How could humans possibly match an elf in martial or magical skill when their life-spans are so much shorter? Are elves just retarded or lazy?
>>43920960
Elves still get rusty and forget things.
>>43920960
You know how when you have like, a week to do a project, you put it off for way longer than you really are supposed to and do it all at the last minute?
Now imagine you have forever.
>>43920960
Not all elves are old or trained in fighting. For example, a younger non combatant elf vs a older human soldier.
Humans live shorter, travel further and are more adaptable. While elves might train for longer, their ways are slower to change from traditional styles they believe is best. Humans could mesh different styles from their travels that surprise an elf.
>>43920960
They are busy gettin' raped by orcs.
That stuff takes time.
>>43921039
So what do they do in the meantime while procrastinating? Maybe they just had ADHD?
>>43921060
Hmm. So are elves just super conservative? In that case would elves essentially be old people in the bodies of a young person?
>>43920960
I'm just going to point at magic. There's a screencap that sums it up, and it goes a bit like this:
Elves, being long lived and learn elegantly and carefully, taking things slowly, ensuring every last one of them becomes something valuable towards their society. It may take an elf years to learn a cantrip or even a first level spell.
In the meantime, half the human freshman evocation class exploded, but the survivors can cast Fireball. Progress!
>>43920960
Humans reach adulthood at age 15, and level one soon afterward. It takes elves 110 years to get to that point.
How could elves possibly exceed humans, when elves are shitting the bed well into their 30s?
What if Elves lived just as long as humans? Would that really change anything in a typical campaign or setting? Would that significantly hinder their "elfness"?
>>43921488
I think they wouldn't change much, most media seems to focus on the grace and speed rather than the age and wisdom
>>43921418
Elves physically mature at the same rate as humans, their society just doesn't consider them adults until they're around 90. 110 or whatever figure the player's handbook gives is the age at which any elf that is going to get the adventuring itch gets it.
>>43920960
Never underestimate the floating +2 score modifier and bonus feat, for it can make or break a character
>>43921488
>What if Elves lived just as long as humans?
It would make worldbuilding easier, and their usual portrayal would make a lot more sense.
If you have a whole species of 700-year-olds running around with the same vigor as if they were 20, then it's a lot harder to justify things like knowledge being forgotten. Even if an age of darkness and strife happens for like three centuries, you've still got people who know the old ways and remember how things used to be. You'd pretty much have to stretch out the timeline to ludicrous degrees to allow for anything resembling a forgotten civilization.
>>43921488
Worldbuidling would make more sense. Personally, if I must have either a older and slower to mature race, or a younger and more fecund race, I prefer to instead make the lifespan difference from human lifespan to be about within the span of a decade at most.
I've always imagined elf culture as particularly slow moving, and pretty much a kind of paradise where the poor don't exist so much or in the same way, and magic makes sure most everyone is provided for. Your favorite band takes 20 years to come up with a new song, you are studying magic but have so much time you spend your time on useless comfort spells and lazing about, everyone doesn't go out much except to the same parties where it's just to gossip and be kind of catty.
Especially high elf culture but it kind of applies to wood elves too, except they spend their time smoking elf weed on the porch instead of in a bath tub in a marble tower.
Drow spend their time backstabbing and betraying each other and concocting intricate plots involving spider shaped poison rings.
But essentially you don't really work hard and don't really have to. And you're used to it being that way. There is so much ancient literature out there to spend time on, so many spells and shit you can make, and you take forever to make it.
It's a rare elf who gets tired of that enough to actually leave his amazing elf city, who wants to see the outside world. You're 150, but you spent 130 years wasting time doing elf shit, so you're at basically human levels of maturity and skill, even though you have a lot of time.
Sure you mastered elvish, and not like a human who picks up elvish, the elven elvish, a complex language with a lot of implied meaning and different cast words, and in 5e say you mastered drow magic, or perhaps a cantrip and some arcane language such as sylvan, or whatever.
But ultimately you just take all the time you have, and aren't productive. You can live forever basically without working too hard, and maybe when you finally write your next ballad, it's time for a party to celebrate with your other haughty elven neighbors.
But save for a rare adventurer who perhaps wants to smash the elven paradigm, slow is good. Fuck it. Yolo but yolo for centuries.
>>43920960
Maybe they're all senile?
>>43920960
The same way zerglings can surpass zealots.
Elves have an extremely long growth cycle. Yes, they live for hundreds of years, but elves also take, what, two hundred years to mature? Something humans can do in 20?
By the time elves have one new generation, humans have 10 full generations.
>>43920960
I would say that there are more exceptional humans who can match elves by virtue of there being a lot more humans.
By the time a human character gets from level 1 to 20, wouldn't an elf character just get to level 2 or 3?
>>43920960
Imagine if elf men and women took a century to become fertile. They might look like human adults for decades, but their species can only propagate by having a child after a century of living and a 9 year pregnancy.
All great warriors would spend their lives protecting their society because a single disaster could take a Mellinium to recover from.
Adventuring elves and those who deal with other races are rare outcasts and the majority of elves are never seen - either because there are no survivors or because no one can find their pocket dimensions and illusionary terrains.
Just because somebody lives a longer time doesn't mean you can just keep getting exponentially more skilled at something.
There is a pretty soft to then hard cap on most mental and martial skills. Elves may have more time to master it and don't suffer from aging as fast but no matter how good and how much you practice at shooting a bow you're not going to break the physical laws of the world unless you have magic.
