Concerning Elves

[Tanarii]

A hundred year adventuring elf in 5e is one that's been adventuring on and off for 80 or so years since they hit physical maturity, and is settled down / retired and raising a family or whatever, and considered an adult. Their level depends on what the player has done at the table in that time. If the player is starting them as a level 1 PC, they've done non-adventuring things the same as a player choosing to start with a 30+ year old human.

Ditto for a 50 year old dwarf or 40 year old Gnome. The PHB is telling you what age these Demi-human societies consider a responsible adult who has but all their adventuring nonsense behind them, not the age level 1 PCs start at. They all start about 20ish, assuming the player doesn't want them to have done non-adventuring stuff for a chunk of life after maturity and start older. With no inherent mechanical benefit from doing so, although as always the DM can consider background/history if a non-adventuring thing ever comes up, either as an automatic success of some kind of ability check.

[RedMage125]

Skills don’t atrophy like muscle do though, for starters.

And real life humans very much learn a ton, even when finding themselves and not really buckling down during the teens and young adulthood.

Even one just living life for experiences is going to pick up a ton of knowledge over 100 years or so.

And CG has nothing to do with it.

Skills absolutely do atrophy. I played basketball and baseball in Middle School, I do not have the skills now that I did then. My wife played Roller Derby in her late 20s/early 30s. After only 4 years of not skating, she had trouble, not just with things related to physical endurance, but even some of the actual skills.
And lest this all seem about physical conditioning...I also no longer have the skills to make balloon animals, or even to draw as well as I used to. As a Navy Aciation Electrician, I used to solder all the time.. until I didn't for 8 years, and yes...my skills were not as good as they used to be.

Skill ABSOLUTELY atrophy. Especially with decades or longer of not using them.

No one's saying that the elves "aren't learning anything" during this period. But they also aren't "fighting in war" the while time, either. Or necessarily doing any of the things that would be reflected by proficiency as a D&D character.

And as for "knowledge picked up over 100 years"...who's to say it was relevant knowledge? It's difficult for us to imagine the priority span of the people who have a life expectancy measured in centuries. Earlier editions gave examples that an elf might spend 2 years on one painting. Or making one single sword. Their pace of moving through life, and even learning new things, is DRASTICALLY different.

And I think CG is related here. Their whole society is, as a whole, dedicated to a very laissez-faire attitude. Individuality and freedom of expression are valued and validated on a level we can't actually envision enacting in real life.

[RSP]

Skills absolutely do atrophy. I played basketball and baseball in Middle School, I do not have the skills now that I did then. My wife played Roller Derby in her late 20s/early 30s. After only 4 years of not skating, she had trouble, not just with things related to physical endurance, but even some of the actual skills.
And lest this all seem about physical conditioning...I also no longer have the skills to make balloon animals, or even to draw as well as I used to. As a Navy Aciation Electrician, I used to solder all the time.. until I didn't for 8 years, and yes...my skills were not as good as they used to be.

Skill ABSOLUTELY atrophy. Especially with decades or longer of not using them.

Ever hear the saying “it’s like riding a bike”? You don’t just forget stuff like you claim.

I’ve never roller derbyied before: I’m sure your wife is better than me at it, even without having done it for a period of time.

Pretending “having not done it for awhile” = “never known about it”, is just ridiculous.

No one's saying that the elves "aren't learning anything" during this period. But they also aren't "fighting in war" the while time, either. Or necessarily doing any of the things that would be reflected by proficiency as a D&D character.

And as for "knowledge picked up over 100 years"...who's to say it was relevant knowledge? It's difficult for us to imagine the priority span of the people who have a life expectancy measured in centuries. Earlier editions gave examples that an elf might spend 2 years on one painting. Or making one single sword. Their pace of moving through life, and even learning new things, is DRASTICALLY different.

The game sessions determine what’s relevant. Being a farmer for 100+ years should mean you know a ton about Nature and Survival. And that’s not factoring in just naturally being around and interacting with people for decades influencing how well social skills are; or the fact that history is now your lifetime.

And I think CG is related here. Their whole society is, as a whole, dedicated to a very laissez-faire attitude. Individuality and freedom of expression are valued and validated on a level we can't actually envision enacting in real life.

“Chaotic good (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect.”

That’s not going to mean “oh they can’t learn stuff”.

