Races Revisited: High Elves

I've been itching to redesign the core races for a while now.  Part of the reason is 5th edition with its really appealing broad-strokes approach to game design, and part of the reason is that Pathfinder is almost 10 years old, based on a system over 15 years old, and it is starting to collapse under its own weight.  I want the playable races to be as simple and evocative as possible.  They need to get across the core idea of the race without getting in the way with too many extraneous skill bonuses or abilities that function in instances so specific that you forget about them when the time comes to use them.

Last time on Races Revisited we looked at dwarves and tried to distill their essence into a concentrated dwarven liquor.  This week, we turn to elves.  Specifically: high elves.  Why the distinction?  Older editions of D&D made it clear that elven players were of high elf stock, as opposed to the less civilized wood elves or evil dark elves.  1st Edition AD&D relegated the other elven races to the Monster Manual.  2nd Edition allowed players access to the other elven races "with the DM's permission (but the choice grants no additional powers)".  The designers of 5th Edition are, fortunately, big fans of sub-races as character customization options, and the 5th Edition Player's Handbook allows players to choose from high elves, wood elves, or dark elves, each one lending a slight twist to the base elven race.  I have chosen to treat high elves and wood elves as separate races for Races Revisited.  High elves are the aloof, magically-inclined elves who spend their incredibly long lives in shining, elegant cities.  Wood elves, by contrast, are the gritty forest-dwelling elves more likely to be clad in leather than mithral - the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook describes them as "wild, temperamental, and savage."  So look forward to wood elves in a future post, and scroll down for more high elf action.

One thing I noticed when researching past versions of elves was that elves were always described as having a special affinity toward bows, swordsmanship, and magic, but mechanically while they were given an incentive to use bows and swords, they had no inherent bonus to their magical abilities.  It wasn't until Pathfinder that elves were thrown a bone in the magic department, gaining a racial bonus to Intelligence and some bonuses to overcoming Spell Resistance and identifying magic items.  I take things a little further, as you will see below.

The following material given in gold text and its accompanying table is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.


High Elf Racial Traits

+2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Constitution: High elves are nimble and learned but comparatively frail.

Saving Throws: +2 Will: High elves have incredible strength of mind.

   Medium: High elves are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.

   Normal Speed: High elves have a base speed of 30 feet.

   Low-Light Vision: High elves can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light. 

   Elven Magic: High elves can cast one cantrip from the Wizard spell list at will.  The choice of cantrip must be made at character creation and cannot be changed.  In addition, high elves with additional arcane spellcasting abilities granted by their class gain a +1 racial bonus to their spell save DCs for all spells in the same school as their chosen cantrip. 

   Elven Weapon Proficiencies: High elves are always proficient with shortswords, longswords, rapiers, shortbows and longbows.

   Keen Senses: High elves gain a +2 racial bonus to Perception checks.  In addition, the GM should roll a secret Perception check for the high elf to notice secret doors within 10 feet, even if they are not actively looking for them. 

   Learned: High elves begin play with a +2 racial bonus to any one Craft, Knowledge, Perform, or Profession skill of their choice, due to their age and experience. 

   Mithral Affinity: High elves have a special connection to arms and armor crafted from mithral.  They gain a +1 racial bonus to hit with mithral weapons, and the arcane spell failure chance of any mithral armor or shield worn by an elf decreases by 5%. 

Move Silently: High elves gain a +2 racial bonus to Stealth checks. 

   Sleepless: High elves do not sleep naturally, and are immune to magical sleep effects.  Instead of sleeping normally, elves enter into a semiconscious trance state.  An elf is rejuvenated as much by 4 hours of trancing as a human is by 8 hours of rest. 

   Languages: High elves begin play speaking Common and Elven.  High elves with high Intelligence scores can choose any language they want to study. 

And, of course, a step-by-step explanation:

Saving Throws: With my changes to dwarves, I decided that I would try to give each race one or more flat bonuses to their saving throws instead of a slew of conditional bonuses that are easy to forget.  High elves get a bonus to Will, replacing their traditional +2 vs enchantments only.  I could give them a Reflex bonus and a Fortitude penalty, but with their corresponding Dexterity bonus and Constitution penalty that would just be redundant.

Elven Magic: This is a very clear mechanical incentive for elves to become wizards, just as their descriptions have always suggested they should.  But I didn't want to make a whole racial ability that only applied if the player chose one particular class, like those elemental affinity abilities that make ifrits, undines, sylphs, and oreads better sorcerers if they decide to be sorcerers and choose one specific bloodline.  Instead, this gives the character (of any class) a cantrip, and adds a thematically appropriate spell save DC bonus if the player wants to play any arcane caster.  Thus, instead of an oddly specific racial ability that only applies in one character build, you have a nice flavorful ability for all elf players that gets better if they decide to be any type of arcane caster.

Elven Weapon Proficiencies: In 1st and 2nd Editions AD&D, elves got +1 to hit with short and long swords and bows.  Over time the bonus to hit dropped in favor of mere proficiency with the weapons, and the shortsword lost out to the rapier.  I didn't have to change this one too much, simply adding the short sword back in.  The best part about this ability is that it is easily modifiable to account for differences in campaign settings.  In my campaign setting, for instance, I will change it to proficiency with rapiers and a few choice polearms, because I love polearms.

Keen Senses:  Back in the day (the 1st and 2nd Edition day I just love to call back to), elves had a 1 in 6 chance of discovering a secret door just by passing near it, a 1 in 3 chance of discovering a secret door while actively looking for it, and a 1 in 2 chance of discovering a concealed portal.  Also back in the day, GMs had to distinguish between secret doors and concealed portals.  This atrophied in 3rd Edition until it was completely replaced by a +2 Perception bonus in Pathfinder.  Well I'm bringing back some of the flavor of the Old Days by giving elves an inherent ability to detect secret doors again!

Learned: Most descriptions of elves in various D&D editions say they reach adulthood at around age 100.  So a young elf joining a party as a first level adventurer will have at least several decades more experience with the world than the other party members.  Are elves just incredibly slow learners?  This racial ability pays lip service to the idea that elves have had a lot of time to get to know the world they live in.  Maybe the elf knows some extra history or has learned how to play the harp or weave tapestries.  These are not skills where a +2 bonus will break the game, but they might lend a character a little more depth.

Mithral Affinity: I am inordinately excited about this ability, mainly because I can't think of anything resembling it in any other race.  This bonus gives elves an extra edge when wielding mithral weapons or wearing mithral armor.  Tolkien created mithril (with two 'i's; D&D and Pathfinder use mithral with an 'a' for legal reasons) as a special material for elves to be badass with, so this ability seems only fitting.  As mithral is an expensive material, this ability probably won't come into play until mid-level play, but it will give elves an added incentive to seek out mithral items.  It is especially useful for building an armored battle-mage character.

Move Silently: This one is pretty simple.  Elves have always been good at moving silently.  Pathfinder is strangely lacking in any ability that makes elves better at sneaking, even though it was present in D&D 3.5.

Sleepless: Elven trancing is a more recent addition to elf lore than most of this other stuff, but I think it's worth preserving.

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Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years!  d20 Despot is back to regularly scheduled programming, folks!  In case you missed it: last month I was only posting every two weeks because I was busy with work, and also with a two week vacation in Europe (poor me!).  But that's over now.  Tune in every week for more open game content, GMing advice, player options, reviews, and whatever else it is that I do all the time mostly for free.

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