Observation about Elves

[Thoughtbot360]

You know, the reason humans dominate and not elves (or any long-lived intelligent race, really) that is given in most fantasy worlds doesn't make sense. Usually it goes like this: Elves (particularly 3rd edition Elves) take a long time to reach puberty and therefore humans breed faster than elves. But, then, after the Elves DO reach child-bearing age they have hundreds and hundreds of years to bear and raise as many children as they want. I mean, how long can Elven pregency be? It sounds like if elves really wanted to multiply and take back control from the humans, all they'd have to do is start bonking like rabbits. And then marrying off their children as soon as they came of age so they can start bonking like rabbits. Just because Elves have to wait 100 years (actually can you imagine 100 years of childhood? I'd go insane....especially if I was training to become a wizard, 120-170 years starting age (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age) my ass!)

Uh, but seriously, I think I've hit a brand new plot hole with fantasy norms.

[Starsinger]

Races of the Wild mentions that elves have low conception rates.

[Serpentine]

Yeah, that. They're long-lived, but also very infertile. To the point that a new baby is a very exciting event.

[Zincorium]

You're not the first to notice this.

Basically, it's that elves have to literally be mentally retarded for these numbers to make sense, they must still be wearing diapers and drooling at the age when most humans are learning basic truths about the world. That kind of makes sense, you can handle a long childhood and lower rate of learning if you're nearly immortal.

But then, as adventurers, they immediately start learning things just as fast as humans. Otherwise they'd level slower.

You'd think this would lead to those elves who do exist, and who do survive adventures, becoming extra-ordinarily powerful, because they don't live the 70 years past adventuring age that humans do, they live 700 years or more past the age when they start, and they're more virile and youthful during this period of apparently equal learning ability.

[Turcano]

Basically, it's that elves have to literally be mentally retarded for these numbers to make sense, they must still be wearing diapers and drooling at the age when most humans are learning basic truths about the world. That kind of makes sense, you can handle a long childhood and lower rate of learning if you're nearly immortal.

If I remember correctly, elves have a long adolescence, not a long childhood (I think they're physically mature around age 20 or so).

[Wraithy]

as some of the above mentioned, Races of the Wild explains these points very well.
elves physically mature at a barely noticeable rate compared to humans, they reach physical maturity at 20, however the starting age is due to the fact that elves just don't feel ready to go out into the big wide world untill many decades later.

[Zincorium]

If I remember correctly, elves have a long adolescence, not a long childhood (I think they're physically mature around age 20 or so).

A long adolescence is BS, I learned a heck of a lot during my adolescence and elves don't know much more than humans, it does not take 100 years to learn how to use a sword and longbow or detect secret doors, especially when elves spend less than half the time sleeping/meditating. They have four or more hours a day with which to experience things compared to anyone else.

You'd think the average elf would have mastered a vast number of skills and proficiencies during that long adolescence, even if it's spent frivolously.

Just saying 'well, it takes longer for them to learn the same things' is explicitly saying they have slowed learning capacity. It's also a cop out.

[Kioran]

Just saying 'well, it takes longer for them to learn the same things' is explicitly saying they have slowed learning capacity. It's also a cop out.

We haven´t even started on accidents (particularly in a treetop village), diseases or unnatural death causes yet.....One would think having to survive a hundered years in a hostile environment is difficult enough.

[Saph]

A long adolescence is BS, I learned a heck of a lot during my adolescence and elves don't know much more than humans, it does not take 100 years to learn how to use a sword and longbow or detect secret doors, especially when elves spend less than half the time sleeping/meditating. They have four or more hours a day with which to experience things compared to anyone else.

You'd think the average elf would have mastered a vast number of skills and proficiencies during that long adolescence, even if it's spent frivolously.

They do. If you read Races of the Wild, the average elf is supposed to know about a dozen arts, crafts, professions, and areas of study by age 100. There's even a special feat to represent it, Elven Dilettante. It's just that most of them have no combat application.

Presumeably some elves do study combat skills during that time, and are level 4-5 or so by the time they reach age 120 or whatever, but those are the elves that you don't get to play as a 1st-level starting character.

The real answer to your question is that this is what you get when you try to merge Tolkein's "otherworldly, immortal, mystically knowledgable and powerful" elven characters with the D&D "ready to run out-of-the-box at level 1" elven characters. It's kind of a kludgy solution, but it does make some kind of sense, since the whole point is that elves are much less dynamic and energetic than humans. Races of the Wild does a decent job of explaining it, IMO.

- Saph

[LCR]

They don't learn slower, they just prefer to spend their time singing and dancing, dancing and singing ...

[Turcano]

A long adolescence is BS, I learned a heck of a lot during my adolescence and elves don't know much more than humans, it does not take 100 years to learn how to use a sword and longbow or detect secret doors, especially when elves spend less than half the time sleeping/meditating. They have four or more hours a day with which to experience things compared to anyone else.

You'd think the average elf would have mastered a vast number of skills and proficiencies during that long adolescence, even if it's spent frivolously.

Just saying 'well, it takes longer for them to learn the same things' is explicitly saying they have slowed learning capacity. It's also a cop out.

Hey, I said that that was the explanation that was given, not that it was convincing.

[KIDS]

That's really nonsensical, elves are fine. They are physically mature at same age as humans are (maybe one year later), mentally maybe a bit faster and that's it. Read Races of the Wild or Tolkien or use common sense. All three are helpful.

Elves are physically (though not culturally) adults at 20, and begin their career at 110+d6 because they have a long view of life, they know they have time for anything, have great insight and etc etc. These are all things that are not "omg I'm lvl 3" but things that you have to RP. This is the reason why elves can be very hard to roleplay without inadverently turning them into human clones with some nifty abilities.

So in short: they're fine. If you don't feel like playing a patient elf, start at lower age like 80, 60, 40. I've had great fun playing a 15-yr. old elf too.

p.s. that the game rules don't represent their abilities well, that is true and I'm saddened for it. An ability that would fit excellently to represent long life, insight and vast amount of lore would be the one that appeared in Tome of Battle's Jade Phoenix Mage class:

- You can make any knowledge check even if you have no ranks in it, and you gain +2 bonus on knowledge checks.

Note that this way you give them something unique, not overpowering and no need to start at 3rd level "because it makes sense" or add a LA.

[dr.cello]

Races of the Wild does handle it fairly well, though I still feel that elves ought to get some form of mental stat boost merely for living so long. Actually, the stat boosts for being venerable sort of bother me. You don't get smarter or wiser because you got older but because you've been alive for a while. An elf at 100 years ought to be just as wise as a hundred year old human--but elf society, which is based around living a really long time, is filled with people even older. A hundred year old elf is about the elven equivalent of a twenty year old human, though the elf is far the wiser of the two.

[Zincorium]

That's really nonsensical, elves are fine. They are physically mature at same age as humans are (maybe one year later), mentally maybe a bit faster and that's it. Read Races of the Wild or Tolkien or use common sense. All three are helpful.


They'd be more helpful if they said somewhat the same thing, except common sense, which says either elves can't learn worth a darn until they start adventuring OR they should be well and truly skilled in many things, all of which are represented in-game by stats they simply do not have. In tolkien, they're profoundly different, there is no expectation they are the same as a human at a certain timeframe, so the problem doesn't exist.

Races of the wild hand-waves it away. So what if you're non-specialized and take the long view of things? That doesn't mean you've wasted a century or more with nothing to show for it. It would mean you've invested and become proficient in a broad variety of skills, all of which you can use in practical situations (as you've taken the long view and practiced the important ones until you're sure you've got them down).



Elves are physically (though not culturally) adults at 20, and begin their career at 110+d6 because they have a long view of life, they know they have time for anything, have great insight and etc etc. These are all things that are not "omg I'm lvl 3" but things that you have to RP. This is the reason why elves can be very hard to roleplay without inadverently turning them into human clones with some nifty abilities.


But it's horridly impractical in game terms, and in D&D, you'd expect them to think about those a little more. Why do elves in D&D have to live so very, very much longer? Wouldn't a higher maximum age, with the same starting one, work just as well?



So in short: they're fine. If you don't feel like playing a patient elf, start at lower age like 80, 60, 40. I've had great fun playing a 15-yr. old elf too.


Kender are fine too, but no one is pretending an entire race with clinical ADD and a penchant for stealing other people's property is in any way sensible.



p.s. that the game rules don't represent their abilities well, that is true and I'm saddened for it. An ability that would fit excellently to represent long life, insight and vast amount of lore would be the one that appeared in Tome of Battle's Jade Phoenix Mage class:

- You can make any knowledge check even if you have no ranks in it, and you gain +2 bonus on knowledge checks.

Note that this way you give them something unique, not overpowering and no need to start at 3rd level "because it makes sense" or add a LA.

Again, elves don't need to have the rules bent to make a non-D&D mythology fit certain details. They'd work perfectly fine with age ranges that make sense.

There is no non-kludgy fix to having a race that is so much older, so much wiser, and so much more active be only as experienced as a race that is none of these things. If you want sense, start with a sensible position or adjust your position after you look at the ramifications.



Really though, I'm just amused at the un-solved ramifications of the utterly arbitrary numbers that the D&D designers pulled out of their collective behinds. And the effort they've forced countless people to put forth to defend that.

[Saph]

Again, elves don't need to have the rules bent to make a non-D&D mythology fit certain details. They'd work perfectly fine with age ranges that make sense.

There is no non-kludgy fix to having a race that is so much older, so much wiser, and so much more active be only as experienced as a race that is none of these things. If you want sense, start with a sensible position or adjust your position after you look at the ramifications.

Really though, I'm just amused at the un-solved ramifications of the utterly arbitrary numbers that the D&D designers pulled out of their collective behinds. And the effort they've forced countless people to put forth to defend that.

Oh, give it a rest, Zinc. :smalltongue: I'm playing an elven character right now whose character concept works around the weird elven aging system, and it can be a lot of fun. It means you get to have a character who's (in my case) 88 years old, with all the knowledge and experience that implies, but who's still basically a child with a teenager's attitude towards things. Realistic? Who cares? The important thing is that it's fun to play.

- Saph

[Zincorium]

Oh, give it a rest, Zinc. :smalltongue: I'm playing an elven character right now whose character concept works around the weird elven aging system, and it can be a lot of fun. It means you get to have a character who's (in my case) 88 years old, with all the knowledge and experience that implies, but who's still basically a child with a teenager's attitude towards things. Realistic? Who cares? The important thing is that it's fun to play.

- Saph

Fine, I'll end the catgirl massacre.

And I do agree that fun playing things is the most important part of any game, roleplaying at least as much so as any other.

But some things just don't make sense when viewed a certain way, and you either have to accept that they don't or change it (I do the former in most settings and the latter in my homebrew).

[Ikkitosen]

The way I understand it, elves are kinda perfectionists, and like to enjoy their lives.

So, when an elf learns swordplay in the peace of their own forest, they learn every swing perfectly, and to dance beautifully whilst doing it. They learn to (for example) carve from the "correct" piece of wood, with as little waste as possible. They learn to cast spells with fluid, beautiful gestures and words. They do these things because they can; they're in no rush, either desired or imposed, to learn anything quickly. They really can spend an entire (human) lifetime looking for the perfect lotus blossom.

Note that none of these things are mechanically more powerful than how a human might do it. Messy swordplay is just as effective; a bigger pile of shavings doesn't make your sculpture any worse; sounding like you're choking and about to fall down drunk whilst casting magic missile doesn't mean you do less damage.

So, when given the chance an elf might spend ten years learning something a human learns in a month to no greater mechanical effect.

Now, find an exceptional elf. One that wants more, a faster lifestyle, more excitement. Namely, an adventurer. After maturing like all the other elves, they go adventuring. Whilst a goblin tries to run them through they learn a fancy flick with their sword that saves their life. No time or need to perfect it, just write Weapon Focus on your sheet and you're done. Maybe between adventures, or when they stop adventuring altogether, they'll revisit the skill (during reverie?) and perfect the fluidity of the move. For now, no time, here comes an orc shaman. Ooh, he blinded someone with that spell - maybe I can learn that (from an orc!). Not flashy, but does the job. You see where I'm going.

Now, the fact that many of the most powerful NPCs are human (or at least non-long-lived) is IMO just based on the fact that other races can become powerful too, since power can be had in a short time. In previous editions there were magics that elves had invented and only they coulod cast that represented millenia of study. Not many things in current D&D rules take millenia, so elves seem no more advantaged than anyone else.