>>43922000
That sounds like a very droll, tiresome, pitiful, and unfulfilling life. The whole point of existing is to find joy, experience hardship, gain knowledge, and perfect yourself as a person by overcoming the refiner's fire so that you may stand upon equal footing with the refiner some day. No wonder the Elves in Tolkien get kinda buttmad about seeing humans everywhere, since they are obviously able to become ready and able to return to God in such a short amount of time compared to them
>>43921143
They browse 4chan of course.
How else are they supposed to most thoroughly waste time.
>>43920960
I'M GLAD YOU ASKED THIS QUESTION, OP.
You see, it's all about the statistics of the situation.
Let's say that all elves are PC level badasses, because they are. You never hear or read of elf commoners. They're all magical, sword swinging, orc slicing, fireball throwing bad motherfuckers. This is obviously due to their great lifespans. They have the time to train for all sorts of badassery.
So 100% of elves are PC-tier.
Due to low birthrates however, humans tend to outnumber elves about 100 to 1.
And let's say that for all the swarms and plagues of humans, only about 1% of them are PC-tier. These are statistical outliers, absolute protegees, and not to be underestimated by any means.
This all means that there are equal numbers of elves and humans that are PC-tier. And that's why a human PC and an elf PC are so comparable.
The elf PC is just another elf. The human PC is a VERY SPECIAL human.
So no, elves aren't retarded or lazy. There just isn't very many of them.
>>43922364
Faggot detected.
>>43920960
They don't. If they do, your setting is shit.
I prefer them no being quite as long lived as usual.
Elves ageing half as quickly as humans (and halflings twice as quickly) seems good. A 160 year old elf being comparable to an 80 year old human.
>>43921060
Exactly. Because humans don't live as long, and find themselves in life-threatening situations more often, they have to struggle to survive. Those who do survive know how to handle themselves. Mortality and death are concepts humans will always have a greater inherent understanding of compared to other longer-living races. The humans that make it are the ones who know how to survive.
>>43920960
Your question assumes that Elves are just like humans except immortal. You can make all kinds of justifications for why it wouldn't work that way, I mean, maybe elves take like 200 years to learn what a Korean kid with stern parents will pick up in 2.
Maybe their metabolism and biology makes it really hard to build big dense muscles and keep them. I mean, you don't see some elf strutting about looking like The Incredible Hulk because he went to elf prison and has been lifting for 90 years.
Biology puts a cap on a lot of skills, I mean, maybe elves are actually slightly dumber and weaker than humans, you just never really pick up on it because they've overcompensated with practicing, but they're still nowhere near where an immortal human would be. Maybe young elves are all mediocre klutzes who need about 240 years before they're decent by human standards.
>>43922364
This.
Unless your setting is a shounen manga, mastering something doesn't usually require figuring out a special secret or reading it from a scroll that lets you beat people 5x your size because of "skill"
>>43922853
>Maybe their metabolism and biology makes it really hard to build big dense muscles and keep them
Some settings actually have elven muscle fiber be denser on average than a human's. So it's not that they can't get big muscles, it's that most elves don't need big muscles. Consequently, watch out for the rare muscle elf, because he can bench press your car.
>>43922853
>elf prison
What's Elf Prison like, /tg/?
>>43922926
Gayer then normal prison, thats for sure.
>>43922926
It's hell on earth anon.
In elf-prison, inmates are forced to endure inelfish, almost human conditions.
>Some times venison more than one time per week.
>Trees in the prison park are barely a hundred years old, no cute dryads anywhere.
>Pretty sure some of the furniture was made by dwarves.
>In solitary they force you to listen to poetry that wasn't written by elves.
>>43920960
>Are elves just retarded or lazy?
They can be two things.
>>43923021
>In solitary they force you to listen to poetry that wasn't written by elves.
Those monsters.
I've always thought that being an elven warrior would be extremely unappealing. I mean they live for hundreds of years if they are not immortal however they die just like humans do. If you're an elf you must be crazy to risk not just 40 years but 400 years of your life doing battle. An elf dying is a big deal and when you're body is so fragile in comparison the the other races it just seems more worth it to sit up in your towers and let the affairs of the lesser races not bother you because you'll outlive it all.
>>43923296
Most Elves go to war because they decide that whatever their reasons are are more important than personal comfort.
>>43922424
>>43922424
I mean yeah, from our perspective. But elves just live like that. They aren't human. I would surmise most elves at a proportionate age to humans are much more intelligent and advanced than a comparable human.
If an elf lives 10 times as long as a human, probably longer, then they probably are better trained on average.
But also I think the ones who become adventurers are typically younger and more rash. Elvish society is stricter than human society probably, in terms of expectations for their VERY FEW children. A lot of pressure from your parents, grandparents, likely your great grand parents, great great grandparents, etc who are all likely still living. And you probably don't have many cousins and few siblings. In your village of say 1000 people you might be one of 4 elves your age or some shit. No wonder a few might want to go see the world... And likely before they turn 300 and are pretty set in their ways.
But for the most part I think of elves as content to stay in their hidden and wonderous cities, making their beautiful and a bit terrifying alien and haunting art, singing their magical star sounding songs, speaking their lyrical and birdlike language, reading their beautiful books, eating their delicious food, wearing their beautiful clothing.
Yeah it takes 40 years for your favorite bands new song to come out, but you have time, whatever. Unless you're tempted by the outside world and all of its intensity... And remember elves have very keen senses so they probably experience a lot of sensuousness...
