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This will likely be dubbed a 'build' topic and I'll apologize now for that since it's not. It's a question out of curiosity that just happens to overlap builds but it feels like it might be touching on the subraces/lore area.

Blah, here's the question.

Why are there no elven subraces with a + to Wis? If age breeds wisdom and experiences do as well, wouldn't wood and moon elves have a wis bonus as opposed to only a str bonus for wood and pretty much nothing for moon elves? I'm only curious this because the only subraces that have wis bonuses are Aasimar, Damaran, Ffolk, Mulan, and Svirfs.

Although lore wise, I suppose it could be chalked up to the slowness of change in the races of elves but it really just seemed kind of curious to me that not a single strain of the long lived races had wis bonuses.

Any thoughts? Lore wise, build wise, game wise? Btw, this is not a change to race petition. Though I wouldn't object if it did get a tweak. This is genuinely just wondering out loud about a racial aspect and inviting discussion.

Probably because there are not enough subraces for a wisdom-focused one to be one of them, and to keep elves at ECL+-0

Speaking of subraces and especially elven subraces, THEY SUCK.

In want to say Avariel get a wisdom bonus, but I could be mistaken. Then again they aren't a supported standard subrace on Amia, so no wisdom bonus even if you did make one and they did get a wisdom bonus.

Moon Elves are "standard Elves" so they are the arch typical Elf and get whatever Elves typically get. No Elves, save for Winged Elves, get any adjustment to wisdom in FR, so it's not just Amia. I personally think it's best to just leave it as is, since it's correct to begin with. Moon, Sun, Wild, Wood and Sea Elves are all represented correctly in their ability scores here on Amia.

Deep Gnomes and Aasimar, get +2 to Wisdom because FR lore says that is so. So it's correct, actually.

As to why Damaran, Ffolk and Mulan get + to wisdom, I'm not sure. Either I don't know where to find the lore where it says they get that or it's probably for flavor to the otherwise plain and overlooked human race.

DustSpray101 wrote:

In want to say Avariel get a wisdom bonus, but I could be mistaken. Then again they aren't a supported standard subrace on Amia, so no wisdom bonus even if you did make one and they did get a wisdom bonus.

Winged Elves get +2 to Intel and Wis, aye. But yes, not on Amia, since it's not an actual supported subrace.

because typically age is meant to breed wisdom.

If you look at the aging tables in the DnD books, you'll note that physical stats such as STR and CON go down eventually, where as Wis and Int go up. However, amia has a "age as you want" system, so these do not get implemented.

The answer is "Because there's not". There's about 4 races in 3.5 that give wisdom bonuses. IT's just how it is. Dealwithit.jpg?

Not really something we can fix, sorry.

Avariel get a +2 WIS bonus, yeah. They're inheritantly a very spiritual and religious subrace, which tends to give them a deeper sense of awareness than most other elves. I don't see it very likely for them getting a subrace though, haha.

Hm...I'll take Selvac's on this one but it always made me curious since wood seemed wiser than most of the other elven races but that's just me looking at them from amalgamation of the lore.

*Shrugs* Didn't ask for the subraces to be changed. I was curious why there wasn't any and wouldn't object to a change but did not ask for a change.

Asked why but if the answer is that none of the elven races seem wise enough to warrant it, then that's an answer right there.

Danke!

Also, I don't consider moon elves normal enough to be a standard. Just wide spread enough for many to think they're normal yes. *grins* They're wonderful rapscallions though. That's just my personal opinion.

There's already approximately eleven million elf subraces, there's plenty to choose from.

Moon elves make up the majority of all Faerûn elves and if you don't pick a subrace on Amia you're a Moon Elf. So in a sense you could say its your run of the mill elf. Definitely the kind most humans would have interacted with.

colanah wrote:

Hm...I'll take Selvac's on this one

Well, Selvac pretty much reinforced what I mentioned the source books say. The reason is that only Winged Elves, of all the Elves, are born and raised into wiser beings, as per their culture and makeup. Pretty much all creatures do what Selvac mentioned: gain Wis and Int while losing some Str and Con -- and Dex, I'd imagine too -- as they age. That's not just Elves.