Do CG characters level slower in your campaigns or something?

[JNAProductions]

Ever hear the saying “it’s like riding a bike”? You don’t just forget stuff like you claim.

I’ve never roller derbyied before: I’m sure your wife is better than me at it, even without having done it for a period of time.

Pretending “having not done it for awhile” = “never known about it”, is just ridiculous.

---

The game sessions determine what’s relevant. Being a farmer for 100+ years should mean you know a ton about Nature and Survival. And that’s not factoring in just naturally being around and interacting with people for decades influencing how well social skills are; or the fact that history is now your lifetime.

---

“Chaotic good (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect.”

That’s not going to mean “oh they can’t learn stuff”.

Do CG characters level slower in your campaigns or something?

Your skills might not TOTALLY atrophy, but atrophy they do-and that's on a human scale.
If you haven't shot hoops/rode a bike/studied physics in eight years, you're gonna be very out of practice. How much does that get amplified if, instead of eight years, it's been eighty years?

And being a farmer for 100 years means you should know a crapload about your farm and general farming practices.
Would that let you forage better, like Survival does? I don't see why-you were a farmer, and that's basically the OPPOSITE of foraging. Would it let you track better? Maybe, if you tended to farm animals who escaped all the time, but you would probably just invest in better fences.
Would that let you know about weather and natural cycles? Probably! As well as any local animals and plants. But animals from a continent away, not so much.

[RedMage125]

Ever hear the saying “it’s like riding a bike”? You don’t just forget stuff like you claim.

I’ve never roller derbyied before: I’m sure your wife is better than me at it, even without having done it for a period of time.

Pretending “having not done it for awhile” = “never known about it”, is just ridiculous.

Pretending "skills atrophy and degrade over time" = "the person has never known about it" is even more ridiculous.

And if that's the only way to defend your point, then your point may not be worth defending.

The game sessions determine what’s relevant. Being a farmer for 100+ years should mean you know a ton about Nature and Survival. And that’s not factoring in just naturally being around and interacting with people for decades influencing how well social skills are; or the fact that history is now your lifetime.

The point is that what the elf was doing during that century may not be relevant to their later adventuring career. Looking back, I was quite explicit about this, and it's disingenuous to pretend I said what you've responded to.

“Chaotic good (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect.”

That’s not going to mean “oh they can’t learn stuff”.

Do CG characters level slower in your campaigns or something?

Do you only construct false points that you pretend I've made in order to respond in a manner that allows you to "disprove" them? Because no one said CG means "they can't learn stuff".

The point was that, their society, unlike ours, doesn't necessarily place any emphasis on the young doing anything productive or even building towards anything that will result in a productive career or future. The "laissez-faire" attitude was the relevant part. That's been mentioned in several books that detail elven society, across multiple editions. In 2e and 3e, elves pursue many different things, never being expected to focus on any one. In 5e, the first century of a young elf's life is focused on the fact that their ties to their past lives are stronger in childhood/adolescence, and it is a mark of the onset of adulthood that those connections grow weaker, and, being now of a more individual consciousness, they start to engage with the world. So, once again, like ibsaid initially, the amount of time actually spent doing whatever is relevant to the PC's Background is only 5-10 years, much like a human PC.

And your snarky comment about "CG characters leveling slower" in my campaign is as unwarranted and unwelcome as it is completely non-sequitur.

[Slipjig]

And 5 years as an adventurer is going to have an impact. We have sayings like “Once a Marine, always a Marine” for a reason: and it’s not because what’s learned over a time training/ fighting goes away after a year or two.

It's a catchy slogan, but it's an expression of solidarity, not a description. If you ask one of those old-timers down at the VFW to field strip an M60 or explain Battle Drill 1A to you, most of them would struggle.

There's also the fact that once an elf becomes an adventurer, their life expectancy drops dramatically (and the longer-lived a race, the more their life expectancy drops when they take up a dangerous profession). Even if we estimate that adventurers only have a 5% chance of permanently dying in a given year of active adventuring (and I would say that's VERY generous odds), 65% of them will be dead by the 20-year mark. After 100 years of adventuring, we're talking 99.5% mortality. Adventuring just isn't going to be a long-term thing for elves (or at least not the way they think of "long-term").

[JackPhoenix]

Sure? What does that have to do with what I was responding to? The term used was “perfectly”. Are you saying humans not doing it perfectly is better than doing it perfectly???

