Now, here's what recently struck me as a minor (but annoying as hell) flaw in race/character concept in D&D: I've been starting to play IWD for a long time and I finally created a party that satisfied me (lucky rolls...). Because of the ridiculous race restrictions on multi-classes I was pretty much forced to roll with 3 half-elves (not that it's bad, I like elves) and 1 human Paladin. Once I hit the icy streets (or lack of thereof) of Easthaven, I noticed that my female Paladin towers above all the other characters like some kind of world champion in weight lifting, essentially visually degrading all the other characters to the status of oversized gremlin henchmen running behind. Seriously, it looks as if a mother took a walk with her 3 under-age sons. Maybe it's just me, but I pay attention to details like that, and it just takes away part of the fun. These half-elves are just way too short!
I know it's a core D&D idea for the elves to be shorter than humans, but personally, I always rejected that rule while playing original P&P version and instead based my own image on Tolkien's lore -- tall and slender elves. Initially, I wanted to propose an elf modification, but I think there is a much less extreme sollution which may retain the authors' original intentions: make a half-elf mod which makes them equal in size to humans, it's just that they have pointy ears. I mean, right now they look exactly like elves, there is no visible difference. But aren't half-elves supposed to have more human features, i.e. be taller? I believe this would be a consensus for the community in general. Also, this shouldn't really cause too much trouble as half-elven avatars would be pretty much compatible with graphics stuff originally made for humans and etc. (unless some inspired artist wishes to go much further).
All I wish is for those half-elves to look more like Legolas rather than an oversized Gimli on diet (OK, maybe that's a bit extreme, but they do look like imps compared to humans).
If there's an aspiring arist who shares similar beliefs on the matter I would be more than grateful for any kind of work in this direction. I know some of you will just say, "Do it yourself, just scale the avatars, etc." but I just have no idea about this stuff. It was a pain for me to do Jagged Alliance 2 animated portraits (I gave up...) so I guess this won't be any easier for a lack-of-talent that I am.
Thank you for your attention
. And huge thanks to the 1PP for the available releases -- you guys know what looks best!
Edited by 2xCut, 14 May 2012 - 01:23 PM.
