Elf and Half-Elf Rewrites [D&D 3.5]

[Ziegander]

The Elf
http://www.davesdrumworld.com/Angels-Demons/images/half-elf_druid.jpg

Elves are an ancient race, gifted and cursed with exceptional longevity, with a talent for magic and a strong connection to the natural world.

Personality: Most elves are proud and noble, trusting others only very slowly, and valuing their own opinion over those of others. Of course, elves naturally live very long lives, and their experience usually gives them good reason to stick to their instincts.

Physical Description: A typical elf stands as tall as a typical human, with long, pointed ears, wide, gem-colored eyes, and with little to no body hair except on their heads. Elf hair color ranges the colors of forest leaves, green, yellow, red, orange, and brown. Their bodies are lithe and beautiful by human standards, with pale skin the color of moonlight on a warm night.

Relations: Elves are aloof and wary of members of other races. They tend to view most other races as aggressive, reckless, and impulsive. Trust is a commodity that must be well-earned from an Elf.

Alignment: The typical elf is Neutral Good, balancing their natural desires for freedom with a sense of community, while adventurous elves that abandon their homes, for whatever reasons, lean toward Chaotic alignments of all stripes.

Elven Lands: The elves make their homes in secluded, difficult to reach places, in harmony with the natural world. Most elven settlements are hidden deep within the shade of wizened forests, but it is not unheard of for elves to congregate in the murk of a swamp or upon the sunbathed peaks of a proud mountain range.

Language: Elves have existed long before the recorded history of most other cultures and have interacted with nearly all living creatures. As such they tend to learn languages easily, and always speak Elvish and Common.

Elf Racial Traits
-2 Strength, +2 Dexterity. Elves are graceful, but are more slightly built than other races.
Medium. As medium creatures, elves have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Elf base land speed is 30 feet. An Elf always moves at normal speed while in natural terrain (but not in natural terrain that has been artificially manipulated to impede movement).
Superior Low-Light Vision: An elf can see four times as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination, and retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
An elf gains a +2 racial bonus to all Concentration, Decipher Script, Knowledge (Arcane), Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Nature), Spellcraft, and Survival checks.
While in natural terrain, an elf gains a +2 bonus to Balance, Hide, Move Silently, and Tumble checks and a +4 bonus to Climb, Jump, and Swim checks.
Elves always treat the Speak Language skill as a class skill.
Wild Empathy (Ex): An elf can improve the attitude of an animal or magical beast as a Druid of its character level.
Magical Blood (Ex): An elf has a caster level, both arcane and divine, that is the sum of its class levels, including non-spellcasting classes, even if it does not possess levels in any spellcasting classes. This caster level can be substituted for the caster level of any spellcasting classes the elf possesses, and it is increased or decreased as normal by all effects that increase or decrease caster level (such as Karma Beads or the Mage Slayer feat).
Spell-Like Abilities: 3/day - know direction. An elf with an Intelligence score of at least 10 has the following spell-like abilities: 1/day - detect magic, detect secret doors, and detect snares and pits. Caster level is equal to character level.
Favored Class: Wizard and any one other class (chosen at 1st level).

[Ziegander]

The Half-Elf

http://surbrook.devermore.net/superpics/fantasy/katalin_paladin.jpg

Half-Elves are the offspring of elves and humans. Charismatic and adaptive, as a result of their hybrid parentage, Half-Elves navigate civilized lands with ease and bear a resistance to harmful spells.

Personality: Half-Elves are an almost universally very friendly, amiable people. Quick to joke and to laugh, a Half-Elf is capable of charming the pants off of an Ogre Mage. However, even when they outwardly appear to, half-elves, like their elf parents, do not trust others readily.

Physical Description: The average half-elf appears to be a very attractive human and is built like your average human, but has large eyes, slightly pointed ears, and hair colors that vary by the colors of the rainbow.

Relations: Half-Elves make their way easily within civilized communities of every race, finding ways to fit in and relate to intelligent people wherever they roam. It is uncommon to hear a person of any race or creed talk badly about a Half-Elf.

Alignment: As varied in their motivations and temperament as their human parents, half-elves come from many different places and have all sorts of alignments.

Half-Elf Lands: Half-Elves are a relatively new race, springing up only after human settlement had already begun to flourish. As such, they have no special lands to call their own. However, they are a versatile and personable race that is capable of blending into other societies flawlessly. Half-Elves, even more so than their human parents, can be found in settlements of any race or creed.

Language: Half-Elves speak Common, but like their elf parents, they learn other languages easily and are often encouraged to by the diplomatic and wandering lifestyles they often lead.