Not sure where you’re going with this.

Alright, just for you: Just because you can "perfectly" repeat what someone else did before doesn't mean that what you're repeating is the best possible way of doing things. Yeah, yeah, it's great you're casting Fireball exactly the same way archmage Whatshisname did, but that was 2000 years ago, we have much more advanced techniques now.

[RSP]

Your skills might not TOTALLY atrophy, but atrophy they do-and that's on a human scale.
If you haven't shot hoops/rode a bike/studied physics in eight years, you're gonna be very out of practice. How much does that get amplified if, instead of eight years, it's been eighty years?

My ability to ride a bike has never gone away despite not riding for at least a decade.

You stopped playing basketball? I bet you can still coach it, explain the rules, plays, theories behind it. Same with any sport. I hadn’t skied for probably 15 years and was fine going back out and doing black diamond stuff.

There’s literally tons of stuff that I stopped doing for very long periods of time and still remember them.

Again, stopping doing something does not equal you don’t know about it.

This is a ridiculous claim you’re making.

If you studied engineering in college for 4 years, and then didn’t become an engineer but went into a different field, you still know a crap ton of stuff about engineering.

The point is that what the elf was doing during that century may not be relevant to their later adventuring career.

And it very well might be, that’s what the campaign decides, but deciding those learned things don’t exist prevents them from ever being relevant.

And your snarky comment about "CG characters leveling slower" in my campaign is as unwarranted and unwelcome as it is completely non-sequitur.

No, stating alignment dictates how fast you learn is ridiculous.

Alright, just for you: Just because you can "perfectly" repeat what someone else did before doesn't mean that what you're repeating is the best possible way of doing things. Yeah, yeah, it's great you're casting Fireball exactly the same way archmage Whatshisname did, but that was 2000 years ago, we have much more advanced techniques now.

Huh? So there’s something better than doing something “perfectly”? And it’s achieved by NOT learning how to do something correctly? That makes zero sense.

[Segev]

My ability to ride a bike has never gone away despite not riding for at least a decade.

You stopped playing basketball? I bet you can still coach it, explain the rules, plays, theories behind it. Same with any sport. I hadn’t skied for probably 15 years and was fine going back out and doing black diamond stuff.

There’s literally tons of stuff that I stopped doing for very long periods of time and still remember them.

Again, stopping doing something does not equal you don’t know about it.

This is a ridiculous claim you’re making.

If you studied engineering in college for 4 years, and then didn’t become an engineer but went into a different field, you still know a crap ton of stuff about engineering.



And it very well might be, that’s what the campaign decides, but deciding those learned things don’t exist prevents them from ever being relevant.



No, stating alignment dictates how fast you learn is ridiculous.



Huh? So there’s something better than doing something “perfectly”? And it’s achieved by NOT learning how to do something correctly? That makes zero sense.

Due to the lack of granularity in 5e, those things he WAS good at years and years ago might represent what he's retaining by his raw stat bonus. Yes, that'd be there even without that history, but that history is one way to explain it.

[JNAProductions]

Huh? So there’s something better than doing something “perfectly”? And it’s achieved by NOT learning how to do something correctly? That makes zero sense.

To try to explain this better, imagine if you follow a cake recipe PERFECTLY. Every single step, you follow to a T, checking to make sure it all goes how the recipe says it should.
Now, what if this cake recipe calls for salt instead of sugar? You still follow the recipe perfectly-but your cake is gonna be AWFUL.

That's what the example was about-your motions are perfect to the way you learned them, but that doesn't mean what you learned is the best way to do something, only that you mastered that way.

[Rukelnikov]

Isn't it easier to admit that it doesn't make sense instead of trying to bend yourselves backwards jumping hoops to make explanations for why it does?

[Rukelnikov]

Easier than talking to certain people on this forum? Sure. That doesn't make it true.

It does, if you need an excuse for why every single PC is a 100 yo and has the smae experience as a 20 yo one, then its better to accept it doesn't make sense and we just roll with it because its a game.

[RedMage125]

My ability to ride a bike has never gone away despite not riding for at least a decade.

You stopped playing basketball? I bet you can still coach it, explain the rules, plays, theories behind it. Same with any sport. I hadn’t skied for probably 15 years and was fine going back out and doing black diamond stuff.

