Children? (Pathfinder, but I want to do this for 3.5 as well)

[Dragon Star]

In my current game I am playing a human child (rogue). Me and my DM came up with -2 to all stats but dex and cha, and +4 to both of those. I kept the +2 bonus to any stat, and the human skills and feat. Honestly though, I'm not so sure that this is accurate. Now, I'm fine with this and see no reason to change it, but it did get me thinking about this. As far as I know, most DMs allow players to be as old as they want to get the aging bonuses (and penalties). But what if you could be as young as you wanted? It doesn't make a lot of sense, but assuming that every child PC is some kind of prodigy or something that allows them to be adventuring, then what would the stats be? Would there be changes to the racial abilities based on the lack of training? I mean, would a 30 year old elf be proficient with longswords and bows? Anyway, what are your thoughts on this?

[Zeta Kai]

NOTE: I've had this on my computer for so long, that I don't remember if I wrote, or if I got it from a long-dead thread on the subject. If somebody else wrote it, then I don't remember who it was, so I'm sorry that I can't give proper credit. If I wrote it, then yay me. I think that I tweaked them, in any case. Whatever. Enjoy.

Infant

size equals 2 categories smaller than Adult
use ability scores for Adult, but apply age penalties
-8 Strength (minimum 1)
-8 Dexterity (minimum 1)
-8 Wisdom (minimum 1)
+4 Charisma
no skill points
no feats

Child

size equals 1 categories smaller than Adult
use ability scores for Adult, but apply age penalties
-4 Strength (minimum 1)
-4 Dexterity (minimum 1)
-4 Wisdom (minimum 1)
+2 Charisma
Intelligence-based skill points only
no feats

Adolescent

size equals same category as Adult
use ability scores for Adult, but apply age penalties
-2 Strength (minimum 1)
-2 Dexterity (minimum 1)
-2 Wisdom (minimum 1)
+1 Charisma
1d4 skill points + Intelligence
no feats (unless Human; in that case, bonus feat only)

Adult

choose 1st class level
use ability scores for Adult, & remove any age penalties
normal skill points
normal feats

[Dragon Star]

That is awesome. It would be completely unplayable for a PC though, just good for stats on NPC kids. For a PC some kind of incentive would have to be added. Maybe -LA?

[Crasical]

There's already rules for this.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1

[sreservoir]

Adolescent

size equals same category as Adult
use ability scores for Adult, but apply age penalties
-2 Strength (minimum 1)
-2 Dexterity (minimum 1)
-2 Wisdom (minimum 1)
+1 Charisma
1d4 skill points + Intelligence
no feats (unless Human; in that case, bonus feat only)


doesn't this create a strange situation in which, say, half of all wizards and clerics and fighters forget mysteriously forget some skills once they take their first class level.


That is awesome. It would be completely unplayable for a PC though, just good for stats on NPC kids. For a PC some kind of incentive would have to be added. Maybe -LA?

-CR, certainly, but -LA would simply be an invitation to abuse.

[Zeta Kai]

There's already rules for this.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1

The only difference is that my version doesn't suck. :smallamused:


doesn't this create a strange situation in which, say, half of all wizards and clerics and fighters forget mysteriously forget some skills once they take their first class level.

There is no problem here. At 1st level, characters get 4x their normal number of skill points, so there would never be a decrease. I always play with a minimum of 4+INT skill points anyway.

And yes, a negative LA would be strange, to say the least.

[The Dark Fiddler]

But what if you could be as young as you wanted? It doesn't make a lot of sense, but assuming that every child PC is some kind of prodigy or something that allows them to be adventuring, then what would the stats be?

This was the logic my DM and I used when I used a halfling's stat adjustments for my child character. PCs are already beyond normal humans, so if a player wants to play a child character who would, presumably, be similarly beyond the norm, why cripple them horribly?

[Morph Bark]

I've been using something I've read on these forums that supposedly were the child rules for d20 Modern. Dunno if it actually is, but here it is:

Same size (unless base race has Slight Build; also loses Powerful Build)
-3 Str/Con
-1 Dex/Int/Wis/Cha
Base movement speed lowered to that of an encumbered adult

[Palanan]

I had almost the same concept as Dragon Star--a young streetwise rogue who survived by instinct and cunning, melting away at the first whiff of a fight. I didn't have the chance to play the character, and never got much past the initial concept, but always wondered how the stats would work.

I think it would really depend on the character's age and background--and while the guidelines from Zeta Kai are an excellent starting point, if I were running the character I'd want to make some adjustments. In a lot of cultures, especially subsistence and agrarian societies, children start helping their families very early. I've seen an eight-year-old using a machete like...well, like he was born to it. In the context of a particular character, that could be a feat.

