Why can't elves be raised from the dead in these games?

(This question could also be extended to the Icewind Dale series, in which Raise Dead doesn't work on elves, but (unlike in these games) Resurrection does.)

I don't know if any interviews exist that talk about the design philosophy of Gygax and company. In absence of of any primary source all I can do is guess. So, I believe that this was story/rule segregation point. They likely felt that they needed to add some restrictions to the elves and added the story justification that there is no exit from the elven afterlife, which would be a close match to the Tolkien inspiration for the series. Therefore Raise Dead didn't work. IIRC, this carried through 2nd edition as well which would explain why it is in Baldur's Gate/Ice Wind Dale/etc.. Resurrection and Reincarnation (I don't think this spell ever appeared in any of the games as you could come back as a different species) *would* work on them (higher level cleric & druid spells) which they justified as being special dispensation from the deities involved. Note that they removed the rule from 3rd edition on after they fixed the balance issues between races.

Anyone else have any ideas or better GoogleFu at finding some comment from the devs on this?

The story as it's typically told is that Gygax really only enjojyed human-focused fantasy (such as Conan) and very much disliked Tolkien, and so only added non-human races to the game when his players demanded it and added a bunch of penalties to them just out of spite.

I don't know how much of that is true, mind you, but that's the story.

Something about their souls going somewhere else or something I think. I do remember there was some lore reason for it. :P

Edit: Ooops. rkralik ninja'd me by 14 hours. I REALLY need to sleep now...

If that is the case, why can the other demi-human races be revived?

Possible (though they don't seem to get much for their trade-offs)! He's pretty clearly on the record as disliking Tolkien, though. He's said he "yawned his way through" the books, and said this about them in regards to D&D: edit: I would guess that, regardless of any underlying motivation, it got into early D&D simply because some situation arose where a playtester's elf died and Gygax decided Raise Dead wasn't enough to bring him back for some unknowable reason and it wormed it's way into the final rules. You have to remember that game design for RPGs wasn't the kind of battletested thing it's become today, and AD&D in general was kind of a mix of disparate rules cobbled together from wargames.

If that story is true, it also explains why demi-human races get screwed over that much when it comes to available classes and level caps. I'm glad that was fixed in later editions.

Huh, that's actually a really interesting quote that... explains a lot about some of the weird anachronisms in the earlier editions of D&D.

Elves are more powerful than humans at lower levels (where pen&paper games usually take place), so so does that compute with Gygax' dislike of races taken from Tolkien?

Elves are too cute and sexy to die... so you should be penalized for not caring about them :))

Jokes aside, this is another old rule which doesn't make much sense, just like "unlimited leveling" for humans.

It seems that some spambot took it on themself to revive this thread with a post that is *completely* off topic.

I actually don't remember this thread, despite apparently being the creator of it.

In any case, not being able to revive elves, I believe, only matters in the Krynn series and in Icewind Dale 1 and 2 (yes, IWD2 implements the rule despite being supposedly based off D&D 3e, which dropped the rule). In the Pool of Radiance series, either the game takes place at levels too low for resurrection magic to come into play, or racial level caps make Elves useless. Actually, this *could* come into play in Curse of the Azure Bonds, where elves can still reach a decent level as mages but human (and only human) clerics can cast Raise Dead. (With that said, I suspect most casual players will reload if someone dies rather than accept the Constitution loss; the permanent loss of stats is the sort of mechanic that discourages accepting a character death, and is therefore IMO a bad mechanic, just like not allowing Elves to be revived.)

Damn necrobots!

The longevity the elves have also gave them a big advantage when it came to haste spells. I don't remember of any of your party members could die of old age though.

Lore wise Elves had no souls.

From AD&D Deities and Demigods:

AD&D assumes that the anima, that force which gives life and distinct existence to thinking beings, is one of two sorts: soul or spirit. Humans, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves (those beings which can have a raise dead or resurrection spell cast on them) all have souls; all other beings that worship deities have spirits. This latter group includes (but is not limited to) elves, orcs, half-orcs, and the other creatures specifically mentioned in the NON-HUMANS’ DEITIES section of this work.

Link:
https://olddungeonmaster.com/2013/04/02/elves-dont-have-souls/

D&D 3.5 was released in 2003. It just looks like some (BG1+2, NWN, etc...)understood that it was cool lore wise, but game wise it was a chore to replay over and over and over .......

Eye of the Beholder was a fair game. So it was a cool "gimmick" to make sure that my elve mage stays out of harm.