There’s literally tons of stuff that I stopped doing for very long periods of time and still remember them.

Again, stopping doing something does not equal you don’t know about it.

This is a ridiculous claim you’re making.

If you studied engineering in college for 4 years, and then didn’t become an engineer but went into a different field, you still know a crap ton of stuff about engineering.

No...YOU are the only one making that claim. That isn't what he said. He was talking about his actual, personal skill at basketball, not "still remembering the theories about it".

Hmmm...I only there was a term for when someone blatantly misrepresents your argument, and then knocks down and ridicules that absurd facsimile, as it were made of a straw-like substance.

And it very well might be, that’s what the campaign decides, but deciding those learned things don’t exist prevents them from ever being relevant.

If a given elf spent 10 years doing oil painting, that doesn't translate to any PC skills in the PHB.
Or, I you want to keep it 5e...a century spent re-living past life memories, that the elf then LOSES around the 100 year mark...why would he have extra skills?

If anything, the 5e model perfectly answers all of your issues. Even the ones where you twist what people are saying into something you can actually attack more easily.

No, stating alignment dictates how fast you learn is ridiculous.

And I agree, because I never said that. You would prefer that I did, because that's an absurd statement that's easy to argue against. You even quoted me saying that you drawing that connection was non-sequitur.

That means it was out of the blue and makes no sense.

Seriously, you haven't ACTUALLY responded to anything anyone was ACTUALLY saying.

[RSP]

Due to the lack of granularity in 5e, those things he WAS good at years and years ago might represent what he's retaining by his raw stat bonus. Yes, that'd be there even without that history, but that history is one way to explain it.

So then 5e elves should have higher stat bonuses is the answer?

To try to explain this better, imagine if you follow a cake recipe PERFECTLY. Every single step, you follow to a T, checking to make sure it all goes how the recipe says it should.
Now, what if this cake recipe calls for salt instead of sugar? You still follow the recipe perfectly-but your cake is gonna be AWFUL.

That's what the example was about-your motions are perfect to the way you learned them, but that doesn't mean what you learned is the best way to do something, only that you mastered that way.

So your answer is “elves do everything wrong for 700 years? That doesn’t make sense. You’re straining any sort of credulity saying “Humans naturally do everything right without experience, while elves waste their 700 year lifetime trying to do stuff perfectly but following the wrong instructions.”

I’m sure that explanation just doesn’t work. You’re saying Elves are just incompetent for hundreds of years.

No...YOU are the only one making that claim. That isn't what he said. He was talking about his actual, personal skill at basketball, not "still remembering the theories about it".

Who is “he”? I’m referring to your posts. Astral life humans age, yes, their bodies change and lose muscle, dexterity, etc. but that’s not a thing in 5e, nor is it a thing for 5e elves. You’re conflating things.

As you admit, the knowledge stays, regardless of physical deterioration. So stop claiming it doesn’t.

If a given elf spent 10 years doing oil painting, that doesn't translate to any PC skills in the PHB.
Or, I you want to keep it 5e...a century spent re-living past life memories, that the elf then LOSES around the 100 year mark...why would he have extra skills?

Thank you for proving my point: Painter’s Supplies is a Tool Proficiency, right there in the PHB. Obviously the designers of the game thought it appropriate to add that in.

Please, keep the posts proving my point coming.

And that only accounts for one activity over 10 years. What other skills should they have for the other +70…?

It does, if you need an excuse for why every single PC is a 100 yo and has the smae experience as a 20 yo one, then its better to accept it doesn't make sense and we just roll with it because its a game.

You would think it easy to say “yeah, spending 18 years learning and experiencing life and the world is less than spending 100+ years learning and experiencing life and the world.

____________

Let me add to this: a 18 year old Human, has an average life, going to school for 16 years, getting whatever a general education is in their society. They then join an army and have the Soldier background for two years and at 18 become a level 1 PC.

A 100 year old Elf has an average life, going to school for 20 years, getting whatever a general education is in their society. They then join an army and have the Soldier background for 80 years and at 100 become a level 1 PC.

So there’s no difference in 4 extra years of schooling (the difference in real life going to college vs ending education at high school), and 78 years working as a Soldier? That extra time means nothing? Going to college means nothing to all of you?

This position doesn’t make sense that 18 of growing equals 100 years equals 2 years (if that was the accurate adulthood posted earlier).

