Concerning Elves

[NecessaryWeevil]

We know that Tolkien was a major influence on D&D as it first came to be. Elves and Hobb, er Halflings in particular seem to be very Tolkien-esque.
What would the Elf PC race look like if they were instead based on the elves of Discworld or Mr. Norrell & Jonathan Strange?

[Anymage]

Halflings faced a significant shift since early D&D, since a race of pastoral homebodies is boring and doesn't really spark many adventure opportunities or character concepts beyond the occasional person who gets hit by the wanderlust bug.

Elves are tricky. In large part because of how many fantasy elves are inspired by Tolkien's in some way, and because Tolkien's ideas are basically being better than everybody else. That does create fertile ideas for both plots and characters, but on the character front it's hard to square being better than everybody else with functioning game balance. Since elves are one of the archetypal D&D races, making them playable is a top priority and that doesn't mesh with some alternate elf interpretations.

[Millstone85]

IIRC, Discworld elves are wasp-like creatures with a glamour ability that works both as a disguise and a psychic attack. You see them as something so beautiful, noble, and superior in every way, that you lose any confidence in your own worth.

So, a sort of thri-kreen/changeling with vicious mockery as a racial cantrip?

[KorvinStarmast]

Halflings faced a significant shift since early D&D, since a race of pastoral homebodies is boring and doesn't really spark many adventure opportunities or character concepts beyond the occasional person who gets hit by the wanderlust bug.

EGG would have been better off not including them in the game. (And yes, I played my share of hobbit thieves back in the day).

... but on the character front it's hard to square being better than everybody else with functioning game balance.

I found Runequest (back in the 80's, 1st ed IIRC) elves to be more interesting, as they were a lot more like the fae/fey/fay/faerie of celtic and English folklore. They weren't these 'better than human' beings. Vulnerable to iron. (More like the 3 heart 3 lions elves/faeries).
Tolkien's idealized 'First Children of Illuvitar' concept as regards both magical and immortal was quite a break from the fae/fey/fay/faerie elves of other story traditions.

[RSP]

Yeah, I find it odd that 5e PC elves have been alive for like a hundred twenty years already (“adulthood” for an elf), but have absolutely nothing to show for those extra years. And that just a young adult elf. If you play a middle aged elf (400 years old-ish), you better have a good story why you’re no more learned or experienced than a 18-year old human.

[herrhauptmann]

Yeah, I find it odd that 5e PC elves have been alive for like a hundred twenty years already (“adulthood” for an elf), but have absolutely nothing to show for those extra years. And that just a young adult elf. If you play a middle aged elf (400 years old-ish), you better have a good story why you’re no more learned or experienced than a 18-year old human.

That's always been an issue in D&D.

fertile ideas for both plots and characters,

Remember, elves loved music and languages. If Glorfindel lived today he'd probably have a blast learning Cajun Creole and Eubonics. Learn bluegrass but play it with a harp or glass harmonica, because he got really good at using one a few hundred years ago.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yeah, I find it odd that 5e PC elves have been alive for like a hundred twenty years already (“adulthood” for an elf), but have absolutely nothing to show for those extra years.

I guess you have not seen how long it takes to build a house up in a tree in an environmentally friendly way. And their furniture: have you seen that stuff? Amazing stuff, and not a single nail used!

And that just a young adult elf. If you play a middle aged elf (400 years old-ish), you better have a good story why you’re no more learned or experienced than a 18-year old human.

Was writing poetry, but can't seem to get it published ...

[RSP]

I guess you have not seen how long it takes to build a house up in a tree in an environmentally friendly way. And their furniture: have you seen that stuff? Amazing stuff, and not a single nail used!

Was writing poetry, but can't seem to get it published ...

So Expertise in Carpenter’s Tools as a Racial ability? And maybe in Survival to source the materials without harming anything?

Obviously there’s way too many Elves to publish all the poetry, but a hundred years spent learning Calligrapher’s Tools may make it better hand written any way…

That's always been an issue in D&D.