So there you go. Elves aren't particularly any wiser than, for example, Humans or Hin at birth, they just have such a long life span that they're able to develop in to potentially more wise and intelligent people.

Maias227 wrote:

Moon elves make up the majority of all Faerûn elves and if you don't pick a subrace on Amia you're a Moon Elf. So in a sense you could say its your run of the mill elf. Definitely the kind most humans would have interacted with.

Indeed. That's what I meant by standard. Because... they set the standard for what most people thinks of when they think Elf.

There is nothing about Elven lore that even denotes a sense of Wisdom.

Old age breeds wisdom in races who live short lives.

Because each year is precious to these races and lessons must be learned quickly for them to be any use or shared to the next generation before dying.

Old age breeds arrogance in races who live long lives.

Because the concept of "years" is irrelevant to these races unless used in relation to the short lived races. The short lived races come and go and the longer lived races have little or no appreciation for the complexities of the shorter lived ones

No no, I meant I'll take Selvac's on this in the sense that Amian's don't seem to age.

Well, not unless someone really wants to bother with it.

Personally from the lore, I always felt wood elves were very wise but that's just me. Not as isolationist as wild, nor as paranoid xenophobes as the snow elves and Amian homebrew shadowelves, not as rare as rock elves, not as arrogant and unchanging as Sun, nor as precocious and flighty as moon or as underhandedly zealous as drow.

Just very aware of themselves and the place/roles of elves in the world at large. But again, that's only my opinion.

Most only think they're full of it.

Crown Wars. How wise can such a race truly be?

I'm not going to jump on the elf hate bandwagon (old age breeds arrogance? Seriously? That's basically the exact opposite of true) but I will say that I think the OP's perception of "elven-ness" is probably colored by the same thing that most of our perceptions of elven-ness is colored by: Tolkien. Most people (myself included, occasionally) inadvertently merge our images of FR elves and Middle-Earth elves, which is a mistake. Lothlórien may be populated entirely by Galadriels and Legolases (*coughcoughMarySuecoughcough*); Winya and Amia Forest are not.

Wisdom, and experience, are very different things.

Many elves have "experience". Life experience. Wisdom is the ability to judge any situation in a "wise" manner. Most elves encounter a number of things during the course of their long existence. They see and hear many many different things. This breeds experience in dealing with situations that have taken place in the past, and because of this experience they often seem "wise" to shorter lived races.

True wisdom is the ability to patiently observe and consider a situation, then make the correct judgement based on those observations. It's not life experience, its having the zen patience and perception of the world to make the deep considerations and perception of the world.

Elves are not wise. They have just seen so much that they make presumptions. As the world often repeats itself, those presumptions are often correct. The world abroad then considers it wisdom. But when a situation comes up that is new. The crown wars for example, or Myth Drannor, the elves haven't the wisdom to make the correct judgement call, and often fall back on past experiences. As the event does not repeat itself, it means they screw up, and you get a big city full of demons, or a war between different races of elves.

The Ego of the elves is caused by being correct often from using past experiences as a way of dealing with present events. So the ego builds, because they are right so often. Then a big event thats different takes place, and the ego makes them wrong.

Anyway, elves aren't wise. They just see and experience a lot, then use what they have seen and experienced in the past to make judgements on similar events.

Elves in general aren't any more or less wiser than humans, dwarves or halflings. It only tends to be the planar or exotic races that get a WIS bonus anyway.

hendrack wrote:

Crown Wars. How wise can such a race truly be?

Corellon didn't exterminate the Drow when he had the chance, he just banished them into a big, dark hole in the ground. See how that turned out? Now there's a whole civilisation of angry scum sucking, spider worshipping rats swearing bloody vengeance for all eternity. Not a very wise decision... and that's the true reason why I think elves aren't wise.

