realms are so ridiculosly high magic that any decent wizard makes himself immortal anyway.
Wood Elves and Wild Elves are very reclusive, so they should be unproblematic.


So my beef is mainly with Forgotten Realms moon elves (the iconic elves) and practially all Eberron elves. Those live very similar and very close to humans in all ways, except that they live way, way longer. And somehow it makes no difference at all. Which doesn't make any sense no matter how you slice or look at it. The settings don't even address it.



> Oh, I think it serves its purpose. The whole 'long view' thing is part of what distinguishes them (the Galadriel-esque wood-dwellers, at least).



 The FR has been moving away from Tolkien elves and the Eberron did something completely different. So the elves of D&D's two main settings already don't have much of the flavor that has been described throughout this thread anymore.

And without that flavor, the life expectancy becomes very problematic. If your elf tries to accomplish as much as a human does (and modern elves do) and is not all that rare anymore (about 10% of the population in Eberron, increasing population in the FR), then they either need to live not much longer than humans (about 200 years sounds good), or you need a lot of suspension of disbelief.



> Actually, I figure the city elves have even MORE reason to live that way. After all, there's a lot of money to be made selling entertainment, drugs, and sex to humans! I see elven neighborhoods in human cities as similar to Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. And I also see human clerics condemning the elves as examples of laziness and immorality.



 Not bad. But then all your elves need to be part of the entertainment industry (otherwise they would need to get an actual job sooner or later). I don't know if you really want all your elves in a setting stereotyped that heavily, but the idea has much potential if you apply it to a single town or so.


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## kasin (Nov 4, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> One thing that always bothered me about D&D is the assumption that elves live at least ten times as long as humans do, yet still usually accomplish less in their life.
> 
> The common level 1 human adventurer at level 1, about 18 years old knows more (has more skills and a feat) than the elvish adventurer at over a hundred years. What exactly do elves do all the time anyway?




Remember that levels are gained through risk. No risk, no xp. The lifespan of an elven adventurer is the same as that of a human adventurer (probably months).

Also NPCs don't have the nice progression of CR appropriate encounters, they just fight what they encounter. Today a group of orcs, tomorrow a group of stone giants. Whoop, TPK.


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## HeinorNY (Nov 4, 2007)

The relation between Elves and men regarding age and knowledge is the same as men and dogs.
A five years* old street dog knows a LOT about survival, but a five years human is a defenseless kid.
So when I play an elf that is 110 years old and knows the same as a 20 years old human, I just consider men to be dogs 

*I'm not a dog person so have no idea how old is an adult dog, but you got my idea.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 4, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> @Winterthorn: If you give elves all kind of racial abilities, you risk giving them too many abilities that never actually come up. And those are bad design. The ideal ability is one that is relevant as often as possible, yet still isn't broken.
> Also, contrary to what designers may want you to believe, ECL doesn't work. Maybe sometimes for warrior characters, if the race doesn't have any particularily problematic ability, but otherwise, LA just sucks. Especially for casters. Which are very common among elves. Also, people hate racial limits. You won't get much support for reintroducing them.
> You are right that there is currently some disconnect, elves have that huge difference to humans in their life expectancy, yet 3E lacks the rules and flavor to make it work (that 2E arguably had to a greater extent). But given that the 2E rules very extremely unpopular, and everyone rejoiced when level limits got the axe (and elves stopped sailing away, but I'm not as sure of the reactions), I think just cutting the elf life expectancy is the easier way out.
> 
> ...




I'd prefer they actually extend the lifespans....put them back around 1200 years or so....and balance out the spread, so the "adult" stage lasts longer.  Something I've never liked in the 2E/3E lifespan is that the elf spends 100 years growing up, 75 years as an adult, and then 175 to 575 years as an old person...

