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Desaril
2007-01-16, 06:49 PM
Does the aging of demi-humans (elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc) make sense. I understand that these beings live longer than humans, but shouldn't they mature at the same rate and then slow down.

Consider: A human's starting age is between 16-27 and an elf's is 114-170. Assuming that the other races aren't just insanely moronic, how does an elf not learn more in that 114 years than the human in 16? In fact, the max age for a human is 110, so the elf has already had more time than the human ever will. I understand the argument that it takes an elf longer to emotionally mature to the level of 16 yr old human or that elven society doesn't recognize adulthood until a certain age. However, an additional 100 years should be worth a few skill points! I mean, what do you do for 100 years except learn to do stuff through experience?

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-16, 06:53 PM
Those demi-human races aren't as adaptable as humans, which is why it takes them longer to mature. At least, that's what I always assumed.

Khantalas
2007-01-16, 06:55 PM
Elves mature at around 20. Dwarves mature around 20, too. However, a dwarf ages much more slowly than a human after that, and an elf remains the same for decades to pass. The ages in PHB just represent the common ages of adventurers hitting the road.

Desaril
2007-01-16, 07:34 PM
Right, they mature at 20 and then sit around learning nothing useful for the next 20 (dwarves) or 90+(elves) years. I think it would make more sense if initial skill point allotment was based on age/race/social background rather than initial class. Alternately, reduce the starting ages of the other races. Of course, I want the rules to support the story, not vice versa.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-16, 07:35 PM
But that would make elves the best rogues in the game, which is sort of preposterous given their heritage.

Khantalas
2007-01-16, 07:36 PM
Hey, there are people who grow up to be 40 and useful for nothing. I am gonna be one in about 23 years.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-16, 07:39 PM
Elves already have the most amusing power at their disposal for eliminating most mortal BBEG's- waiting a hundred years. I tried to do that in a campaign once. The DM wasn't happy.

Njerus_Xhazekarath
2007-01-16, 07:42 PM
Elves already have the most amusing power at their disposal for eliminating most mortal BBEG's- waiting a hundred years. I tried to do that in a campaign once. The DM wasn't happy.

Try Elan from XPH. They live practically forever lol.

Khantalas
2007-01-16, 07:46 PM
I don't think Elans have to laugh out loud for all their lives.

TheOOB
2007-01-16, 08:20 PM
Elves tend to live a more carefree existance, hidden from the rest of the world, hence why there not all level 20+. That said I think its safe to assume that most elves are higher level then most humans, theres just not as many elves.

Desaril
2007-01-16, 08:22 PM
I feel you Khantalas, but I'm still bugged by it. I thought about it in my last campaign where I played an adult elven warrior. I played him like he had over 100 years of combat experience, but didn't really have the stats (skillwise) to back that up. It's just retarded trying to roleplay that much experience without mechanical support.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-16, 08:27 PM
Unfortunately, the only way to make you seem that skilled would be to unbalance you compared to everyone else. It's just better to either pretend his lesser stats for the beginning of the game isn't really happening, or work in some reason for him having lost so much experience over time (I've used this before. Got into a scrap with a strong demilich, supposedly lost 40 levels).

Khantalas
2007-01-16, 08:28 PM
Hey, play Driz'zt. He is just about 80 and has an ECL of 18. Or something.

Not all elves are sloth-ridden koalas.

TheOOB
2007-01-16, 08:30 PM
Driz'zt is the exception to rules, not the rules themselves.

Dark
2007-01-16, 08:40 PM
The way I play it, elves spend a lot of their time in pursuits that are incomprehensible to humans. For example, an elf might spend 20 years composing the perfect ode to the blueberry muffin. Also, elven day-to-day life has an endless sameness to it -- in the average elven village, every day consists of picking fruit and singing songs. This is why some elves get totally fed up with it after a century or so, and strike out into human lands to get some excitement. The other elves mourn these "lost ones", because they usually don't come back.

Orzel
2007-01-16, 09:00 PM
I alaways imagined that the slow maturing races were obsessive and easily excited when maturing.

Ever watched a very young human child. Like a 7 year old. They could spend 5 hours playing one game and get bored after 5 minutes of another game. The longer lifer races get bored easily and can do many useless things for years. The quick death races exit the kid stage fast and can actually train at a younger age.