But... I guess I should really raise a valid point:

Living for a thousand years doesn't necessarily mean a race will be wise for it. The general consensus is quite the opposite really: the shorter the race lives, the more ambitious they are to learn, progress and leave their mark on the world in the short timespan they've got. Surprisingly it makes sense if you factor in the different attitudes:

elf: "Meh. I've got 980 years left. No need to rush. I'll continue my naked dancing and foraging in the forest like the primitive hunter gatherer I am."

human: "I've wasted the best quarter of my life just growing up! I've got to get a move on to make this life worthwhile!"

Selvec Darkon wrote:

Wisdom, and experience, are very different things.
Many elves have "experience". Life experience. Wisdom is the ability to judge any situation in a "wise" manner. Most elves encounter a number of things during the course of their long existence. They see and hear many many different things. This breeds experience in dealing with situations that have taken place in the past, and because of this experience they often seem "wise" to shorter lived races.
True wisdom is the ability to patiently observe and consider a situation, then make the correct judgment based on those observations. It's not life experience, its having the zen patience and perception of the world to make the deep considerations and perception of the world.
Elves are not wise. They have just seen so much that they make presumptions. As the world often repeats itself, those presumptions are often correct. The world abroad then considers it wisdom. But when a situation comes up that is new. The crown wars for example, or Myth Drannor, the elves haven't the wisdom to make the correct judgment call, and often fall back on past experiences. As the event does not repeat itself, it means they screw up, and you get a big city full of demons, or a war between different races of elves.
The Ego of the elves is caused by being correct often from using past experiences as a way of dealing with present events. So the ego builds, because they are right so often. Then a big event that's different takes place, and the ego makes them wrong.
Anyway, elves aren't wise. They just see and experience a lot, then use what they have seen and experienced in the past to make judgments on similar events.

Well put, this sums it up very well.

I have to disagree that Wood Elves feel more wise. They're certainly very open people, but not any wiser. Remember that being aware of the natural world isn't an auto-wise thing. Look at Barbarians, for example. They're not particularly wise, but they have an amazing understanding of the natural world that would rival even the Ranger -- who in turn is only second best to a Druid. And to be frank, the Moon Elf is about as open as the Wood Elf in most respects and sometimes even more open.

Elves have the potential for great wisdom. If they take advantage and gain that as the years pass is their choice to make. But to be quite honest, I sort of agree with Selvec in that Elves usually choose arrogance over true wisdom. That's why they're such a, generally speaking, closed off race. They have hardly learned from their past mistakes. It's taken them so so very long to make the few changes they've made. While when you look at Hin, after the Ghost Wars, or Humans in general, they've made amazing progress in learning from their mistakes in shorter years.

Pfft! Elves? WISE?! Sundering! Need I say more?

I may have missed someone saying this already but one thing I wanted to opine is that, essentially, Wisdom in D&D as a stat is not really the same as wisdom in the sense that we often use in the real world.

Wisdom is your senses, both your physical (Spot, Listen, instinctive things) and your supernatural (Divine spellcasting, other instinctive/intuitive things) - Elves get this represented with Skills - and also your straight up willpower (Will saves). It's also memory (in most but not all ways), for reason I assume have to do with senses; it's difficult to remember what you didn't notice in the first place.

Really, it's entirely possible to be wise and have a tanked Wisdom.

I sometimes look at it as Intelligence = Higher knowledge while Wisdom = Instinctive knowledge.

Is wisdom the same as blind caution, then? If someone sees a snake, do they flee from it because their instinct says to, and are thus wise? Or if they are intelligent enough to know that species is not venomous, that they don't have to fear a fatal bite and thus don't have to flee - are they thus more wise? /rhetoric

Lizzie wrote:

I'm not going to jump on the elf hate bandwagon (old age breeds arrogance? Seriously? That's basically the exact opposite of true)

If your going to refer or quote me please do so in full so as to give the proper context of what is actually said.

For the benefit of those who can't or won't scroll up allow me to correctly quote.

Strikeclone wrote:

Old age breeds arrogance in races who live long lives.

I have taken the liberty to highlight and underline the relevant context of the full quote that Lizzie snipped out and in so doing so changed the whole context of the words.