Banshee


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## Ahglock (Nov 4, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> That's better, sure, but then unless you do something drastic, there are (or should be), a couple of extremely wise and powerful Elves around, and you have the LotR problem where being something other than a elf, or someone with elf blood or elf connections basically means that you suck.
> 
> It's hard (though not impossible) to imagine a world in which 1000 year old elves, who are sometimes more intelligent than humans to start with, somehow get pushed to the side by some upstart humans. How can a human wizard compete with his elven colleague who has done the same thing for a couple of centuries?
> The existing campaign worlds do a very poor job at it (as far as I'm concerned, I suppose the majority disagrees)





I just assume all races have access to life extending magics.  I never removed them form my game like 3e did.  If you can have long lived elves and the universe doesn't crash down you can have long lived humans so I saw no need to remove it.

Basically if you have enough wealth or power in my game world old age isn't going to kill you.  Heck in the largest Human country they got so sick of "Elven" craftsmanship they started a program where any human who displayed certain levels of skills in any craft or profession would get access to life extending magics.  Not everyone would take it or at least take it forever but there are a multitude of Tralin(yes I suck at names) citizens who are 1000+ years old.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 4, 2007)

Ahglock said:
			
		

> I just assume all races have access to life extending magics.  I never removed them form my game like 3e did.  If you can have long lived elves and the universe doesn't crash down you can have long lived humans so I saw no need to remove it.
> 
> Basically if you have enough wealth or power in my game world old age isn't going to kill you.  Heck in the largest Human country they got so sick of "Elven" craftsmanship they started a program where any human who displayed certain levels of skills in any craft or profession would get access to life extending magics.  Not everyone would take it or at least take it forever but there are a multitude of Tralin(yes I suck at names) citizens who are 1000+ years old.



Works great for high magic worlds of course, but I suppose in most campaign worlds life extending magic wouldn't be that common.

Oh, and doesn't that mean that any important citizen, certainly anyone in power, would live as long as he wants to? The resulting society should be pretty interesting.

The danger is of course that you end up with a Harry Potter world, or Faerun or Eberron. Something that looks great and familiar on the outside, but breaks into pieces once you look at the internal logic that holds it together.


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## Psion (Nov 4, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> If you were a dog, it would probably shatter your SoD to have humans who aren't potty trained at 2 1/2 to 3, but there's quite a lot of them.    Prolonged infancy is one of the things that allows human intelligence and adaptability, why not an "advanced" race with an even more prolonged one?




Unfortunately, I understand the physiological differences between humans and dogs that require this... and they are quite a bit less pronounced between humans and elves.   

So while that sort of handwavey comparison might fly for you, for me, it fails to relax the strain of my SoD.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 4, 2007)

Ahglock said:
			
		

> I just assume all races have access to life extending magics.  I never removed them form my game like 3e did.  If you can have long lived elves and the universe doesn't crash down you can have long lived humans so I saw no need to remove it.
> 
> Basically if you have enough wealth or power in my game world old age isn't going to kill you.  Heck in the largest Human country they got so sick of "Elven" craftsmanship they started a program where any human who displayed certain levels of skills in any craft or profession would get access to life extending magics.  Not everyone would take it or at least take it forever but there are a multitude of Tralin(yes I suck at names) citizens who are 1000+ years old.




Back to birthrate....elves are typically described as having maybe 4 children over a 100 period. How many would a human have in that time period?  I'm pretty sure it would be more...

It is unfortunate that they removed the life extension magics from the game.  It's a common tenet of fantasy which was present until 3E....but I guess because it doesn't involve blowing something up, it was no longer perceived as necessary.

Banshee


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## ZappoHisbane (Nov 4, 2007)

Winterthorn said:
			
		

> (I expect going forward 4E will be even worse on racial distinctions; I bet we'll just have funky looks, very weak racial rules, and racial backgrounds of low relevence while in actual play)




I thought it was fairly well established at this point that race will actually play MORE of a role in 4e.  Racial ability gains will be spread throughout an adventurers's career, so that playing an Elven Wizard will be distinct experience than playing a Dwarf Wizard.  Hopefully the fluff that describes whatever extras Elves get at the start and down the road will address the age disparity.