[bugsysservant]

The problem as I see it is not that you can't construct a long lived but low population race, just that you can't have one which is played like "Humans In Trees!" I can imagine a race where they spend virtually all their time in meditation, and rarely interact with others of their species. Or that lives in solitude, and only gather to breed every few centuries, or even one that views reproduction as inherently dirty and only does so every thousand years or so in order to carry on the species. The problem is that that race would be very difficult to roleplay, and might never adventure. Thus elves are unrealistic, because creating a situation where you can play standard elf x at first level that is compatible with the fluff is nigh impossible.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

It sounds like if elves really wanted to multiply and take back control from the humans, all they'd have to do is start bonking like rabbits.
"If they really wanted to..."

Yeah, that's part of the issue. Who says elves are concerned with being the dominant race? In some settings they are. Some settings they aren't.

Let's see...

Low conception rate has been mentioned...


A long adolescence is BS, I learned a heck of a lot during my adolescence...
Of course, you're going to school for 7.5+ hours a day, trying to cram in as much as you can in your short life. The elven attitude could very well be the opposite. Spread everything out. You've got the time.


Basically, it's that elves have to literally be mentally retarded for these numbers to make sense, they must still be wearing diapers and drooling at the age when most humans are learning basic truths about the world.
There's more to maturing than mastering bodily functions. Heck, there are real-life 80 year old humans that never really matured mentally or emotionally.

Also, note that in nature, a long time to mature doesn't indicate a creature that is either smarter or more stupid than those around it. However, it does tend to indicate the creature is more complex. Applying that to our situation, we have an elf whose brain, while working no better than a humans is wired in a completely different fashion. (I want to extend the analogy, but I can't think of anything good right now... :smallyuk: )

In any case, from what other people have said, a lot of the above are only contributing to the main factor: Elves are so long lived that their completely arbitrary age levels for determining maturity are extremely high. Just like in the United States you have to be eighteen for a number of legal rights and privleges, twenty-one for another set, and thirty-five to run for President, the elves set some arbitrary limits based on who-knows-what traditions.

[KIDS]

Yeah Zinc, the problem as I see it is that I'm not "forced" into "defending" elves, by wizards of the coast or by anyone. It's not me who has a problem with a D&D race so why should I care? I don't attack your possible decision/fix to make a world without elves while you try to prove to me that they don't exist. If they annoy you so much, don't play them and problem solved.

Thus, if we go by the same mathemathical reasoning like your "elf lives X years, has Y% chance to die each year and Z% chance to have a child each year" and prove they don't exist... guess what? I could right now pull out a massive charade of 20 pages and statistical examples of why humans don't exist either, and it would be equally senseless because I first concluded that they don't exist and then made up the formula. So really, give it a rest and your amusement over the subject might pass over time.

[OverdrivePrime]

I think that basically, no one would play elves if they were a +5 level adjustment race that comes with 10 racial hit dice, but gains experience at 20% of the standard rate.

If you have a problem with the presentation of elves, either house rule it to be different (I've seen elves with short racial lifespans and they work fine), or just repeat to yourself over and over, "a wizard did it."

[Kurald Galain]

especially when elves spend less than half the time sleeping/meditating. They have four or more hours a day with which to experience things compared to anyone else.

I've always found the "elves do not sleep" rule rather stupid, actually. Also, I think the starting age for elves is overdone. Sure, it should be higher than a human's, but not that high. Imho.

[Dhavaer]

How would this be as a mechanical expression of elven dilettantism:

At first level, elves gain twice the normal number of skill points (before adding bonus skill points gained from a high Int). However, they have only a number of class skills equal to their Intelligence bonus (minimum 0), chosen from their normal class list. At first level, they may buy ranks in cross-class skills at a rate of 1 rank per skill point. They still have the normal maximum ranks for class skills.

It looks like it might be too powerful, but I'm not really sure.

[Runolfr]

But, then, after the Elves DO reach child-bearing age they have hundreds and hundreds of years to bear and raise as many children as they want. I mean, how long can Elven pregency be? It sounds like if elves really wanted to multiply and take back control from the humans, all they'd have to do is start bonking like rabbits.

You assume that the long Elvish lifespan doesn't come with a correspondingly low fertility rate.

[Holly]

Elves have a 5% conception rate!

:D

[Machete]

Ok, I picture myself as an elf.
Do I want to waste my nice long childhood learning? Not really any more tha nI absolutely HAVE to. The next 80 years before I go out in the world. Well, now I'm kinda an adult in this time period so there is all sorts of new things to try that were forbidden of me as a child, I have to maintain my basic skills too. Try not to forget the old ones when I'm getting drunk so much and tha ttime I fell out of a tree and hit my noggin didn't help. Sure, I'll learn how to use a bow and longsword. Rather be with GIRLS than swinging abound a sharp piece of metal or shooting arrows at a target. Secret doors? Yeah, the family tree house has 20 of those, you get used to it after a while.

So its time to go out into the world. The last 80 years was time spent working in the orchards and planting crops, dating girls, peeking at girls through secret doors, learning how to fight *grumble*, learning how to cook, refining my lingual skills because elvish is really complicated and I don't want to sound like a half elf, getting drunk with the guys, swimming, raising heck, meditating, and occasionally accidentally learing something new which makes me about as skilled as a human teenager.


Maybe that is it.

[Citizen Joe]

Isn't it obvious?

Elves are plants. When conceived, the the elvish stork delivers a little acorn. The loving parents plant this acorn which grows into a great oak tree. After a hundred years, the tree is split open by lightning and a full grown elf springs forth. After twenty years of elvish indoctrination, the elf is given an opportunity to explore the outside world.

[Solo]

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Basically, it's that elves have to literally be mentally retarded for these numbers to make sense, they must still be wearing diapers and drooling at the age when most humans are learning basic truths about the world.

I would like to point out that Humans are wearing diapers and drooling when most other animals in the world (foxes, dogss, cats, lions, etc) are learning the basic truths about the world.

[kamikasei]

I would like to point out that Humans are wearing diapers and drooling when most other animals in the world (foxes, dogss, cats, lions, etc) are learning the basic truths about the world.

Thing is, that's because human brains are too big. Babies are squeezed out with half-formed heads because if they developed any further they couldn't be born at all. Elves don't have bigger heads than humans as adults, nor smaller as infants by any account, so there's not much reason for their development to take longer - not along the same lines as human/animal development.

[Solo]

Brain size does not matter, irrc, but rather how complicated the internal structure of the brain is. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?indexed=google&rid=neurosci.box.1833)

Elves coudl just have more complicated minds than humans, thus taking them longer to develope mentally.

Einstein, who had a magnificiently sohisticated mind, was regarded as an idiot when he was a child (by his teachers), and he didn't speak properly (at the level of his peers) until the age of -what was it? - 3, or thereabouts.

[Citizen Joe]

There was a recent Nova: Science Now episode that explained how sleeping helps you learn. In the experiment, the host (Dr. Tyson) was given a task to type a certain series of numbers. They timed how long it took to do repeatedly. Then he slept (and dreamed) and did the test again. He had like a 30% improvement in speed.

Since elves don't sleep, they can't learn fast, thus the 100 years to learn the basics. Elves apparently have A.D.D. or something.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

As pointed out above, elves don't actually learn any more slowly than other races unless the elf choses to take more time. Otherwise they would be incapable of levelling at the same rate as other races and would require an XP penalty of some sort.

Though there is another good point: Perhaps some of the added complexity of the elven mind is tied to the way the reverie/trance develops? Through the reverie, the elven mind processes things similar to the way other races with normal sleep do. However, the reverie is so complex that it takes the better part of a century to develop, whereas the rest of the elven mind and body is fully developed in about 20 years. Perhaps this is one of the reasons elven society deems maturity to not be fully achieved before 100 years.

(Though I guess that would actually imply that young elves do have sucky retention. But at the same time, it would explain why that is no longer the case once the elf reaches full maturity.)

[Jothki]

The starting age justification really only makes sense for cases where the elf gets bored with normal life, decides to become an adventurer, and bumps into the rest of the party in a tavern. If there's actually some other kind of backstory or reason for adventuring (village torched by orcs, cast out of village, seeking cure for mentor, etc) there's no reason why an Elf couldn't go adventuring at a much younger age, assuming that they are actually mature.

I like the theory that young elves are actually goblins, who pupate and transform into elves if they manage to survive for long enough.

[Ralfarius]

They really can spend an entire (human) lifetime looking for the perfect lotus blossom.
"Ah hah! The perfect blossom, I've found it! Now I think I'll spend another hundred years writing the perfect poem about it."

[Citizen Joe]

I like the theory that young elves are actually goblins, who pupate and transform into elves if they manage to survive for long enough.

I was going to suggest orcs. I think there is some legend about orcs (or maybe goblins) being corrupted forms of elves. It also explains some of the animosity between orcs and elves.

[Randel]

Perhaps they mature slowly because the grandparents are always coddling the grandchildren?

Imagine an elven couple having a child (which is a really special event) and their grandparents are so thrilled with this that they spoil the kid rotten and are absolutely shocked if the parents try shoving the 'poor little angel' out into the world... when he's 87. Since Elves live for centuries it could take forever for the grandparents to die off, and they mature so slowly that its almost impossible for the parents to locate the point where their little snookie wookums finally reaches maturity.

[Tallis]

Isn't it obvious?

Elves are plants. When conceived, the the elvish stork delivers a little acorn. The loving parents plant this acorn which grows into a great oak tree. After a hundred years, the tree is split open by lightning and a full grown elf springs forth. After twenty years of elvish indoctrination, the elf is given an opportunity to explore the outside world.


Y'know, that's actually not a bad idea. It could work.

[Ralfarius]

To be more "productive" as it were:

I'm in agreement with people who understand the Elven way of things. Saying "oh, they take too long" is an extremely human view of the world. A human life operates on a much shorter time line, so we think of things in terms of how long it should take to learn something. If we lived as long as elves did, we wouldn't be nearly as set on being industrious and breeding, because we would have much more time in which to accomplish it.

Think about the Nezumi in Oriental Adventures. They live, what? 20 years? 25, maybe? In that time, they're able to become as physically and mentally capable of a human who has lived 3-4 times as long. What are we, retarded? Why can't we be ready to adventure by the time we're 5?

[Citizen Joe]

We have to be careful with extrapolations. I think salmon reach breeding age and pretty much die.

I do think that if you simply lop a century off the front and back of the elf it would make a lot more sense without changing game balance.

[GoC]

Taking 200 years to physicaly mature and (presumably) having 5 kids (humans could have 10 easily but generaly stick with 2-3) means the race grows at less than 0.4% per year. Humans grow at 1.1% per year even though their birth rate is much lower than in the middle ages.

About age imporvements:I decided that in my game world an elf aged N would have at least N/40 levels. So if someone wants an elf character at lvl 1 they'd have to put it's age below 80.

This also helped explain how the elves managed to hold off a human invasion when outnumbered 100 to 1 (slow growth rate).

[Saph]

I was going to suggest orcs. I think there is some legend about orcs (or maybe goblins) being corrupted forms of elves. It also explains some of the animosity between orcs and elves.

Orcs, and it's from Tolkien. The first Orcs were elves captured and tortured by Melkor/Morgoth. It's in the Silmarillion.

- Saph

[skyclad]

Orcs, and it's from Tolkien. The first Orcs were elves captured and tortured by Melkor/Morgoth. It's in the Silmarillion.

- Saph

Well that's just the elves take on it :) not even Tolkien was sure about that.

And I hate elves in everything but Tolkiens works... Just boring rip offs.

[KIDS]

Isn't it obvious?

Elves are plants. When conceived, the the elvish stork delivers a little acorn. The loving parents plant this acorn which grows into a great oak tree. After a hundred years, the tree is split open by lightning and a full grown elf springs forth. After twenty years of elvish indoctrination, the elf is given an opportunity to explore the outside world.

I loved this one

[earlblue]

Given that there is no elf in our world that we can really observe, the title is a tab odd:smallbiggrin:

But, think about it for a moment.

Take roaches. Very short life span compared to humans. Reproduce like crazy - there is a lot more roaches then humans. From the roaches viewpoint, we are the elves.

Frankly, there is no way we gonna reproduce like roaches and try to beat them at numbers, nor are we capable of it.

Our rate of growth, etc, etc, make sense to us. Not to the roaches.

And the way an elf is, make sense to the elves.

