Elf (Dungeons & Dragons) - Wikipedia

Original Dungeons & Dragons

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The elf first appeared as a player character race in the original 1974 edition of Dungeons & Dragons.[8][7] The aquatic elf was introduced in the 1975 Blackmoor supplement.[9] Elves in Dungeons & Dragons are immune to paralysis as a holdover from a game balance adjustment in Chainmail.[10] Players with elf characters could choose either the "fighting-man" or "magic-user" class to start with; multiclassing was allowed, however, elf characters could only take a max of four levels in fighter and eight levels in magic-user.[7]: 34  Tresca described the Tolkien style of elf as "a burden for game designers" as they were seemingly "more capable than humans".[7]: 34  Tresca commented that "Gygax worked hard to curb their power, by giving the race a weak constitution and putting limitations on how high they could level. These limitations would not be removed until the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons".[7]: 34 

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition

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The elf appeared as a player character race in the original Player's Handbook (1978).[11][12] The elf also appeared in the original Monster Manual (1977), with subraces including High Elf, Gray Elf (some of whom are also called Faerie), Dark Elf (also called Drow), Wood Elf (also called Sylvan), and Aquatic Elf.[13] The grugach, valley elf, and cooshee (an elven dog) first appeared in Dragon issue #67 (November 1982) in "Featured Creatures", an ongoing series of articles where Gary Gygax released information on official creatures before their release in the upcoming Monster Manual II. The grugach, valley elf, and cooshee then appeared in the original Monster Manual II (1983).[14] A number of elven subraces were presented as character races in the original Unearthed Arcana (1985).[15]

Basic Dungeons & Dragons

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The elf appeared as a character race in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977). In subsequent revisions, in order to streamline the game, the non-humans (including the elf) were presented as distinct classes. The elf class is often seen as a blend of the fighter and magic-user classes.

The Shadow elf appears as a character race in GAZ13 The Shadow Elves published by TSR in 1990 as a 64-page booklet and a 32-page booklet.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition

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The high elf appeared as a character race in the second edition Player's Handbook (1989).[16] The high elf also appeared in the Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989).[17] Several elven races were detailed as player character races in The Complete Book of Elves (1992).[18] Supplements focused on elves in specific campaign settings include Comanthor: Empire of the Elves, Elves of Evermeet and Elves of Athas.

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition

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The elf appeared as a character race in the third edition Player's Handbook (2000),[19] and in the 3.5 revised Player's Handbook.[20] Elves were detailed for the Forgotten Realms setting in Races of Faerûn (2003).[21] Elves were one of the races detailed in Races of the Wild (2005).[3]

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition

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The elf appeared as a character race and as one of three in a family of elven races — the sylvans, the drows, and the eladrins — in the fourth edition Player's Handbook (2008). This version of the elf returns in the Essentials rulebook Heroes of the Fallen Lands (2010). The elf appears in the fourth edition Monster Manual (2008).[22]

Tresca explained that this edition allowed elves and humans to be equal in height and "deemphasized their low constitution, a balancing attribute created for earlier editions".[7]: 34  Tresca opined that the introduction of eladrin "restored elves in Dungeons & Dragons to the mysterious, sometimes dangerous, and altogether powerful status they enjoyed in Middle-earth".[7]: 34 

Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition

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The elf was included as a player race in the 5th edition Player's Handbook (2014).[23] Three subraces were introduced with it: the high elf, the wood elf, and the drow (dark elf).[24] The Player's Handbook connects the high elves to the gray elves and valley elves of the Greyhawk setting, the Silvanesti and Qualinesti of the Dragonlance setting, and the sun elves and moon elves of the Forgotten Realms setting. They also connect the wood elves to the wild elves (grugach) of Greyhawk and the Kagonesti of Dragonlance.

The 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide (2014) also presented the eladrin (which appeared in 4th edition as a separate but related race) as an elf subrace, using them as an example for creating a new character subrace.[25] The eladrin later appeared as Unearthed Arcana playtest content in "Race Options: Eladrin and Gith" (2017).[26][27] Avariel, grugach, sea elves, and shadar-kai were presented as playtest options in "Elf Subraces" (2017).[28][29] Eladrin, shadar-kai, and sea elves were then featured as playable subraces for elves in the supplement Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (2018).[30][31] Those three subraces were then revised in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse (2022).[32][33]

In December 2022, Wizards of the Coast announced that the word "race" would no longer be used to refer to a character's biological traits and instead would be replaced with the word "species"; this change went into effect with the December One D&D playtest release.[34][35][36] The Player's Handbook (2024), as part of the 2024 revision to the 5th Edition ruleset, updated the elf as a player species choice. The elf now has lineage options for drow, high elf, and wood elf.[37][38] Connor Lindsay of Screen Rant explained that mechanically the updated elf is focused "more on the species' innate magical connections" and grants each lineage "a selection of spells they can cast as they level up" along with each lineage receiving "its own passive features".[38] Lindsay noted that elves "retain a lot of their old features, keeping Trance, darkvision proficiency, and Fey Ancestry, and get a wider selection for their extra proficiency".[38]