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## mhacdebhandia (Nov 4, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> One thing that always bothered me about D&D is the assumption that elves live at least ten times as long as humans do, yet still usually accomplish less in their life.



It's because elves are lazy jerkoffs. Duh.


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## ivocaliban (Nov 4, 2007)

KoshPWNZYou said:
			
		

> Precisely. The typical elf can stare at a lake for an entire day admiring its beauty and serenity. The typical human looks at it for a few minutes then says 'oh yeah, I'm going to be dead, like, tomorrow, so I'd better go continue my sword training...'




Yes. Humans have a concept of their lifespan and live with that knowledge constantly. With the first fifteen years spent maturing and the last ten or fifteen spent in decline, that leaves a lucky human with half a century to accomplish their life's work. An elf on the other hand spends about half a century just growing up. They have centuries to do what needs doing and there's really no need to rush.

The real question here is the perception of time, however. To a human who lives around seventy-five years we perceive that as a lifetime. To an elf, it's a childhood. There's no reason to believe that an elf sees his lifespan of centuries as exceedingly long. It's only long in comparison to humans and other relatively short-lived races. For humans, centuries seem like massive amounts of time, but whose to say if humans lived five times longer than they do that they'd be in such a rush to the top?

I would argue that perhaps elves view years the way humans view months. So for an elf twelve years might feel like one year for a human. Races may perceive their lifespan (and perhaps time itself) differently based on how much they're allotted. It would explain why short-lived races like orcs are often so active (they have a literal deadline to keep) while long-lived races like elves seem like they're so detached from and/or aloof in regards to current events.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 4, 2007)

You all raise fine points except that, as I have pointed out, those views are barely, if at all, supported in modern fantasy. You cannot be detached from the life around you if you have to work for survival in a human city, or if you are a warrior of a an aggressive nation. As modern elves are. As I have pointed out.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 4, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> There was another drow in that series who *was* described as exceptionally large, and he was like 6'.  In Dragonlance, Laurana is depicted as 5'6", and her brother Gilthanas is even taller.  Yet according to the height charts, neither is capable of achieving such a height.




It pleased me to no end that Paizo made the elves in their new Pathfinder world taller and more slender than humans


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## Banshee16 (Nov 4, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> You all raise fine points except that, as I have pointed out, those views are barely, if at all, supported in modern fantasy. You cannot be detached from the life around you if you have to work for survival in a human city, or if you are a warrior of a an aggressive nation. As modern elves are. As I have pointed out.




Uh....and this view is more supported in modern fantasy?  Aside from Tolkien, there are many takes on fantasy where elves are long-lived and/or immortal...

Hmmm...Birthright CS.  Dragonlance (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman)....elves lived upwards of 1200-2000 years.  Even Forgotten Realms....in the 2nd Ed. book about Cormanthor, elves lived longer than they do in the PHB.  Races of Faerun also extends the lifespan of Gold Elves.

This is all "modern" fantasy.

Steven Erikson has several long-lived races, including the Thelomen Toblakai, Tiste Andii, Tiste Edur, and others.

Tad Williams has the Sithi, who are basically elves, who are immortal.  Until they get killed in combat, or are exposed to iron, they continue living.

In many of these cases, the elves do have their own cities.  Some might live in human cities, but the majority of their populations live in cities of their own race.

There are a few settings (Dark Sun, Warlords of the Accordlands, Iron Kingdoms, Shadowrun) where those lifespans aren't present.  But they're generally in the minority.

So, yes, there is plenty of precedent in modern fantasy for long-lived elves.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 4, 2007)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> It pleased me to no end that Paizo made the elves in their new Pathfinder world taller and more slender than humans




Is there like a Pathfinder PHB or something?  Where their variants etc. are described?  As I understand it, the Pathfinder series is a book full of adventures each month, in a shared setting they have created.  But is there like a "core book"?