And children in societies that live close to the earth are often superb naturalists, from needing to know what to eat and what to avoid; skill points in Knowledge (nature) would be almost automatic, and for children in cities or slums there would be parallels. If you've seen Human Planet, there are some incredible scenes of a boy in Kazakhstan hunting with an eagle he trained over the course of nearly a year. Definitely Handle Animal.

Much of this depends overwhelmingly on the type of society the character would have been raised in, and what the exact ages are that you're working with. I imagined my rogue to be 14 or 15, in a large city like Waterdeep. A couple of years one way or the other, with survival no easy thing for any given day, would make a tremendous difference.

Also, I'm AFB right now, but I think there are stats for Pope Jaela from Eberron, which might be worth comparing with Zeta Kai's guidelines.

[tensai_oni]

Why would children get charisma bonuses? They are not exactly known for their force of personality and persuasion.

And please do not say cuteness. Charisma is not appearance, and lots of people dislike children anyway.

If I DMed a game with child characters I would not give any mechanical adjustments, just tell players to set up stats accordingly. No 18 STR preteen barbarians for example. If you forced me to give adjustments, it would be all penalties and maybe a size decrease if the kid is young enough. No, it's not balanced. That's the point - you get more capable as you become an adult, not less. This isn't Naruto.

@Palanan:
That sounds less like skills a child would have and more like skills any member of the societies you talk about would have, starting from an early age.

[Incriptus]

Agrees with tensai_oni

I dont think there is a legitment reason to give youth additional charisma either. Force of Personality, Persuasiveness, Personal Magnetism, Ability to Lead, and Physical Attractiveness. Nope I don't think that they have an advantage on any of those.

Of course I also think that bonuses to Intellegence, Wisdom, & Charisma is probably a mistake for raising age catagories too . . . atleast when it comes to humanity. For every mental advantage of aging there is a draw back.

[Doug Lampert]

Agrees with tensai_oni

I dont think there is a legitment reason to give youth additional charisma either. Force of Personality, Persuasiveness, Personal Magnetism, Ability to Lead, and Physical Attractiveness. Nope I don't think that they have an advantage on any of those.

Note that when they want an actor or actress to portray an attractive teenager on TV or in the movies they typically hire someone 25 or so years old for a highschool student.

It was considered mildly shocking a few years back when a movie about Joan of Arc actually hired a 17 year old to portray a 17 year old. It's so rare to actually use a teenager to portray someone their own age that its notable when someone does it.

This is because "attractive young person" is actually maxed out in apperance by a healthy 25 year old. Highschoolers don't really look all that good on average.


Of course I also think that bonuses to Intellegence, Wisdom, & Charisma is probably a mistake for raising age catagories too . . . atleast when it comes to humanity. For every mental advantage of aging there is a draw back.

Let's look at what these stand for.

Intelligence is ability to learn, memory, and abstract thought. Memory, that's the second thing to go, right? Ability to learn, that really does decline from childhood over the years. Abstract thought, the best mathemeticians are normally under 25.

Wisdom includes all your perception senses. Vision and hearing are not notorious for improving with age.

Charisma, hmm, I could actually make a case for this improving, the appearance part probably maxes out at 25 or so, but that's the least important part. Leadership does seem to improve some with age.

[deuxhero]

Highschoolers don't really look all that good on average.



http://www.freewebs.com/jobunni/kimara.jpg

Nonsense!

>_>

[Ironfist Orc]

Why would children get charisma bonuses? They are not exactly known for their force of personality and persuasion.

Out of curiosity, do you have children? Force of personality, persuasion, and "born negotiator" are all traits of young children (3-6 at a minimum, 'cause that's where my experience currently ends.)

On the other hand, having taught adolescents - the +1 is *way* too high; I'd argue for a -1 ...

[deuxhero]

Don't forget alignment for the children rules. Always Chaotic Evil.

[Psyren]

Why would children get charisma bonuses? They are not exactly known for their force of personality and persuasion.

And please do not say cuteness. Charisma is not appearance, and lots of people dislike children anyway.

This. This was my whole reason for hitting "Reply."


Out of curiosity, do you have children? Force of personality, persuasion, and "born negotiator" are all traits of young children (3-6 at a minimum, 'cause that's where my experience currently ends.)

Kids can be stubborn, but "Pleeeeeeeeeeease??" does not a negotiator make.


Don't forget alignment for the children rules. Always Chaotic Evil.

Works for cats, too!

[pffh]

Out of curiosity, do you have children? Force of personality, persuasion, and "born negotiator" are all traits of young children (3-6 at a minimum, 'cause that's where my experience currently ends.)

That only works for children related to you in some way. A random 5 year old is not going to be more convincing then an adult.

