Q: UA states that gray
elves are to receive an addition to
their initially generated intelligence
scores. Should they also receive the
addition to dexterity and the subtraction
to constitution that normally
apply to elves, as per the
Players Handbook? Does this apply
to all the elven sub-races?

A: Yes, the ability score adjustments for
each race given in the PH
also apply to all the new sub-races introduced
in UA. This also goes
for sub-races of dwarves, elves, and
gnomes. Any new adjustments given in
UA are specific only for the
case noted.
(117.54)
 

Question: Are player characters al-
lowed to be drawn from Grey Elf stock or <a? e?>
Drow stock?

Answer: Each DM must decide wheth-
er such unusual player-character types
will be allowed in his/her campaign. In
the case of unusual elf types, there
should be a possibility for a player char-
acter to become any of the elf subspe-
cies, including aquatic elves and wood
elves. However, it should be apparent
that life as a player character under such
conditions would be hard — for the
character, the player, and most of all the
DM, who must be prepared to cope with
the added responsibility of trying to in-
corporate such a “rare” character into
the campaign without sacrificing its bal-
ance and flexibility. — J. Ward, W.
Niebling
(Correction: Yes).

Wood elves, also known as sylvan elves, have abiilities similar to those of high elves,
including resistance to [sleep] and charm,
extra bonuses when wielding sword or bow,
infravision,
silent movement,
and detection of secret or concealed doors.

They speak elvish, common, treant, and the tongue of woodland mammals (much as gnomes communicate with burrowing mammals), but no other languages to start with.

They recieve a bonus of +1 on the initial dice roll for [strength] (but the normal maximum of 18 still applies), and
must take a -1 penalty to their initially generated score for [intelligence].

Wood elves are more reserved than gray elves, and do not mix with
the organized societies of other races on a regular or recurring basis.
Wood elves have fair complexions, with hair [colour] ranging from copper red to blonde and
eyes of light brown, light green, or hazel.

Wild elves, or grugach, shun outsiders even more fervently than other
elves, and are xenophobic even with regard to other elven races.

They have the standard elven characteristics of resistance to sleep
and charm, bonuses “to hit” with bow and sword, infravision, moving
silently, and detection of secret and concealed doors. Most of them
speak the elvish language exclusively, though a player character grugach
may know some of the common tongue as well. Wild elves are
very strong, receiving a + 2 bonus to the dice roll for strength (up to a
maximum of 18). Wild elves deal with other woodland creatures as if
an animal friendship spell was in operation. Grugach can set pits,
snares, and natural traps with a 90% chance of success. As shown on
Character Race Table I, grugach are more limited than other elves in
the class(es) they can practice; they can only be druids, fighters, or
thieves (including assassin and acrobat), and can only be fighter/
thieves if multi-classed. They are similar in appearance to wood
elves, but are smaller, thinner, and very fair.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Mouser
Actually, the possibility of basing elves from folklore on the Picts is kind of cool!

Gray Mouser

As I envisage them, the Wild Elves are more or less just that.

Cheerio,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Mouser
The Grugach based on the Picts?
That's pretty interesting and yet another reason why I hate that you lost control of A/D&D.
What I'd give to see what could have been published!

Gray Mouser

Elfdart noted that the pech and the brownie were derived from the Picts.
I am not sure of the origin of the grugach, but it might well have been another foklore take on them.
As a matter of fact I did much enjoy reading through texts dealing with mythology and folklore, the medieval bestiaries and all, translating what seemed interesting into material for the AD&D game. What seems to be lacking now is a real love for fantasy and the game system...

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Mouser
Huh, much like the Pech I assumed that Wild Elves (Grugach) were also creaitons of your own out of whole clothe!
You learn something new every day.

Yuppers, I lifted the Grugach from folklore.

Valley elves are thought to be an offshoot of the gray elves, and have
all powers and abilities of that sub-race, plus the ability to speak the
gnomish language.