Some editions had stuff like prof linked to Int. So you could be a smart elf with lots of proficiencies; or a not very smart elf, which explains why you don’t remember all the stuff you e learned…

[Hail Tempus]

Yeah, I find it odd that 5e PC elves have been alive for like a hundred twenty years already (“adulthood” for an elf), but have absolutely nothing to show for those extra years. And that just a young adult elf. If you play a middle aged elf (400 years old-ish), you better have a good story why you’re no more learned or experienced than a 18-year old human.

My head canon on this is that though they are long-lived, they're no better at maintaining skills than humans are if they don't practice them. So, a 400 year old elf might have become a master chef 200 years ago, but he's moved on to other careers in the subsequent decades and hasn't kept up with his cooking skills. Similarly, an elf who only recently reached adulthood probably just recently put in the time and effort to become the equivalent of a 1st level fighter or wizard or whatever.

[RSP]

My head canon on this is that though they are long-lived, they're no better at maintaining skills than humans are if they don't practice them. So, a 400 year old elf might have become a master chef 200 years ago, but he's moved on to other careers in the subsequent decades and hasn't kept up with his cooking skills. Similarly, an elf who only recently reached adulthood probably just recently put in the time and effort to become the equivalent of a 1st level fighter or wizard or whatever.

Sure: but then all elves are transitory and don’t keep interests/knowledge long. So no elf can have been a farmer for 100 years; they HAVE to have been a farmer for only 10 years, then been a blacksmith for 10 years, then a teacher for 10 years, then a researcher for 10 years, then a lawyer for 10 years, etc.

And they only, for some reason, retain the knowledge of, what, the last 10 years? Does that mean if a campaign last over time, the elf PC loses proficiencies?

[Hail Tempus]

Sure: but then all elves are transitory and don’t keep interests/knowledge long. So no elf can have been a farmer for 100 years; they HAVE to have been a farmer for only 10 years, then been a blacksmith for 10 years, then a teacher for 10 years, then a researcher for 10 years, then a lawyer for 10 years, etc.

And they only, for some reason, retain the knowledge of, what, the last 10 years? Does that mean if a campaign last over time, the elf PC loses proficiencies?

For game purposes, the only relevant skills and proficiencies and the like that the elf remembers is whatever's on their sheet. Maybe she still remembers stuff from the last 50 years she spent working as a florist, which is reflected in her proficiency in Nature. Or maybe none of the skills she practiced recently are things that can be shown on a D&D character sheet. Or maybe their brains work differently- so when they lose interest in something, it tends to get deleted fairly quickly from their brains.

I guess we need to handwave this away, to an extent. This kind of reminds me of some science fictions stories I've read where long-lived humans in the future have to edit their older memories, or upload them to preserve space for new ones. Oftentimes, there's a tendency in D&D to think of elves as just pointy-haired humans, though you would expect the psychology of a someone who lives for 700 years to be quite different from us.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Elves as kind of distractible dilettantes does seem to mesh somewhat with the alternative source material I mentioned in the original post.

[RSP]

For game purposes, the only relevant skills and proficiencies and the like that the elf remembers is whatever's on their sheet. Maybe she still remembers stuff from the last 50 years she spent working as a florist, which is reflected in her proficiency in Nature. Or maybe none of the skills she practiced recently are things that can be shown on a D&D character sheet. Or maybe their brains work differently- so when they lose interest in something, it tends to get deleted fairly quickly from their brains.

I guess we need to handwave this away, to an extent. This kind of reminds me of some science fictions stories I've read where long-lived humans in the future have to edit their older memories, or upload them to preserve space for new ones. Oftentimes, there's a tendency in D&D to think of elves as just pointy-haired humans, though you would expect the psychology of a someone who lives for 700 years to be quite different from us.

But 50 years doing anything is going to be much more proficient than a 20-something year old human would have, in terms of knowing what you were doing. If a human PC begins the story at 25-years old, that’s about 5-10 years of life being accounted for by their Background

Aide-expectancy comparably aged Elf, is starting that campaign at about 175. Even if only accounting for the last 50 years, that’s still 5-10 times the years being accounted for by the background.

I’m not saying the game should change, but it certainly doesn’t make sense that the 175-year old Elf has the same breath of life experience (“proficiencies”) as a 20-ish human.

Some races, like Kobolds, make it worse. Kobolds reach adulthood at 6.

