Arelith

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:42 pm**

I admit it, I am guilty of playing races like wild elves just for the mechanical bonuses. I make up some thin background story of them being raised up on the streets of Cordor by human parents, so I wouldn't really have to RP them like elves. Please deter my heinous crimes by making the race a minor reward as I will never have the stamina to farm that.

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2020 7:05 pm**

Zavandar wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:38 pm except the wild elf also gets toughness and 1 ac

Yeah, that's definitely good. I still think wood elf and sun elf are the strongest of all the elves, if we are breaking them down, but wood elves are the most common elf on faerun.

I suppose the question is "are wild elves so good they need to be gated, or are forest gnomes so bad its silly to have them behind a gate". Not sure I could answer that one, or that I even care what the answer eventually is, but its a legit point.

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:26 pm**

Wild elves are my favorite race and I agree they should be moved to a minor at the very least.

Speaking of races, Firbolgs should be a major.

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:41 pm**

cowboy wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 1:00 pm Ghostwise halflings don't actually have any mechanical benefits beyond I think maybe animal language and not leaving tracks.

Ghostwise halflings do not, canonically, really leave the region they are from. They are also psionic and communicate with one another in a hive mind because they have a vow of silence. They're atoning for what was effectively a Malar corruption of their subrace and the race war that came about because of it.

The reason why there are three halfling subraces, basically, is because of Ghostwise halflings. In the current timeline they are basically living in a specific forest and staying away from everyone else. Adventurers from among their race are probably fairly rare (though obviously not impossible, how else would you get to be half-pint Conan?)

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The idea is just in the case of Ghostwise; they are a "ungah bungah wild" version of halflings, a rare subrace because they are geographically VERY far from Arelith.

Wild elves might be a bit closer, but, are also a fairly rare subrace. Where they exist are mostly in untouched forest, mountain rangers, jungles - they're nomads and in general stay away from other races. The only population of wild elves "close" to Arelith are on Evermeet.

It's weird that Forest Gnomes and Wild Dwarves are restricted, but these are not - and they really should be to help with the appearance that they're semi-rare as well as counter the fact they have some very "juicy" bonuses in the case of Wild Elves.

I am also not trying to come at this from the position of Dr. RP POLICE ESQ, its just its kind lame at how common the wild elves are on the server and how very rarely they are even roleplayed as that. Part of that is ignorance (which is okay! we aren't all wkis or .pdf files), but I think its just because of how mechanically potent they are for some specific builds. They're basically a better version of the moon elf.

Both beyond their mechanical weirdness; I think wild races should be given a reward tier to help artificially lower their appearance.

If wild elves don't mechanically change they should probably be a normal reward.

http://wiki.arelith.com/Ghostwise_Halfling

Its mechanically a normal halfling. Maybe all default halflings are being falsely flagged ghostwise is the problem.

Wild elves could probably be a minor reward. (I feel human outcasts also should be, but that's a whole other can of worms)

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:59 am**

Zavandar wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:11 pm this here illustrates the biggest problem to me:

one of these races gets 2 bonus stats (+2 dex/con), a bonus feat, and a bonus ac, at the cost of 1 stat reduction (-2 int)

one of these races gets 1 bonus stat (+2 con) and 1 stat reduction (-2 str)

the second one takes the reward

if we start doing this then we need to compare everything such as ogre vs orog, Orog are far superior, get special weapons and armor, and require no reward yet an ogre with inferior stats requires a major. A minor reward is nothing for someone to get so if you really wanted to reduce numbers you need to make it a bigger reward.

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 2:51 am**

JubJub wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:59 am
Zavandar wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:11 pm this here illustrates the biggest problem to me:

one of these races gets 2 bonus stats (+2 dex/con), a bonus feat, and a bonus ac, at the cost of 1 stat reduction (-2 int)

one of these races gets 1 bonus stat (+2 con) and 1 stat reduction (-2 str)

the second one takes the reward
if we start doing this then we need to compare everything such as ogre vs orog, Orog are far superior, get special weapons and armor, and require no reward yet an ogre with inferior stats requires a major. A minor reward is nothing for someone to get so if you really wanted to reduce numbers you need to make it a bigger reward.

