Elf Adventurers

[Kingscourt]

I couldn't help come across this thought the other day... given in a world where there are a good amount of adventurers throughout any given campaign world.

Now it is assumed that every group of adventurers rolled their age using the rules in the PHB and gained experience at the same rate. Let's say a human fighter (age 19) and an elf wizard (age 145) go through a campaign together over the course of 30 years, and both hit level 20. Now the fighter is pushing 50 years old, and his considered in the 'old' age category, while the now 175 year old epic level elf, has just hit his 'middle ages'. If this were the case, then wouldn't there be plenty of younger, more powerful elves in this sort of campaign?

Just something funny I noticed.

And yes, I was partially inspired by V's rant about Elves in OotPC

[Geiger Counter]

I was told 4e fixed this and had elven childhood last as long as a human's

[Yukitsu]

I was told 4e fixed this and had elven childhood last as long as a human's

This was the canon in 3.5 too. It's in races of the wild I believe. They don't adventure until they are about 100 for cultural reasons, not because they are too young.

I think most high level adventury elves settle down to their homelands and become those epic level elven guardians that stop their tiny communities from getting ROFLstomped by every other major power. I find most settings include a disproportionate number of these by population compared to say, human mage academies having their epic level headmasters.

[zorba1994]

Elves have a low birthrate. Thus, fewer young elves running around, adventurers or no, which evens things out.

Humans are like the virii of the DnD world: age faster, but reproduce more/faster.

[Coidzor]

Elves have a low birthrate. Thus, fewer young elves running around, adventurers or no, which evens things out.

Humans are like the virii of the DnD world: age faster, but reproduce more/faster.

No, that's gobbos and kobbos.

[Andion Isurand]

from Morgoth's Ring, pg. 209

The Eldar grew in bodily form slower than Men, but in mind more swiftly. They learned to speak before they were one year old; and in the same time they learned to walk and to dance, for their wills came soon to the mastery of their bodies. Nonetheless there was less difference between the two Kindreds, Elves and Men, in early youth; and a man who watched elf-children at play might well have believed that they were the children of Men, of some fair and happy people. For in their early days elf-children delighted still in the world about them, and the fire of their spirit had not consumed them, and the burden of memory was still light upon them.

This same watcher might indeed have wondered at the small limbs and stature of these children, judging their age by their skill in words and grace in motion. For at the end of the third year mortal children began to outstrip the Elves, hastening on to a full stature while the Elves lingered in the first spring of childhood. Children of Men might reach their full height while Eldar of the same age were still in body like to mortals of no more than seven years. Not until the fiftieth year did the Eldar attain the stature and shape in which their lives would afterwards endure, and for some a hundred years would pass before they were full-grown.

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Therefore, in my 3.5 games, elves reach adulthood at 75 instead of 110, given that 75 is the average between 50 and 100.