So a 6-year old Kobold, an 18-year old human, and a 100-year old elf all have the same breathe of life experiences, despite a dramatic difference in years lived.

[JNAProductions]

Exceptional elves, dwarves, humans, kobolds, goblins, etc…
Have the same level of starting adventuring skills at different ages, provided the DM starts everyone at the same level and allows all races.

You are perfectly free to say elves have to be at least 3rd level or whatever, or that kobolds start a level lower.

[RSP]

Exceptional elves, dwarves, humans, kobolds, goblins, etc…
Have the same level of starting adventuring skills at different ages, provided the DM starts everyone at the same level and allows all races.

You are perfectly free to say elves have to be at least 3rd level or whatever, or that kobolds start a level lower.

I appreciate you allowing me that. Very generous of you.

Whether you allow it for others or not, though, it’s a huge hole in the fantasy.

If the fiction is that Elves learn from their experiences, like real life humans do, then PC elves are rather behind their elven contemporaries, rather than being exceptional.

[Monster Manuel]

I've always played it that elves (and all races in D&D, basically) age at the same rate as humans until they get to adulthood, and that's when things slow down for some and speed up for others. So, a 4-year-old elf is developmentally similar to a 4-year-old human child, a Kobold hits puberty around the same time as a Dwarf. Any long-lived PCs are assumed to be in the early days of their career, and start at around the same age as a typical human PC (so, 20-ish), unless there's some backstory reason to explain their lack of skill compared to their more advanced age. An elf with a high stat and expertise in some craftsman's tools makes an acceptably good tailor, if that's how you want to explain what you were doing for 30 years before you picked up the sword.

There are more high-level elves than there are high-level goblins, just because they have a longer time frame to get good, but that's an NPC/world building concern, rather than a PC concern.

As for the OP's question about what Discworld or Johnathan Strange elves might look like in D&D, I think they'd mainly look like...not PCs. Both are powerful, dangerous, and alien. They're things that players should be fighting around tier 2 or 3, not something they should be playing. Tolkien's "like you only better" elves just fit the role of a player character more easily than Susanna Clarke's "terrifying and unknowable reality-warping fey" elves. What would I recommend for a player that wanted to stat up a Lovecraftian Shoggoth for a PC? I'd recommend they think harder about their life choices...

Honestly, I think non-tolkien, folklore based elves would probably look a lot like Forest Gnomes.

[JNAProductions]

I appreciate you allowing me that. Very generous of you.

Whether you allow it for others or not, though, it’s a huge hole in the fantasy.

If the fiction is that Elves learn from their experiences, like real life humans do, then PC elves are rather behind their elven contemporaries, rather than being exceptional.

No?

A master seamstress might have a +12 bonus to their clothes making checks. But that's not relevant in most D&D adventures.
This same seamstress is unlikely to be able to produce a cantrip, or swing a sword to any great effect, or be able to take a longsword to the face and keep trucking.

[NecessaryWeevil]

As for the OP's question about what Discworld or Johnathan Strange elves might look like in D&D, I think they'd mainly look like...not PCs. Both are powerful, dangerous, and alien. They're things that players should be fighting around tier 2 or 3, not something they should be playing. Tolkien's "like you only better" elves just fit the role of a player character more easily than Susanna Clarke's "terrifying and unknowable reality-warping fey" elves. What would I recommend for a player that wanted to stat up a Lovecraftian Shoggoth for a PC? I'd recommend they think harder about their life choices...

LOL! Fair enough. I love your name by the way.

[RSP]

No?

A master seamstress might have a +12 bonus to their clothes making checks. But that's not relevant in most D&D adventures.
This same seamstress is unlikely to be able to produce a cantrip, or swing a sword to any great effect, or be able to take a longsword to the face and keep trucking.

Which isn’t anything I mentioned. If a 400 year old elf is knowledgeable in 400 years of life experiences, working, dealing with wars or monster attacks, whatever; they will be much more knowledgeable about most things than an “exceptional” elf PC with 4 proficiencies and a +2 prof bonus.

Though just because you pointed them out, elves are proficient with swinging a sword, and High Elves very much can cast a cantrip.

But that’s just the basics they get for being an elf.