And what I was driving at is that long lived species do not see a more varied life they see the same life over and over and this will inevitably cause many of them to develop a superiority complex when dealing with those shorter lived races whom they consider to be simple and barbaric.

This bigoted perspective of life is unlikely to produce a mind set that will be open to admitting that short lived species have any complexity of their own, nothing will challenged their precious views of their own superior existence.

In Amia this is shown in the number of elven characters who are played with such tremendous arrogance and is shown in real life when we look at how OAPs often frown at the antics of the young, conveniently forgetting how they were at that age by holding the youngsters to some rose tinted standard they never held themselves to when they were young.

This is not jumping on any hate band wagon this is expressing a rebuttal to the OP who desires an elven sub race to get a wis bonus based upon their long life.

Yea...

Elf: "Anything you can do I can do better"
Human Retort: *Crossbow bolt to the elf's face*
Elf: "Look at me! I even die more gracefully! *lays down comfortably as an old man may that dies peacefully in their sleep*

I don't think any arguments were what the OP was looking for... and as the OP seems to have had his question answered, can this get locked before it spirals downwards?

Strikeclone wrote:

Lizzie wrote:

I'm not going to jump on the elf hate bandwagon (old age breeds arrogance? Seriously? That's basically the exact opposite of true)

If your going to refer or quote me please do so in full so as to give the proper context of what is actually said.

For the benefit of those who can't or won't scroll up allow me to correctly quote.

Strikeclone wrote:

Old age breeds arrogance in races who live long lives.

I snipped it because I don't feel the context changes anything. It's still inaccurate, even in the context you provided. Or at least, it's inaccurate as a generalization. Old age might breed arrogance in some long-lived individuals, and in others, it might breed true wisdom and humility, and in still others, it might breed neither, or something else. Xenophobic terror? Resigned, weary apathy? Yes, and yes; both of these, too, are perfectly plausible mindsets for someone who's lived for a thousand years. The statement, "Old age breeds <X> in races who live long lives" is false, regardless of X.

Old age breeds arrogance in races who live long lives.[/quote][/quote]
I snipped it because I don't feel the context changes anything. It's still inaccurate, even in the context you provided. Or at least, it's inaccurate as a generalization. Old age might breed arrogance in some long-lived individuals, and in others, it might breed true wisdom and humility, and in still others, it might breed neither, or something else. Xenophobic terror? Resigned, weary apathy? Yes, and yes; both of these, too, are perfectly plausible mindsets for someone who's lived for a thousand years. The statement, "Old age breeds <X> in races who live long lives" is false, regardless of X.[/quote]

You didn't feel that the context changes anything.....of course it does

That is a ridiculous thing to say...how can the context be anything other than crucial. As far as I am concerned people paraphrase and "snip" quotes when they want to change the apparent context of what they are quoting.

Further, of course its a generalization, that the whole base of the topic does a hypothetical long species age like fine wine or sour like vinegar I have presented my argument on why a long lived species in DnD maybe more prone to arrogance than wisdom.

You have yet to make any any real case for or against here, I mean there is no right or wrong answers its just stating your opinion and why, so let try this, you state your argument, your reasoning, and do it in your own words without trying to twist the context of what anyone else has said

I stated my case quite clearly in the post directly above yours. I'll repeat it, though, since you asked.

Saying that "Old age breeds <X> in races that live long lives" is not a viable generalization, regardless of your <X>, neither for the elves or for any other long-lived race.

Corellon and Lolth had a family. The result: In the breakup (after Corellon was beaten up by Gruumsh down at his favourite pub centuries before) Lolth got turned into a hideous daemon spider creature in a form of domestic violence, their daughter is all confused about which parent she loves more and their son swears bloody vengeance against his mother for winning the custody battle.

(The above is not entirely accurate)

Need I say more?

May I remind everybody of a little story regarding the imposition of humankind?

One day, a bunch of lumbering humans with their fat whores and their buck-toothed children emancipated themselves from a city of villainous tyranny. This clever humans set up a camp just outside a forest - presumably a bit further away from the forest so as they didn't attract any Bugbears or Dryads that'd play the siren for those less-than-faithful working-class heroes.