[Togath]

For d20 modern,(which, due to being pretty close to dnd, would probably work fine for it) children 12 or older use standard stats(so same as those of an adult of the child's race), with the penalties for being younger being; -1 to all stats other than con and str which possess a -3 penalty, and a cr of 0 for a normal child(probably meant to represent children of ages between 9[maybe at lowest 8] & 12)

[Dragon Star]

To be honest, I agree on the Cha thing. Kids can be convincing in some ways, but they are very specific. If a little girl comes up to you and says she's lost her mommy and needs help, you'll help her. But if she tried to tell you that the ruby she was trying to sell you wasn't stolen, you might get just a little suspicious. Most of the time kids don't have the intelligence to manipulate well or lie well. And as for the few who do, they just put enough points into Cha to overcome the natural penalties. As I said, my character was not even mildly realistic.

Anyway, we have all of these systems for determining child stats. Now why would anyone ever play one? Something like extra levels doesn't actually make sense for either fluff or balance. So maybe all children PCs are rich? Double gold? Or maybe they gain a lesser version of leadership. Someone- a parent or sibling- follows them around and helps them. Or a prestige class that can only be taken as a child? The levels in it are slowly replaced by levels in your main class as you get older. Any other ideas?

[Zeta Kai]

In defense of the Charisma bonus, I would say that this is caused by an inherent attractiveness of the young. Now, here me out, this has some actual logic behind it:

Every species needs to perpetuate itself. Reproduction is a biological imperative that can override just about every other need or desire that a biological organism can manifest. While certain exceptions can be made (lions killing cubs of other lions, etc.), in general, a child of one's own species is a creature to be protected, or at least not attacked. A natural affinity for the young of one's own kind is to be expected. This would be especially true in a world where multiple races exist (IE 99.99% of all campaign settings, ever), all competing for resources.

Now, I speak as a parent. Before I became a parent, I didn't care for children. They hold no relevance to a young adult male, nor should they. But once one becomes a parent, one's brain chemistry changes, & suddenly kids are cute. Their annoying habits & mannerisms become endearing. Their wants & needs become important. They are somehow much more likeable.

So, as a gross simplification of the above premise, I support a modest increase in a youth's CHA score. They don't have the skill points or the INT to use it very effectively, & it's not a huge bonus, anyway, so I'd recommend keeping it. One could argue that an Extraordinary ability to make others of one's own kind like them would be a better fit, but I prefer the simplicity of a straight +X bonus. They already face enough disadvantages as it is, so just throw them a bone & be done with it.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Now why would anyone ever play one?

To play the character they want to play.

[Incriptus]

Children are like Farts, you only tolerate your own.

Anyways there are other game mechanics that are based on charisma as well. A race with spell like abilities for example, the 5 year olds having better SLA than the adults [in a 1 HD race].

I would suggest perhaps instead of a stat change saying that Initial Attitudes towards children are likely to be one step higher than it would be towards an adult?

[Quietus]

I would suggest perhaps instead of a stat change saying that Initial Attitudes towards children are likely to be one step higher than it would be towards an adult?

This would probably be more accurate, although there'd be a subgroup of people whose attitudes would be one step worse. Overall, children should be universally either equal or worse across all stats - penalties to all physical stats, and probably all mental stats as well. Physically they haven't finished growing, and seriously, compare a kid's hand-eye coordination to an adult's. I know for a fact that mine has only improved since I was 8. It boggles my mind to see people claim children should get +dex.

On the mental stats - for int, the child hasn't picked up all the things that they will eventually be able to know. There's a great deal of learning still to do, both in knowledge (skill points) and in raw problem solving abilities. Wisdom, have you EVER seen a child and said "Yes, that kid is really quite good at seeing the end result of his/her actions"? And Charisma.. Charisma's the only one I think that might stay even, with eventual aging turning the "Cute child" factor into something more refined, a definite sense of self.

[sreservoir]

intelligence I can actually see not penalizing children in. it's "how well your character learns and reasons," sure, but children ... seem to learn quickly (when they're not messing with something else entirely!) and lack of knowledge can be explained away as having less skill points. (reasoning, to be fair, can be somewhat lacking.)

but really, it's just that abilities aren't very well-defined.

[Quietus]

intelligence I can actually see not penalizing children in. it's "how well your character learns and reasons," sure, but children ... seem to learn quickly (when they're not messing with something else entirely!) and lack of knowledge can be explained away as having less skill points. (reasoning, to be fair, can be somewhat lacking.)

but really, it's just that abilities aren't very well-defined.

Their capacity for learning, sure, but Intelligence, oddly enough, doesn't represent that. It represents languages known, skill points gained, and adds to learned skills like decipher script, knowledge, and spellcraft. All things a child would be lacking in. Assuming an explicit exception for gaining skill points retroactively, I think that an increasing intelligence score as a child ages into adulthood would be fairly reasonable.