Banshee


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## Anthtriel (Nov 5, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> Uh....and this view is more supported in modern fantasy?  Aside from Tolkien, there are many takes on fantasy where elves are long-lived and/or immortal...
> 
> Hmmm...Birthright CS.  Dragonlance (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman)....elves lived upwards of 1200-2000 years.  Even Forgotten Realms....in the 2nd Ed. book about Cormanthor, elves lived longer than they do in the PHB.  Races of Faerun also extends the lifespan of Gold Elves.
> 
> This is all "modern" fantasy.



Then we have a different opinion on what "modern" is. Note the radical change in elf mentality from 2E Faerun to 3E Faerun.



> So, yes, there is plenty of precedent in modern fantasy for long-lived elves.



It's far harder to come up with an example for elves that don't live long. As I said, everyone blindly copies from Tolkien. That in itself is not my problem (as I have said multiple times already). My problem are long-lived elves that are treated by the setting or books as if they could easily live along humans as normal citizens without any ramifictions.
It should matter a lot that some citizens live ten times as long as others, yet in Eberron and Faerun, D&D's main settings, it doesn't.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 5, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> Then we have a different opinion on what "modern" is. Note the radical change in elf mentality from 2E Faerun to 3E Faerun.
> 
> 
> It's far harder to come up with an example for elves that don't live long. As I said, everyone blindly copies from Tolkien. That in itself is not my problem (as I have said multiple times already). My problem are long-lived elves that are treated by the setting or books as if they could easily live along humans as normal citizens without any ramifictions.
> It should matter a lot that some citizens live ten times as long as others, yet in Eberron and Faerun, D&D's main settings, it doesn't.




I disagree.  In Birthright, I believe, one of the human regents had an elven or half-elven advisor who had served like 5 generations of the family with distinction.  In this case, the advisor's lifespan was a boon that permitted the rulership of the country to benefit from a level of consistency impossible without that advisor's presence.

I'm not sure how living longer doesn't matter in other settings though.  It's not like it's going to allow someone to fly, simply because they live longer.  But it allows for a certain level of consistency, because your "greatest" citizens aren't dying in 50 years.  They've got like 500 years in which to do whatever their mojo is.

In the campaign book Evermeet, from 2nd Ed. there are a group of lvl 20 elves who are ancient, and basically sleep, waiting for times that they are needed.  IMO, it's not necessarily a unique idea...but it is cool.

The Complete Book of Elves had a variant rule where older elves got bonus skill points (proficiencies, in 2nd Ed.), based on their age...it was like 1d4 points for every 50 years over 100.  It makes complete sense...but it's hard to balance.

Banshee


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## Kahuna Burger (Nov 5, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, I understand the physiological differences between humans and dogs that require this... and they are quite a bit less pronounced between humans and elves.
> 
> So while that sort of handwavey comparison might fly for you, for me, it fails to relax the strain of my SoD.



 

I think it is awesome that you fully understand the physiological differences between humans and elves. I personally do not, but if asked to explain it, would come up with something to explain the age issues, which might give me some fun insight into the underpinnings of my campaign world.

The only age/mortality change I want to 4e is for the phrase "...and the [druid/monk] still dies when her time is up," to be taken out and burned in effigy.


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## Psion (Nov 5, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> I think it is awesome that you fully understand the physiological differences between humans and elves.




Pretty much comes down to this:

INT of average human: 10-11
INT of average elf: 10-11
INT of dog: 1-2

HTH.


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## Kahuna Burger (Nov 5, 2007)

Psion said:
			
		

> Pretty much comes down to this:
> 
> INT of average human: 10-11
> INT of average elf: 10-11
> ...



Int of the average green sea turtle, 1-2. Age to sexual maturity, 25 years. There is a lot of variation in lifespan and maturation time in the animal kingdom.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Nov 5, 2007)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> Int of the average green sea turtle, 1-2. Age to sexual maturity, 25 years. There is a lot of variation in lifespan and maturation time in the animal kingdom.