Valley elves are unusually tall, some of them growing to the height of humans. <use human height, of course>
They are shunned by other elven sub-races, who do not consider them “true elves.” The name of valley
elves is derived from the Valley of the Mage, where the sub-race is
headquartered in the WORLD OF GREYHAWK Fantasy Game Setting,
but valley elves are equally at home in any similarly far-removed
section of the world free of other elvish influences.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Mouser
And kudos to you! I love Valley Elves, myself.
They're rather limited in my own campaign world and I preserve the outsider aspect of them.
In the lone Elvish kingdom there's perhaps 500 such chaps in their own communities.

Thanks.
It gets pretty demanding to add really interesting new races/sub-races to a well-developed game.
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Mouser
Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but where did you get the idea for Valley Elves?
Were they also based in mythology?
I rather like them and have a small community of them in my campaign.

Gray Mouser
 

Neigh! don;t thwack me further 

Actually, I made them up out of the elvish template and my vision of the Valley of the Mage.
It seemed a good idea to have the elvesthere a good deal different from the rest...as were the Drow 

Cheers,
Gary

Dark elves, also known as drow, are the most divergent of the elven sub-races.
 

Their form similar to other elves, but their skin color
is the inky black of a moonless night and their hair is normally pure
white or silver. Classes open to dark elf PCs are cleric,
fighter (incl. ranger), cavalier, MU, and thief (incl. thief-acrobat and assassin).
Males and females of this sub-race differ in the maximum level
attainable in the cleric, fighter, and MU classes.
Drow are generally evil and chaotic in nature, though PCs are not required to be so.

A dark elf PC is considered an outcast from his or her
homeland deep within the earth, whether by matter of choice, alignment,
or merely being on the losing side of some family-wide power
struggle. As such, drow characters do not have immediate access to
the weaponry, armor, cloaks, and poisons that are normally found in
the possession of NPCs of this sub-race.

The 50% MR possessed by NPC dark elves is likewise not a property
of PCs, who have abandoned their homeland; it is
likely that this power is the result of extended dabbling in the dark arts
as well as the effecs of their environment. Once having made the decision
to embark upon an adventuring career, a drow PC
can never regain this magic resistance short of the USE of [wish] spells
or similar magicks, but can still rise in power and dominate fellow dark
elves. Outcast dark elves do retain the customary elven resistance to
charm and sleep, and they receive a +2 bonus to all saving throws
versus magical effects.

Dark elves do not gain the combat bonuses of the surface elves with
regard to sword & bow, but may FIGHT with two weapons without
penalty, provided each weapoin may be easily wielded in one hand.
They cannot USE a shield when performing this type of combat, but
may use a spiked buckler as one of their two weapons. <>

Drow can speak the common tongue, the language of "undercommon" (a trade language of those who dwell beneath the earth), plus
the elvish and gnomish languages, as well as other languages up to the limit
prescribed by intelligence score. In addition, all dark elves
"speak" the silent tongue of subterranean dwellers, a language of
complex hand signals and gestures, combined with facial expressions
and body language. The range of communication in this silent
tongue is only 30', but it is as informative as any other language
within that range. Only the drow may fully master this tongue, though
other races may be taught its basic signs and symbols.

Dark elves have infravision out to a 12" range. The base movement
rate of female drow is 15", while that of male drow is 12". Drow have
the ability to detect secret & concealed doors just as other elves
can, and they can also detect new construction, stonework trapas, sliding walls,
and depth underground as do dwarves.

Dark elves can move silently in the same manner as other elves, under the same conditions,
and are surprised only on a 1 in 8 chance.

All dark elves have the innate ability to USE the following magic spells
once per day: dancing lights, faerie fire, and darkness, 5' radius.

Upon attaining 4th level in any class, dark elves gain the abilty to CAST
detect magick, know alignment, and levitate, also once per day.
Females of 4th level or higher also can USE clairvoyance, detect lie (or its reverse), <>
suggestion, and dispel magic, each once per day.

Ability scores for drow characters may be generated either by normal
means, or by the method described on page 34 of the FIEND FOLIO Tome,
at the option of the DM. If the latter method is used, the adjustments
to initial dice rolls for elves given in the "Penalties and Bonuses for Race" section
(PH, page 14) do not apply.

Drow are affected by light in the same manner as gray dwarves (see above). <>
They will prefer to travel either at night or in gloomy, overcast
conditions when they venture out into the surface world.