OBeQuiet UWannaBe

Hey, it is only logical that if they take longer to conceive, they take longer at the act of conception. :smallwink:

Something to think about... Elves last loooonger!:smallbiggrin:

Biology 6-101 "Anatomy of a non-existing creature" Why do we even bother?

[Citizen Joe]

One could hypothesize that elves are sterile. They are formed through a magical ritual in which an orc is blessed and transformed in a 100 year long ritual producing an elf at the end. The drow may be formed from an interrupted process and may claim that the surface elves are denying their true selves. The ritual can also explain the vast differences in elf subspecies. Slight changes in the rituals can change the make up of elves. We can then stipulate that only the elders really know about the elven creation. When elves are born, they are quickly taken away from the parents and given a full grown replacement which has undergone the ritual. It is then the parents' responsibility to train the 'reborn' child in the ways of elfiness. During the ritual, elves are stripped of their sleeping/dreaming ability to eliminate the possibility of repressed genetic memories.

Another possibility is that elf age is a misnomer. They call it their 'first century' which is really age 0-99, but people tack the 1 to the front end. So, 120 is really the elf's first century, twentieth year. But humans count from years that have passed, not current year/century, thus the confusion. That elf would be 19+ by human count.

[Tormsskull]

I've always preferred the Birthright (AD&D 2nd edition campaign setting) elves. They are basically faeries like other sylvan races instead of being more like humans.

They are actually immortal (never die from old age), which makes more sense in my opinion, and cuts this whole "they take forever to mature, why do they live longer" business off right away.

I think that with the standard elves being so humanoid as it were, it is natural to compare them to humans. But when they are actually faeries (fey), it suddenly becomes like trying to compare a human's lifespan/growth to a dragons, i.e., totally different types of creatures.

[Zerkai]

Wow... just... wow... So many retarded comments. I mean, I can see some people's arguements on the elves, but someone up their just said it best.

Have you ever looked at the lifespan of other species in real life?

[Ditto]

A friend of mine is homebrewing a setting where Elves aren't born, they're recycled. The Elven god is a master craftsman, and his elves are his form of high art. Every few hundred years, there's a reckoning, and all the elves in the world turn to stone, and stick around as gargoyles until Pelf decides how he wants to reshape them. The elf has the choice of continuing on or moving to the great studio in the sky - and if he stays alive, he might get a makeover and come back younger and pretty-er-er.

Elven gods are all aspects of the Overgod; ny cleric followed Pelor before we learned the cosmology; I decided the god is named Pelf. Pelf is the god of sunshine, righteousness, and blueberry muffins.

That's the other explanation for long-lived 1st level adventurers, of course. They spent the first hundred years composing the perfect blueberry muffin. And then wrote and Ode to Blueberry muffins. Elves get a +12 racial bonuses to Craft: Pastry checks for use in religious ceremonies.

[Draz74]

I'm kind of neutral on the whole elven argument, as it seems very campaign-specific to me, but I object to this:


Take roaches. Very short life span compared to humans. Reproduce like crazy - there is a lot more roaches then humans. From the roaches viewpoint, we are the elves.

Frankly, there is no way we gonna reproduce like roaches and try to beat them at numbers, nor are we capable of it.

Our rate of growth, etc, etc, make sense to us. Not to the roaches.

And the way an elf is, make sense to the elves.

From the roaches' viewpoint, we are the elves. And from the roaches' viewpoint, even ignoring possible arguments involving size categories, humans get a +10 racial bonus to Intelligence. :smalltongue:

This is why other people were saying that Elves' lifespans would make sense IF they had mental stat bonuses. (Which would lead them to having an LA.)

Since roaches' and humans' mental capabilities are so far-split, your analogy really doesn't work at all.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

:smallsigh: If you don't like something in the rules, change it.

Simple house rules:
Elf starting age is 40 instead of 110 (+ random years from whatever class you select).
Conception is extremely infrequent due to longer fertility cycles (maybe both sexes have fertility cycles). On average, an elf produces only two children in his or her lifetime.

Thus: elves learn as fast as humans, but don't take over the world.

Now - reasons for them not becoming more individually powerful than humans as a matter of course are another issue that I could solve with a house rule I made up, but I'm keeping that for my own group, cause I like it too much to share. :smalltongue:

[Rockphed]

And I hate elves in everything but Tolkiens works... Just boring rip offs.

[shameless plug] Come to the Tears of Blood World building project! Our elves are the product of a dread pact with a demon that gave them magical powers along with grace and beauty. Somehow we managed to get the lifespan down to 300 years. They would fit right in at woodstock they rock so hard![/shameless plug]

I never thought about elven aging until I saw this thread, but it seems to me that the idea of a long time looking at the flowers and singing songs would not a higher level make.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Orcs, and it's from Tolkien.
But isn't there something about Goblins and Orcs being the same thing in Tolkien?


From the roaches' viewpoint, we are the elves. And from the roaches' viewpoint, even ignoring possible arguments involving size categories, humans get a +10 racial bonus to Intelligence. :smalltongue:

This is why other people were saying that Elves' lifespans would make sense IF they had mental stat bonuses. (Which would lead them to having an LA.)

Since roaches' and humans' mental capabilities are so far-split, your analogy really doesn't work at all.
Where do any of the things involved in long lifespans imply increased intelligence?

[cupkeyk]

Since their adolescences are so long, they are more prone to successful adolescent angst driven suicides. If anyone had to be a teenager for much longer than 8 years, they would really have the urge to kill themselves then.

Added to their rare conceptions, its amazing there are any adult elves at all.

[dyslexicfaser]

refining my lingual skills because elvish is really complicated and I don't want to sound like a half elf,
Hilarious, Machete :smallbiggrin:

Ah, good old elvish elitism. We love you, elves, even if you are a bunch of snobby, xenophobic bastards.

[Telonius]

Elves live hundreds of years. They're also very environmentally-conscious, and of at least average intelligence.

If an elf couple started having kids every year, consider the consequences. For the first-generation kids to have a not-too-closely-related partner, the rest of the elves in the forest would have to be having a similar number of kids. Humans could do this since women might only have a maximum of 12 children or so before they hit menopause - but even then the area's population would be increasing rapidly.

An elf, who lives ten times longer than a human, might be able to have ten times as many children. Each year, the population would continue burgeoning. Probably within 500 years, the forest would be drowning in elves. They would overwhelm the forest's ability to support them.

Given the elves' noted concern for forest ecology, such a situation would be seen as horrible to them. The answer? Have fewer children, preferably only enough to replace the current number of elves in the forest.

[Saph]

But isn't there something about Goblins and Orcs being the same thing in Tolkien?

In the Hobbit, he used both interchangeably, as far as I remember. It was only later on that there started being a distinction between goblins and orcs, and I think even then it was just two names for the same thing.

Uruks and Uruk-Hai were different, though. They were as big as a man or bigger, while orcs and goblins were smaller. I think the closest approximation would be:

D&D Goblins = Tolkien Orcs
D&D Orcs = Tolkien Uruks/Uruk-Hai

- Saph

[Ditto]

The reason there aren't scads of them due to the long time they have to make babies isn't the real issue; it's what folks do *between* the making or not-making of babies that doesn't grant them 100 years' worth of Commoner levels.

[dyslexicfaser]

In the Hobbit, he used both interchangeably, as far as I remember. It was only later on that there started being a distinction between goblins and orcs, and I think even then it was just two names for the same thing.

Uruks and Uruk-Hai were different, though. They were as big as a man or bigger, while orcs and goblins were smaller. I think the closest approximation would be:

D&D Goblins = Tolkien Orcs
D&D Orcs = Tolkien Uruks/Uruk-Hai

- Saph

I'm not sure where I got it from, but I remember reading something that explained that Saruman made the Urukhai by breeding humans and orcs into a bigger, stronger orc that could easily withstand sunlight.

Not that this has anything to do with elves...

[Burrito]

They don't learn slower, they just prefer to spend their time singing and dancing, dancing and singing ...

...Yes! Also, that Ernie Keebler fellow keeps them all slaving away in his giant Cookie Tree. When you spend all your time as an elf making delicious cookies and tasty, fudgy snacks, they you are not able to go off adventuring.

http://www.pauldavidson.net/wp-content/themes/wfme/images/entries/faqelf_2.jpg

[kamikasei]

Look, here's the thing.

If elves up to maturity are as mentally able as humans up to maturity, they should be capable of learning more in that longer time, but this is not reflected mechanically.

If they are not inclined to learn more (they prefer to "dance and sing"), that should be consistent before and after maturity. It doesn't make sense for an elf to spend a hundred years dancing and singing instead of learning to use a sword, and then deciding to become an adventurer and becoming a ruthless learning machine just like his human buddies. An elf with the inclination to adventure should be well able to do so before his centennial.

It's possible that elves are not as mentally able as humans before maturity - that they spend the first hundred years of their lives learning more slowly than humans in their first twenty, to get to the same point - but this has a couple of problems. It's strange that seemingly this slow rate of development disappears at maturity, and adult elves can learn just as quickly as humans, but this may be the simplest explanation. The other problem is that quite simply a hundred years of painfully slow development doesn't sound very elvish, because elves are supposed to be super-awesome.

My position is that the simplest explanation is that something about elves is fundamentally different to humans and it really does take them a hundred years to reach mental maturity. Perhaps they spend those first centuries in a reverie-like state all the time, able to learn swordplay and archery and elvish and songs and lore but not fully awake, not actually possessed of a true identity, and at maturity they effectively "wake up" and become true individuals possessed of a slowly-assembled, almost-instinctive body of knowledge. Otherwise there's no real reason why either a twenty-year-old elf shouldn't become an adventurer, or a hundred-year-old elf should not be well-versed in a dozen skills.

(In fact, for my own campaign I'm essentially NPC'ing all elves and giving them a treatment along these lines. Bonus skills, special features, etc.)

[Subotei]

Where do half elves fit in this discussion?

"Dad! Dad!! Will you come play football down the meadow with me?"

"Son - you're 53. I'm fully human and 78. I have three teeth and can barely control my bladder any more, let alone a ball. When are you going to get a %&*%ing JOB!!!!"

[Saph]

Look, here's the thing.

If elves up to maturity are as mentally able as humans up to maturity, they should be capable of learning more in that longer time, but this is not reflected mechanically.

Yes it is. They're capable of learning just as much as any other race, via XP. A younger elf learns just as fast as an older one, or a dwarf, or a human. It's just that the standard 1st-level 120-year old elven adventurer happens to start out at 0 XP.

This is quite easily dealt with by saying that lots of elves don't spend their first 100-odd years learning the kinds of things that are reflected in D&D's advancement system. Some elves do learn this stuff, and are high-level by the time they're 100 - but those aren't the elves you get to play as a 1st-level starting character.


If they are not inclined to learn more (they prefer to "dance and sing"), that should be consistent before and after maturity. It doesn't make sense for an elf to spend a hundred years dancing and singing instead of learning to use a sword, and then deciding to become an adventurer and becoming a ruthless learning machine just like his human buddies.

But it does. Just because they can do it doesn't mean they want to.

Adventuring carries with it a high risk of death. It makes perfect sense that a race that can live to several centuries would be a lot less keen to go in for the learn-fast-or-die-quickly style of life that adventuring PCs have to deal with.


Otherwise there's no real reason why either a twenty-year-old elf shouldn't become an adventurer, or a hundred-year-old elf should not be well-versed in a dozen skills.

But you can have that in the current system too. There's nothing stopping you from playing either, you just have to RP them a bit differently.

- Saph

[horseboy]

Where do half elves fit in this discussion?

"Dad! Dad!! Will you come play football down the meadow with me?"

"Son - you're 53. I'm fully human and 78. I have three teeth and can barely control my bladder any more, let alone a ball. When are you going to get a %&*%ing JOB!!!!"

Okay, that's just too funny!

[Shhalahr Windrider]

If they are not inclined to learn more (they prefer to "dance and sing"), that should be consistent before and after maturity. It doesn't make sense for an elf to spend a hundred years dancing and singing instead of learning to use a sword, and then deciding to become an adventurer and becoming a ruthless learning machine just like his human buddies. An elf with the inclination to adventure should be well able to do so before his centennial.
Remember, most people live their entire lives without gaining a second level. This includes 100-year old humans.

You gotta be "out there doing something" to gain levels. Elven society tends to frown upon 70 year old elves getting "out there and doing something". As such, they don't gain levels.