God ol' Bill thought, 'Hey guys. This is quite th' place eh? Blue streams fer water s'plies, a nice li'l forest fer sem wood. Eh? I be thinkin' we make somethin' o' this place!' and judging from the general concensus of agreement, and the nodding of heads, Bill took of his shirt, stuck it to a steel pole they were somehow carrying along with them, and stuck it in the ground stating 'I hereby name this land Bill-Land.'

Oh the cheers were glorious, and they went to work immediately building their lodges, obviously taking from the forest the wood they needed. Pretty soon they had erected their Mill, their Bank, their blacksmith and lodgings - the place was now starting to look like a bit of a settlement all right! Oh the joys they would've had!

Oh, but wait. It was not yet three weeks and one day the Sun Elves came for a look at this imposition. Without any question, without any thought, without any hesitation - the Sun Elves cast their magic upon the small settlement, destroying it and killing everybody.

Wisdom? No. Cool? You can be damned fuckin' right!

TormakSaber wrote:

The answer is "Because there's not". There's about 4 races in 3.5 that give wisdom bonuses. IT's just how it is. Dealwithit.jpg?

Not really something we can fix, sorry.

what are those races? *pencil and notebook*

but on the actual topic, why do you want wisdom bonuses?
either you've played 4th edition too much...
change into pathfinder, they don't get wisdom but int

TeroSNS wrote:

what are those races? *pencil and notebook*

Aasimar and svrifneblin are the only two you can play on Amia. There are strains of Forgotten Realms orcs and goblins (gray orcs, Dekanter goblins) that have +2 WIS, but they aren't supported in the Amia subrace system.

oh yes, I remember Dekanter goblins now. Super goblins ftw. and sort of a rhinoceros look on them.

Lizzie wrote:

TeroSNS wrote:

what are those races? *pencil and notebook*

Aasimar and svrifneblin are the only two you can play on Amia. There are strains of Forgotten Realms orcs and goblins (gray orcs, Dekanter goblins) that have +2 WIS, but they aren't supported in the Amia subrace system.

There's also Githzerai.

Elves are arguably the most 'beautiful and graceful race'...

...and yet they don't have a +2cha subrace.

-if only they were sparkly vampires, maybe then...maybe.

Oh right, but fey do....cause little glow-bugs are way cooler than elves... Oh w8, all the fey are in 'elven-form' most of the time. That's right. *cough cough wink cough*

p.s. I'm having way too much fun with this.

Alkor wrote:

Elves are arguably the most 'beautiful and graceful race'...

...and yet they don't have a +2cha subrace.

-if only they were sparkly vampires, maybe then...maybe.

Oh right, but fey do....cause little glow-bugs are way cooler than elves... Oh w8, all the fey are in 'elven-form' most of the time. That's right. *cough cough wink cough*

p.s. I'm having way too much fun with this.

drow have +2 cha.
But I think it is a general misunderstanding that a charisma factors into how good you look. You can be beautiful as hell but still have charisma modifier of -2, becouse you're rude, unfriendly, etc. This brings me into another misunderstanding that only evil ones are said things... The beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as elves don't find dwarves attractive at all, or vice versa. Nobody wants to get it on with the orcish races. These have exceptions, as humans and dragons seem to breed with anything that moves...

TeroSNS wrote:

... I think it is a general misunderstanding that a charisma factors into how good you look.

The rules wrote:

Charisma measures a character's force of personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness.

Lizzie wrote:

TeroSNS wrote:

... I think it is a general misunderstanding that a charisma factors into how good you look.

The rules wrote:

Charisma measures a character's force of personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness.

but people put too much weight on solely on that!

TeroSNS wrote:

Lizzie wrote:

TeroSNS wrote:

... I think it is a general misunderstanding that a charisma factors into how good you look.

The rules wrote:

Charisma measures a character's force of personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness.

but people put too much weight on solely on that!