-
< When drow of promising ability reach 6th level or slightly higher,
Lolth will summon them and put them through a specially-designed test.
The drow that fail will become driders. >

serleran wrote:
Sweet! Am I invited?

Now, for the good Colonel--

Maybe this has been answered somewhere, and if so, then I'm just blind and dumb.
But... why are there at least 3 versions of the Drow? There's the one from the MM, one from FF, and the stat method and character classes options in UA.
 

For everyone else-- Which one, or something else, is the most commonly used?

As for the convention to be held here in LG, I do believe all gamers are invited!

Now, under the heading of water under the bridge :roll:

Hmmmm...

I don't recall any drow in the MM.
AS a matter of fact I know there were nont there, as I created the race after the MM was written.
As for drow apearing in the UA work, those details there were for DMs who were looking for information on how to create potent NPCs of that race.

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally posted by Redleg06
Gary,

Someone may have asked this before, but I cannot resist throwing the hand-grenade into the china shop.

Kla-BLAM!

Okay, as the smoke and fragments clear, I step forth unharmed

Quote:
Drow. Was the original intent to create a reace of evil elves? Or just to create a race of sub-terrainian elves with dark skin and kewl abilities? (And those nifty little hand-crossbows!) [/B]
 

Both, as a matter of fact. I wanted to have a new, unique, and interesting race of demi-humans that dwelled in and command much of the vast underworld of Oerth. They were, as stated, of Evil bent as a race, so the clear intent was to have fell opponents for non-Evil PC. That all drow were not of Evil I also noted in the "Gord the Rogue" tales, for Leda, a drow, was certainly not of malign sort.

The drow abilities were given to them to highlight their unique nature and potency.

Cheers,
Gary
 

Originally posted by Dinkeldog
As an addendum to Redleg's question, was the intent that all drow would be evil and no player could ever be one?
 

Noppers. As noted in my reply to Redleg's post, I didn't think all drow had to be evil--only maybe 99% It then follows that some player might have a drow character, Evil or not, as the DM allowed

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally posted by Felon
There was a thread over on the WotC board fairly recently about drow and their weapons. It dwelled on the fact that in 3e, the rule for drow weapons & armor degrading in sunlight was thrown out. Sean Reynolds' stated that rule was discarded intentionally because the only reason that rule existed in the first place was to "screw the players". Do you feel that statement, and the accompanying general sentiment expressed by others that AD&D drow were over-the-top and introduced solely to be the "ultimate party-killers", is at all fair and accurate? [/B]

Heh, and my opinion of Mr. Reynolds' statement must be self-censored. Given that the whole concept of the game is fantasy, what, pray tell, makes drow weapons disintegrating in the radiation from the sun any more unreasonable than just about everything else of fantastic natute in the game? More likely he was unable to find a rationale for the effect, and needing a rule for everything had to do as was done.

As for drow being too difficult to defeat, boo-hoo-hoo. Good players managed to do so with their PCs pretty handily, second-rate ones lost. Is the game to be a cake-walk or a challenge? Speaking for OAD&D, I can state the former was meant to be the case. As for 3E, well, you be the judge...
 
 

"DRow" in an Anglo-Saxon word. I found it in an old unexpurgated dictionary way back when. It means "dark elf." From that entry I created the drow race for AD&D, of course. There is no other background for them in myth or fable. Their characteristics were designed as they were to make them a suitable set of inhabitants of the subterranean world.

Cheerio,
Gary
 

Originally Posted by LordVyreth
Quote:
Moving on from alignment questions, here's something similar. It seems that people are getting more into playing good individuals of typically evil races, like orcs and drow, and even generally universally evil beings like demons and vampires. Do you agree that it's a new thing, or has that been a constant throughout the game? If it is new, do you think it reflects a way gamers look at the world and concepts like universal evil, or is it just because evil characters are considered "cooler" for some reason? I'll post my opinions, but I'd like to hear what you think first.

Vyreth

As there will well be abberations in nature, a chaotic good orc, or drow, is of possible interest to the player who wants a challenge for the PC--
virtually every hand will be against such characters.
Having demons and vampires of similar stamp is so much nonsense, comparable in my mind to a grass-eating lion or a friendly wolverine.
The nature of true evil is just that--no good in it whatsoever.