That's mostly based on the chances that you'll reproduce before you die.  If a sea turtle survives its first year, it's likely to survive to sexual maturity...just like humans and elves...so it can afford to wait to reproduce.  

The benefit of waiting to reproduce is that you're big, and can have big babies or lay huge numbers of eggs.  Unless there's something about elves that makes them far, far less likely to die over the course of 100 years compared to a human, and a really good reason why they need more than 15 years or so to reach sexual maturity, they should more or less match a human in terms of reproductive time.  That's the age at which you get large enough that you can pass an infant's skull through your pelvis.  

If elves don't grow as fast as humans, there needs to be a reason why, and a reason why they're still around if they have to live in a world that's full of mortal danger from monsters and the like, but have to wait several human lifetimes before they can reproduce.  That's what I'd call a poor adaptation.


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## Ahglock (Nov 5, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> Back to birthrate....elves are typically described as having maybe 4 children over a 100 period. How many would a human have in that time period?  I'm pretty sure it would be more...
> 
> It is unfortunate that they removed the life extension magics from the game.  It's a common tenet of fantasy which was present until 3E....but I guess because it doesn't involve blowing something up, it was no longer perceived as necessary.
> 
> Banshee




My world was invented during the time when it was "known" that women have a finite number of eggs.  I didn't have life extending magic change that.  Now that that fact has been brought into question by science, I just ignore it for my world.  

So in answer they usually had around 4 kids maybe a few more.


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## Ahglock (Nov 5, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> Works great for high magic worlds of course, but I suppose in most campaign worlds life extending magic wouldn't be that common.
> 
> Oh, and doesn't that mean that any important citizen, certainly anyone in power, would live as long as he wants to? The resulting society should be pretty interesting.
> 
> The danger is of course that you end up with a Harry Potter world, or Faerun or Eberron. Something that looks great and familiar on the outside, but breaks into pieces once you look at the internal logic that holds it together.




D&D at its core is fairly high magic, though that may change in 4e for all I know.  

Yes theoretically citizens can live as long as they want if there important enough to warrant life extending magics.  The oldest human who hasn't gone undead in my world is 3,456.  The oldest elf is 15,285 years old.  They had access to life extending magics much earlier than humans did, especially since they are the first race of my world. 

So far the logic hasn't broken any more than any high magic D&D world breaks.  A couple thousand really old humans just isn't enough to change that in a world where entire species live really long, especially when lots of them are just really good carpentors.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 5, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> I'm not sure how living longer doesn't matter in other settings though.  It's not like it's going to allow someone to fly, simply because they live longer.  But it allows for a certain level of consistency, because your "greatest" citizens aren't dying in 50 years.  They've got like 500 years in which to do whatever their mojo is.



Well, you said yourself that the 500 year old elves should be the "greatest" citizens then. But in Eberron and Faerun, they aren't. They have less prominent representatives than humans do and about as much as dwarves do, and there is nothing in the material that suggests that the 500 year old elf craftsmen and wizards should be entirely superior to their human counterparts.


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## trancejeremy (Nov 5, 2007)

I think this is how (to a certain extent) Elves (and the other races) have lost their mysteriousness and magic, and are now just oddly shaped humans. (sort of like aliens on Star Trek, just humans with stuff glued to their forehead, and based on a stereotype of some human historical culture)

I mean, originally, Elves were strongly inspired by folklore about Faeries and such. So while they might be long lived, they were completely alien to how humans acted (other than mimicking some things). Heck, even time to them didn't work the same way as it did. 

If you look at it really realistically, long lived races (like 1000 years) seems unlikely, because of the effects of cosmic radiation on the body. While humans die before it ever reaches a problem, I think after a while there would be serious problems with cancer and sterilization and mutations. (Though then again, most D&D universes probably don't have cosmic radiation.)