[JNAProductions]

Which isn’t anything I mentioned. If a 400 year old elf is knowledgeable in 400 years of life experiences, working, dealing with wars or monster attacks, whatever; they will be much more knowledgeable about most things than an “exceptional” elf PC with 4 proficiencies and a +2 prof bonus.

Though just because you pointed them out, elves are proficient with swinging a sword, and High Elves very much can cast a cantrip.

But that’s just the basics they get for being an elf.

Except they haven't been fighting in wars for 400 years.
If they have, they're NOT an ordinary elf, and are best represented with a lot of levels or a high CR, depending on what side of the screen they're on.

If you've been a farmer for 300 years, you should be REALLY GOOD at farming. But that's not what D&D covers.

What exactly do you think should be done to represent a centuries-old elf in the game?

[RSP]

Except they haven't been fighting in wars for 400 years.
If they have, they're NOT an ordinary elf, and are best represented with a lot of levels or a high CR, depending on what side of the screen they're on.

If you've been a farmer for 300 years, you should be REALLY GOOD at farming. But that's not what D&D covers.

What exactly do you think should be done to represent a centuries-old elf in the game?

Why haven’t they been fighting for 400 years if they’re 500 years old? We are talking about worlds where monsters and different beings all have issues with each other, not to mention all the trouble the gods bring into it. I mean, FR has like three gods of war, and a few of death.

I mean, take a PC elf, Soldier or Mercenary background, make them about 125 years old. Haven’t they now been a Soldier or Mercenary for a while? Even if their background only covers the last 10-15 years, that’s way more time than an equivalent 18 year old Human would have (maybe a couple years), or a Kobold, (a couple months?).

As I stated above: “I’m not saying the game should change, but it certainly doesn’t make sense that the 175-year old Elf has the same breath of life experience (“proficiencies”) as a 20-ish human.”

The fictions of elves, and other races with different life and maturation expectations, doesn’t make sense.

Take your 400 year old farmer. Stuff that’s counted in generations for humans happened in their life time. I’m not great with history, but I sure as heck know stuff that happened in my lifetime much better than anything I didn’t particularly put in a good deal of time studying. “History” to the 400 year old Elf isn’t the same thing as “History” to the Human. Working as a farmer for 380+ years would be worth at least Expertise in Survival and/or Nature (what hasn’t been seen in 400 years of farming?), whatever “History” occurred then, probably some skill, if not expertise in Land Vehicles, Expertise in Animal Handling (assuming livestock), maybe Medicine, and probably other stuff someone who actually has been a farmer could add.

The main thing is, the fiction tells us that a 125 year old elf, in 107 extra years of doing stuff, learns absolutely nothing: they know just as much as the 18 year old Human. That extra century of experience is worth absolutely nothing.

That doesn’t make sense, though I understand it for balance (though I imagine something like the new Trance feature could cover some ground).

[Hail Tempus]

Elves as kind of distractible dilettantes does seem to mesh somewhat with the alternative source material I mentioned in the original post.

I wouldn't call them necessarily distractable. It's more along the lines of, after spending decades doing a particular thing, a long-lived person might get tired of that occupation, hobby, or relationship, and want to try something else. When you live for centuries, why tie yourself down to one thing for your entire life?

[Hail Tempus]

Why haven’t they been fighting for 400 years if they’re 500 years old? We are talking about worlds where monsters and different beings all have issues with each other, not to mention all the trouble the gods bring into it. I mean, FR has like three gods of war, and a few of death.

I mean, take a PC elf, Soldier or Mercenary background, make them about 125 years old. Haven’t they now been a Soldier or Mercenary for a while? Even if their background only covers the last 10-15 years, that’s way more time than an equivalent 18 year old Human would have (maybe a couple years), or a Kobold, (a couple months?).

As I stated above: “I’m not saying the game should change, but it certainly doesn’t make sense that the 175-year old Elf has the same breath of life experience (“proficiencies”) as a 20-ish human.”

The fictions of elves, and other races with different life and maturation expectations, doesn’t make sense.

The elf who has been fighting for 400 years isn't going to be a 1st level adventurer. He's going to have a much more powerful stat block (such as the Warlord). A 1st level adventurer, of whatever race, only became an adventurer relatively recently. Their background is what they were doing right before they became an adventurer, even if they may have had other professions in the past.