[kamikasei]

Saph and Shhalahar: if you're arguing that elves just don't bother adventuring until their hundreds for cultural or other reasons, then you're basically saying there's a race who could adventure from the age of three but don't until they're eighteen. That's just bizarre to me. It doesn't seem the sort of thing that starting ages should represent.

Further, I would point out that half-elves are supposed to have a development curve between elves and humans. They develop too quickly among elves and too slowly among humans. This is at odds with the picture you paint, where it's merely elven culture that affects the starting age.

[Lemur]

The way I think about it, the typical elf is very lacking in motivation. Elves have a rich history and culture, but their society is fairly stagnant- they're isolationist, and don't make attempts to explore or invent new things. They like to live carefree lives, and don't devote a great deal of attention to learning things quickly.

Elves are intelligent, and they have the ability to learn things quickly, if they wanted to. The long lifespan of an elf acts as a sort of bane to their ability to accomplish things in comparison to other races. Why work hard today? Sit back and relax, there's plently of time and no reason to rush about.

In contrast, the shorter lived races, particularly humans, are confronted with their own mortality, and scurry about to finish their live's work before it's all over for them. As an individual, a human may not have the ability to experience as much as an elf over their respective lifespan, but the human race as a whole has a much wider range of experience than the elves.

Adventurers are a completely different issue in themselves. Adventurers break from the norm in every race and society society (except maybe in places like Faerun :P ) by willingly seeking out the risks of imminent death. Once a person starts adventuring, whether he's human, orc, or elf, his or her life expectancy is more or less the same- short.

By putting themselves in this sort of danger, adventuring elves are confronted by something their isolated brethren rarely experience- living each day as if it was their last. Not only, elves, but members of any race are forced to constantly push their limits and realize their full potential, so the growth of an adventurer is not based on his inherent racial abilities or cultural values, but how much danger he regularly confronts and survives.

[Citizen Joe]

We need to get an insurance agent here with actuarial tables. Ignoring death from natural causes and disease, basic accidents will likely kill 90% of people before age 100.

[Shatteredtower]

If they [elves] are not inclined to learn more (they prefer to "dance and sing"), that should be consistent before and after maturity. It doesn't make sense for an elf to spend a hundred years dancing and singing instead of learning to use a sword, and then deciding to become an adventurer and becoming a ruthless learning machine just like his human buddies. An elf with the inclination to adventure should be well able to do so before his centennial.

Not really. The "adventuring" stage is just one more passing fancy. Very few people play an elven adventurer for longer than a decade within the campaign -- a few years in college by our terms. For your typical elf, the thrill passes quickly enough, and they just stop progressing by our terms.

And if you tweak the PHB2 retraining rules, it's not hard to tell why elves haven't really gained that much knowledge in the last century. For those of you who went to college ten, twenty years ago, what do you recall of the things you learned then but haven't used since? The elves could experience that sort of loss on a greater scale. Also, it could be that no elf settles for commoner status -- they all strive to become something more, despite how poorly qualified the average individual would normally be. Having more years than most races, however, allows more of them to reach the mark. In turn, however, it tends to stall true excellence for a number of years. The elf that goes up 20 levels in a year is suddenly applying a few decades worth of experience, while the human that does the same is simply adapting quickly to new lessons. Also, those who start to bloom too quickly also tend to die quickly as well (the typical adventuring career tends to result in a greatly diminished lifespan), and that tends to encourage others to take a bit more time to "prepare" for life on the same path.

If that's not sufficient, it can be worth changing the elves. In one game, I made them an insectoid race (without changing the mechanics) that spent the first century of their life span in a larval/drone state. Adulthood brought a physical and mental transformation, in which each becomes potential royalty. Most of the adult elves you meet are therefore likely to be exiled royal candidates in a society that no longer makes the struggle for ascension a fight to the death and even allows many potential candidates the opportunity to pledge personal service to another candidate. Such a setup tends to eliminate half-elves as a possibility (though it's not necessarily essential), but it could also add another dimension to spider worship.

In another game, the elves reach maturity at the same rate as humans, then advance more slowly through further age categories. These elves are immortal, but most die well before old age, throwing themselves into more and more perilous tasks toward the end in order to avoid the curse that awaits each at the last: undeath. (Immortal, yes, but not invulnerable to age. They lose physical ability scores more slowly than humans, but that loss of Constitution is eventually fatal -- save to those few that acquire a timeless body class feature.) If you used the standard age categories for this group instead, have them spend most of their mental energy learning to endure, even triumph over, the tragedy their lives have become. It keeps them too preoccupied with carousing away any sense of sorrow to achieve much by human standards, but what they need to absorb, and how they need to absorb it, on both mental and social scales, may be entirely alien to human understanding. This is all the more true if the elves have come to think of it as so second nature to them that they can't even think of trying to explain it in words. (It's a bit like the fable of the centipede, able to move gracefully on a hundred legs, but completely unable to explain, let alone understand, how it's been doing so.)

[kamikasei]

Not really. The "adventuring" stage is just one more passing fancy. Very few people play an elven adventurer for longer than a decade within the campaign -- a few years in college by our terms. For your typical elf, the thrill passes quickly enough, and they just stop progressing by our terms.

That makes some sense, but it doesn't justify the starting age. It could be used to explain elves becoming adventurers at any time after reaching maturity - it doesn't explain what makes them more mature at 100 than at 50.

[Dervag]

The way I understand it, elves are kinda perfectionists, and like to enjoy their lives.

So, when an elf learns swordplay in the peace of their own forest, they learn every swing perfectly, and to dance beautifully whilst doing it. They learn to (for example) carve from the "correct" piece of wood, with as little waste as possible. They learn to cast spells with fluid, beautiful gestures and words. They do these things because they can; they're in no rush, either desired or imposed, to learn anything quickly. They really can spend an entire (human) lifetime looking for the perfect lotus blossom.

Note that none of these things are mechanically more powerful than how a human might do it. Messy swordplay is just as effective; a bigger pile of shavings doesn't make your sculpture any worse; sounding like you're choking and about to fall down drunk whilst casting magic missile doesn't mean you do less damage.

So, when given the chance an elf might spend ten years learning something a human learns in a month to no greater mechanical effect.

Now, find an exceptional elf. One that wants more, a faster lifestyle, more excitement. Namely, an adventurer. After maturing like all the other elves, they go adventuring. Whilst a goblin tries to run them through they learn a fancy flick with their sword that saves their life. No time or need to perfect it, just write Weapon Focus on your sheet and you're done. Maybe between adventures, or when they stop adventuring altogether, they'll revisit the skill (during reverie?) and perfect the fluidity of the move. For now, no time, here comes an orc shaman. Ooh, he blinded someone with that spell - maybe I can learn that (from an orc!). Not flashy, but does the job. You see where I'm going.I like this explanation a lot.


Thing is, that's because human brains are too big. Babies are squeezed out with half-formed heads because if they developed any further they couldn't be born at all. Elves don't have bigger heads than humans as adults, nor smaller as infants by any account, so there's not much reason for their development to take longer - not along the same lines as human/animal development.But if human infants stayed inside the womb until their brains were fully developed, they'd be in there for eighteen to twenty-four months.

We don't know enough about 'elven physiology' to know if it's the same as human in terms of development speed. Maybe they mature physically at human-normal speed but take much longer to mature mentally.


Brain size does not matter, irrc, but rather how complicated the internal structure of the brain is. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?indexed=google&rid=neurosci.box.1833)

Elves coudl just have more complicated minds than humans, thus taking them longer to develope mentally.

Einstein, who had a magnificiently sohisticated mind, was regarded as an idiot when he was a child (by his teachers), and he didn't speak properly (at the level of his peers) until the age of -what was it? - 3, or thereabouts.But not every elf is an Einstein, so if their brains are substantially more complex than ours it can't be in any area that has statistical consequences in D&D. On the other hand, we know that their nerves and brains don't degenerate over a century the way humans' do. That suggests a very different biochemical and anatomical structure, one that might very well take much longer to develop fully.


(Though I guess that would actually imply that young elves do have sucky retention. But at the same time, it would explain why that is no longer the case once the elf reaches full maturity.)That actually makes sense, too. Maybe reverie is a specialized discipline elves use to compensate for the fact that their memory is naturally 'sparse'. Elves are native to an environment where things don't change very fast and they live for hundreds of years, so they can probably deal with most situations using 'deep storage' long term memory alone. Perhaps 'natural' elven memory really would require repeated exposures to the same problem before they really learn anything. And they have to use specialized 'reverie' techniques to cram information into long-term storage if they want to do well in a high-pressure environment like adventuring.


Well that's just the elves take on it :) not even Tolkien was sure about that.

And I hate elves in everything but Tolkiens works... Just boring rip offs.What about the elves in the original Northern European mythology? Or elves more closely based on Northern European mythology such as (arguably) Terry Pratchett's elves?


My position is that the simplest explanation is that something about elves is fundamentally different to humans and it really does take them a hundred years to reach mental maturity. Perhaps they spend those first centuries in a reverie-like state all the time, able to learn swordplay and archery and elvish and songs and lore but not fully awake, not actually possessed of a true identity, and at maturity they effectively "wake up" and become true individuals possessed of a slowly-assembled, almost-instinctive body of knowledge. Otherwise there's no real reason why either a twenty-year-old elf shouldn't become an adventurer, or a hundred-year-old elf should not be well-versed in a dozen skills.

(In fact, for my own campaign I'm essentially NPC'ing all elves and giving them a treatment along these lines. Bonus skills, special features, etc.)That's pretty good, too.


Where do half elves fit in this discussion?

"Dad! Dad!! Will you come play football down the meadow with me?"

"Son - you're 53. I'm fully human and 78. I have three teeth and can barely control my bladder any more, let alone a ball. When are you going to get a %&*%ing JOB!!!!"I suspect that half-elves mature at a more or less human-normal rate, or are overwhelmingly raised by their elven parent as the product of what is (for them) a brief fling with a human lover, or that most half-elves are actually the children of two half-elves, with interbreeding between full elves and full humans being relatively rare.


We need to get an insurance agent here with actuarial tables. Ignoring death from natural causes and disease, basic accidents will likely kill 90% of people before age 100.I don't think it's that steep unless you use a very very broad definition of accidents. Most deaths are caused by disease, not accidents. Moreover, many of the deaths that are caused by accidents could have been prevented by D&D universe healing spells.

In a D&D universe, if you don't get killed by a monster the odds are overwhelming that you will live long enough to die of 'old age' (or rather of the diseases associated with old age).

[Matthew]

Hmmn. Races of the Wild actually says that the PHB listed age for a Level 1 Adventuring Elf is not set in stone. Apparently, an Elf can start his adventuring career anytime after he physically matures (Age 25). Frankly, the fact that a Human can be Level 1 for twenty years and then reach the heady heights of Level 20 in two or three is pretty much just an artefact of the system. It's exactly the same with Elves and Level 1 Commoners.

[Thoughtbot360]

You assume that the long Elvish lifespan doesn't come with a correspondingly low fertility rate.

Okay, I've yet to read all the replies on this thread, but I've caught myself responding to your message out loud. Congrats, I've decided I might as well reply to yours first;

If Elves' low fertility rate is corresponding to their long lives, then won't they have just as large populations as humanity?

Let me also throw this one out there: This "elves aren't humans in trees" argument confuses me. I've heard it before, but never explained. My stance on this argument is "uh, yeah they are." until further notice. I mean, they have almost the same body. If anything, they're humans with supposedly better hearing. You can make an argument that Elves think differently than humans, are smarter than humans (I mean, come on, if anything, they should get all the age-related bonuses to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, just because their lives are likely full of their "accumulated wisdom"), place less value on marital vows than humans (till death do us part? Tell it to the couple who don't have 700 more years to live....) they might have any number of cultural or mental differences but really, their biological needs and weaknesses aren't going to be too different from human beings, and therefore they will invent technology with some level of aggressiveness, and develop traditions and ethics that dictate certain behaviors, all in the name of finding enough to eat, protecting your family, making money, etc.

Oh, and if Elves have A.D.D., then whats with their bonuses to Spot and Listen?

[Orzel]

I always pictured elves having an attention payment issue and a sheep of elven media. They turn 20 and spend 10 years mastering the elven fad of the decade. My elven wizard spent 10 years snowboarding, 20 years breeding tigers, and 50 years becoming an extreme water skier. After the BBEG was killed, he and the elven rogue summoned surfboards and teleported to a beach.

[Thoughtbot360]

Something to think about... Elves last loooonger!:smallbiggrin:


With a -2 con penalty? I doubt it.


