A New Kind of Elf

How can a sentient creature with a thousand-year lifespan remain "balanced" with respect to a human in a fantasy roleplaying game?? With a millenium of learning, why don't they completely devastate human society? Here's the way I'd change elves to make them better

First, their birthrate is low. Like one kid per century, tops. But most importantly, they learn very slowly. They're creatures of habit, rarely going beyond the routine. They have to see someone every day for a month before they'll start to recognize him/her. Learning to speak takes thirty years. In D&D terms, their wisdom is just fine, their intelligence can't be measured, and they gain levels at about a fifth of the human rate.

With a birth rate so low, though, they have to be hard to kill. Firstly, while they're five times as slow as a human, they live ten times as long, so your average knows a lot. They rely heavily on tried-and-true methods--they're predictable, but their methods work. Second, they probably are physically difficult to kill. Huge physical speed and regeneration capabilities. In essence, they swap brain speed for body speed.

October 16, 1995

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