Or at least that's how I imagine it. And it's just one mans idea of a fictional species which runs the gamut from Keebler elves to something completely alien.
I prefer them on the alien side, a bit catlike, beautiful but not just how humans are beautiful. Not something particularly pined at by humans, except in rare instances. Kind of incomprehensible but kind of comprehensible.
>>43922655
What are you even on about you cunt?
There is a hard limit to how fast you can pull back and loose a bow, there is a hard limit on how fast you can react or how well you can aim. These things don't just keeping going up forever and ever.
Elves who practiced with a bow for 1000 years would be fucking badass yes, but not because they can do insane shit that nobody could ever do, I would say its simply because they screw up less. Make it so in order to get a fail they have to roll a 1 and then another 1. This means instead of a 5% chance of a fumble humans have they have a .25% chance of fumbling instead. So still shows their skill but they can't be totally infallible. It's just not possible.
>>43920960
This simultaneously sums up my actual conception of how it works and is a filthy meme so I am spoilering it
See it this way:
Sometimes lore and game balances clashes.
>>43922920
This explains their consistent connection with the forest and trees.
Chimps, monkeys and apes really can't swim since their muscles and bodies are denser, making them stronger than humans easily but they sink like a stone.
Now if elves were related to apes somehow, perhaps as a 3rd evolutionary branch, then you have some grounded fantasy.
>>43920960
>how can rats match the running skills of a turtle if this one lives much longer?
Stupidity aside
You're implying the learning curve has no upper limit nor include a fast part and a slow part where the fast part is the basics of said skills and that may not actually be that far from any point in the slow part as the time needed to reach it suggests.
You're also not considering how much important sometimes pure strength and the randomness of situations can be in a fight.
>>43923296
I'd imagine the appeal of becoming a warrior for such a long-living being would be in mastering as many arts of combat known to earth as possible before dying. Also, being better than their opponent. Elves love to feel superior.
>>43920960
Well, there's an easy way to explain it.
Most humans can't. To use D&D terms, most humans are commoner classes, and low-level or 0-level ones at that. Elves are - on average - higher-level than humans.
However, there are a LOT of humans. More, this leads to a lot of abnormalities. For instance, let's say elves generally train to be Level 3 Wizards. Humans, due to their sheer quantity, have more Level 3 Wizards than elves - Even if elves have a higher proportion of Wizards.
Now, let's say that 1% of Elves reach Level 20. 0.2% of Humans reach Level 20 in their lifetimes. But there are SO MANY more Humans, that 0.2% is at least ten times that 1% of elves.
When it comes to martial skill? A team of elven commandoes will fuck your shit up, yes. But adventurers (and PCs) are extraordinary people - When you're attacked by Level 5s, your four-man team of Level 10 ubermensch are more than capable of defending themselves.
In fact, this would probably explain why, later in each campaign, you can fight entire armies of enemies who are high-level. They're just naturally higher-level than humans, who have to work for it.
>>43923521
>A lot of pressure from your parents, grandparents, likely your great grand parents, great great grandparents, etc who are all likely still living.
>Humans tend to view everyone 10+ years younger than them as retarded naïve babies who think they know everything but will Soon Learn how wrong they are
>Elves have this x100
"No, you don't understand! The humans are in danger, they need our help!"
"Sure hon! You go on your little dungeon spelunking or whatever— You'll come crawling back to the crystal city in 200 years~"
"Hah! I remember when your great-grandmother was your age: she rounded up a whole bunch of humans and overthrew one of their petty dynasties or a dead god or whatever. So cute!"
"GOD Pop-pop, do you have to bring that up every time? SO embarrassing!"
Christ, an Elf going adventuring must be like getting heated about Naruto slashfic in the anime club.
>>43925785
I always thought it was simply their 'edgy' phase. You know, like when you were really big about helping the poor in Africa. Or when you were a goth.
>>43920960
They don't.
There's a reason 'elf' was a class originally. Your average elf is supposed to be as good as a PC human, who are exceptional examples.
>>43925794
You can help put a stop to the Lichking right now! 1 like = 1 prayer, 1 share = 1 peasant militia
>>43920960
Well, in proper systems, humans aren't.
But for some reason it's become popular to normalize elves, which necessitates making them the functional equals of humans because balance, which makes them seem a lot more limpdicked in comparison.
>>43921646
>Elves physically mature at the same rate as humans,
Depends on edition. The Glorious Book of the Master Race (2e CBoE) has them grow at the rate you'd expect for something that hits puberty at around 80.
>>43920960
>Are elves just retarded
Yes, for a good 100 years they are literally children.
>>43926389
They are CONSIDERED children by other elves. As they have different standards of maturity.
>>43926459
No, they are physically children.
Gift of Men.
Men live shorter lives than Iluvatar's other children, but they live them with more vigor, and have more power to change the world due to being His chief instruments for so doing.
>>43920960
I like to imagine elves as the biggest procrastinators
>>43921418
Incorrect. They age as fast Q's humans, they just live longer.
>>43926707
I play this and cover it as "meditating on my choices". Every elf I play becomes a lazy asshole who wants to appear smarter than he actually is.
>>43921418
Gameplay does not reflect fluff for balancing purposes. There's really no sensible explanation in-universe.
This is true in some way of every rpg or miniature wargame out there.
>>43926467
Not in any system that exists outside of your head.
