Why can't elves...
Xavioria
Member Posts: 874
SO, the only other class I would probably like better than the "Cleric/Mage" would be a "Druid/Mage;" however the latter does not exist in-game, but i'm derailing...
Anywho, I have a question, and was wondering if anyone could give me an answer, because I have done a small amount of searching, and cannot find an answer to this: Why can't Elves multi=class their Clerics? Is there some sort of lore reason pertaining to this mystery? If anyone knows, I would love to know the answer, because it confounds the hell outta me XD
Anywho, I have a question, and was wondering if anyone could give me an answer, because I have done a small amount of searching, and cannot find an answer to this: Why can't Elves multi=class their Clerics? Is there some sort of lore reason pertaining to this mystery? If anyone knows, I would love to know the answer, because it confounds the hell outta me XD
Post edited by JuliusBorisov on
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Personally, the races after elves, half elves, and humans deserve more options... and why halflings can't be bards is stupid... BUT again, back to the question at hand, what is the RP reason behind the 2nd edition rules for lack of Cleric multi class support among elves?
Then again, this is only a guess.
Umm I think it was a balance resson, if any. Elves are an inherently magical race with a lot of charm&sleep resistance. If they become a cleric/mage and have access to nearly EVERY spell available too, that would be a tad overkill, I think.
Because AD&D. Because sense!
But it's important to have in consideration the state of gamming at the time. This is 1979, remember. We are still on the first edition of AD&D. The first Dungeon Master Guide had been released that year, in August. At this time most games (board games, wargames, etc) didn't have non human characters. It actually may come as a surprise, but such was the state of gaming at the time. Non humans were a sort of novelty. Players would flock to roleplay an Elf or a dwarf (I know I did. My very first character, still in D&D, was a Dwarf Fighter **, not a Human Fighter). Gygax has a point that parties would become strictly non-human. And his point still carries some echoes to this day.
Eventually later generations of the ruleset ended up carrying this legacy, well into the 00s with the introduction of the 3rd edition, which sadly decided to solve the problem with a machine gun.
** Krugar. Died at level 9, after 2 years real-time of play, on the bottom of a spiked pit assassinated by a party member who wanted his double axes of throwing.
About Elf Clerics, majority we know is priestess of Loth, so drow clerics, thats probably why elf didn't roll clerics much. Also Clerics serve human gods, not the elven. I dont really know exactly how Forgoten realms patheon looks like, but we know, that every race has their goods.
A few of my favorite PNP characters don't translate well to the computer because of this (most games I played had different or no weapons restrictions on clerics; but without a mod, I just can't do a spear wielding cleric!). But that's just how it is, every game system has its quirks. I remain a huge fan of the way levels, classes and combat work in 2E. I may make a lot of changes when running my own game, but I don't expect the computer to be able to do that.
On the specific case of Druids the decision was, judging from my post above, strictly arbitrary and the implicit understanding that Druidism was a cult reserved for humans. Other class/race restrictions would follow a similar design principle.
And honestly, his statement about arbitrarily limiting other races is just incredibly dumb. If you want to balance the races, BALANCE THEM, don't try to shoehorn the into specific manners.
I want to roleplay a half orc that was abandoned and found and raised by monks; Who is this gygax person to tell me that my character shouldn't exist? I want to play a druidic elf; Who is gygax to tell my he deems my concept unworthy of usage?
Then the game evolved. The idea of race and class separated came to be. And things changed. AD&D what we all call 2E is the very first idea of improving and changing this restrictions. To look for logic as to why elves can't be X in AD&D is the same as to ask why I have to roll dices in Monopoly for movement, because my "character" know where he want to go, those are the rolls of the game.
This is why this game has editions in the first place. To improve upon the old ones. (Even though I fail to see how 4E is an improvement to 3.5E, but it might be only me).
But I would point out even 2E had like six different methods DMs could choose for generating characters.
But Gygax himself was always an interesting dichotomy. He conceived and created the game. He stated several times that DMs could and should pick, choose and modify rules however they wanted to create the atmosphere best suited them and their group; and then he pitched a fit when people ran "non-standard" games. I think he understood the idea that people would want to tinker, but it insulted him when people actually changed "his" rules. The whole hobby owes him a debt, but few of us would still want to play exactly as he wrote it.
While I was first introduced to roleplaying with AD&D 2E, 3.5E is without a doubt my favorite edition. The sheer amount of choice clinched it.
But I feel exactly the opposite. I find all that choice boring, there is little motivation to play off the wall characters. And people tend to remember that paladin they played with a 13 strength and 18 dexterity; or the cleric with a 16 wisdom and and 17 strength.
As I said, I do let people dump hopeless rolls (or even just rolls that won't work for them); but my many thousands of hours of DMing and playing 1E and 2E for over thirty years have yielded a huge variety of interesting and much loved characters.
And I would never deny that you or anyone else could passionately enjoy the many hours spent playing your own favorite version of the game. I'm just saying, 2E has been more than completely acceptable for many of us, and there are reasons why some of us prefer it to the newer versions.
I loved 2E, don't get me wrong, and I certainly wouldn't object to playing it again. But to me, 3E took essentially everything that I liked about 2E, and added so much more. Now when I look back at 2E, I find stuff that I still appreciate greatly, but which just wouldn't work in 3E. At the time, though, I loved 3E for moving away from those concepts. (For example, THAC0 and negative AC. It sets an atmosphere that I instantly associate with 2E, and for that, I love it, but actually using it in a game could be a pain.)
Sorry. I'm really not trying to be insulting. It just never worked for me.
The somewhat arbitrary restrictions do get on my nerves a bit and one of my favorite old-school mods was one called 'hidden kits' that partially circumvented these restriction, though the "arch Mage" (cleric mage) was significantly OP.