Yes it is. They're capable of learning just as much as any other race, via XP

Then, that means that XP really IS a resource! (Don't look at me, Matthew, Saph started this one.) I mean, thats just basically Zorc's point. Elves are stoooooo-pid useless of course, they are adventurers. >_< But one has to consider a world where they might not necessarily be any "adventurers" at all (Glimmer Moon would have a field day (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq0gQOJK31E)....you might not want to click that link if you are uncomfortable watching grouchy barmaids flick a half-naked man's nipple) and that was the point of a thread I made months ago that begged the question of where NPCs get their XP.

Now, all this maneuvering, all these rules in Races of Wild and those explanations being made up here, are all for the benefit of game balance. Here's my quick and dirty solution:

Elves are LA + 8 or something, but get lots of skill points, feats, ability points, and other crap. Even if Elves spend all their time "singing and dancing and dancing and singing" its inconceivable to imagine that they would live their entire childhood (or adolescence) without every so often learning something new. I mean, while I say that yeah, Elves really are "humans in trees" I don't believe that their lifetimes are exactly like a human lifetime, only elogated. Thats just ridiculous. Sorry, but if you don't want to change the elf stats a simpler way to deal with this is to ditch the Elves live really, really long line and simply say they don't have a life expectancy much differently from the other humanoids, so don't have decades upon decades to squander with their "learning disability".

That last paragraph presented the only possible solutions to the aging question: Change the mechanics or change the fluff (really, no campaign lasts even a decade, so a longer lifespan doesn't help your character at all.)

[Azerian Kelimon]

I've also pondered over this things too. and I've found some pweety interesting things:

1) If you wanted to, you could start adventuring as soon as you develop your mind to a decent level, which means you could probably start adventuring as a first level char at age 10, though you'd have to take a -2 on everything but WIS and CHA (children being more perceptive and adorable than adults). So, you could begin with 8, 8, 8, 8, 12, 12, and when you hit 15 or close enough, you lose the +2 WIS/CHA, and gain the average scores for everything. I've even applied this to my players, whom I usually ask to do a solo adventure for everyone, so as to get in character. And playing a kid who has learned martial or magical techs is a very interesting plot.

2) If anyone has it, the epic level handbook has a feat that more or less allows you to extend you lifespan and the time you have in your current age. Which always seemed like a big bag of bologna to me. HOW can you naturally extend your lifespan? You say SHAZAM! and get a longer lifespan? I mean, over time, a human could live millennia, just because they took that feat every now and then.

3) Seeing the problem, we have come to a conclusion: there's ABSOLUTELY no way an elf could have over a century and have the same knowledge as a normal human, even if he/she spends 20 seconds per day for learning. So, something must be done to explain it. What I've come up with is something similar to what Dalasians did in the Malloreon (Dave Eddings'). In short, they managed to create a hive mind that allows them to retain the memories of things long past. A 15 year old elf could know things it's grandparents knew. Only catch is, it take a ton of years to learn that. Elves more or less spend the century in stasis, and that's how they learn the things detailed in the PHB. An elf who can't complete the "remembrance" period does not get the elf proficiencies, etc, but he/she can start trainin' at an age close to a human's.

Those are my thoughts.

[Citizen Joe]

We need to get an insurance agent here with actuarial tables. Ignoring death from natural causes and disease, basic accidents will likely kill 90% of people before age 100.



I don't think it's that steep unless you use a very very broad definition of accidents. Most deaths are caused by disease, not accidents. Moreover, many of the deaths that are caused by accidents could have been prevented by D&D universe healing spells.
I think its been almost 10 years since I saw that data. But it really was just the accidental death portion of the charts. There's a tiny chance that you'll be hit by lightning, or a tree will fall on you, or you'll get caught in a fire, etc. That chance is not affected by the natural death age factor, that's just regular old living. So at a given age, it is equally likely for an elf to have died as a human. IIRC that amounted to about a 90% likelihood that you die from an accident by age 100.

At a starting age of 20, 63% of the human population would have managed to avoid an accident. However, at starting age of 120, only about 6% of the elven population would have survived. So even at a similar reproductive rate, ten times more humans would survive to adventuring age as elves.

[ImpFireball]

100 years of childhood? What the hell's wrong with you, dude? That'd kick utter ass, because the only reason dignity exists is to look good in front of other adults and the only reason we wanna look good in front other adults is because we're adults ourselves and fear being ostracized, and fear dying alone, and fear being dead with probably a crap-ass funeral (once again undignifying). :D

[Thoughtbot360]

I think its been almost 10 years since I saw that data. But it really was just the accidental death portion of the charts. There's a tiny chance that you'll be hit by lightning, or a tree will fall on you, or you'll get caught in a fire, etc. That chance is not affected by the natural death age factor, that's just regular old living. So at a given age, it is equally likely for an elf to have died as a human. IIRC that amounted to about a 90% likelihood that you die from an accident by age 100.

At a starting age of 20, 63% of the human population would have managed to avoid an accident. However, at starting age of 120, only about 6% of the elven population would have survived. So even at a similar reproductive rate, ten times more humans would survive to adventuring age as elves.

Accidents are an interesting point, but that brings me back to the question of why the adults don't simply have more children while they are raising one generation. 6% + 6% + 6% + 6% +6% + etc. gets the number of elves up. Elves will likely be interested in safety, specifically child safety.

But if this information is accurate, then one wonders why Elves aren't extinct.... I mean, thats the downside of 100 years of childhood. If you run out of adults, the children probably won't make it very far. However, if elves do reach "adolescence" at age 20, then they can start breeding soon enough (I mean, how long is your elven teen going to merely "think" about girls/boys until they officially find someone they like?

But still, healing magic generally reverses most of this. In fact, one lucky ancient elf could likely reach epic level and in one way or another start reclaiming the elven lives already lost.

[Saph]

Now, all this maneuvering, all these rules in Races of Wild and those explanations being made up here, are all for the benefit of game balance. Here's my quick and dirty solution:

Elves are LA + 8 or something, but get lots of skill points, feats, ability points, and other crap. Even if Elves spend all their time "singing and dancing and dancing and singing" its inconceivable to imagine that they would live their entire childhood (or adolescence) without every so often learning something new. I mean, while I say that yeah, Elves really are "humans in trees" I don't believe that their lifetimes are exactly like a human lifetime, only elogated. Thats just ridiculous. Sorry, but if you don't want to change the elf stats a simpler way to deal with this is to ditch the Elves live really, really long line and simply say they don't have a life expectancy much differently from the other humanoids, so don't have decades upon decades to squander with their "learning disability".

That last paragraph presented the only possible solutions to the aging question: Change the mechanics or change the fluff (really, no campaign lasts even a decade, so a longer lifespan doesn't help your character at all.)

Yay, thanks. My favourite race is now utterly unplayable. Either they're all NPCs that I can't use, or they have such a high LA that they might as well be. Lucky I have people like you and Kamikasei around to sort out these problems for me, right? :P

Look, I'll make it simple for you: Elves are fun to play. I like them, and I'm not the only one, given that in my experience they're the second most popular D&D race after humans. I really don't think your arguments make any sense, for reasons everyone else has already gone into, but even if they did, who cares? The purpose of a PC race is to make fun characters, not to satisfy your personal desires for fantasy-world consistency.

I mean, do you actually DM this way? "Yup, that's a nice character concept, well built, and I like the backstory. Unfortunately, that race doesn't meet my standards for sociological realism, so I'm banning the character. Make a different one."

- Saph

[kamikasei]

I mean, do you actually DM this way? "Yup, that's a nice character concept, well built, and I like the backstory. Unfortunately, that race doesn't meet my standards for sociological realism, so I'm banning the character. Make a different one."

Of course not. But "I have changed the role of elves in my homebrew setting, so they're not suitable for PCs - please don't make an elven character" is not what you've described.

Look, the changes I've made to elves for my game and my issues with their age stats are separate. The former are intended to make them more "elvy" and mysterious and so on in a way that's diluted when they're a PC race. The latter are quite independent. It or any similar scheme could be used for standard PHB elves quite readily.

[Dervag]

they might have any number of cultural or mental differences but really, their biological needs and weaknesses aren't going to be too different from human beings, and therefore they will invent technology with some level of aggressiveness, and develop traditions and ethics that dictate certain behaviors, all in the name of finding enough to eat, protecting your family, making money, etc.Convergent cultural evolution doesn't guarantee that two groups of people will work the exact same way. Moreover, we do know one thing about elves that is immensely important- they live incredibly long. All by itself, that proves that their biochemistry doesn't work the way human biochemistry does. Their brains and bodies cannot function in the same way as humans and give them millenium-long lifespans in a low-technology setting.

Whatever differences in the structure of an elf's brain and body allow it to live so long could very easily explain a lot of 'delayed maturity' issues.


Oh, and if Elves have A.D.D., then whats with their bonuses to Spot and Listen?Does ADD dull the senses? I was not aware that it did. It might make you less useful as a guard, but I have a hard time seeing how it would make you less perceptive.

Moreover, whatever elves would have isn't ADD, not exactly. ADD is a specifical malfunction of the human brain; simply saying that the (from our perspective) 'retarded' maturity of elves is caused by that malfunction is pointless when elves' brains can't work the same way ours do.


1) If you wanted to, you could start adventuring as soon as you develop your mind to a decent level, which means you could probably start adventuring as a first level char at age 10, though you'd have to take a -2 on everything but WIS and CHA (children being more perceptive and adorable than adults). So, you could begin with 8, 8, 8, 8, 12, 12, and when you hit 15 or close enough, you lose the +2 WIS/CHA, and gain the average scores for everything. I've even applied this to my players, whom I usually ask to do a solo adventure for everyone, so as to get in character. And playing a kid who has learned martial or magical techs is a very interesting plot.I'm not so sure about children being more perceptive than adults.


That last paragraph presented the only possible solutions to the aging question: Change the mechanics or change the fluff (really, no campaign lasts even a decade, so a longer lifespan doesn't help your character at all.)Anyone who says that they have come up with the entire possible solution set to a problem in a single paragraph is likely overlooking something very important.


I think its been almost 10 years since I saw that data. But it really was just the accidental death portion of the charts. There's a tiny chance that you'll be hit by lightning, or a tree will fall on you, or you'll get caught in a fire, etc. That chance is not affected by the natural death age factor, that's just regular old living. So at a given age, it is equally likely for an elf to have died as a human. IIRC that amounted to about a 90% likelihood that you die from an accident by age 100.

At a starting age of 20, 63% of the human population would have managed to avoid an accident. However, at starting age of 120, only about 6% of the elven population would have survived. So even at a similar reproductive rate, ten times more humans would survive to adventuring age as elves.First of all, this does not address the 'magical healing' issue, which is the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of any argument I've ever seen about life expectanceis in D&D.

Second of all, if the numbers you're citing are correct, then 37% of the human population dies in accidents before reaching the age of 20. That does not match my experiences of life, and I highly doubt it matched even the experiences of real-life medievals (disease was the big killer, not falling out of trees). You may be misinterpreting the data.

[Yogi]

In the Medieval ages, humans often got married at 14 and started raising a family. That's because humans died off way earlier and so had to get started earlier. Who here wanted to get married and start working full time at age 14? How many of you studied extra hard to skip grades because you wanted to get your high school diploma before 18? Now how many of you just studied normally, advanced grade levels normally, and entered into the adult world at 18 for no other reason than that's what everyone else did (and 18 was the age the law recognized)?

Now to Ancient Peasant Guy who'll be lucky to see his 50th birthday, we're all hideously slow. I mean, some people even study PAST 18 years!!! By then he's has two kids and is helping to take care of his elderly father of 35. Damn we must all be as stupid as hell.

[bosssmiley]

Why do 100+ year old elves start as 1st level adventurers?

Warhammer (Fantasy _and_ 40K) had one of the best rationales for this I've ever seen: the so-called Eldar/Eldarin path. Basically each Elf chooses something that interests him and explores it as far as his talents, knowledge and interest allow. When he's mastered one art (or becomes bored of it) he moves onto something else. Some of these arts have adventuring application (spellcraft, swordplay, archery, martial arts, acrobatics, woodcraft, etc.), most don't (playing the harp, pottery, painting, flower-arranging, gardening, etc.). So on and so on through the centuries live the Elves, experiencing deeper nuances of the world as mastery of each successive talent informs the next.

1st level Elven adventurers are basically those Elves who are on a gap year (decade?) from Elven society; it's called the Path of the Wanderer IIRC. Unless in a self-imposed exile they're just 'slumming it' with the short-lived humans for so long as they find it interesting.