>>43926707
I just imagine them as not caring about innovation at all. Their ancestors had mastered concepts millenia before humanity figured out fire, so they tend to feel no one can match their obvious perfection when so far behind they can't even compare. But what they forget, or ignore, is the driving force of your own mortality to be remembered, to have made such change upon the world your name shall never be lost to history. So they keep making the same things over and over, without variation, without experimentation, where the younger races try new ways to do everything. For their ages of life, their race pays the price of stagnation, getting mired in what the past has taught rather than constantly testing it in new ways to see if those limitations still hold true or can be surpassed with new findings.
>>43923072
Supporting this.
>>43920960
If Usain Bolt could live 500 more years, would he get faster? Probably not. Running, but also fighting is limited by your physical abilities. Also, elves tend to be peaceful. They can probably live a century without seeing any combat and thus losing their experience.
>>43930046
I would say that technique, experience and instinct are also very important and an old, veteran elf-solder should have plenty of that. More than a mortal could acquire.
>>43920960
Pretty simple, actually.
Count the number of limbs and physical capabilities of the species; as long as they are relatively within human limits (D&D elves are more Agile then humans on average but a human can be more agile or have greater in some cases), then all that you have is fighting experience.
The trick is to remember that fighting experience isn't power levels in Dragonball Z where everyone "below" your level of experience is inferior and can't ever win; all it really is is practice at a task up to the limits of your physical abilities (which as previously established aren't that much greater than human beings) and having fought something before and so having a good mental predictive model of what they might do next; an elf realisticall given D&D elf stats would be more skilled then a human, but eventually they'd hit the simple physical limits ("I can't actually get better at this skill because it's physically impossible for my physiology.") and mental limitations ("I know a lot about combat but in the end what I'm doing is making educated guesses.") of being mortal.
You know how better-experienced troops with better equipment in real life tend to still die when outmaneuvered or outnumbered or just when they get shitty luck? Well elves can't see the future (which is infinitely more useful then experience since experience can fail even when you've encountered a situation before because individuals are not all exactly the same) and aren't really that much more physically impressive, and are also MUCH less numerous then other races.
An armed elf surrounded by four guys who attack him has the problem of being able to parry only one or two of the blows before one gets through and kills him because his arms and legs work the same way and have the same limits as ours.
In short; elves would still loose and humans could beat them because in real life heroes who outfight massive forces on their own AREN'T REAL.
>>43930587
>In short; elves would still loose and humans could beat them because in real life heroes who outfight massive forces on their own AREN'T REAL.
Neither are elves.
>>43930196
Experience doesn't let you see the future, ever. If you think it does, you need to watch less anime.
It just lets you have a decent guess (a GUESS mind you) at what MIGHT happen in a combat situation, depending on of they've encountered it or not. Guesses can be wrong, even in situations you've been trained for hundreds of times and you've lived through hundreds of times.
People who put that much emphasis on experience as a combat victory point literally know next to nothing about fighting since numbers, equipment and maneuvering are much more important.
That's how during the days of Rome, newly trained Roman legions could defeat experienced warriors from foreign tribes despite not having been in any battles; better numbers, better equipment, better training, especially the numbers and training part.
In real life combat isn't a glorious battle between equals to determine power and skill, it's a fucking mess that's unfair, unequal and completely unbalanced and it doesn't matter how "good" you are if you have a shitty day and trip over something you didn't see during a fight or if you're an archery-heavy army that's suddenly forced into melee while still wearing lighter weapons and armor, you still die like a sad little bitch.
Life is Unfair, and war is part of life.
>>43930645
So basically OP is asking a Realism-based question ("Realistically elves more experience such and such") and then not expecting a realistic answer back?
Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
If you accept the unrealism of elves then you accept that in some settings humans can get just as good "just because" as the realistic answers run in the literal opposite direction of heroic fantasy.
I never understood why we needed this question.
A child could probably find a decent answer, and this thread is filled with good ones. In the end the only thing you need to say is that elves and humans are different, and that's that.
>>43930742
So basically for elves to be that much more powerful they'd need to have the semi-implied superhuman physical abilities of Tolkien's demigod-like elves, because that way they just completely outclass humans in more way then one?
>>43930742
He didn't use the world 'realistically'.
The actual answer to his question in almost every setting is that only exceptional humans can match elves. As for why they can? Because they are exceptional.
You all are forgetting that not all elves live extremely long lives. Most just live 100 years longer then most humans before someone off them off or they die from some illness
>>43930811
Basically.
Even then if it came to medieval style melee combat they'd need to not just be superhumanly agile and fast but superhumanly durable (because otherwise being surrounded or outnumbered and flanked and stabbed would still kill them) and superhumanly strong (because otherwise they're limited to the exact same level of damage-dealing that a human armed with a similar weapon is) as well.
And even Tolkien's elves weren't really superhuman, the settin just ran on storybook logic like how a normal human like Bard the Archer could talk to a thrush because he "learned the language" and then impossibly spot a tiny gap in Smaug's armor no bigger then a baby's fist and hit it on a moving target high in the air at night.
Elves in most fantasy are like a high-technology civilization fighting a lower one; sure with planning and strategy they can do a TON of damage, but unlike humans or orcs the losses they take take FOREVER to replace and train them.
Just because elves live a long time, means they have infinite potential?
I assume elves and humans have the same peak potential for the most part, but more elves can reach that potential because they have a shit ton of time.