Those numbers and years have meaning.

____

And I don’t know if it’s strictly a Tolkien elf thing, but 5e states Humans sleep for 8 hours a day. Elves, don’t sleep but Trance for 4 hours. Even if you want to take away what’s gained by 4 hours of meditation, that’s still 25% more awake/learning/experiencing life time for Elves over Humans (and others).

Regardless of years, that’s 25% more of doing whatever is making them what they are.

Again, feel free to say things like “Elf society only teaches for 2 hours a day” but that makes less sense given they have so much extra time.

It’s much more likely that society says “let’s learn/train for all 20 hours, then you can spend your 4 hour Trance contemplating what you’ve learned today”.

Not to mention issues the “2 hour workday” would bring in a campaign: do elves roll Con checks for exhaustion after adventuring for more than 2 hours, due to that being the extent they’ve ever had to exert themselves?

[RedMage125]

Who is “he”? I’m referring to your posts. Astral life humans age, yes, their bodies change and lose muscle, dexterity, etc. but that’s not a thing in 5e, nor is it a thing for 5e elves. You’re conflating things.

No, that was JNAProductions. I did originally bring up basketball, but that statement of yours that I quoted was your reply to him.

And it's not just physical deterioration. If I played I middle school, and then never again for 10 years, then even at 24, in my physical prime, my skills would have deteriorated.

You are blatantly incorrect, and that's why you only attack these flimsy Straw Men you construct of other's arguments. Because you know you're wrong, and at this point, I'm starting to think you're only trolling.

As you admit, the knowledge stays, regardless of physical deterioration. So stop claiming it doesn’t.

No one claimed it doesn't. That's your Straw Man. But skill is about more than knowledge.

Thank you for proving my point: Painter’s Supplies is a Tool Proficiency, right there in the PHB. Obviously the designers of the game thought it appropriate to add that in.

Please, keep the posts proving my point coming.

2 things. Most importantly, you declined to address the meat of even that part of my post that you quoted. Which is that 5e elves spend their first century mostly just reliving their past lives, and around the 100 year mark, they start to LOSE those memories and connections, and don't even START to interact with the world around them.

The second thing is that this is another example of you failing to respond to the thrust of what's been said, and just pretend something else was said so you can tear that down.

Painting is about more than remembering techniques. Even if one was an avid painter, after decades of not doing it, one's skill would deteriorate. Ask any artist. You need to keep in practice. After DECADES of not painting, yes, one would likely no longer have proficiency in Painter’s Supplies.

Which only proves OUR point (the actual point, not the pathetic Straw Man you keep constructing), and not yours.

And that only accounts for one activity over 10 years. What other skills should they have for the other +70…?

Again. The very part of my post that you quoted addresses the fact that young elves LOSE those memories around the 100 year mark.

[Segev]

So then 5e elves should have higher stat bonuses is the answer?

Just as hp is an amalgam of luck, stamina, meat, and possibly even magic, stats can be an amalgam of talent, experience, and other things.

I offer a way to justify it. If you're happy to just shrug and ignore its sense (or lack thereof), then you don't need that. If you are not content and you cannot accept any offered justifications, you'll have to come up with your own, or change things.

[RSP]

Just as hp is an amalgam of luck, stamina, meat, and possibly even magic, stats can be an amalgam of talent, experience, and other things.

I offer a way to justify it. If you're happy to just shrug and ignore its sense (or lack thereof), then you don't need that. If you are not content and you cannot accept any offered justifications, you'll have to come up with your own, or change things.

And if someone had a higher amount of that amalgam, then the corresponding stat should be higher, no?

You’re saying that stats offer a way to account for the 100+ years of being an elf. If we’re using that logic, then Humans shouldn’t have the same stats as an 100+ year old elf. Likewise, a 2 year old Kobold should have lower stats than the human, no?

Isn’t that the logical conclusion to “use stats to show what a character knows from an extra 80+ years of living”? That those that have lived longer therefore should have higher stats?

[RedMage125]

And if someone had a higher amount of that amalgam, then the corresponding stat should be higher, no?

You’re saying that stats offer a way to account for the 100+ years of being an elf. If we’re using that logic, then Humans shouldn’t have the same stats as an 100+ year old elf. Likewise, a 2 year old Kobold should have lower stats than the human, no?