[SquireJames]

In the context of D&D rules, I think we are just going to have to accept Elf starting ages and lifespans as things that are illogical but "true" (like the typical D&D world's economy). The "acorn" explanation sounds like the best explanation yet, in my mind. I might steal it.

My campaign's elves diverge somewhat from the Tolkien model. They live forever, but every 100 years they fall asleep for 1 year and wake up with only the most basic of memories (i.e. enough to function as a level 1 character, perhaps with a different name than before). Each elf knows when this will happen and normally makes preparations that allow them to survive that year. Usually these preparations go without a hitch, and they pick up their lives where they left off (albeit with less power in most cases). Let's just say adventurers tend to mess these preparations up, and generally wake up as "blank slate" personalities.

This explains the tendency of most elves to be no more experienced than humans, because they lose all XP every 100 years. This also brings up some interesting role-playing opportunities, such as what happens when the Big Bad Evil Elf who is "reaching through time" to make trouble for the PC's is a current PC's past self! There's a motivation to avoid simply killing the bad guy, eh?

[Ralfarius]

I don't think anyone has played this card: But Drizzt is still socially a child, as far as Drow are concerned.

Elven society is long lived, so they purposefully take longer to do things humans complete in fractions of the time. Because they can take longer to teach something, they do. Their lives aren't driven by the thought of 'we only have 80 some odd years on this planet' so their idea of an acceptable amount of time to do something is stretched over a much longer period.

Elves are not considered adults in their society not because they are physically or mentally immature, but rather because their society feels they haven't taken enough time to socially mature. The adventuring lifestyle is much different from regular elven lifestyle (and I really like the reverie-coping theory), so they either gain levels quickly simply because they see a lot more strife, or they bite it in some dungeon somewhere.

An elf is entirely capable of adventuring before they are socially considered adults, just like everyone's favourite drow has. However, that's like the proverbial 16-17 year old running off to join the circus. They may be physically grown up, and have the mental acuity of an adult, but they're just not considered ready to be on their own.

Even the standard elven adventurer can still have the 'average' elven childhood, taking their time to do everything and becoming a socially accepted adult.

The only problem I really have is the discrepancy in times to learn magic, martial abilities, or thievery. I mean, is it fair to say that it's quicker to learn all the techniques involved with every single martial weapon than a few cantrips and level 1 spells? Arguably, I think that mastering the basics of armed combat, or lockpicking/sneaking, or what have you, would take as long as thaumaturgy.

Other than that, elves have low populations because they are super-infertile. Like, panda-infertile. That -2 CON penalty gives them the narrow, non-child-bearing features in all the important parts, and they have fairly weak seed. Oddly enough, seems to work fine when you throw a human into the mix... They simply can't replace those lost to conflict/nature as quickly as they need to.

Also, the eco-balance theory (elves don't reproduce because they are environmentally conscious of the implications) is another interesting theory to consider.

[Citizen Joe]

First of all, this does not address the 'magical healing' issue, which is the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of any argument I've ever seen about life expectanceis in D&D.

Second of all, if the numbers you're citing are correct, then 37% of the human population dies in accidents before reaching the age of 20. That does not match my experiences of life, and I highly doubt it matched even the experiences of real-life medievals (disease was the big killer, not falling out of trees). You may be misinterpreting the data.

Modern EMS balances out with magical EMS in the game. So that's a wash. And we're talking about non-class leveled people, so resurrections aren't going to fly as a likely alternative.

I think 37% might be a little bit high, but not by much. Living year to year, we see the accidental deaths at a little over 1%, so they seem very rare. But when you combine them it does stack up. I'm sure the numbers are front loaded and back loaded as well. Kids are stupid and do stupid stuff that get them killed. The very old lose out on reaction times and are fragile, so lesser accidents can still kill them. I'm sure there is a coming of age spike as well... and then workplace injuries...

In any case, tweaking the numbers down a bit isn't going to negate the fact that FAR fewer elves will survive to adulthood than humans.

[Matthew]

In the Medieval ages, humans often got married at 14 and started raising a family. That's because humans died off way earlier and so had to get started earlier. Who here wanted to get married and start working full time at age 14? How many of you studied extra hard to skip grades because you wanted to get your high school diploma before 18? Now how many of you just studied normally, advanced grade levels normally, and entered into the adult world at 18 for no other reason than that's what everyone else did (and 18 was the age the law recognized)?

Now to Ancient Peasant Guy who'll be lucky to see his 50th birthday, we're all hideously slow. I mean, some people even study PAST 18 years!!! By then he's has two kids and is helping to take care of his elderly father of 35. Damn we must all be as stupid as hell.

This, as far as I am aware, is a common mistake. Average Life Expectancy is not a reflection of how quickly medieval and ancient people aged. The child mortality rate was very high, which is why it is low. Girls were often married off at an early age, but boys were usually somewhat older.

[Belteshazzar]

Basically if they want the crunch to match the fluff in 3.5 they need to make elves into a level adjusted race. It is the only way that makes sense but everyone is to afraid to admit it because then it means less chance for elf players to play a game.

P.S. Many men waited till they actually had some property or wealth to get married. This could mean some weird sounding differences in age of marriage. The fact that women also died from childbirth a lot only aggravated the problem.

[Matthew]

...or alternatively play a 25 year old Elf, as Races of the Wild suggests...

Really, though, how is this any different from playing a 40 year old Level 1 Fighter?

[Talya]

Basically if they want the crunch to match the fluff in 3.5 they need to make elves into a level adjusted race. It is the only way that makes sense but everyone is to afraid to admit it because then it means less chance for elf players to play a game.


I'm actually all for that...so long as they make the level adjustment WORTH it.

Make them Tolkienish Elves, beyond human, but so slow developing that they are hard to advance.

What would make a +2 LA worth it? (Drow are not worth the adjustment.)

[Ralfarius]

What would make a +2 LA worth it? (Drow are not worth the adjustment.)
According to most, almost nothing is worth any LA.

[Talya]

According to most, almost nothing is worth any LA.

That seems to only be true of spellcasters.

What if all level adjustments also increased one class-type of spellcasting by the amount of the adjustment? (So a Level 1 Drow wizard would cast spells as if they were a third level wizard, with a third level wizard's spells per day and spells known.) Alternately, if you have no spellcasting (or choose not to advance it), you can instead advance one class feature of your choice (such as BAB/Saves, or your animal companion, or your bonus feat progression, or your skills, etc.) You could even advance hit dice, if you chose (although you'd get no other benefits for those dice, other than normal hit die progression elements, like the character-level feats or the bonuses to ability scores.)

[horseboy]

The only problem I really have is the discrepancy in times to learn magic, martial abilities, or thievery. I mean, is it fair to say that it's quicker to learn all the techniques involved with every single martial weapon than a few cantrips and level 1 spells? Arguably, I think that mastering the basics of armed combat, or lockpicking/sneaking, or what have you, would take as long as thaumaturgy.

You can get a "degree" from ICS for locksmithing in as little as two years. You can't get a doctorate in Physics.

I really don't think your arguments make any sense, for reasons everyone else has already gone into, but even if they did, who cares? The purpose of a PC race is to make fun characters, not to satisfy your personal desires for fantasy-world consistency.


But if he requires consistency for him to have fun, then what?



Second of all, if the numbers you're citing are correct, then 37% of the human population dies in accidents before reaching the age of 20. That does not match my experiences of life, and I highly doubt it matched even the experiences of real-life medievals (disease was the big killer, not falling out of trees). You may be misinterpreting the data.Oh, I had about that many people in high school die from Drunk Driving, be horribly mutilated to the point of brain damage from accidents on the farm and drowning over the summer vacations. If elves spend all that time drinking while in tree cities, then it's certainly feasible that they'd fall to their deaths periodically.


Why do 100+ year old elves start as 1st level adventurers?

Warhammer (Fantasy _and_ 40K) had one of the best rationales for this I've ever seen: the so-called Eldar/Eldarin path. Basically each Elf chooses something that interests him and explores it as far as his talents, knowledge and interest allow. When he's mastered one art (or becomes bored of it) he moves onto something else. Some of these arts have adventuring application (spellcraft, swordplay, archery, martial arts, acrobatics, woodcraft, etc.), most don't (playing the harp, pottery, painting, flower-arranging, gardening, etc.). So on and so on through the centuries live the Elves, experiencing deeper nuances of the world as mastery of each successive talent informs the next.


Earthdawn has a similar circumstance. Adepts (players) go through 5 different "paths", while doing paths 2-4 the prior paths are locked away so they don't interfere with the learning of their new abilities. Then on the 5th path (Path of Lords) the other 4 are unlocked and he officially becomes "Barney Bad-ass". That's a master Swordmaster, Elementalist, Songsmith, Woodsman, and decided to become oh a Wizard. It works really well, for "Why is this one guy so stupidly powerful when everyone around him is a schlub?" He's the only one to make it to the Path of the Lord.

[Karu]

First, the fertility problems of the elves are a reason that could be evoked to explain why they don't overrun the world.

In my campaign, it is only a minor factor. The real reason why elves and dwarves don't bump the humans out and take the world for themselves resides mainly in their temper and role in the creation of the world. As elves were created immortal to contemplate the beauty of the universe and the wisdom of the ages, they do not long to procreate as much as human do. As for the dwarves, they were created to toil and shape the land in the name of the gods, they are artists at heart, architects, creators, protectors of the earth. In short, they don't -want- to rule the world.

Humans do. They were created short-lived in order to inspire greatness in their hearts. Sadly, it brought them to strive against each other in order to compete, and this one competition is the reason why they so quickly overran the entire world. Humanity has no bigger enemy than itself, or the evil races created to punish the sins of their creator.

[Thoughtbot360]

Let me apologize in advance to Yogi if I sound too harsh, and to anyone who has already responded to his comment before I did, as I have not read all the way through this thread. And I fell asleep before completing this post..... Anyway, hurt feelings are not intentional. I just find Yogi's comment full of fallacies and assumtions.


In the Medieval ages, humans often got married at 14 and started raising a family. That's because humans died off way earlier and so had to get started earlier. Who here wanted to get married and start working full time at age 14? How many of you studied extra hard to skip grades because you wanted to get your high school diploma before 18? Now how many of you just studied normally, advanced grade levels normally, and entered into the adult world at 18 for no other reason than that's what everyone else did (and 18 was the age the law recognized)?

Now to Ancient Peasant Guy who'll be lucky to see his 50th birthday, we're all hideously slow. I mean, some people even study PAST 18 years!!! By then he's has two kids and is helping to take care of his elderly father of 35. Damn we must all be as stupid as hell.

Yogi, you sound as if you are assuming that Medieval Europe was just like modern day, only with shorter lifespans. People *didn't* go to college, most people couldn't even read. Now, sure, the nobles might have sent their children to some kind of academy (or the Church, the church was the primary source of books being translated into vernacular, however, literacy wouldn't improve significantly until the invention of the printing press.) Actually, you could say that the children were "home-schooled" because most of the time, there were tutors in the service of the King/Duke/whatever and they taught the children in the castle/manor.

But your talking about "Ancient Peasant Guy" (as you call him), and sadly, its likely the other way around, simply because he's a peasant in the Dark Ages; to us, HE'S HIDEOUSLY SLOW -AND HE HAS LESS TIME IN THIS WORLD! You talk about studying after 18 years as if its a bad thing. As if our 18 year old peasant who has two kids and is taking care of his 35 year old father is doing so because he is so smart he doesn't need to go to school anymore. Thats not the case.

The children of modern working-class people go to school to become engineers, scientists, artists, historians, NASA mathematicians, actors, movie directors, inventors and (especially) computer technicians. "Ancient Peasant Guy" (I'll call him APG from now on) learns from his father how to farm or maybe how to work metal and become a blacksmith, but whatever he learns, all he's really just learning to do is replace his father. He has two kids that early because they might die and his wife needs to be pumping out kids and he's taking care of his father at age 35 because something is horribly wrong (yet entirely normal for a 35 year old in those day) with his father. The father didn't say "Well son, there's nothing left for me to teach you. I'm going to retire and give the farm/workshop to you", he got sick and he likely can't work even if he really wants to. And the son never learns to be anything more than a farmer or a carpenter or a blacksmith, because he doesn't have the time.