[RSP]

The elf who has been fighting for 400 years isn't going to be a 1st level adventurer. He's going to have a much more powerful stat block (such as the Warlord). A 1st level adventurer, of whatever race, only became an adventurer relatively recently. Their background is what they were doing right before they became an adventurer, even if they may have had other professions in the past.

This leads to obvious world building issues. If your army is made up of beings who have studied warcraft for centuries, yes, they should be much better than anything humans roll out. But if your average Elven Soldier is equivalent to a CR 12 monster, then they probably don’t need Tier 1 or 2 adventurers for much.

As to the second part: you’re incorrect on what backgrounds are. For example, the Soldier says this right off the bat:

“War has been your life for as long as you care to
remember.”

I mean, that’s a long time for a 125 year old elf…

[Rukelnikov]

The thing is, Elves, at least Tolkien elves whom DnD elves strongly take from, are not a low level archetype, they are mysterious beings that have perceptions that humans don't and memories of what are effectively myths or legends. I used to say in 3e that Elves should just have had level adjustment, and you know what, they did for Drow, and that was good, but the want to have Elves be accessible from the very first moment, and this is in direct contrast to them not being a low level archetype.

This puts the game designers in a problem, they can't have elves be mechanically more powerful than the other races, but by allowing them parts of their archetype like their long lives, and even suggesting a starting age of 100+, they are giving them non quantifiable power, have you ever been in a scene where an npc goes:

"If what's written on the the scrolls you found is correct, I'm afraid we are facing the return of Victor Don Doomsday, a powerful barbarian who learnt the ways of the artifice to complement his strength, he ravaged the land about a dozen decades ago"

And then an Elf or Dwarf goes:

"Victor Don Doomsday... yeah, I remember well, it all started in the 1200s, I used to hug trees (or wrestle orcs) a tenday north of here at those times..."

Being 100+ years old is a narrative boon, it also leaves a lot more space for story hooks and backgrounds, "we hunted devils for a century, and then he sold his soul to one in exchange for his son's freedom, and I'll never forgive him for that"

There's also setting related stuff, like in the realms (much like in Arda), elves had been ruling the land for the past ages, so there's a myriad scattered things that work X but Y for elves, like mythals, magic items, or access to evermeet.

So while their 100+ years are not reflected per se in the statblock, they can, and IME are, present in the narrative.

[Bohandas]

IIRC, Discworld elves are wasp-like creatures

I thought they were more like gray aliens IIRC

[Unoriginal]

I thought they were more like gray aliens IIRC

Physically, they indeed do look similar to the Grey, being small humanoids with big eyes, small mouth and triangular faces under the projected glamour.

They're compared to wasps at one point, but it's in term of behavior.

Worth noting that the Discworld Elves' glamour is extremely potent, with even the best witches and wizards of the Disc being unable to see through it fully unless the elf has been weakened. Even Susan wielding most of the power of Death doesn't do as well.

Discworld's Elves are also extremely vulnerable to iron, because it disturbs their magnetic sense, which is their main sense and the mean by which they project their glamour and other power shenanigans.

[Millstone85]

They're compared to wasps at one point, but it's in term of behavior.

I remember it getting more literal in later books.

[Unoriginal]

I remember it getting more literal in later books.

The Elves appear in four books in total: Lords and Ladies, The Science of Disworld II: the Globe, The Wee Free Men and The Shepherd Crown.

I don't recall the Elves being described as physically insect-like at any point.

[Millstone85]

The Elves appear in four books in total: Lords and Ladies, The Science of Disworld II: the Globe, The Wee Free Men and The Shepherd Crown.

I don't recall the Elves being described as physically insect-like at any point.

At the very least, The Shepherd's Crown describes the elf queen with wings that:

• Do not disappear when her glamor is destroyed by a rival.
• Leave her with bleeding shoulders after being ripped off.

Which, combined with all the comparisons to social insects, makes me think that the elf queen's true form was some sort of alien fairy.

I "could swear" there were more clues but I would have to reread it all. Or read it for the first time, in the case of TSoD II.