You know what kind of elves I want to see?
Mundane elves.
The problem with elves is they're always "better." Even when they're worse, they're better. Plenty of settings make them evil, corrupted, morally ambiguous, and/or on the bottom of the social ladder, but they're always magical and mysterious regardless. I want to see the pointy ear douchebags be on the same level as everyone else.
Well, well, well. Here's a preview of what I'm doing with Elves.
Elves:
Type: Humanoid
Ability Modifiers: +1 Dexterity or +1 Wisdom. Elves are often nimble and quick compared to humans, and tend toward keen perception and intuition.
Size: 4. Elves are slightly shorter than the average human, and moreover are generally much thinner and lightweight, to the point that a healthy elf would be a dangerously underweight human.
Speed: +1. Elves are naturally quick, beyond what their ability scores would indicate.
Natural Attacks: Unarmed Strike. Elves have no special natural attacks, but can punch, kick, or bite in a pinch.
Life Expectancy: Elves have a life expectancy of at least 300 years, and no maximum age; while virtually all elves do eventually die of old age, a few seem to be blessed with unending life.
Deathless (Su): An elf's unnatural lifespan is not merely a quirk of biology, but arises from some supernatural influence on the elf. Elves have a +4 bonus on saving throws against [Death] effects, and gain +4 to their defenses against the same.
Fleet of Foot (Ex): An elf can make 1 turn of up to 90 degrees during any movement, even if that movement ordinarily requires movement in a straight line or otherwise would not allow such a turn. This ability does not prevent an elf from making turns that it ordinarily would be able to. Further, an elf is entitled to an extra Reflex save to prevent setting off any trap based on a pressure plate or tripwire; success indicates that the elf touched the trigger too lightly to set it off before realizing its nature.
Low-Maintenance (Ex): Elves can get the same benefit as humans from only half the sleep, one quarter the food, and one half the water. Many legends tell of the sustaining qualities of elven bread, but they are mistaken – an elf simply requires less food, and there is no special power inherent in their cooking.
Racial Superiority (Ex): Elves believe themselves inherently superior to most other races. This is not merely cultural conceit, but a deeply rooted instinctive assumption. Many elves resist letting this belief influence their actions, and can spend years training themselves to overcome it, but it exists on some level in all elves. This belief makes it difficult for them to consider other races genuine threats; elves gain a +1 bonus on saving throws against [Fear] effects generated by non-elves, and +1 to their defenses against the same.
Now, without any context, that's not a great example, so important things to note are that humans are able to pick
any of the 9 ability scores in the game to gain a +1 bonus to instead of just 2, are larger (which improves both their ability to absorb and deal damage, plus their speed; the racial speed bonus an elf gets serves only to negate the size difference for that purpose), and gain a few miscellaneous abilities related to skills that make them automatically better at being a civilization, because everything a civilization does tends to be tied to skills (which fill a similar conceptual niche to skills in D&D, for the purposes of this post). Still needs a little balancing, in that humans probably need a slight boost, but I'll figure something out.
I'm definitely aiming for pointy eared pretentious douchebags who've got everyone else to buy into this myth about their superiority, including themselves. Ever read 8-Bit Theater? Like that, but less extreme. I'm considering writing an Elven Cloak item that costs 10 times as much as any other cloak, and is functionally identical. The Elves think they're generous selling them to other races at all. Anyway, how's that sounding compared to what you're looking for?
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 16269055 times)