But, if he were an Elf however (And I believe your point, Yogi, was that if we are slower than APG, that Elves must be be even slower by coorelation)..... even if he is still in the same predicament (only he's more like 80 years old instead 18), he will see his ailing father and his friends dying in accidents and from diseases (oh, didn't I mention that medieval people are swamped with disease -their faces are covered in boils, HIDEOUS BOILS! Even :thog: is prettier than the average historically accurate APG-, even before the Black Death invaded Europe?)

Now, he's lucky to have reached 80 years old in such an environment (I can only assume that Elf children are exceedingly hardy until they reach adulthood then their Constitution goes SPLAT, hence the -2 con penalty, from exhaustion of keeping the Elf alive throughout the dangerous trials of childhood) but he's likely has already seen his share of death. His brother died, his little brother died, his other brother died, a whole lot of other siblings died (especially in this scenario, Elves HAVE to be pumping out children) and lots of his neighbors died. And all from pretty stupid causes. Diseases that we didn't know how to cure....Accidents that brought on injuries, that brought on more diseases the village didn't know how to cure...monsters because the entire damn world is populated by monsters (yes, this is an elf trapped in a historically accurate preindustrial farming village, but even the most over the top fantasy world had to have a point in time before magic dominated everything, or else nobody would invent a so much as a sword) and eventually the Ancient Peasant Elf is going to try to improve life a little. He's going to be spending his free time trying to decrease the workload of agriculture, develop some better medicine, find a way to fend of those goddamn Ogres that keep raiding our crops and foundling our women '(-_-)', and general make life better. In fact, if APE can get a few levels of Cleric or something under his belt, he can make magic items that can help with all of these things (take a healing belt of instance). Or at least, those Elves who *aren't* farming will have even more leisure time afforded them by their lifespans to do all those things.

They won't just slow down to the point of standing still because they have longer lives with which to benefit from their nonfarmer status and so they can invent more stuff (which is how it worked in human civilization, its just that since the peasant elf is living a long life as well, he must be exercising his brain at some point or another, if nothing else, he's bound to have maxed out the ranks in his farming skill and won himself some extra free time.) Its surprising Elves haven't had an industrial revolution yet.

Leisure time = Invention and Invention = Leisure time but also longer lives = leisure time. Therefore Longer lives = more, not less Inventions. Life is a learning experience in of itself. Taking it easy might very well be a recipe for genius. Childlike imagination is what made Einstein Einstein. Studying for an exam because you are nervous of failing it (I can't imagine the pressure of studying for one because you might fall over dead before you can retake it) does not necessarily mean that you will retain a damn thing from that class.

And heres a fluffy response to why Elves take so long to become Wizards: they don't. They are merely oligated by society to use their magic (I have no Idea what Monks do with those 10d6 years) to serve the Elven government for .....various reasons. Probably healing people and maybe making magic items for the Elves to export to other lands if they are skilled enough.

If you lived forever, your ambition would grow, not shrink. And you certainly would just stand still drooling on yourself until the end of time.

Also:


This, as far as I am aware, is a common mistake. Average Life Expectancy is not a reflection of how quickly medieval and ancient people aged. The child mortality rate was very high, which is why it is low. Girls were often married off at an early age, but boys were usually somewhat older.

Yeah, what he said.

[Yogi]

Let me apologize in advance to Yogi if I sound too harsh, and to anyone who has already responded to his comment before I did, as I have not read all the way through this thread. And I fell asleep before completing this post..... Anyway, hurt feelings are not intentional. I just find Yogi's comment full of fallacies and assumtions.I've posted at other, less pleasant forums before. The flames here are warm and pleasant compared to the firepits there. Half the insults used by the admins there against other users would be worthy of an instant perma-ban here should I dare to try them upon you. Suffice to say, your flame-fu is weak.

Personally, I think that most of the unpleasantness that follows would have been avoided, had you put more points in your Spot:Sarcasm skill.

Yogi, you sound as if you are assuming that Medieval Europe was just like modern day, only with shorter lifespans. People *didn't* go to college, most people couldn't even read. Now, sure, the nobles might have sent their children to some kind of academy (or the Church, the church was the primary source of books being translated into vernacular, however, literacy wouldn't improve significantly until the invention of the printing press.) Actually, you could say that the children were "home-schooled" because most of the time, there were tutors in the service of the King/Duke/whatever and they taught the children in the castle/manor. Which is pretty much why we take longer to get to full speed. We actually learn things like reading, writing, arithmetic, history, science etc. Now most of this stuff isn't necessary to so the standard entry-level job after High School, or even your College Degree job which would be the equivalent of the Adventurers in D&D. I've never had to use my Chemistry or World History knowledge at work before. However, we learn it anyway and I'm glad I do because it helps be become a better educated, more well rounded person, despite the fact that it doesn't add any points in Profession: Code Monkey.

But your talking about "Ancient Peasant Guy" (as you call him), and sadly, its likely the other way around, simply because he's a peasant in the Dark Ages; to us, HE'S HIDEOUSLY SLOW -AND HE HAS LESS TIME IN THIS WORLD! You talk about studying after 18 years as if its a bad thing. As if our 18 year old peasant who has two kids and is taking care of his 35 year old father is doing so because he is so smart he doesn't need to go to school anymore. Thats not the case.No it's not. I said the PEASANT thinks we're slow. In reality, the peasant doesn't have a CHOICE. He needs to get cracking or else he'll starve. Just because we start later doesn't mean that we're less advanced. Once again, that would be clear to you had you put points in Spot: Sarcasm.

The children of modern working-class people go to school to become engineers, scientists, artists, historians, NASA mathematicians, actors, movie directors, inventors and (especially) computer technicians.And Presidents.

"Ancient Peasant Guy" (I'll call him APG from now on) learns from his father how to farm or maybe how to work metal and become a blacksmith, but whatever he learns, all he's really just learning to do is replace his father. He has two kids that early because they might die and his wife needs to be pumping out kids and he's taking care of his father at age 35 because something is horribly wrong (yet entirely normal for a 35 year old in those day) with his father. The father didn't say "Well son, there's nothing left for me to teach you. I'm going to retire and give the farm/workshop to you", he got sick and he likely can't work even if he really wants to. And the son never learns to be anything more than a farmer or a carpenter or a blacksmith, because he doesn't have the time.I suppose this could be reflected in the fact that Elves can take professions other than what their parents do. In the context of a Level 1 D&D character though, you're already a Maverick, someone who Is Not Part of The Norm. The comparison to Farmer Joe isn't the best.

But, if he were an Elf however (And I believe your point, Yogi, was that if we are slower than APG, that Elves must be be even slower by coorelation)..... even if he is still in the same predicament (only he's more like 80 years old instead 18), he will see his ailing father and his friends dying in accidents and from diseases (oh, didn't I mention that medieval people are swamped with disease -their faces are covered in boils, HIDEOUS BOILS! Even :thog: is prettier than the average historically accurate APG-, even before the Black Death invaded Europe?) Now, he's lucky to have reached 80 years old in such an environment (I can only assume that Elf children are exceedingly hardy until they reach adulthood then their Constitution goes SPLAT, hence the -2 con penalty,Or, their low Con score explains why their population is so small.

from exhaustion of keeping the Elf alive throughout the dangerous trials of childhood) but he's likely has already seen his share of death. His brother died, his little brother died, his other brother died, a whole lot of other siblings died (especially in this scenario, Elves HAVE to be pumping out children) and lots of his neighbors died. And all from pretty stupid causes. Diseases that we didn't know how to cure....Accidents that brought on injuries, that brought on more diseases the village didn't know how to cure...monsters because the entire damn world is populated by monsters (yes, this is an elf trapped in a historically accurate preindustrial farming village, but even the most over the top fantasy world had to have a point in time before magic dominated everything, or else nobody would invent a so much as a sword) and eventually the Ancient Peasant Elf is going to try to improve life a little. He's going to be spending his free time trying to decrease the workload of agriculture, develop some better medicine, find a way to fend of those goddamn Ogres that keep raiding our crops and foundling our women '(-_-)', and general make life better. In fact, if APE can get a few levels of Cleric or something under his belt, he can make magic items that can help with all of these things (take a healing belt of instance). Or at least, those Elves who *aren't* farming will have even more leisure time afforded them by their lifespans to do all those things. They won't just slow down to the point of standing still because they have longer lives with which to benefit from their nonfarmer status and so they can invent more stuff (which is how it worked in human civilization, its just that since the peasant elf is living a long life as well, he must be exercising his brain at some point or another, if nothing else, he's bound to have maxed out the ranks in his farming skill and won himself some extra free time.) Its surprising Elves haven't had an industrial revolution yet.It's true that the first Elves would have a fire lit up under their feet and be getting Cleric levels at 25. However, The D&D-verse is quite a bit better than the real Medieval Europe, and the Elves have always been a bit ahead of the wealth curve compared to Humans. Elves have always been the otherworldly, "higher" race, and so thematically it wouldn't have Farmer El'theian'ther'qeu'thala the Elf being in the same boat as Farmer Joe, the Human. Elves are always portrayed as having the good life, and would be closer to us than to the APG.

BTW, a few ranks in Craft: Paragraph Breaks would also help.

Leisure time = Invention and Invention = Leisure time but also longer lives = leisure time. Therefore Longer lives = more, not less Inventions. Life is a learning experience in of itself. Taking it easy might very well be a recipe for genius. Childlike imagination is what made Einstein Einstein. Studying for an exam because you are nervous of failing it (I can't imagine the pressure of studying for one because you might fall over dead before you can retake it) does not necessarily mean that you will retain a damn thing from that class.Well no one is arguing that the Elves are less advanced. However, they are in a position where they can relax and read poetry for a hundred years and still have several times the lifespan of a human to do all he needs to do.

If you lived forever, your ambition would grow, not shrink. And you certainly would just stand still drooling on yourself until the end of time.Most of the humans I know aren't out to change the world or make a huge impact. They just want to get by.

Yeah, what he said.Actually, someone who lived to be 21 could expect to die at around 40-50ish, hence the "infirm father of 35" comment. If we add in infant mortality, the age drops even lower.

[Matthew]

Actually, someone who lived to be 21 could expect to die at around 40-50ish, hence the "infirm father of 35" comment. If we add in infant mortality, the age drops even lower.

Are you still being sarcastic here or are you really convinced of this? The human lifespan was generally thought to be around seventy years in Ancient and Medieval society, but actual data for calculating the mortality rate is sparse. There's certainly no reason to suppose the average person would be infirm at age 35-50, unless, perhaps, they suffered from a debilitating disease of some sort.

[Dervag]

Modern EMS balances out with magical EMS in the game. So that's a wash. And we're talking about non-class leveled people, so resurrections aren't going to fly as a likely alternative.I didn't suggest them.


I think 37% might be a little bit high, but not by much. Living year to year, we see the accidental deaths at a little over 1%, so they seem very rare. But when you combine them it does stack up. I'm sure the numbers are front loaded and back loaded as well. Kids are stupid and do stupid stuff that get them killed. The very old lose out on reaction times and are fragile, so lesser accidents can still kill them. I'm sure there is a coming of age spike as well... and then workplace injuries...Seriously. What you're saying is that approximately one third of all children born in industrialized nations die before the age of 20 in an accident of some sort.

I flat out can not believe that based on my own experiences and the culture around me, unless I see statistical proof by someone who has been gathering plenty of data for a long time. I don't know how else to put it than that. Could you please provide some citation for that?

Remember that accidental deaths are only a fraction of total deaths. If you added in the deaths due to disease to the accident death rate you describe, we'd be looking at a majority of children born not living to the legal age of majority. Does that square with your experiences? Have most 50+ year old couples lost as many children as have survived to reach 18 or 20? Are half the people you knew in elementary school dead?

If not, then the odds are that the accidental death rate in your community isn't high enough to kill 37% of the population by the age of 20.


In any case, tweaking the numbers down a bit isn't going to negate the fact that FAR fewer elves will survive to adulthood than humans.Yes, but the overwhelming majority of children born in modern society, or any society with modern medical care, do survive to adulthood. Even if we decrease the probability of survival by a power of five we still get a large fraction. And in a society which, like that of the elves, takes extraordinary measures to protect each child, the fraction will likely remain large despite a low technology level given the availability of healing magic.


You can get a "degree" from ICS for locksmithing in as little as two years. You can't get a doctorate in Physics.Who says magic is as hard as physics?

I've been known to assume that myself, but I can't prove it. D&D magic seems to be pretty user-friendly. Very few spells carry risks, and they all operate consistently. Maybe it really is easier than, say, quantum field theory. Or at least requires less classroom time to learn.