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## Wolfwood2 (Nov 5, 2007)

I think I disagree with a basic premise that most folks on this thread seem to accept without question.

I don't believe that someone who has been practicing his craft for 200 years is going to be all that much better than someone who has been practicing his craft for 15 years.  The vast majority of people do not keep learning and growing and stretching their brains their entire lives.  Most people learn enough to do their job well, practice until their skills become instinctive, and then that's it.

Put more simply, most people reach a skill plateau where they're as good as they're going to get.  Improvement after that tends to be only in response to extraordinary events that force them to stretch themselves.

So your elf warrior has fought 300 battles.  So what?  He learned all he was going to learn in the first 12.


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## Wormwood (Nov 5, 2007)

Wolfwood2 said:
			
		

> Put more simply, most people reach a skill plateau where they're as good as they're going to get.  Improvement after that tends to be only in response to extraordinary events that force them to stretch themselves.




"Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in his craft while in fact he has only one year of experience - twenty times."

—Trevanian, _SHIBUMI_​


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## KoshPWNZYou (Nov 5, 2007)

Wolfwood2 said:
			
		

> So your elf warrior has fought 300 battles.  So what?  He learned all he was going to learn in the first 12.




Using XP rules, it depends on what he's fighting. If he's repelling invasions from the Abyss, he stands to gain a lot of XP. But then he's not likely to survive 12 battles (he'd be like an adventurer, in this case). If he's just fighting Orcs Orcs Orcs, he'll learn nothing new; he'll just fight like a robot repeating the same finely-tuned maneuvers over and over, and since the EL's would be so far below his own level he'd gain next to no XP ... and he'd -still- be at at least some risk of getting cut down by a few lucky arrows. That's where you get the risk vs. practice balancing act.

In the other example, that of a wizard who moves into the city and keeps honing his craft. Let's not forget that amassing the sort of power a 20th level wizard possesses is not a lesson in ease -or- safety regardless of the amount of time he has. If he's going to pull that off without adventuring, there'd have to at least be some degree of fiendish summoning or dangerous experimentation. Plus, if a wizard is sitting in a tower in the middle of a city gaining power, there's going to come a point where the people living around him stop ignoring his presence. Other power groups within the city/region will start becoming threatened by the wizard. He might be pressured to keep his power in check, or he might be forced to perform extensive amounts of favors which prevent him from devoting too much time to his personal advancement. If he doesn't cooperate, powerful adventuring groups get secretely funded to do you-know-what. So maybe that 500 year old elf in the tower is only a 12th level wizard because he knows the local Merchant Guild is always keeping an eye on him.


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## Wolfwood2 (Nov 5, 2007)

KoshPWNZYou said:
			
		

> Using XP rules,




No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

XP is metagame for advancement of player characters.  I thought we were discussing realism issues of why elves don't become uber-skilled over their long lives.  A prodigy might pick up character levels from only intense training, and someone without the spark of potential might never level up no matter how much xp they shoudl theoretically have earned.

Any realism argument that starts with xp rules, I disregard.



> In the other example, that of a wizard who moves into the city and keeps honing his craft. Let's not forget that amassing the sort of power a 20th level wizard possesses is not a lesson in ease -or- safety regardless of the amount of time he has. If he's going to pull that off without adventuring, there'd have to at least be some degree of fiendish summoning or dangerous experimentation. Plus, if a wizard is sitting in a tower in the middle of a city gaining power, there's going to come a point where the people living around him stop ignoring his presence. Other power groups within the city/region will start becoming threatened by the wizard. He might be pressured to keep his power in check, or he might be forced to perform extensive amounts of favors which prevent him from devoting too much time to his personal advancement. If he doesn't cooperate, powerful adventuring groups get secretely funded to do you-know-what. So maybe that 500 year old elf in the tower is only a 12th level wizard because he knows the local Merchant Guild is always keeping an eye on him.