.

Desaril
2007-01-16, 09:10 PM
Ode to a blueberry muffin! I love it. I suppose that a long life gives you more patience and you spend more time working on stuff like that, but then wouldn't you be better at it.

I think the balance is in giving initial skill point allocations to races, not classes. Also, the initial skills would be specific to races. For example elves could get Knowledge: Nature, but not dungeoneering. It would change the current game balance, but not completely unbalance it.

Anybody want to explore this with me?

TheOOB
2007-01-16, 09:14 PM
I don't really thinks it matters. Just count all NPC elves in the 4-6 range instead of the 2-3 range and call it good.

MrNexx
2007-01-17, 01:41 AM
Actually, if you look at the original, 1st edition age charts for drow, Driz'zt's age in the Dark Elf trilogy matches up really well... young adult from 50-100, which is about on par with a gnome (50-90).

Personally, I think cycling down all of the demihuman ages has contributed to making the various races more of "humans with pointy ears" and less of "non-humans, with only some frames of reference in common." Make one of the elven abilities a mandatory 4 ranks in Perform (Dance) or Perform (Sing). Dwarves have to have a Craft skill at the same level.

The_Werebear
2007-01-17, 02:13 AM
What I did was cut the lifespan of elves down to 200 years.

It is reasonable to assume they will take twice as long to grow and mature as a human if they only live to be twice as old. I do the same thing with the dwarves.

Emperor Tippy
2007-01-17, 02:32 AM
Does the aging of demi-humans (elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc) make sense. I understand that these beings live longer than humans, but shouldn't they mature at the same rate and then slow down.
The ageing makes no sense at all. And the age catagories suck for demi humans. It takes an elf roughly 1000 years more than a human to reach venerable and get the mental stat boosts. If D&D wanted to be realistic it woudl prolly be +1 to any 1 mental stat every 20 years or somethign along those lines.

The worst offender for this is the Elan though. You can be 500,000 years old and never get another mental stat boost from aging.


Consider: A human's starting age is between 16-27 and an elf's is 114-170. Assuming that the other races aren't just insanely moronic, how does an elf not learn more in that 114 years than the human in 16? In fact, the max age for a human is 110, so the elf has already had more time than the human ever will. I understand the argument that it takes an elf longer to emotionally mature to the level of 16 yr old human or that elven society doesn't recognize adulthood until a certain age. However, an additional 100 years should be worth a few skill points! I mean, what do you do for 100 years except learn to do stuff through experience?
The simple reason is that WoTC wanted elves to be LA +0. I have a home brewed Elf race that takes into account such things and they are LA +5 and blow humans out of the water.

Matthew
2007-01-17, 02:22 PM
I am glad they cycled down the ages of Demi Humans. That whole slow maturation thing was a mess. As pointed out, though, this does create it's own problems. I generally just ensure that all Player Character Elves and Dwarves are of a comparable age to the Human Player Characters.

TimeWizard
2007-01-18, 12:25 AM
Wizards attacks you with it's +5 Hammer of Nerfing. It then casts Game Balance. Make a find-a-new-hobby save. You fail your save, and elves take 120 years to leave home.

TheOOB
2007-01-18, 12:30 AM
I find the idea of giving stat bonuses for gaining age catagories silly. You don't get smarter with age, you get smarter with experiance. A level 1 wizard who is 80 is likely less smart then a level 20 wizard who is 30.

AtomicKitKat
2007-01-18, 02:58 AM
I find the idea of giving stat bonuses for gaining age catagories silly. You don't get smarter with age, you get smarter with experiance. A level 1 wizard who is 80 is likely less smart then a level 20 wizard who is 30.


The 80 year old has only +3 Int/Wis/Cha. The 30 year old has +5 Int. It's balanced. :smalltongue:

Mewtarthio
2007-01-18, 05:57 PM
And why do you get better at learning new things as you grow older? And why do your reasoning skills improve? Let's face it, it looks like the designers decided to stick with the stupid "old men are wise and knowledgable" cliche. What is this, some kind of fantasy world?

Emperor Tippy
2007-01-18, 07:37 PM
I agree that the idea of age= better mental stats is stupid but so long as they are going to do it that way they could at least be fair to the long lived races.