Oh, I had about that many people in high school die from Drunk Driving, be horribly mutilated to the point of brain damage from accidents on the farm and drowning over the summer vacations. If elves spend all that time drinking while in tree cities, then it's certainly feasible that they'd fall to their deaths periodically.One third of your fellow freshmen died or were permanently crippled before graduation due to some sort of accident?

You poor soul. My heart goes out to your community; that's terrible. I mean it. If the figure you name is correct then you must live in Cursedville, USA or something.

I mean, even the US Army during World War Two didn't experience casualties equal to one third of its numbers in four years of open warfare. The Red Army lost about that proportion of its soldiers, I think.

[Citizen Joe]

I flat out can not believe that based on my own experiences and the culture around me, unless I see statistical proof by someone who has been gathering plenty of data for a long time. I don't know how else to put it than that. Could you please provide some citation for that?

I specifically asked for an insurance agent with access to actuarial tables to verify that for me. I got that from like 10 years ago when someone was talking about immortality and how if we could eliminate all the diseases of old age you still wouldn't live that long through shear bad luck.

However, I can do this. If you agree that there is a finite chance flat across the board that an accident can happen to kill you whether you are human or elf, I can take any specific chance and give you the proportion of elf survivors to adulthood compared to human survivors.

{table="head]Accident % | Human 20 yrs | Elf 120 yrs | H/E ratio | Human 35 yrs | Elf 175 yrs | H/E middleaged
1.5% | 74% | 16% | 5:1 | 59% | 7% | 17:2
1.0% | 82% | 30% | 8:3 | 70% | 17% | 4:1
0.5% | 90% | 55% | 3:2 | 84% | 42% | 2:1
[/table]

This isn't disease or anything like that, this is 'Rocks fall from the sky, everyone dies' sort of accidents. Fortunately, PC's are immune to this sort of thing. But if you just simply ignore the infertility and just look at the shear dumb luck of getting to reproducing age, you'll see that humans will FAR outnumber elves. Same goes for leaders (middle aged people) and thus nations.

[GoC]

Thoughtbot360: Very interesting post.


And Presidents.
In which country?
Certainly not in any of the one's I've heard of.


Well no one is arguing that the Elves are less advanced. However, they are in a position where they can relax and read poetry for a hundred years and still have several times the lifespan of a human to do all he needs to do.
You'd read poetry?:smallconfused:
Most people I know would invent things (literature/art/science/magic/games) and go out goblin hunting.:smallbiggrin:


Most of the humans I know aren't out to change the world or make a huge impact. They just want to get by.
I've had the opposite experience so it probably varies with culture/location/wealth/ect.

[Thoughtbot360]

blah blah Citizen Joe's last post blah blah

But what was the scope of the experiment that yielded that data? Where and what did they observe? Was it the entire world? A country? A city? A village? And for how long did they gather data? How do we know they didn't just look at Curseville, USA for a few unlucky months?
Also the book,
Ending Aging, (http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation-Breakthroughs-Lifetime/dp/0312367066?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189724139&sr=8-1) tells us that 90% of all deaths in a single come from diseases related to old age (http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation-Breakthroughs-Lifetime/dp/0312367066?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189724139&sr=8-1). How can only 17% of a single generation outdie the accidents (and all other causes of death) that supposedly reduced them to 17%?

Someone between the two of you has faulty data.

[Turcano]

Oh ****, I broke thread........ How do you call Admins?

You can delete the second post yourself, and there are spaces and quotation marks in your markup tags where they shouldn't be.

[SurlySeraph]

@^ Next to the "Quote" button on one of your posts, you will see an "Edit" button. Click it. You will then see two boxes saying "Delete this message" and "Do not delete this message." Click the one that says "Delete this message." Then hit the "delete this message" button.

[Thoughtbot360]

Fixed. Thanks!

[Citizen Joe]

But what was the scope of the experiment that yielded that data? Where and what did they observe? Was it the entire world? A country? A city? A village? And for how long did they gather data? How do we know they didn't just look at Curseville, USA for a few unlucky months?

The original premise came from something I overheard (I think it was a radio show) about 10 years ago. So my exact numbers may have been off. But the hypothesis was, if we can eliminate death by disease and old age through medicines and what not, how long would we live? Would we be immortal? The result was that actuarial tables (that insurance companies use) dictated that a large (almost all) amount of people would die by accidental death by a specific age (I thought it was like 100-150, definitely less than 200). Thus, we wouldn't be immortal.

The table I provided was not some experiment it was extrapolations based on an arbitrary chance of a person dying in a year. Actuarial tables don't grow linearly, the chance of death in year N+1 is different for each N due to various diseases and such. But if you drop it to the LOWEST value, you can strip out the variabilities of age, which is just the bad luck effects. I think it is in the 1.5 to 0.5% per year. So just pick your poison. The point of the table is to show that given a flat death rate across the board humans will outnumber elves by a significant number through shear accidental deaths.

Note also the fertility zone, for the races. Basically, it is the adult range band (for females). Living past middle aged does not contribute to population growth. That will aggravate the situation.

[horseboy]

Who says magic is as hard as physics?

I've been known to assume that myself, but I can't prove it. D&D magic seems to be pretty user-friendly. Very few spells carry risks, and they all operate consistently. Maybe it really is easier than, say, quantum field theory. Or at least requires less classroom time to learn.
Well, in order to tell physics to "sit down and shut up," you have to first understand physics that are limiting you then how to circumvent them. Or so a logical extrapolation of the rule book would say. (Granted how badly the rule books screws up logic)


One third of your fellow freshmen died or were permanently crippled before graduation due to some sort of accident?

You poor soul. My heart goes out to your community; that's terrible. I mean it. If the figure you name is correct then you must live in Cursedville, USA or something.

I mean, even the US Army during World War Two didn't experience casualties equal to one third of its numbers in four years of open warfare. The Red Army lost about that proportion of its soldiers, I think.

Well, if we're including "violent deaths" like suicide, drug overdoses, whackings, idiot CF's coming down, mistaking people for deer and shooting them then yeah. A friend of mine a couple of years ago wrote up a list of his friends he's had growing up. At thrity, there's around 1/4 of us left alive. Add to this the numbers for inner-city death rates average against suburbia I could see that being the national average.

[Narmoth]

You know, the reason humans dominate and not elves (or any long-lived intelligent race, really) that is given in most fantasy worlds doesn't make sense. Usually it goes like this: Elves (particularly 3rd edition Elves) take a long time to reach puberty and therefore humans breed faster than elves. But, then, after the Elves DO reach child-bearing age they have hundreds and hundreds of years to bear and raise as many children as they want. I mean, how long can Elven pregency be? It sounds like if elves really wanted to multiply and take back control from the humans, all they'd have to do is start bonking like rabbits. And then marrying off their children as soon as they came of age so they can start bonking like rabbits. Just because Elves have to wait 100 years (actually can you imagine 100 years of childhood? I'd go insane....especially if I was training to become a wizard, 120-170 years starting age (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age) my ass!)

Uh, but seriously, I think I've hit a brand new plot hole with fantasy norms.


What I run i my campaign is that elves grow about the smae rate as humans, with the first 10 years being done at the same rate, and then the time doulbes so they reach amturity (at least physical) at 30.
They still have few children, getting maybee 2 kids with a few years pause and then waiting 50 or more years until next time they reproduce.

Most importantly is in my campaign that elves don't wish to dominate the world, so they won't try to breed an army (especially since they warfare is much more lvl and magic oriented than that of the humans).

[Citizen Joe]

OK, in my continuing series of random death effects on an immortal population I have the following results. These were based on an initial population of 100 thousand members. Note that those passed venerable were ignored/considered statistically insignificant.
{table="head"] Death Rate/race |Surviving members |%children |%adult |%middleaged |%old |#children per couple

0.5% Elf |47,020 |51.30% |19.70% |17.90% |11.40% |11.4
0.5% Human |84,129 |26.04% |28.33% |24.46% |21.16% |1.3
1.0% Elf |27,446 |68.94% |16.71% |10.42% |4.27% |31.6
1.0% Human |71,444 |29.40% |29.30% |23.00% |18.25%| 2.7
1.5% Elf |18,667 |81.44% |12.22% |5.25% |1.38% |71.3
1.5% Human |61,242 |32.90% |30.02% |21.50% |15.58% |4.2
[/table]

Note that ADULT in this model is the child bearing age. While middle aged+ individuals CAN contribute to the society, they cannot yield any more children.

Note also the ratio of children to adults. In most cases, human children and fertile adults are almost even in numbers. But in elven societies, children outnumber all the adults combined. In the worst case scenario (1.5% annual death rate) Elven children outnumber the grups four to one!

So, not only are there fewer elves overall, most of them are still children.

Notice that final column. Assuming equilibrium where you continue to generate a population of 100,000 each fertile couple would have to generate this many offspring during their term as an adult.

That kinda puts an end to the theory about elves having low fertility rates.

[Starbuck_II]

OK, in my continuing series of random death effects on an immortal population I have the following results. These were based on an initial population of 100 thousand members. Note that those passed venerable were ignored/considered statistically insignificant.
{table="head"] Death Rate/race |Surviving members |%children |%adult |%middleaged |%old |#children per couple

0.5% Elf |47,020 |51.30% |19.70% |17.90% |11.40% |11.4
0.5% Human |84,129 |26.04% |28.33% |24.46% |21.16% |1.3
1.0% Elf |27,446 |68.94% |16.71% |10.42% |4.27% |31.6
1.0% Human |71,444 |29.40% |29.30% |23.00% |18.25%| 2.7
1.5% Elf |18,667 |81.44% |12.22% |5.25% |1.38% |71.3
1.5% Human |61,242 |32.90% |30.02% |21.50% |15.58% |4.2
[/table]

Note that ADULT in this model is the child bearing age. While middle aged+ individuals CAN contribute to the society, they cannot yield any more children.

Note also the ratio of children to adults. In most cases, human children and fertile adults are almost even in numbers. But in elven societies, children outnumber all the adults combined. In the worst case scenario (1.5% annual death rate) Elven children outnumber the grups four to one!

So, not only are there fewer elves overall, most of them are still children.

Notice that final column. Assuming equilibrium where you continue to generate a population of 100,000 each fertile couple would have to generate this many offspring during their term as an adult.

That kinda puts an end to the theory about elves having low fertility rates.

You really expect each Elven family has 72 children?

Remember: Elven would have 2 % compared to Humans 1 since -2 Con.

[Citizen Joe]

No, I don't expect 72 children from each couple (that's more than one child per year during their reproductive age).

The premise is that there is a finite (if small) chance that in a given year some fatal accident will kill you. In modern days common accidents are car crashes, lightning strikes, slip and fall down stair, etc. In a fantasy game it may be falling out of a tree, getting kicked in the head by a mule, earthquake, whatever. These are not diseases that you can prevent or eliminate, but rather they are unavoidable accidents, random acts of god. These occur across the board regardless of race.

Actual death rates would be significantly higher, but the rate would vary by age and other controllable factors. These would include diseases and other factors.

My original basis put the accidental death rate at 1.4% annually. But people balked at that number so I have provided a spread from half a percent to 1.5%

In this calculation, I partitioned the theoretical 100K population into a number of years equal to Venerable age category. 350 years for elves and 70 years for humans. For each partition, I multiplied that fraction of the population by the chance of surviving to that age (annual survival rate ^ age). This yields the number of survivors at each age. By totaling all of these survivors I could derive the total surviving population. Now, grouping each age category and dividing by to surviving population gives the proportion of members within that age category.

To figure out how many children each member must spawn to reach equilibrium, find how many total die due to random accident. That would be the starting population (100K) minus the survivors. That many need to be replaced by the reproductive population (Adult age category). Divide losses by reproductive population to find the average number of children per member. Since it takes two members to reproduce, each COUPLE needs to produce twice that number. This reproduction must occur during the reproductive time frame for the specific race (65 years for elves, 20 years for humans)

If you don't reach equilibrium, your population will die out.

It is up to the reviewer to decide on the actual annual accidental death rate, but even at the low end, where a human only needs to reproduce 1-2 children in their lifetime, elf couples need to spit out 11 children... almost TEN TIMES AS MANY. At the other end, it is almost TWENTY TIMES as many children as the comparable human couple. And this is only to cover accidental deaths.

The conclusion is: Not only do elves NOT have a low fertility rate, they need to reproduce like rabbits to avoid a total collapse of their society.