What else should they be putting weight on? (Not intended as a snarky question, I'm legit curious what you think *should* be the measure of a character's yummy sexiness, if not Charisma. (Yes, this thread is suffering from Acute Topic Drift.))

No, I think he means that too many people use Charisma only for looks and not for the force of personality, leadership, and all that other junk.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

No, I think he means that too many people use Charisma only for looks and not for the force of personality, leadership, and all that other junk.

that. it pisses me off. All I see is in bio "starting cha of 16, so very attractive", and the RP is very similar to a non-charismatic person, meaning that he doesn't speak charismatically at all.

Oh, I see. Well, in that case, I completely agree. Though to be fair, it's hard to RP persuasiveness and leadership ability that you don't actually have OOC... not like STR, for example, where any wimpy player can make a buffed-out character and then kick back in a comfy Barcalounger and watch the character greatsword its way through butter-soft mobs. A player who's not especially magnetic or persuasive OOC can put all the points s/he wants to into a character's CHA, but that won't make the character even the slightest bit magnetic or persuasive if the player can't back it up with OOC magnetism and persuasiveness. Physical attractiveness is different; it's the only aspect of CHA which, like STR, doesn't have to be backed up with RP... that is, it's easy and perfectly legit for a player to say, "my character is drop dead sexy because her CHA says so," but you'll never catch a player trying to sell anyone on the idea that "your character would like to make my character happy and do what she says, because her CHA says so, even though she can't figure out how to behave like a civilized person in public."

TeroSNS wrote:

Alkor wrote:

Elves are arguably the most 'beautiful and graceful race'...

...and yet they don't have a +2cha subrace.

-if only they were sparkly vampires, maybe then...maybe.

Oh right, but fey do....cause little glow-bugs are way cooler than elves... Oh w8, all the fey are in 'elven-form' most of the time. That's right. *cough cough wink cough*

p.s. I'm having way too much fun with this.

drow have +2 cha.
But I think it is a general misunderstanding that a charisma factors into how good you look. You can be beautiful as hell but still have charisma modifier of -2, becouse you're rude, unfriendly, etc. This brings me into another misunderstanding that only evil ones are said things... The beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as elves don't find dwarves attractive at all, or vice versa. Nobody wants to get it on with the orcish races. These have exceptions, as humans and dragons seem to breed with anything that moves...

Drow don't count and you know it xD

I see them as nearly different races. Different customs, different believes, different culture, different environment, different looks, different everything. In my humbledoor.. It's merely 'mechanical' that it's an 'elf' subrace, and try telling an elf that's he's related by blood to a dhaerow and see how long he stays to listen to the rest of the 'nonsense'

..oh and your going to tell the elves that the dhaerow look prettier too!? -Good luck.

Lizzie wrote:

Oh, I see. Well, in that case, I completely agree. Though to be fair, it's hard to RP persuasiveness and leadership ability that you don't actually have OOC... not like STR, for example, where any wimpy player can make a buffed-out character and then kick back in a comfy Barcalounger and watch the character greatsword its way through butter-soft mobs. A player who's not especially magnetic or persuasive OOC can put all the points s/he wants to into a character's CHA, but that won't make the character even the slightest bit magnetic or persuasive if the player can't back it up with OOC magnetism and persuasiveness. Physical attractiveness is different; it's the only aspect of CHA which, like STR, doesn't have to be backed up with RP... that is, it's easy and perfectly legit for a player to say, "my character is drop dead sexy because her CHA says so," but you'll never catch a player trying to sell anyone on the idea that "your character would like to make my character happy and do what she says, because her CHA says so, even though she can't figure out how to behave like a civilized person in public."

I myself at least try to keep the RP suitable to the mental stats. If character is wise, I try to figure out smart practical moves ingame, If he is intelligent, I try to apply all sorts of necessary and unnecessary details of info in the speech and finally, if he is charismatic, he gives out a polite gestures, speaks fluently etc...you get the picture.