Magic is one of those things that is extremely abstracted in D&D.  Your explanantion makes as much sense as anything else.


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## KoshPWNZYou (Nov 5, 2007)

Wolfwood2 said:
			
		

> XP is metagame for advancement of player characters.  I thought we were discussing realism issues of why elves don't become uber-skilled over their long lives.




But there are realism-based interpretations. The warrior fighting a Demon that's much stronger and has a wide array of special abilities has to adapt to the new challenge and develop new strategies. The warrior fighting the same old Orc is just doing the same old thing. The XP gap has a valid explanation.



> Magic is one of those things that is extremely abstracted in D&D.  Your explanantion makes as much sense as anything else.




Probably because it's just the one came up with at that moment. As a DM trying to provide explanations for why this works or why that works, all you can do is abstract. If a player were to ask me one of the questions that has been asked here, all I could do is generate an answer that at least makes some sense and somewhat limits the need for SOD. But there's still going to be some SOD -- you can't have it otherwise in a fantasy setting.


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## Anthtriel (Nov 5, 2007)

Wolfwood2 said:
			
		

> I think I disagree with a basic premise that most folks on this thread seem to accept without question.
> 
> I don't believe that someone who has been practicing his craft for 200 years is going to be all that much better than someone who has been practicing his craft for 15 years.  The vast majority of people do not keep learning and growing and stretching their brains their entire lives.  Most people learn enough to do their job well, practice until their skills become instinctive, and then that's it.
> 
> ...



Even if we are going for pure realism, I'm not sure if I can agree. All performance in physical abilities in real life steadily increases with age (experience), until it declines with age again. If you wouldn't benefit from doing something the two thousandst time, I'm sure athletes wouldn't bother training so much. 

Of course if you do some physical activity for hundreds of years, it's imagineable you would hit a point where you are completely perfect, depending on how complicated the activity is. A runner probably cannot increase his performance forever, but a fencer could easily learn every fencing style out there until he is a master in all of them, and then mix and match to improve it. And pick up martial arts, human anatomy and whatever he fancies. The fencer who has fought for hundreds of years would probably be incredibly good at predicting his enemy's moves.

And adding to that, if you want to have internal consistency in a fantasy setting, then you have to operate in a world in which people can do things they usually shouldn't be able to do (the heroes and the villians at least). That doesn't mean NPCs have to gain "XP" per se, but the limits of human (and elven) abilities are evidently a lot higher.


And that were just the physical abilities. For the mental abilities, certainly science and by extension magic (which is usually portrayed similar, at least with book-learning wizards), ability does continously increase. There is still some decline with age, that's why young scientists can compete with the old, but thankfully our elves won't have to deal with it.
The centuries' old elves should be able to aquire unimaginable amounts of knowledge, certainly much more than their human colleagues.


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## Dragonblade (Nov 5, 2007)

Interesting thread. A lot of people seem determined to come up with ways of explaining why elves aren't uber skilled compared to humans. But I find those rationalizations unsatisfying. I think they WOULD be uber skilled.

Its simply inevitable. I also think elves should be special, not just humans with pointy ears. My friend SHARK gives all elves the half-celestial template to reflect their innate power as immortal beings of legend. To me that is a far more satisfying approach then to just say that elves mature slowly or are lazy.

I much prefer the Tolkien-esque Noldur elves who knew how to kick ass and take names to the D&D version of elves as a hedonistic and lazy art lovers.

But I also like the image of elves as a wild and alien fey creatures sort of like in Warlords of the Accordlands.

One of the things I like about 4e is the Eladrin-Elf dichotomy. For my homebrew, I think I'll alter the rules to make Eladrin into the immortal badass beings of legend ala Tolkien. Essentially ancient refugees from the Celestial realms in mortal form, and Elves into exotic and alien refugees from the Feywild who can be bound or burned by the touch of cold iron, easily entranced by music, and affected by other classic fey vulnerabilities.