>>43930700
>If you think it does, you need to watch less anime.
Overplaying the power of experience isn't really an exclusively anime thing.
I don't recall Aragorn or Boromir shouting IKUZE before cutting down legions of orcs single-handedly.
>>43930700
I only needed to read a fourth of your post to realize that you full of yourself.
All I was saying that this old, veteran elf-soldier, that I created for this argument, would have an advantage over an old, veteran human soldier. Because old and veteran means much more for the elf than the human. My post was about individual fighting capability.
I never talked about armies, that's an entire different beast. You could as well just said that the human could have a magic sword of instant elf kill and thus superior.
>>43930872
Sounds like he already knew the answer then; narrative causality demands it on both fronts.
>>43930916
Actually they didn't kill (or even fight) nearly as many as in the film; the word we get is "many", which could mean anything at all to a writer who literally fought in WWI and therefore has a good idea of how many men a man can fight before he's killed.
Though in the book I recall Boromir being insanely tough; I believe it mentioned that it was a TON of arrows found in his body.
>>43930920
That's fair. On average most elves would have a fair advantage, barring luck and coincidence like in any fight.
Actually the magic thing is where stuff gets sketchy; if elves DID have magic that basically substituted for advanced technology (swords that effortlessly cut through anything, armor that literally cannot be broken) that's really mess up the basic odds of a fight.
>>43921220
I like this answer
>>43931001
>Actually the magic thing is where stuff gets sketchy; if elves DID have magic that basically substituted for advanced technology (swords that effortlessly cut through anything, armor that literally cannot be broken) that's really mess up the basic odds of a fight.
That's always tough.
I mean, how extensive is the magic an average elf has on his side versus the average human? What does the magic even DO?
In D&D magical weapons and armor don't seem to do much else but marginally increase effectiveness and protectiveness, enough that it's noticeable but it's not a game-breaker like a tank versus assault rifle scenario.
And then there's the problem of armor itself; what KIND of armor? Some armor protects better against some types of harm then others. Does that change when it's enchanted? Does it increase a plate armor's effectiveness against cutting but not bludgeoning effects that sort of bypass the armor with kinetic energy anyway?
Magic makes the whole situation confused.
>>43931064
I feel like in a straight fight the physical differences aren't great enough for chance to not play a huge determining factor in the battle, but in asymmetrical fighting elves would dominate.
"Wood" type elves are basically ninja superarchers, which means occupying their territory would be nearly impossible as they fade in, place a few well-aimed shots, fade out and you wouldn't be able to effectively react.
And since they live forever compared to people you don't have to worry about your guerrilla soldiers loosing heart 50 years from then because it'll still be the same group of guys doing the fighting.
>>43931143
>As the humans retreated from the woods, they could hear the elves mocking them
>"Hey you! Yes, you! Next time bring your sons! I have arrows for your entire family!"
>>43931064
>In D&D magical weapons and armor don't seem to do much else but marginally increase effectiveness and protectiveness,
A lot of people underestimate the power of magic weapons. Let's say you've got a 40% chance to hit a particular target and do an average of 4.5 damage with your longsword. That's 1.8 damage per round. Now let's say you pick up a +3 longsword. You now have a 55% chance to hit for 7.5 damage on average. That's 4.125 damage per round, or 229% of what you do with a regular sword. Maybe that's not earth-shattering, but I'd definitely call it more than a marginal increase.
>>43931143
The solution to this problem happens to be both the simplest and best.Who's up for elfburgers?
>>43931282
The weird part is describing the math of this in narrative terms; most fighting narration done by GM's doesn't have "numbers" that happen to people in the battle like a round of Diablo, but describing the combat.
And again, there's issues with "effectiveness" increase in certain types of armor because of how useless some types of armor is against certain attacks; stuff like chainmail is totally useless against heavy crossbows (which can even punch through cheaper plate) so does the enchantment increase it's effective as against the damage?
Does the magic somehow stop the penetration? If so does it also completely reflect-redirect the kinetic force of the bolt which would STILL hurt tremendously if flexible armor was struck but unbroken just like modern body armor hurts like fuck when you get shot?
Who knows?
Depends on the setting.
>>43931448
>Elfburgers
Look, just because they're on the elftism spectrum doesn't mean they're invalid.
>>43920960
Elves are superior to other races in every way, generally the reason they don't conquer everything is because of whatever tolkien's reason was, because god help fantasy if anything was different
>>43930920
That's not always true, as experience learned a hundreds years ago isn't going to be applicable right now
>>43934460
Maybe that's why elves only have average stats after 110 years - overconfidence.
>>43920960
I like to have my elves act as though they have a malaise. Sure they can live forever, but it takes so long for them to finally mature. The world's a chaotic place. Lots of people die. This is also why their children are so prescious.
>>43920960
>what is natural talent.
Some people are just naturally good at things and some are just naturally bad. Regardless of how much you practice at something you're never going to be as good as someone who has honed their natural talent unless you are also naturally talented at the task
>>43920960
sheer physical disparity?
>>43935017
Go away, you stupid shitposter.
Even if elves did move really slowly and were lazy as fuck. There would still be elves who did work hard for a long time and advanced quickly. This would be the elite of the warrior caste too.
>>43936361
Wasn't shitposting...Elves in my setting move through the world slower than other races, which gave them immortality. They are actually all pretty stoned until they reach a few centuries old. If they work hard and do learn things the malaise affects them less. Consequently, the elder very powerful ones usually hide the rest away until they come of age.