Isn’t that the logical conclusion to “use stats to show what a character knows from an extra 80+ years of living”? That those that have lived longer therefore should have higher stats?

No, that's extrapolating from what Segev said to an absurd extreme. He said the existing stats can be a WAY to show what the effect of one's experiences have on the present self.

That is all. Elves get +2 to one stat and +1 to another. Humans are either only +1 to all stats, or +1 to two, depending on which variant is used. So, either way, there's at least one stat that their bonus is higher. This can be a narrative way to explain that.

And the system is flexible enough to allow any individual to decide how or why their stats are the way they are. A kobold's stats may be what they are because he learns quick and is adaptable. A dwarf's might be because he's just naturally tough or hardy. And an elf's might be due to their decades of experiences. It doesn't need to be some concrete "this factor is only given mechanical voice in this one way, and it's true across all variable elements", and NO ONE HAS BEEN SAYING IT HAS. You are the only one drawing these "appeal to absurdity" extremes to denigrate others' ideas.

Like Segev said, this is a plausible conclusion that CAN make it work. If that doesn't work for you, find something else yourself. It's exceptionally lazy to just sit there and demand others solve YOUR problem, while all you do is misrepresent what they say so you can crap all over it. Especially when you do so in a way that gives the perception that you're trying to make those ideas sound stupid, like it makes you feel better about yourself.

[Bohandas]

Your skills might not TOTALLY atrophy, but atrophy they do-and that's on a human scale.
If you haven't shot hoops/rode a bike/studied physics in eight years, you're gonna be very out of practice. How much does that get amplified if, instead of eight years, it's been eighty years?

That's a valid point, but yet possibly not as strong a point as it appears at first glance because when we consider a human attempting those things after 80 years they're going to be diminished regardless of practice due to enfeeblement and possibly senility. So we need to be really careful when we're imagining this scenario that we don;t conflate things

[JNAProductions]

That's a valid point, but yet possibly not as strong a point as it appears at first glance because when we consider a human attempting those things after 80 years they're going to be diminished regardless of practice due to enfeeblement and possibly senility. So we need to be really careful when we're imagining this scenario that we don;t conflate things

The point isn't "They're gonna be old and decrepit when they attempt it again," the point is "They've had 80 years to get rusty."

[RSP]

The point isn't "They're gonna be old and decrepit when they attempt it again," the point is "They've had 80 years to get rusty."

The proficiency system already bakes in “rusty” though.

For instance, here’s Arcana, from the PHB:

“ Arcana. Your Intelligence (Arcana) check measures your ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes.”

So the system already accounts for “rusty”. If you were a farmer for 10 years, what do you recall about nature? Make a Nature check. You were a painter for 10 years? What do you recall about this painting on so-and-so’s wall? Make either a History or Painter’s Supplies check.

This is already how proficiencies work in 5e.

Saying “well skills MUST deminish over [whatever unsupported claim/number of years you chose]” is removing how the skill system works in 5e.

Deciding extra decades spent living is meaningless, or worse, jumping through hoops trying to create in-world reasons which then have further impacts on the in-game world; isn’t needed. Just admit “living 80+ more years with nothing to show for it is weird.” Saying “living two years is an equal amount of experienced gained to living 120 years, is weird.”

No amount of hoops will make those statements not true or make it logical that 2 years of experiencing life is equal to 120 years.

It’s a flaw in the fiction.

[Slipjig]

So then 5e elves should have higher stat bonuses is the answer?

And I don’t know if it’s strictly a Tolkien elf thing, but 5e states Humans sleep for 8 hours a day. Elves, don’t sleep but Trance for 4 hours. Even if you want to take away what’s gained by 4 hours of meditation, that’s still 25% more awake/learning/experiencing life time for Elves over Humans (and others).

Regardless of years, that’s 25% more of doing whatever is making them what they are.

Again, feel free to say things like “Elf society only teaches for 2 hours a day” but that makes less sense given they have so much extra time.

It’s much more likely that society says “let’s learn/train for all 20 hours, then you can spend your 4 hour Trance contemplating what you’ve learned today”.

Except that Elves still need 8 hours for a long rest, so the rules REQUIRE that they faff around being unproductive for four hours every day. That seems pretty consistent with a society where they take 20 years to get through the equivalent of human high school, and 80 years to complete an apprenticeship that Humans do in five.