I like to make races interesting and unique. Not just have humans with pointy ears syndrome. As far as balance for the Eladrin, I'll think of something. Being burned by the touch of cold iron, and entranced by music seem pretty viable penalties to start with for Elves.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 5, 2007)

Banshee16 said:
			
		

> Is there like a Pathfinder PHB or something?  Where their variants etc. are described?  As I understand it, the Pathfinder series is a book full of adventures each month, in a shared setting they have created.  But is there like a "core book"?




Not yet. Pathfinder is about half adventure, half world guide in each issue. So this last one in addition to the adventure had a section on how keeps are managed in Varasia, a gazeteer of Varasia, and the races section. And there's always a MM addition as well.


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## TwoSix (Nov 6, 2007)

Anthtriel said:
			
		

> Even if we are going for pure realism, I'm not sure if I can agree. All performance in physical abilities in real life steadily increases with age (experience), until it declines with age again. If you wouldn't benefit from doing something the two thousandst time, I'm sure athletes wouldn't bother training so much.




I think the reason for continual training isn't to keep improving, it's to prevent the inevitable decline that would occur if they were to stop training.



			
				Anthtriel said:
			
		

> Of course if you do some physical activity for hundreds of years, it's imagineable you would hit a point where you are completely perfect, depending on how complicated the activity is. A runner probably cannot increase his performance forever, but a fencer could easily learn every fencing style out there until he is a master in all of them, and then mix and match to improve it. And pick up martial arts, human anatomy and whatever he fancies. The fencer who has fought for hundreds of years would probably be incredibly good at predicting his enemy's moves.




No, I don't think you would become completely perfect.  The benefit from constant practice goes from improvement in the beginning to upkeep and maintenance as your skill improves.  There's a limit to how skilled you can become, that can't be overcome no matter how much you train.  People don't level up.  The amount of dedication they put towards a field allows them to become better, but not overcome the limitations imposed on them by biology.  



			
				Anthtriel said:
			
		

> And adding to that, if you want to have internal consistency in a fantasy setting, then you have to operate in a world in which people can do things they usually shouldn't be able to do (the heroes and the villians at least). That doesn't mean NPCs have to gain "XP" per se, but the limits of human (and elven) abilities are evidently a lot higher.




The limits of _individual_ elves and humans are higher in fantasy, but that doesn't have to apply to the race as a whole.  D&D is a heroic fantasy, and heroes are singular people, almost by definition.



			
				Anthtriel said:
			
		

> And that were just the physical abilities. For the mental abilities, certainly science and by extension magic (which is usually portrayed similar, at least with book-learning wizards), ability does continously increase. There is still some decline with age, that's why young scientists can compete with the old, but thankfully our elves won't have to deal with it.
> The centuries' old elves should be able to aquire unimaginable amounts of knowledge, certainly much more than their human colleagues.




Simply not true.  In the more cerebral fields like physics and mathematics, most of the true breakthroughs are done by the young.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 7, 2007)

TwoSix said:
			
		

> Simply not true.  In the more cerebral fields like physics and mathematics, most of the true breakthroughs are done by the young.




Mental capacities decrease with age.  Unfortunately, everything gets worse with age 

The D&D model of gaining INT/WIS/CHA with age are not quite accurate.  Of course, neither are fireballs 

Banshee


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## Josh Petrie (Nov 11, 2017)

with humans getting extra skill points at first and every consecutive lvl, and how some people stated, elves have a more relaxed life style. i do see how humans could take to magic quicker. their bodies are like clay to be molded. and they inherently have Napolian syndrome compared to other races (ironically) that humans inherently know they don't have much time on earth and the hard working ones would work day in and day out. now personally i do have a question though. lets say an elf child growing up along side humans through school and what not. though they would assumable not have adult hormonal balances would they mature to the world at a much quicker rate? and could this also be said about elves as adults traveling along side humans?


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