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So, I am looking at elves first in the playtest 1, to get a sense of where Level Up is at.
First impressions.
• I like the term "heritage" ( ≈ formerly race).
• The heritage does seem better without ability scores. The features are more vivid and salient. There seems to be more design space, to develop the concept better.
• I like the "culture" ( ≈ formerly subrace) being explicitly a culture.
• I have a better handle on each culture, when thinking about them as cultures. It feels more realistic, thus more vibrant.
• I felt relief when I read the Shadow Culture (Drow) without referring to skin color. This is a plus.
Elves are a people with supernatural grace and beauty. Their skin tones include all the browns and pinks of human skin tones, and some elves exhibit skin with bright colors like blue, green, and purple. Most elves have long faces and sharp features, including high cheekbones. Elves are famous for their pointed, leaf shaped ears, which can grow in a variety of lengths —some up to 6 inches. Elf eyes are somewhat more angular, often opening at a line parallel to their ears. They often have almond-shaped eyes and smooth eyelids. Elvish eyes can be of almost any color, and their pupils can be round, vertical, or not visible at all.
"Their skin tones include all the browns and pinks of human skin tones, and some elves exhibit skin with bright colors like blue, green, and purple."
I like:
• All elves refer to the same descriptions of complexion.
• These choices are diverse. The player chooses their own character.
• Terms like "some", "like", "include", "can", "often", empower the player!
"They have a slight build, and stand at a height somewhere between humans and dwarves."
• I prefer taller elves.
• I prefer if "They tend to have a slight build", in keeping with choice. Warriors (war mages) may well be more robust. Wood Elves are muscular, and Grugach are very broad shouldered.
• Maybe characterize instead: "stand about human height on average, but vary more, both shorter and taller."
"Most elves have long faces and sharp features, including high cheekbones. Elves are famous for their pointed, leaf shaped ears, which can grow in a variety of lengths —some up to 6 inches."
• "Long faces, high cheek bones, pointed ears" − sounds good to me!
• "ears, which can grow" − I like this word "can" − let player decide the ears.
"Elf eyes are somewhat more angular, often opening at a line parallel to their ears."
• Seems a bit too specific. These can interfere with how players imagine their own character. Still the word "often", helps here, because sometimes not.
"They often have almond-shaped eyes and smooth eyelids. Elvish eyes can be of almost any color, and their pupils can be round, vertical, or not visible at all."
• Sounds good to me.
"Elves are a people with supernatural grace and beauty."
• This is the very first sentence, that the reader reads about ALL ELVES. It is the thesis statement for the many pages of descriptions about elves. Yet, it seems the least clear and least helpful.
• The descriptions of "grace" and "beauty" feel hollow to me, when they dont correlate with any gaming mechanics.
• "Supernatural beauty"? What does this even mean? As a reader, I expect this mysterious supernatural beauty to be so stunning that it causes some kind of supernatural effect on any viewer whose eyes gaze upon an elf.
• If so, I want to be able to choose an Elf heritage feature, called "Comeliness", or "Elf Shine", that maybe boosts the chance to charm or persuade if in line of sight. Or something like that. And make it supernatural. Make the beauty so "radiant", that the Elf literally shines bright light out to 10 feet!
• "Grace". I am guessing this word "grace" was originally intended as a synonym for "high Dexterity". But. If Level Up doesnt force Elves to have high Dexterity, this term "grace" makes less sense. And "supernatural grace" − what does that mean? Probably drop the word "grace" from the Elf intro. Add the word to a choice of traits that a player can choose, who wants high Dex.
• The first sentence about elves, needs to say something that the Elf trait mechanics will later prove to be true.
In sum, make the beauty supernatural, the height taller, and keep on using term that encourage a player to personalize ones character.
I am not a fan from everything you've described. But I think replacing supernatural with preternatural would fix the problems you have with their description. Or the writers are trying to push a silly redefinition of supernatural like they are with heritage.
I am not a fan from everything you've described. But I think replacing supernatural with preternatural would fix the problems you have with their description. Or the writers are trying to push a silly redefinition of supernatural like they are with heritage.
I like the elven tropes relating to beauty and art, creativity and elegance.
The problem is, the words "grace" and "beauty" are currently meaningless, because they lack mechanics to express these tropes during gameplay.
If a heritage is characterized as having tropes relating to being a "fierce warrior", then there are all kinds of mechanics to back these tropes up during gameplay, such as benefits in melee combat, bonuses to weapon attacks, resilience to fear, and similar.
But when the elves are described as "beautiful", it literally means absolutely nothing, and has no gameplay implications whatsoever. It is literally a waste of ink or digital space, that only causes confusion from players who expect the description to mean something, when it actually means nothing.
So, if something is beautiful, there must be mechanics to back it up. In D&D 5e, beauty has mechanics. Mechanics require high CHARISMA ability checks. Elves require (backgrounds with) high Charisma ability score improvement. Beauty relates to friendly social encounters, artistic appeal for the Performance and Persuasion skills. Elves can have an EXPERTISE bonus to Performance and Persuasion. Beauty relates to their charm spells and debuffing the saving throws versus them. Beauty relates to inspiring allies, whence buffing ally saving throws versus mind-affecting attacks from enemies.