Also, spending a century as a soldier doesn't automatically mean massive amounts of XP. You learn a lot during the Elven equivalent of boot camp. But after that, the learning curve flattens out to almost zero once the soldier is in garrison and spending most of his time peeling potatoes and standing (uneventful) guard duty. If he's got a century of *active warfare*, we're back to the fact that the survival rate for a full century of warfare will be close to zero unless Elves are simply inherently superior to the other races (LotR elves actually ARE canonically inherently superior to the other races, D&D elves aren't). Sure, the very few elves who DO survive a century of warfare will be high level, but that's not really a Level 1 concept.

But if you want to rule that all Elves are minimum Level 10 when they reach adulthood or get an extra +5 Proficiency Bonus or whatever, hey, feel free to make up your own house rules.

-edit-

Also, "learning to ride a bike" is a terrible example of a skill. It's scary for small children (and their watching parents), but it's mostly just keeping your balance, which is something you practice every day just by walking. Skiing is a LITTLE more complex, but unless you are doing crazy acrobatic stuff it's still 90% balance.

[JackPhoenix]

As you admit, the knowledge stays, regardless of physical deterioration. So stop claiming it doesn’t.

It absolutely doesn't. My mother had to learn Russian when she was studying, like everyone here did back then, and had to be fluent to get a degree. She even visited and spent some time in Soviet Union. After she didn't need it for 35+ years since we've got rid of our Soviet overlords, she can't string a sentence together, or even read cirilllic alphabet. She can maybe remember few phrases and words, and can kinda understand spoken text (but so can I, to a degree, on account of similarities between slavic languages, and general cultural osmosis from media), so she's slightly better off than me who never learned, but nobody would call her proficient.
Same with me. I've learned programming for 3 years in school, and could write simple programs. Not doing anything programming-related for over 10 years means I'd have to start again from scratch if I wanted to do it again. Maybe I'd pick it up faster than someone who never learned it, but that's about it. I guess I could maybe understand a thing or two looking at a piece of a program?
An elf could easily learn and then forget both multiple times before reaching 100 years of age.

It's telling your big counterpoints are skills anyone can pick in few hours at most and wouldn't even require proficiency in D&D.

Saying “well skills MUST deminish over [whatever unsupported claim/number of years you chose]” is removing how the skill system works in 5e.

You mean 5e doesn't simulate reality (and doesn't even attempt to) or accounts for aging? [insert surprised pikachu face]
I'd like to point out that 100 years old human has the exact same physical stats (or possibly better, if he's a PC and gained few ASI in between) he had when he was 20.

[Slipjig]

Another good example of losing knowledge is academic subjects. When I finished AP US History 25+ years ago, I could rattle off relevant details about the administration of every US President. Now I probably couldn't even name them all, let alone in the correct order.

Or when I was in Afghanistan 10 years ago, I spoke moderately good Farsi because I was using it on a daily basis. After a decade of not using it, I'd struggle even get through the basic social niceties.

[RSP]

Except that Elves still need 8 hours for a long rest, so the rules REQUIRE that they faff around being unproductive for four hours every day.

Incorrect. Here’s the rule:

“Trance. Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they
meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.”

Elves gain the same benefit from 4 hours of Trance as humans do from 8 hours of sleep. If a human sleeps for 8 hours they get a long rest. If an elf traces for 4 hours, they get a long rest.

SAC for additional clarity:

“Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours? If an elf meditates during a long rest (as de-scribed in the Trance trait), the elf finishes the rest after only 4 hours. A meditating elf otherwise follows all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed.”

[JNAProductions]

Okay, that’s one point that they were wrong on.
Care to address any other point?

[RSP]

It's telling your big counterpoints are skills anyone can pick in few hours at most and wouldn't even require proficiency in D&D.

Incorrect. Athletics, for one, covers jumping, swimming and climbing.

Any tool proficiency. Any Knowledge proficiency works that way. Acrobatics (taking out age specific degeneration), Slight of Hand, Stealth, Investigstion, Animal Handling, Medicine (in terms of stabilizing a companion, the diagnosing diseases may be different depending on mutations and whatnot), Perception and Survival. All those stick with you.

Likewise the social skills, but you’d need to be a recluse to even argue that they’re not being used.

