Elves
As an elf, maybe you will embark on adventures out of a desire to explore the world, leaving a secluded forest realm to reclaim forgotten elven magic or search out lost kingdoms established millennia ago by your forefathers. Perhaps you seek knowledge and wisdom, or maybe you just find the long-lived elf culture too stifling! For elves raised near human society, the ephemeral and unfettered life of an adventurer holds natural appeal. Many elves prefer magic and ranged combat over melee, hating the iron used by elf-foes, preferring classes such as wizards and rangers.
Details
Introduction: The long-lived elves are children of the natural world, created by faerie gods, who made them similar in many ways to fey creatures, yet more grounded and rational. Elves value their privacy and traditions, and while they are often slow to make friends, at both the personal and national levels, once an outsider is accepted as a comrade, such alliances can last for generations. Elves have a curious attachment to their surroundings, perhaps as a result of their incredibly long lifespans or some deeper, more mystical reason. Elves who dwell in a region for long find themselves physically adapting to match their surroundings, most noticeably taking on coloration reflecting the local environment. Those elves that spend their lives among the short-lived races, on the other hand, often develop a skewed perception of mortality and become melancholy, the result of watching wave after wave of companions age and die before their eyes.
Appearance: Although generally taller than humans, elves possess a graceful, fragile physique that is accentuated by their long, pointed ears. Their eyes are wide and almond-shaped, and filled with large, vibrantly colored pupils. While elven clothing often plays off the beauty of the natural world, those elves that live in cities tend to bedeck themselves in the latest fashion.
Society: Many elves feel a bond with nature and strive to live in harmony with the natural world. Elves prefer to work in wood and mithril, creating fine arts and beautiful magics, with their inborn patience making them particularly suited to wizardry. Though few in numbers, most elves are powerful with the long experience of age (player character elves are assumed to be rare elvish youths). Elves are emotional and whimsical, yet value kindness and beauty. They have an ancient quarrel with dwarves, which humans have leveraged as they expanded. Most elves are chaotic good.
Rules
Character Creation: Apply the following adjustments to every elf player character.
- Ability Score Adjustment: Choose: +2 Intelligence OR +1 Intelligence and +1 Dexterity.
- Saving Throw Bonuses: +2 on Will saving throws.
- Extra Hit Points: +3.
- Skill Bonuses: +3 to all Knowledge skills, Search, Spellcraft, Stealth, and Use Magic Device. You are proficient in these skills.
- Size: Medium.
- Move: 30 feet.
- Vision: Low-Light Vision.
- Languages: Common and Elven. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Dwarf, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, and Orc (Orc, a dead language, is available to elves as a bonus language but not to any other race).
- Special: Keen Eyes - When you make Spot checks, the DC modifier for distance is +1 per 50 feet instead of +1 per 10 feet. You receive a Spot check to notice secret doors and compartments when you come within 10 feet of them, with a +2 racial bonus on the check, if you are not actively looking. When making surprise (spot) checks to be aware of others at the start of an encounter, you make all rolls at +2.
- Weakness: Frail, with Iron Allergy - You suffer a -1 racial penalty on saving throws against poison and disease. Also, wearing, carrying, and using iron items gives you the queasy condition.
Tyro Tier (character level 3): Select one of these three powers:
- Power: Favored Class (Wizard) - Your levels as a wizard do not count against you when determining experience point penalties for multiclassing.
- Power: Elf Cantrip - You learn one of the following zero-level spells, casting it at will, using your intelligence and caster level: Detect Magic, Moonlight, or Prestidigitation.
- Power: One with Nature - In natural environments, you draw energy from your surroundings. You do not need to eat or drink on days when you spend at least four hours outdoors, and you gain a +1 racial bonus when making charisma checks (including charisma-based skill checks and wild empathy checks) interacting with animals, plants, magical beasts, and fey creatures.
Adventurer Tier (character level 8): Select one of these three powers*:
- Power: Trance - You never need to sleep, and you are immune to all natural and magical sleep effects. Each day, you replace sleep with an eyes-open meditation known as "trance," which requires half the time other creatures need to sleep for the same result, and which imposes no penalty on skill checks such as spot. Wearing armor does not interfere with your trance.
- Power: Lesser Elf Magic - You receive a +2 racial bonus on concentration checks made to cast arcane and natural spells. You receive a +2 racial bonus on Spellcraft skill checks made to identify the properties of magic items. Also, you get a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.
- Power: Elf Weapons - You gain proficiency with long (and long composite) bows, longswords, and elven curve blades. With one of these weapons (your choice), you gain a +1 racial bonus to attack.
Hero Tier (character level 13): Select one of these two powers*:
- Power: Elf Crafting - You can create certain magical items as if you had all the prerequisites, specifically Boots and Cloaks of Elvenkind (including more potent varieties); magical longswords, longbows, oathbows, elven curveblades; and any magical weapon, armor, or shield made of mithril or wood. You do not need to make any Spellcraft checks, but the usual costs in gold and experience points still apply.
- Power: Greater Elf Magic - You gain a +2 racial bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance. Whenever you cast a spell or use a spell-like ability while standing in a natural environment, increase the spell's DC by +1. Pick a first level arcane or natural spell; you can use this spell as a spell-like ability three times per day without using any spell slot.
Legend Tier (character level 18): Select one of these two powers*:
- Power: Woodland Hunter - In woods terrain, you suffer no penalty for using Stealth while moving or hustling, and you can use stealth even when running, though at a -5 penalty. In a natural setting based on woods terrain, foliage, or trees, you can use stealth even under direct observation. You gain a +2 racial bonus on all Knowledge (nature) and Survival checks, and in wooded areas these bonuses improve to +5. You gain a +4 racial bonus to initiative in woods terrain.
- Power: Loremaster - You gain a +2 racial bonus on all Heal, Knowledge, and Spellcraft checks; when related to magic or woodlands, this bonus rises to +4; and when related to elves, this bonus rises to +8. When you roll Knowledge checks, treat any die result of 9 or lower as a 10.
* Or select a lower tier power that you have not chosen before.