Physical beauty implies line of sight and being within visual range of onlookers. There can even be a "radius" of beauty. The folklore tropes of "elf shine" relate here, where the beauty of the elf is so "radiant", the beauty literally radiates light, and has an aura that glows in the dark. Perhaps magical benefits relating to beauty, happen while the elf is shining a radius of bright or dim light. Perhaps the benefits to charm magic, morale boosts, friendlier reactions during social situations, more enthusiasm from the audience of artistic performances such as songs and poetry, and so on, while this "elf shine" is turned on, and the elf is glowing.
Flavor must come with mechanics. And vice versa. If the flavor is beauty, then it needs mechanics. Vice versa, many mechanics can be explained by means of expressing beauty and creating beauty. Especially in the sense of the beauty of artistic appeal, the elf must have a high Charisma score. Like a Bard. And be effective at the bard class. One of the tropes in this playtest packet is "songs" and "poetry". This is Charisma. This is the Bard class.
It almost makes me angry. If the designers of a product seem to go out of their way to deny Charisma to elves, I will not purchase the product. Because the product would seem nonsensical, even sadistic. Such a product would come across has hostile against player sensibilities concerning the folklore traditions about elves according to reallife ethnic groups. A product does well to encourage player choice and player perception.
Charisma for elves is a must. An elf player that chooses the path of Charisma, must excel at it in an exceptional and extraordinary way, with heightened benefit as an elf.
Being beautiful sounds passive. But elves seek out beauty and actively INVENT beauty. Elf heritage has heightened senses and intense and sensitive esthetic perceptiveness. Elf culture celebrates artists. Elves are prolific artists and are effective at art. According to flavor, elves have the best bards in the multiverse. Even the bards of other heritages strive to learn from elven bards.
Elves create magic items of beauty and power. The magic itself is a manifestation of the power of beauty. Elves revere elegant thinkers. Elegance in scientific formulations. The esthetic vision makes elves more powerful at magic.
Consider Einstein who cherished beauty in the physical sciences. He felt that a mathematical formula that was too "ugly" was less likely to be true. The reallife universe has an elegance and a beauty to it. He was a powerful intellect because of the elegance of his thinking, e=mc^2, and so on. Minimalist formulations that had deep and broad practical applications. Beauty makes scientists better scientists.
In the case of elves, the quest for intellectual beauty achieves deep insights into the nature of magic. In this case, the artistic beauty comprises all of the mental abilities: the Charisma of beauty, the elegance of Intelligence, and the sensitivity of Wisdom. All aspects of elf heritage and culture are of magic, by magic, and for magic. And the elven approach to magic, is by means of beauty.
I suggest you calm down. Playtest processes by definition include plenty of stuff you don’t like. If that process incites anger in you, you’d probably best not participate in it and just wait for the final product and decide then. Nobody should feel angry about a playtest process.
I like the elven tropes relating to beauty and art, creativity and elegance.
The problem is, the words "grace" and "beauty" are currently meaningless, because they lack mechanics to express these tropes during gameplay.
If a heritage is characterized as having tropes relating to being a "fierce warrior", then there are all kinds of mechanics to back these tropes up during gameplay, such as benefits in melee combat, bonuses to weapon attacks, resilience to fear, and similar.
But when the elves are described as "beautiful", it literally means absolutely nothing, and has no gameplay implications whatsoever. It is literally a waste of ink or digital space, that only causes confusion from players who expect the description to mean something, when it actually means nothing.
So, if something is beautiful, there must be mechanics to back it up. In D&D 5e, beauty has mechanics. Mechanics require high CHARISMA ability checks. Elves require (backgrounds with) high Charisma ability score improvement. Beauty relates to friendly social encounters, artistic appeal for the Performance and Persuasion skills. Elves can have an EXPERTISE bonus to Performance and Persuasion. Beauty relates to their charm spells and debuffing the saving throws versus them. Beauty relates to inspiring allies, whence buffing ally saving throws versus mind-affecting attacks from enemies.
Physical beauty implies line of sight and being within visual range of onlookers. There can even be a "radius" of beauty. The folklore tropes of "elf shine" relate here, where the beauty of the elf is so "radiant", the beauty literally radiates light, and has an aura that glows in the dark. Perhaps magical benefits relating to beauty, happen while the elf is shining a radius of bright or dim light. Perhaps the benefits to charm magic, morale boosts, friendlier reactions during social situations, more enthusiasm from the audience of artistic performances such as songs and poetry, and so on, while this "elf shine" is turned on, and the elf is glowing.
Flavor must come with mechanics. And vice versa. If the flavor is beauty, then it needs mechanics. Vice versa, many mechanics can be explained by means of expressing beauty and creating beauty. Especially in the sense of the beauty of artistic appeal, the elf must have a high Charisma score. Like a Bard. And be effective at the bard class. One of the tropes in this playtest packet is "songs" and "poetry". This is Charisma. This is the Bard class.