Alkor wrote:

Drow don't count and you know it xD
I see them as nearly different races. Different customs, different believes, different culture, different environment, different looks, different everything. In my humbledoor.. It's merely 'mechanical' that it's an 'elf' subrace, and try telling an elf that's he's related by blood to a dhaerow and see how long he stays to listen to the rest of the 'nonsense'

..oh and your going to tell the elves that the dhaerow look prettier too!? -Good luck.

Any elf who is not mentally incapacitated would have known the history of the crown wars...and the fact that the drow were once the ilythiiri dark skinned elven subrace before being cursed and banished

Lizzie wrote:

What else should they be putting weight on? (Not intended as a snarky question, I'm legit curious what you think *should* be the measure of a character's yummy sexiness, if not Charisma. (Yes, this thread is suffering from Acute Topic Drift.))

A number of different abilities, skills and traits make up ones Physical Attractiveness. Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, Constitution, Persuasion, Perform, Bluff.

And then it all comes down to a final thing. The particular type of person another character is attracted to. The things they funny yummy sexy. You don't get to decide "Oh well my character is the sex and thus your character wants to bone them". You just get to decide what your character perceives himself to be.

The rules say CHA contributes to physical attractiveness, and it does, but only if the other character likes that. For example, a high CHA amongst Orc's would likely denote a lesser attractive quality to members of the elven race.

Good point about the Cha. Though yes there is definate topic drift here

. In the old (giving my age away momment) First edition AD+D PnP (we called it Table Top back then) they brought out a 7th stat to represent Physical Attractivness, "Comeliness".
I agreed with this wholeheartedly as Charisma by its dictionary definition has nothing to do with how good you look. Bonuses and negatives gained by a high or low "Comliness" and the racial modifiers to stat rolled were only applied to people of same or compatable races aswell. Pity NWN didn't put this in or the editions that came later in PnP didn't keep it.

As for why elves have no Wisdom mods. They were originally described as being "flighty" creatures. In other words they may be long lived but take life at a much slower but easily distracted pace. Highly intelligent but "oh look at the trees..... See how the sun creates mottled pools of emerald light glistening on the water.... Its so peacefull and i could sit here for ever and watch this......."*Sighs and sits*

Ratselhaft wrote:

Good point about the Cha. Though yes there is definate topic drift here

. In the old (giving my age away momment) First edition AD+D PnP (we called it Table Top back then) they brought out a 7th stat to represent Physical Attractivness, "Comeliness".
I agreed with this wholeheartedly as Charisma by its dictionary definition has nothing to do with how good you look. Bonuses and negatives gained by a high or low "Comliness" and the racial modifiers to stat rolled were only applied to people of same or compatable races aswell. Pity NWN didn't put this in or the editions that came later in PnP didn't keep it.

As for why elves have no Wisdom mods. They were originally described as being "flighty" creatures. In other words they may be long lived but take life at a much slower but easily distracted pace. Highly intelligent but "oh look at the trees..... See how the sun creates mottled pools of emerald light glistening on the water.... Its so peacefull and i could sit here for ever and watch this......."*Sighs and sits*

To justify the point monsters like Illthids have 17 base charisma, just representing their persuasive abilities, well, unless you like squid faces...

Also, why should age grant more to wisdom? Since elves are relative to humans in growth (meaning 80 human is not 80 elf) I don't think there will be a reason for the Wis growth, as stated here.

Also, as Wis and Int are inherited stats (meaning if you teach a bird real hard politics, no one thinks it'll eventually learn it, will it?), there is nothing in the base-race itself to justify a Wis bonus just because of their "Culture".

I could make a dwarf barbarian that has nothing to do with dwarven culture and has 8 int and whatnot, but he will have all the base dwarven senses of being inner-connected to stone, hateful toward giants, and +2 con and -2 cha, as they say, it's in the blood.

Aridos wrote:

Also, why should age grant more to wisdom? Since elves are relative to humans in growth (meaning 80 human is not 80 elf) I don't think there will be a reason for the Wis growth, as stated here.

How old are you?
Ask me this question when your ears dry off a bit.
Trust me, I never considered myself wise, but the years have granted a measure of wisdom that was not there in my youth.

A strange lack of wisdom in elves.

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