I would argue that this isn't crazy, though I'm sure the devs and admins are quite busy with real life let alone fake life right now. There has been a lot added and it has shifted the balance scales every which way.

All the same, I just chalk it up to bias against gnomes and move on

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:11 am**

Ghostwise don't get any mechanical bonus AFAIK. They do leave tracks. They do not get animal language. Their stats are the same stats as base halfling.

Is this a new change? My ghostwise never had any mechanical benefit, I only chose it for RP reasons.

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:04 pm**

Hazard wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:11 am Ghostwise don't get any mechanical bonus AFAIK. They do leave tracks. They do not get animal language. Their stats are the same stats as base halfling.

Is this a new change? My ghostwise never had any mechanical benefit, I only chose it for RP reasons.

I think they ment forest gnome...just mistake one small rat for another

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:06 pm**

To topic...All more I read it...I see there is one problem....we have totaly shity options on low rewards, and objectivly much better options for free....

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:10 pm**

I think the idea with these as lower rewards, is while they may not always be mechanically stronger, they do reflect the increased scarcity of these races. There is nothing wrong with that reward being an RP perk.

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:17 pm**

Irongron wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:10 pm I think the idea with these as lower rewards, is while they may not always be mechanically stronger, they do reflect the increased scarcity of these races. There is nothing wrong with that reward being an RP perk.

True enough...
Problem is than that if you have mechanicly powerfull options then some/many people will pick them for power alone with small to non regard to RP...

and you feel like you are paying for RP with power when you are picking something with reward which is weaker then normal race...

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:30 pm**

Opustus wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:42 pm I admit it, I am guilty of playing races like wild elves just for the mechanical bonuses. I make up some thin background story of them being raised up on the streets of Cordor by human parents, so I wouldn't really have to RP them like elves. Please deter my heinous crimes by making the race a minor reward as I will never have the stamina to farm that.

I certainly wouldn't call this a heinous crime - however, it's not just you doing so. There appears to be a trend to play Wild Elves purely for their racial benefits, resulting in a flood of characters that more or less disregard their culture and heritage whilst traditional, "wild" Wild Elves turn into a minority among their own kind. This feels a bit off in my opinion, and it most certainly is disadvantageous for setting integrity.

Perhaps roleplay of these tribal subraces ought to be policed to some extent.

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:04 pm**

Bendir has a small ghostwise clan, just like they have stronghearts and lightfoot

i play a ghostwise as they are my favorite from the lore when i want to play wild and nature oriented and not liking many people

how he got the arelith is easy, shiny light in the forest pool and when he went to look it was a faulty leyline and he found himself far from home

even made him only speak animal ( bonus lang being a ranger nothing to do with being ghostwise) for the first six months before other hin took him to task to learn more.

never wears boots, is darkly tanned and has his own clan old ways. yes he keeps trophies on his belts ie shrunken heads which are rped being boiled and sanded and shrunken.

he also has other quirks even though after his time he can speak six animal tongues and four racial ones besides hin and his common still isnt perfect with his syntax

now i dont expect all players to do such, as everyone is different.

Do i wish players who do choose ghostwise would play them a bit more feral, of course but only the DMs can enforce such. But sticking them behind an app or a 30 rpr for a subrace that has zero mechanical bonuses is a bit much

(we dont play with telepathy of which isnt a hive mind as was said, but simply an ability over the centuries that manifested since the ghostwars btw for whoever mentioned it as its more a only talk when they have something to say)

Posted: **Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:22 pm**

Whether you end up gating them behind a requirement or not.. Maybe there could someday be a jungle/forest area or island added as a mandatory starting area for wild elves and dwarves, forest gnomes and ghostwise halflings. It could also be an option for primitive humans, half-orcs and anything else I'm not thinking of.

I think being able to begin in such an area would at least solve the problem of why these wild races are starting in places they'd normally have no business being in and reinforce the primitive background. Just add a frontier port with a few traders trying to exploit the natives, a bunch of nature-themed writs from shamans and maybe an existential crisis in nature that makes PCs want to leave and seek answers (which seems like the most common wild PC's backstory anyway, their tribe is threatened) and there you go.