[Palanan]

I have to disagree with one of Quietus' assumptions, about languages. Children are hardwired to be especially receptive to languages between the ages of 2-5, more or less. Young children living in a multilingual environment will pick up languages almost effortlessly. In nations and cultures where there are several languages jostling together, including trade languages, pidgins and creoles, it's not uncommon for the children to be fluent in all of them by the time they're six or seven.

[DoctorGlock]

Wouldn't it be easier to:

A: Use whatever you were going to play and say "it's a child" with no stat change or,
B: Play a gnome or halfling, say "it's a child" with no stat change or,
C: It's an NPC and stats are irrelevant for random children?

[Ravens_cry]

I actually had a campaign idea that involved PC who were children.
I was planning on using the Young template, or at least a version of it and homebrew Pathfinder versions of the Apprentice classes from the 3.0 DMG.

[Manave_E_Sulanul]

If you want the PCs to be children, I wouldn't change a thing, unless they were particularly young and short (and therefore, small size.) PCs are supposed to be the heroes, let them have their abilities and their fun.

[Ravens_cry]

If you want the PCs to be children, I wouldn't change a thing, unless they were particularly young and short (and therefore, small size.) PCs are supposed to be the heroes, let them have their abilities and their fun.
Heroes yes but heroic doesn't always equal awesome abilities. Sometimes taking things on a smaller scale, where you are not trying to save the multiverse from some cosmic threat, or even a kingdom from some rampaging hoard, sometimes it's dark, and cold, and the mud is slimy, and you want your momma, but if you slay these rats, the towns granary will be safe, can be just as heroic as any epic.

[Palanan]

A definite +1 to what Ravens_cry said. Heroism isn't about what you have; it's whether you can reach beyond what you have, even if it feels impossible.



I like the idea of using apprentice classes, although I'm not familiar with them. I'm wondering which of the regular classes would be feasible, given some of the limitations already discussed. Fighter and barbarian, ranger and paladin, knight and marshall, likely wouldn't work; they rely too much on main strength, often heavy weapons or armor, and in the latter cases the need for a commanding presence. Classes that generally require a long apprenticeship, like wizard, duskblade or artificer, would also be unlikely, although there are always rare prodigies.

Rogue or bard, druid or cleric, would seem more likely, and of course sorcerer; possibly spirit or dragon shaman, and spellthief might be interesting. Monk might be flavorful...but, well, monk. Favored soul has great flavor potential, although probably too martial as well. Healer could also be interesting, again for flavor and RP. Any others come to mind?

[sreservoir]

binder would be amusing.

[DrDeth]

[QUOTE=Ironfist Orc;12434564]Out of curiosity, do you have children? Force of personality, persuasion, and "born negotiator" are all traits of young children (3-6 at a minimum, 'cause that's where my experience currently ends.)

QUOTE]

All of which work only on their own parents. :smallbiggrin:

Also, I want to say that generally most folks are against playing kids, for various moral & ethical reasons.

[Togath]

Also, I want to say that generally most folks are against playing kids, for various moral & ethical reasons.

how so?, As long as the guy playing the character isn't a pedo it's hardly perverse to have your character be a child

[DoctorGlock]

how so?, As long as the guy playing the character isn't a pedo it's hardly perverse to have your character be a child

Generally because they'd rather not have a child put in harms way. In front of charging orcs is a bad place for a child. Not quite sure I agree, since that sentiment is based on inherent vulnerability, and when your child can toss fireballs they are no longer so vulnerable.

[Togath]

Ah, that makes more sense, I had mis-understood what he had meant, still, as you pointed out there is the fact that if their a PC they probably aren't so vulnerable anymore:smallsmile:

[Palanan]

I have to admit, I don't see "ethical" issues, just RP and storyline potential. As Ravens_cry mentioned, sometimes a dark sewer is all the challenge that's needed.

Also, settings with orcs and such usually involve some degree of pillage, from roving warbands to full hordes. One of the staple assumptions of most game settings is that they are far more violent places than where we, the players, comfortably live. Simply by living in these worlds, ordinary people--including children--are in harm's way. How is there an ethical issue with, occasionally, an exceptional young person being able to defend themselves?

[DrDeth]

How many threads have there been on “is a paladin evil for killing orc babies?” Like my fellow Doctor sez, generally in todays world there are moral & ethical issues about killing children.

Also of course, D&D tens to be a rather adult world, with sex, drinking, and so forth.

I’d really examine the players motivation for wanting to play a child. Now sure, a “mature beyond their years teen” is a common fantasy archetype, but then there’s no need for special rules.