It almost makes me angry. If the designers of a product seem to go out of their way to deny Charisma to elves, I will not purchase the product. Because the product would seem nonsensical, even sadistic. Such a product would come across has hostile against player sensibilities concerning the folklore traditions about elves according to reallife ethnic groups. A product does well to encourage player choice and player perception.
Charisma for elves is a must. An elf player that chooses the path of Charisma, must excel at it in an exceptional and extraordinary way, with heightened benefit as an elf.
Being beautiful sounds passive. But elves seek out beauty and actively INVENT beauty. Elf heritage has heightened senses and intense and sensitive esthetic perceptiveness. Elf culture celebrates artists. Elves are prolific artists and are effective at art. According to flavor, elves have the best bards in the multiverse. Even the bards of other heritages strive to learn from elven bards.
Elves create magic items of beauty and power. The magic itself is a manifestation of the power of beauty. Elves revere elegant thinkers. Elegance in scientific formulations. The esthetic vision makes elves more powerful at magic.
Consider Einstein who cherished beauty in the physical sciences. He felt that a mathematical formula that was too "ugly" less likely to be true. The reallife universe has an elegance and a beauty to it. He was a powerful intellect because of the elegance of his thinking, e=mc^2, and so on. Minimalist formulations that had deep and broad practical applications. Beauty makes scientists better scientists.
In the case of elves, the quest for intellectual beauty achieves deep insights into the nature of magic. In this case, the artistic beauty comprises all of the mental abilities Charisma of beauty, the elegance of Intelligence, and the sensitivity of Wisdom. All aspects of elf heritage and culture are of magic, by magic, and for magic. And the elven approach to magic, is by means of beauty.
You start off pretty good with talk about mechanics & fluff being two different things that should align... then you jump the shark & fly off into bizzaro land ranting about pegging charisma to elves as a must. Charisma has never been an elf thing in any version but the grace associated with their thing for dexterity absolutely has. 5e inexplicably removed the long lifespans from races that once had them though so now elves don't have hundreds of years to spend on training that grace into their craftsmanship/dance/bow skills/etc like before & don't have the alien point of view that comes from remembering when the local ruling human kingdom was little more than a rest stop where traders could trade furs for supplies.
Grace doesnt mean high dexterity it refers to smooth and elegant movements - the “balance and poise” aspects of dexterity - even someone with low dexterity can appear to move with grace.
I do wonder why they made a point of describing the pupils only to say - yeah anything goes.
I’d have just gone with Elves are known for their long angular faces, high cheek bones and pointed, leaf shaped ears.
Generally I dont like that a ‘beauty’ standard is being applied to the elf description as it implies a ‘humans standard’. Do Dragonborn really consider Elfs to be supernaturally beautiful?
You start off pretty good with talk about mechanics & fluff being two different things that should align... then you jump the shark & fly off into bizzaro land ranting about pegging charisma to elves as a must. Charisma has never been an elf thing in any version but the grace associated with their thing for dexterity absolutely has. 5e inexplicably removed the long lifespans from races that once had them though so now elves don't have hundreds of years to spend on training that grace into their craftsmanship/dance/bow skills/etc like before & don't have the alien point of view that comes from remembering when the local ruling human kingdom was little more than a rest stop where traders could trade furs for supplies.
I hope. Where Level Up seeks to disconnect the heritages from the ability scores, this allows elves to develop their tropes of beauty, including art, charm, and goodlooks, by normal Charisma mechanics.
Note, elves are also known for their physical goodlooks. Charisma doesnt refer to physical goodlooks, but it does apply to visual appeal and artistic style. Probably, goodlooks works better as a halffeat, that gives advantage to things within the range to see the goodlooks. Goodlooks is something like the old school "comeliness", but as a trait, rather than as a score. However, in the case of elves, their physical goodlooks are an aspect of their magical competence, and might relate to an elf shine trope. In the LotR movies, Legolas conveys the magical goodlooks of the elf trope, where his goodlooks correlate with being miraculously clean and well-groomed, even under impossible circumstances.
That said, the Charisma of the elf relates to their art, their compelling songs and oratory, their Performance, their verbal bardic magic, their fame for enchantment spells, charm, eloquence, and Persuasion. Charisma is a must.
If an item is created, there can be an additional Performance check to determine its score of esthetic appeal. Esthetic items are more valuable than "ugly" items. Often the functionality is elegance. So something that is well made, and does its job well, also tends to be ergonomically beautiful. Power and beauty in the abstract sense, correlate.
I think having 1 Heritage Gift and 1 culture favoring grace-as-charisma can be easily added: for now we have the perceptive, the intelligent, the magical and the woodsy elves, there's certainly place for one more.
Honnestly, as a said in the other thread, the weird Twilight-touched Gift and Kithbain culture of the halfling would be perfect for the elfves of Elrond's or Galadriel's court, were it not for the sunlight sensitivity, in fact I'd give them ''darkness sensitivity'' to show that they are at their weakest when cut from the lights of creation.