Posted: **Wed Mar 18, 2020 10:31 am**

Irongron wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:10 pm I think the idea with these as lower rewards, is while they may not always be mechanically stronger, they do reflect the increased scarcity of these races. There is nothing wrong with that reward being an RP perk.

Yeah, you've captured what I mean.

I think there is some mechanical debate. I shouldn't have really brought it up because that seems to dominate a lot of this. But it could probably be its on sack.

For the most part - its a "wow theres a whole lot and there doesn't seem to be a lot of people doing anything with the actual trope/lore - also wild elves and ghostwise halflings are limited in geographic scope and don't even have boat technology so the only ones coming the arelith would probably be adventurers and while adventurers are usually outliers for their society they don't all invert their trope and ignore their history" sort of a thing.

Wild elves should be rare following the logic of the other races. Wild elves should at least be as rare as forest gnomes (who live almost everywhere in FR where wild or wood elves live. Wild elves live exclusively in south eastern faerun, wood elves dominate the colder north. They live anywhere forests / jungles are, basically.)

Using this map of Arelith as a point of reference.

I sort of drew a very ghetto version of where you'd expect wild races to come from. https://tinyurl.com/vtjkfdv

Now ignoring all of the geo-politics of those places and focuses explicitly on the geography its a bit strange that ghostwise and wild elves remain unlocked. They are technologically and culturally predisposed to isolation. There has never been an established population of them mentioned in Arelith canon - it'd be weird if they suddenly came to be - given that all of the in game lore talks about a First Founding of elves and later migrations of continental and Evermeet adventurers.

(again, look, its a world with magic and portals and gateway, I get that, but not everyone has access to that, even weirdo eccentric adventurers. Also for another comparison, Deep Imaskari come from the UNDERDARK under Unther on that map and they have a greater so- like, its not insane to ask for that either.)

i just want to see some quality control and just a little bit of stakes on the races so they feel less cheap

Posted: **Thu Mar 19, 2020 8:20 pm**

The simplest explanation for "why" they are unlocked is they always have been. They were among the original subraces available from the earliest days of the server and long before there was an awards race system. Many other servers have had them available for PCs with no restriction so it's not like Arelith is an anomaly there.

Minor gifts are so easy to get I don't see why they couldn't be gated now though.

Posted: **Thu Mar 19, 2020 11:32 pm**

Dont take away my source of the (whatever) Spears *sniff*

Seriously now.. when a subrace becomes more common and popular to play, and fits more builds than the default race that's a call for a change imo.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:23 am**

Make all gnomes a major reward while you're at it, I'm sick of looking at their dangly arms.

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 7:39 am**

The best thing removal of gnomes would do would also be to stop unfunny people making the same tired and lame jokes about them.

Posted: **Sun Mar 22, 2020 4:39 am**

Ameliorate wrote: Sat Mar 21, 2020 7:39 am The best thing removal of gnomes would do would also be to stop unfunny people making the same tired and lame jokes about them.

I'm sorry.

Gnomes are great and I love them. I legitimately dislike the model they have in NWN though and don't feel it represents how awesome they look in a lot of artwork. I'll never stop hoping that we get better gnome models one day.

Posted: **Tue Mar 24, 2020 2:14 am**

Zavandar wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:11 pm this here illustrates the biggest problem to me:

one of these races gets 2 bonus stats (+2 dex/con), a bonus feat, and a bonus ac, at the cost of 1 stat reduction (-2 int)

one of these races gets 1 bonus stat (+2 con) and 1 stat reduction (-2 str)

the second one takes the reward

Wild elves gain 2 dex not 2 dex/con. They simply not lose con like base elf.

Posted: **Wed Mar 25, 2020 1:11 pm**

Now that Outcasts got this sort of treatment for effectively the same reason as what I suggest.

Maybe wild elves and ghostwise halflings will join them in a gentle investment?

Posted: **Thu Mar 26, 2020 3:18 am**

Exordius wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 4:56 am the one from Halflife

Corporal Shephard

Arelith

Please make Wild Elves & Ghostwise Halflings a reward.

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