Half-Elf Racial Traits
-2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma. Half-Elves possess powerful personalities, but lack the common sense of other races.
Medium. As medium creatures, half-elves have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Half-Elf base land speed is 30 feet.
Low-Light Vision: A half-elf can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination, and retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
2 extra skill points at 1st level and 1 extra skill point at each even level beyond 1st.
A half-elf gains a +1 racial bonus to all Balance, Climb, Concentration, Handle Animal, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Spellcraft, Swim, and Tumble checks.
A half-elf gains a +2 racial bonus to all Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Intimidate, and Perform checks.
A half-elf is treated as both an Elf and a Human for all effects based on race.
Half-Elves always treat the Speak Language skill as a class skill.
Magical Aptitude (Ex): A half-elf's caster level, for any spellcasting class it has class levels of, is equal to its levels in that spellcasting class + ½ its levels in all other classes.
Spell Resistance (Ex): A half-elf has spell resistance equal to 5 + its character level against any harmful spells and spell-like abilities. At character level 6th its spell resistance increases to 10 + character level. This spell resistance does nothing to stifle the effectiveness of beneficial or harmless spells and spell-like abilities used on the half-elf.
Spell-Like Abilities: A half-elf with a Charisma score of at least 10 has the following spell-like abilities: 1/day - disguise self, speak with animals. Caster level 1st.
Favored Classes: All.

[Ziegander]

So there you have it. I wanted to rewrite the Half-Elf so that it was more flavorful and effective, but in order to do that, I needed to reimagine the Elf for D&D. I decided to blend themes from Elf and High Elf (or Eladrin, if you prefer), but to mechanically remove it from D&D's traditional Elf racial traits, and bring it more in line with mythology and folklore. This is an Elf that is both wild and noble, both natural and magical. It is nimble, graceful, and quick; it is ancient, learned, and able to commune with nature.

The Half-Elf takes some of the Elf's magical heritage and talent for communication, but puts them to use in civilized, settled lands, rather than in the natural world. It is beautiful and adapative, able to resist hostile magic and blend in with other cultures.

[nonsi]

Elf:
1. How do the Spell-Like Abilities being capped to level 1 coincide with Magical Blood ?
2. Swim checks cannot be associated with terrain. If they're good at swimming, they're good at it everywhere.

Half-Elf:
Doesn't really make an impression of a midway between human & elf (neg. Wis, SR. Also, athletics & acrobatics don't seem to fit anything in literature).

[Ziegander]

Elf:
1. How do the Spell-Like Abilities being capped to level 1 coincide with Magical Blood?

Well, a character's caster level has nothing to do with any spell-like abilities he has. However, I get your point. I'll remove that cap for the Elf.


2. Swim checks cannot be associated with terrain. If they're good at swimming, they're good at it everywhere.

No, it means that the Elf is better at swimming in natural lakes and rivers than he is at swimming in man-made pools and causeways.


Half-Elf:
Doesn't really make an impression of a midway between human & elf (neg. Wis, SR. Also, athletics & acrobatics don't seem to fit anything in literature).

As far back as the Lord of the Rings, and in just about every other bit of literature I've read since then, Elves are naturally more "athletic" and "acrobatic" than Humans, at least as those two terms apply to D&D skills.

The negative Wisdom of the Half-Elf represents them being a "new" race, with relatively little practical experience, but also a combination of Elven pride with Human ambition.

Some of it, specifically the +2 bonus to Charisma and the Spell Resistance, is hybrid vigor, where the byproduct is greater than the sum of its parts. Simply making it halfway between the Elf and the Human is precisely why the original Half-Elf sucked, and would be nearly impossible to do using my Elf rewrite in any case.

[Ziegander]

Half-Elf:
Doesn't really make an impression of a midway between human & elf (neg. Wis, SR. Also, athletics & acrobatics don't seem to fit anything in literature).

You'd rather the Half-Elf just be an Elf, but with no ability adjustments that gives up Wild Empathy, Magical Blood, and Spell-Like Abilities for extra skill points per level?

[Morph Bark]

While initiatally instinctively opposed to half-elves that weren't a kind of mechanical mid-way point between humans and elves, I now figure that that is simply boring mechanically and likely to make them weak as well. I like the way you made the half-elves here, as fitting with their fluff. The Spell Resistance, however, is very strong. I'd lower it to 5 + class level, or have it become active at higher levels, like SR 5 + character level at level 4, SR 10 + character level at level 8. Why do they have speak with animals as an SLA though? It doesn't seem to fit them at all.

[Ziegander]

The Spell Resistance, however, is very strong. I'd lower it to 5 + class level, or have it become active at higher levels, like SR 5 + character level at level 4, SR 10 + character level at level 8.

I'd considered that. I wonder what the math looks like on a comparison of the Dwarf's +2 to saves vs spells and the Half-Elf's SR. I'd considered giving them 5 + character level, raising it to 10 + character level at 6th level.


Why do they have speak with animals as an SLA though? It doesn't seem to fit them at all.

A holdover of the Elf's Wild Empathy racial ability.

[Welknair]

I'm a little curious about Favored Classes. Elves have two? And Half-Elves treat all classes as favored classes? So they can multiclass as much as they please and never incur penalties from it? Or did you intend the Favored to be "Any" like Human? I don't think I've seen a race with more than one favored class before.

[KozanShoku]

FINALLY!


someone made half elves a decent option to play as

[commander panda]

Sweet! I always enjoy interesting racial revamps. They make me all exited to play something other than human.

[VoxRationis]

The rewrites seem very powerful, particularly the magical blood bit. While I'm not averse to powerful elves, I'm surprised that they don't have level adjustment. Also, the half-elf doesn't seem very much like a hybrid; it seems like its own thing entirely.