Also, eat a dick, my kind sir.
>>43928647
Apart from, you know, 2e AD&D at least.
They can't. Human strength is superior numbers. Even a master swordsman, no matter how skilled, will struggle vs. 5 soldiers with basic weapons. Provided they aren't mooks and politely wait in line taking turns attacking that is.
For gameplay balancing reasons adapt some shit with humans being more naturally aggressive predators or whatever suits your fancy, allow them to attempt rolls on skills they don't know without as a severe handicap as an elf would get.
Elves taking longer to learn new skills since they strive for perfection giving them +2 to rolls on known skills or whatever.
But 1 vs 1 swordsman to swordsman with both having trained for the same amount of time, relative to their each races lifespan. If the human wins, it is a fluke.
>>43920960
Hyoomins know their time is limited, so they live hard and fast. Might not be pretty or refined, but damn if it's not effective.
Elves are only fertile once every several years. They gestation takes a few months longer than humans and the mother begins instructing the kind about elvish customs while its in the womb in some dream realm. Even if the kid is separated from the mother as soon as its born it will have learned many things about elvish culture already if only at a mostly subconscious level.
They mature very slowly, being toddlers well into their 30's (they can be potty trained at age 5 but will still piss the bed now and then for several years).
Most little elven lolis are given free reign to dance and play till they're 80 or so, when they enter puberty, at which point they're expected to pick a profession and undergo training for two or three decades. Elves from nobility usually have a more strict childhood, the little noble elven lolies spending up to 50 years learning the intricacies of elvish decorum before vocational training. Most elvish spellcasters come from nobility and may spend decades under their magical tutors without throwing a single combat worthy spell.
Elves that want to form familes usually spend a few more decades learning every conceivable detail about building and managing their environment friendly lives. They usually learn about all their ancestors since beginning of times (at least twelve, up to a hundred), learn their deeds righteouss and foul and are made aware that their actions will have repercussions to their not all that remote descendants thousands of years later. Courtship process might take half a century, sometimes more. When they finally marry, the newly weds already spent at least a decade customizing their new family heraldry symbols based on both their ancestor family lines. Most elvish parents prefer to dedicate themselves fully to one child at a time so they'll hardly ever have more than one child per century, although in isolated areas and budding communities elves might raise two or three per century so the sibblings don't feel lonely.
Humans don't need skill, they just need Kalashnikov
>>43930878
By the time you're 20, you're young, fresh, and ready to see the world.
By the time you're 100, you've already seen this shit, done it all, and you're still physically young.
By the time you're 200, you're probably a major asshole who's getting sick of it already. A few hardy spirits hang on, always looking for what comes next, but by the time they hit 300 most elves have literally bored themselves to death.
>>43920960
In aggregate, I guess you'd be right. However, the shorter-lived PC's are sufficiently exceptional examples of their race that it doesn't matter.
>>4392250
I like this explanation best of all.
>>43920960
In my setting the elves and their long lives were taken to the logical conclusion, they were reactionary to the extreme outright refusing any change or development because something that worked for 5000 years will be good enough for us! They were also huge on fapping to their old Eternal Empire and thinking trying to recreate everything as it was instead of adapting was the best way to go, refusing to face the reality of being a bunch of bickering rump kingdoms. They eventually declared war on their offshoot "children race" the humans and got their asses kicked bigtime when instead of the expected feudal armies, knights and men-at-arms prussian style regiments of riflemen and cannons showed up. Sure, humans might be inferior in every way, shape but war isnt a series of honor duels. Individual fighting skill has lost do efficent administration, logistics, discipline and strategy.
The elves never ceased their butthurt about how the collapse of their rump empire was just a tiny sideshow for the human armies fighting out their version of the Seven Years War. They COULD rule the entire world, they had the numbers, the magic and even the technology, but their culture and idiotic decisions prevented them, much like how the ming emperor has scuttled the navy that travelled to america and the tip of africa because they feared the japanese pirates so much.
>>43920960
>Ctrl-F "Diminishing Returns"
Even if elves learned just as fast as humans (and in most fiction, they learn more slowly), and applied themselves as totally (whereas in most fiction elves learn all kinds of airy-fairy fluff skills, too)... diminishing returns ensures that skill levels will be similar.
Basically, the more time you spend studying and practicing, the better you get... but the rate at which you get better slows down. Eventually, you reach a point where it takes immense study and practice to get a very tiny increase in skill. At which point developing other related skills or just improving your physical conditioning has a better payoff.
Plus once you have an extremely high level of skill, constant training is necessary to maintain it.
So a typical elf probably is better w/ a weapon than a human, but not all that much better. And top human weapon masters who constantly hone the edge of their skill can be on par with even an elven master.
(There's also a statistical point to be made about mean vs standard deviation and relative skill levels, but I'll leave that for another post.)
>>43920960
Elves are not stupid. Humans are just exceptionally bright and talented as compared to other races, and this also carries over into their heroic counterparts.
An elven swordmaster is an equal counterpart to a human swordmaster. The fact that the elf is 200 while the human is 20 doesn't make a difference.
It's a weird holdover from Tolkien. Elves were superior in everything, but basically nothing they did ended up having a lasting significance and they could not change their fate to slowly fade away. They envied men who, while imperfect, made decisions that mattered and could change their destiny by their own hands.
>>43941579
So elves are really, really stupid.