You mean 5e doesn't simulate reality (and doesn't even attempt to) or accounts for aging? [insert surprised pikachu face]
I'd like to point out that 100 years old human has the exact same physical stats (or possibly better, if he's a PC and gained few ASI in between) he had when he was 20.

Great point for what I’m saying! You used Language as an argument, but in 5e it doesn’t matter: you just know the language.

And Elves (nor any other race) don’t lose languages, right? So why should they lose skills?

Moreover, you said it yourself: once you know it, you will recall stuff later if you try. That’s still knowing it (you can’t recall it if you don’t know it).

I mean, then there’s this:

“Training
You can spend time between adventures learning a new language or training with a set of tools. Your DM might allow additional training options. First, you must find an instructor willing to teach you. The DM determines how long it takes, and whether one or more ability checks are required.
The training lasts for 250 days and costs 1 gp per day. After you spend the requisite amount of time and money, you learn the new language or gain proficiency with the new tool.”

So a 100 year old elf, should know every tool, and Language at least…lot of 250 day stints in there (116 stints, which should cover it).

Okay, that’s one point that they were wrong on.
Care to address any other point?

Care to admit that Elves, then, should have at least 25% more skill to show for that time? (Probably more than 25% as spending 4 hours meditating and reflecting on what you learned helps learning).

I do try to get to everything but I’m only one person with stuff to do outside this forum. Please be patient.

And the long rest error showed error on their entire point as they used it as the reason elves must “faff around” (I’m assuming this is wasting time). So them being wrong about it undermined their entire point.

Another good example of losing knowledge is academic subjects. When I finished AP US History 25+ years ago, I could rattle off relevant details about the administration of every US President. Now I probably couldn't even name them all, let alone in the correct order.

Or when I was in Afghanistan 10 years ago, I spoke moderately good Farsi because I was using it on a daily basis. After a decade of not using it, I'd struggle even get through the basic social niceties.

All things, as you say, that you could possibly recall. Which is exactly how the 5e skills work. Just because you have proficiency in History DOES NOT mean you know everything that ever happened (or even everything you ever learned)

You still roll to see what you recall.

You’re arguing my point for me by showing this is already how 5e proficiency works:

“History. Your Intelligence (History) check measures your ability to recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, and lost civilizations.”

Basically exactly what your describing from your academic experiences.

But I’ll just reiterate Jack’s point from above: 5e doesn’t account for anyone LOSING skills, at any point in their lifetime. So why attribute that solely to elves (and much less Elves who are only 100 years old)?

Here’s their point:

I'd like to point out that 100 years old human has the exact same physical stats (or possibly better, if he's a PC and gained few ASI in between) he had when he was 20.

So physical and mental deterioration isn’t even a thing in 5e; why even worry about it?

But learning new stuff is! So elves should, therefore, have plenty to show for their 80+ extra years of existence and life experiences.

[Segev]

Should dwarves and halflings also have more skills or the like?

[RSP]

Should dwarves and halflings also have more skills or the like?

Dwarves face similar issues to elves, as they’re not considered adults until 50 (but this thread was specifically about Elves and the Tolkien elements brought to 5e, so I’ve not gone there).

Halflings live longer, but are adult at the same rate as humans.

However, as stated a couple times above, this isn’t an argument about changing how PCs are made; it’s pointing out the effect of Tolkien lore on 5e, which is “it makes no sense that creatures with 100+ years of life experience, are as experienced as 20 year olds”. And so to have an Elf character that makes sense in-story, the player needs to account for WHY this elf only has about 20 years of life experience, at 120 years of age or whatever.

If you wanted to make the races reflect their longer lives in terms of skill, you’d have to make cuts to current abilities to keep balance, I imagine.

Though if you’re just looking for a short cut that kind of does it, the new Trance rules are there, in that the Elf can meditate for 4 hours and recall their proficiency. This adds in a “compartmentalized skills” ability to Elves that isn’t in the 5e PHB, but it’s something.

But again, this thread (as I understand it) isn’t about changing PC creation, it’s about the effect of Tolkien elves on 5e.

[Sorinth]

Looking at the real world is it even true that most 50 year olds have more skills then a 30 year old? Because I'm not sure that's at all true. Just because an older person had the time to become proficient in additional tools/instruments/languages doesn't mean most will actually use that time to learn stuff.

Learning takes effort.