As for when such approach commenced, I can't say, but the politically correct view of evil individuals as mere victims of their surroundings and upbringing might be involved.

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuzenbach
I had a character who was a Drow (ambidexterity) specializing in darts (ordinarily 4 thrown darts per round but double it due to ambidexterity) who always carried a couple of potions of speed. My view was that if one such potion was imbibed, his rate of fire would increase from 8 to 16. If the second potion was taken, his rate of fire would then jump to 32. In fact, I kept this knowledge to myself until such a time that I was able to single-handedly knock off a 100-hit-point-plus black dragon! Ah, ignorant DM's can be so fun. :-)

Anyway, was it your intention for the Drow's ambidexterity to double his number of attacks? And were potions of speed cumulative with each other to a probable infinity? I only ask because I could never find anything in the rules opposing my theories. And if a Drow lives to be 1000+, who cares about a bit of magical aging, 'ya know?

Again, humble apologies if these sorts of questions were answered in previous Q&A's. But if so, just let me know and I'll go look for them. Thank you!

Well...

I suppose that the Drow ambidexterity would extend to hand-thrown missiles, so you were not off base there. An ambidextrous character can attack twice, yes, but of course that means no shield, and a penalty on the second attack is usual, eh? You were well out in left field though claiming speed potions were cumulative. I can't blame you, though, as I have attempted to bulldoze GMs in like manner when i was power gaming <paranoid>

Realistically, a drow character would care about losing 1% of his lifespan on a regular basis, don't you think?

cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuzenbach
Erm, what? Are you referring to the "off-hand" attack? I took the Drow's ambidexterity to mean they had NO off-hand and, thus, no off-hand penalty.

Does anyone use common sense? Even an ambidextrous person can't hammer two nails at the same time with equal skill...
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuzenbach
You mean .01% of his life, surely. There I go again, rules-lawyering like a madman. Actually, I had only meant for this muti-speed thing to be a sort of "secret weapon". Afterall, where was he to get replacements for the spent potions on a regular basis? Hence, it was only ever used once.

Yuppers, my bad. I had the wish spell in mind, a 10-year aging effect. and single-use with a year lost would not be a factor to any adventurous, long-lived demi-human, I agree,
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfdart
My nickname on the web boards comes from the old English term for back spasms (which I suffered several years ago) being labeled "elf darts" because the ancient Germanic peoples thought sudden pains and spasms were caused by invisible darts from the elves. On the other hand, Tolkien nerds are more of a pain in the a$$.

Interesting origin of the name, and something I had not read before. thanks.

Happy for you that the spasms have ceased. I injured by back when I was working as a mover in my late teens, and had many a chiropractic treatment before a kinesiologist one cured the proble,

Cheers,
Gary
 

As for Drow, I never envisaged them as a standard PC race.
I guess I erred in not making them more loathesome...although malign subterranean elves that love spiders seem pretty unappealing as is...

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pbartender
Which exactly what makes them so appealing to a certain sub-set of players... Some people like playing the loathesome critters.

Better playing one that being one, eh?
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aeolius
Gary,

Were there any beasties from the 1e days (and prior... I respect anyone who puts a tuatara in their monster lists) that you considered to be "classic", that never seemed to catch on with the masses?
That is something I had not considered.

Upon reflection I have to say no, the "architypical" monsters were pretty well accepted across the board and included by DMs...includine many very clever variations and permutations.

What astonished me was the players' being smitten with the drow, desiring to play a PC of that race. I devised them as a most unlikable, ruthlessly evil subterranean race. To cater to the demand, the Drow were made into realtively more warm and fuzzy sorts. I can only liken that into changing Hannibal Lector into a visiting nurse.

All that said, do you find that some "classic" critters to be generally ignored?

Cheers,
Gary
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentlegamer
Do you regret catering to that demand (or any other demand)?

Don't look at me when you ask that question, for I had nothing to do with the making of the Drow into more namby-pamby sorts, their males on a par with the females 

The demands I regret catering to are the ones for adding psionics to OAD&D and the adjustments for weapons vs. armor.
I am delighted I refused to do detailed encumbrance tables as a number of vocal fans advocated.

Cheerio,
Gary