>>43922681
If your elves are just objectively superior in every way to humans, your setting is shit.
I'm sick of the way DMs and authors turn elves into ageless, chiseled greek gods and godesses, superior at everything, and they just happen to share all the author's political views.
That kind of elf is a detriment to the fantasy genre.
>>43941717
Humans are just really really smart.
>>43941752
Your setting has a 20 yr old human swordmaster be the equivalent of a 200 yr old one. No matter how I look at it, your elves are simply retards.
Answer me this: In this world of yours, would a human swordmaster with 200 yrs of experience and a youthful body be the equivalent of a human swordmaster who's 20, or even 20 yr old elven swordmaster?
>>43922508
Sounds right
>>43923021
Who could believe that such a refined race was able of this cruelty
>>43941675
Tolkien's elves were superior to humans but their numbers were incredibly small (by the time of the novels there were no high elves that were younger the 500 years of age and no more were being born) and they were in no way incapable of being overwhelmed by simple numbers, which The Enemy has much of.
>>43941846
Diminishing returns on training; it's really easy to learn the basics of a skill but becomes increasingly difficult to learn higher levels of it as you get better, even if you spend years doing it.
You've actually experienced this yourself I imagine; you must have one task you are REALLY good at that no matter how much you practice or do it you never seem to get any better with any regular speed, right? Everyone has one or two skills like that as far as I've seen.
If the elves in your fantasy fiction don't have some kind of magical ability that increases their skills in ways that humans can't (like they magically get better or surpass their limits without training) the problem will be the same for them I imagine.
>>43942009
I'm fine with it so long as human swordmasters are equivalent to each other, whether they be 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, and so on until either their minds or their bodies can no longer keep up. If that's the case then have at it.
>>43930920
Law of diminishing returns.
This thread only makes sense when you think of elves as human beings with weird ears. They're not, they are an alien race which thinks in alien and unfathomable ways.
Elves just pick a role and play it. Consider how Elves worked in the original DnD. They were Fighting Men/ Magic-User. They had to mention which one they would be at the start of every session. This means that they can wake up one morning, decide that they now know how to cast spells but somehow not feel comfortable wearing armour any more or wielding certain weapons.
That's explains why the power level isn't as big as it should be. It wouldn't make sense in their way of thinking. A 110 year old Elf probably knows a lot more magic than most human wizards will ever know. But they limit themselves because they "choose" to play a level 1 Wizard.
And they can't consciously change their role. Not even to save their own lives. So they play their current role until death, or boredom.
>>43920960
In the classics, they really couldn't. Even Aragorn didn't think himself the equal of an elf-lord like Glorfindale.
The problem is numbers. Five mediocre swordsmen, if they all rushed him at once, could probably kill the best swordsman to ever live. The elves don't have anywhere NEAR 1/5th as many people as the humans, or God help them the orcs.
In tabletop games, because of balance, elves have to be about equivalent to humans, so this is ignored and every elf is implausibly underskilled relative to their age.
>>43940662
Minor off-topic correction: the Ming emperor didn't scuttle the treasure fleet because they were afriad of pirates, he did it because they were fucking expensive to keep.
>>43920960
Its in some old D&D lore.
Elves live long lives but they are some of the most indecisive faggots as they can take a decade to make a decision and can wait a hundred years to reap their rewards.
They take their sweet time doing anything from perfecting their swordplay or their magecraft because, unlike humans, they know they can take their sweet time and still be able to perfect their craft before they're in leaf diapers.
>>43920960
Elves start learning slower and slower the older they get.
Pre 40 they learn at the same rate as humans. Until 80 half, until 160 half of that, and so on.
Now, if they focus on other aspects than combat or magical the first 40 years, you can see where this is going.
I'LL DROP YOU LIKE A FUCKING ELK
>>43942484
I wouldn't go so far to say they could kill the BEST swordsman of the elven race. Those are the sorts of people who tend to be pcs or at the very least a named NPC with ridiculous capabilities.However 5 decent to skilled humans, rushing all at once, would at likely have even to great odds of killing most any elf swordsman outside of their best.
>>43920960
Elves are likely less willing to take risks in the short run.
Why experiment and try hard when you can just wait and sllwly research safely.
What do you call an army of young ents?Infant Trees
>>43922093
But this is the entire problem with the idea that Elves do stuff at 1/1000th of the speed and effort of humans. Imagine an invasion of Elven and human lands, humans react instantly and innovate etc, but Elves just do, what, nothing for a few centuries?
>>43921143
Uh.. Elves are LITERALLY very old people that only look young.
Imagine what a person from 1700's would think about the world today, even if they looked like 20.
"What!? Gay negroes are getting married, have the right to vote and can't be forced to do manual labor!? Curse my luscious locks, the world has gone to hell!"
>>43922000
> Tfw you aren't a elf shitposting on elf 4chan and playing games for hundreds of years
>>43938306
> "after 30 years under my guidance you're finally qualified to do the most basic spell"
> "nevermind i'm not feeling well right now. Go sleep and come back in 3 months"
Elves are quite bohemian in nature, they live so long that they aren't concerned with wasting their time. They focus on arts and music, beauty in the world and philosophy and live a very pleasurable life. While the human is worried about squandering their youth the elf is writing poetry and pursuing romance, while the human lord is building armies to secure power for his children the elf lord is deciding his next move in a year long game of Chess.
