D&D’s elves have famously long lives, though how long depends on the edition you’re playing. The following information comes from each edition’s Player’s Handbook, except for 1e and Classic. The former has this information in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the latter doesn’t have the traditional three-book division.
- 5th edition: Up to 750 years
- 4th edition: 200 years+
- 3rd edition: 700 years+
- 2nd edition: 1,200 years+
- 1st edition: Up to 1,600 years
In 5e Dungeons and Dragons elves can live for up to 750 years and reach maturity at 100, according to page 23 of the 5th edition Player’s Handbook. Half-elves can live for more than 180 years and are adults at around 20.
In 4e they live for over 200 years and experience no signs of aging until the very end. Eladrin, a related player race, can live for over 300 years and similarly do not suffer the ill effects of age. Half-elves live for as long as humans. The Player’s Handbook says this on pages 41, 39, and 43 respectively.
In 3e, elves live for more than 700 years and are mature at around 110 years of age. Half-elves live for as long as they do in 5e. You can check this on pages 15 and 18 of the 3.5e Player’s Handbook.
In 2e, elves can expect to live for more 1,200 years, but long before this they will almost always “feel compelled to depart the realms of men and mortals.” Half-elves can see their 160th birthday, but seldom see more. This is according to page 21 of the Player’s Handbook with the knight charging at the viewer – later 2e PhBs might differ somewhat. Half-elves are on the next page, and they generally make it to about 160.
Standard elves in 1e can reach a maximum of 1,600 years. Gray Elf lifespans can hit 2000 years, and are not old until 1,000. The oldest a wood elf can be is 1,350, and the oldest Drow are 1,000. The oldest possible half-elf is 325, but most don’t make it past 250; this is according page 13 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Neither the Rules Cyclopedia nor the Creature Catalog give a standard lifespan for elves in the classic Dungeons and Dragons game, but you can assume they live for about as long as their first and second edition counterparts. Half-elves do not exist in this edition.
Regardless, the practical answer is that elves live for as long as it takes an elf PC to get themselves killed, or a few sessions after they meet the PCs if they’re murder hobos.
Good info, thanks. How inconsistent is this? feel like everyone just makes a number up
Between each edition – totally inconsistent, for various reasons. Individual 5e tables also differ widely – 5e rules as written only exists in Internet discussions, and even then only barely. Anyway, mechanically this only matters if you’re fighting a lot of ghosts since 5e doesn’t have any other aging effects.
The “canonical” lifespans were more Tolkien earlier on, right down to the 2e elves going to a Valinor knock-off when their time was up instead of dying. In the Forgotten Realms I believe this was Evermeet; other campaign settings didn’t really bother with it. 3e cut those numbers in half, and 4e further cut them down, probably to better match the “100 years after the magic empire collapsed” timeline in DMG’s example setting. 5e went back on 4e’s changes here as it did elsewhere.
Hello!
Good cheer to all on this beautiful day!!!!!
Good luck 🙂