In short, humans emphasise productivity and measure success this way. Elves measure it by more abstract means, they pursue pleasure and better understanding of the world regardless of the empirical benefits.
Also, Elves have a difficult time uniting because personal feuds last up to 1000 years which significantly slows down centralisation
>>43920960
Humans work to surpass their natural limits due to a sense of mortality. If you're in a setting where lifespans are short or average at best, you'd work your ass off to make every moment count.
If you're an elf and your lifespan is 10-20 times longer than a human's and you're perceiving time at the same pace, chances are your sense of urgency for continued learning ain't shit because you have all the time in the world.
>>43944821
>Imagine what a person from 1700's would think about the world today, even if they looked like 20.
>"What!? Gay negroes are getting married, have the right to vote and can't be forced to do manual labor!? Curse my luscious locks, the world has gone to hell!"
>The Enlightenment, known in French as the Siècle des Lumières (Century of Enlightenment), and in German as the Aufklärung, was a philosophical movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. The principal goals of Enlightenment thinkers were liberty, progress, reason, tolerance, and ending the abuses of the church and state.
Don't be so biased against people from different eras.
>>43921220
I believe it boiled down to elves valuing their lives and other elves lives more than humans valued their own. Elves are incredibly long lived, and reproduce rarely. A death of an elf is the loss of thousands of years of life, whereas for humans, it's just going to be a few decades. They are more willing to risk their lives in the name of progress.
>>43945334
Demonizing your predecessors is one of moderns' default holier-than-thou signaling mechanisms.
>>43920960
Elves are extremely lazy.
So much in fact that when a few old human Wizards chose to conduct a reincarnation ritual and got reborn as elves they were hailed as prodigies for millennia to come.
>>43930888
So elves need to be +2 Con +1 Wis.
>>43931143
Wood elves removing invaders is always good for a few keks.
>>43942484
Or the PHB would have to accommodate for that fact int the character creation saying that most adventuring elves are in their 20-80s and are gaining experience so that their society considers them adults when they return.
As for the balancing part.
I think that has been done wrong.
Elves should have +2Con, +1 Wis.
>>43920960
Because humans have special plot armor. Humans aren't any more intelligent than elves, add 100s of years to their lifespan, and realistically elves would own humans.
>b-but humans breed faster
>but their short lives make them magically more badass due to some vague and poorly thought out plot device, while elves are aloof and lazy
nope, elves would win
>>43925542
>>43922920
The elves wouldn't be lithe, tall and graceful.
Orks on the other hand, stocky, proportionally big and broad, would bench a car.
Maybe as a 3rd evolutionary branch of human's, their natural neural inhibitor is more easily overcome than humans, which allows them to have complete influence over their musculature system, but at the cost of destroying their bodies. So they train hard for lean, tough muscle, while also maxing out their dexterity so that when they go full swole, they don't do too much damage.
>>43920960
Realistically you only need around 6 months-2 years to be an effective soldier and after that it is a lot of fine tuning to just be slightly better. A 6 month-2year trained soldier is likely to be able to kill a 300-2000 year soldier if they have similar tech. Since humans usually have better tech the odds are actually fairly in favor of the humans. Further birth rates are higher in humans which gives access to more of these soldiers and the short life spans create innovation for technology. When combined with your average human being much larger, harder to kill, and stronger than an elf you get odds that heavily favor the human.
>>43947754
Sorcery is bred not learned. Elves have better and fewer wizards, humans have equal strength and more sorcerers with many lesser wizards. Human wizards also experiment more recklessly due to short lifespans creating new magic and increasing power levels meteorically doing things elves would never dare due to the risk. Magic goes to the humans too.
I'd definitely say elves have all the plot armor here. No reasons they are still around.
>>43947754
Elf are stick
Dwarf are rock
Rock break stick. You have two stick.
Stick cant break rock.
Elf and dwarf struggle
Human is fire
Human burn stick to ash. No more stick
Human burn rock too. Rock melt into unformed rock.
Human superior.
>>43930920
Except experience can be and is a catch all term.
An Old, "Veteran" elf, unless he fought a war within the past decade, won't know the tactics of the past decade.
You're talking about playing a game of chess, which if the human and elf agree to play, would no doubt mean the elf would win. But then again, Humans have always been crafty and numerous when it comes to Tolkien fantasy.
Its like if the Human and Elf agree to play a game of chess and 10 moves in, the Elf dies from taking a sip of wine that the human poisoned because he knows if he doesn't resort to changing, guerrilla fighting tactics, he doesn't have a chance against the elf one on one in a proper fight.
And even then, tactics change with the general. Some may choose to keep the same old methods but when faced with a powerful enough opposition, you will see a rise in unorthodox officers who are willing to fight to win and not for honor. We saw this in the American Revolution with the advent of very, very primitive Guerrilla warfare used by the US because it's vast inferiority compared to the British forces.
>>43944246
It's kind of ENTertaining to think about. An ENTerprising young Sarge ENT reporting to his lieutenENT about the excellENT progress of the infant TREES. It's BrilliENT and ENTicing, ENTirealy amusing. I think YEW could SPRUCE it up in a momENT by saying what they WOOD do. I've been PINEing FIR something but couldn't STICK with an idea YEW WOOD-ENT think was unPOPLAR. I'm STUMPED, I need to BRANCH out or just pack my TRUNK and leave. OAK K This is making me sound like a dumb ASH so I'm done, nothings greasing my PALM to keep me going and I'm SYCAMORE puns.
