Pathfinder Age Penalty for a child-aged character

[the Blue Morpho]

I've got a player who wants to play a young Summoner Synthesist (Ben Ten anyone?). I am totally down for this, but I can't seem to find Pathfinder rules on the age effects for a child. I know they were present in 3.5, but is that what we'll ultimately have to turn to?

[hamishspence]

Find the Young simple monster template and use it- this may work for generic "child-aged" character.

[Taelas]

Actually, it's the opposite. There are no hard rules for children in 3.5E (though some other d20 products had some), but Pathfinder has a template (the Young template hamishspence refers to above).

You can find it here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/simple-template-young-cr-1).

Do note that for human children, the template really isn't that realistic; the average height of a 10-year old (~51 inches, or 4'4'') is well into Medium-size. It is a mechanical way to do it by the rules, though. It fits better for children around ages 5 to 8, but there is no way to make such a young child a viable character.

Personally, I would just give the 10-year old child character -2 Str, +2 Dex, and the Slight Build quality from the Races of the Dragon web enhancement for kobolds; that's the advice I gave on a recent similar topic. A child character is exceptional by default if they adventure with adult characters. They would lose those upon reaching their adult size (at around 16 years old for humans). It seems to me to be the best compromise between realism and viability for play. If I had to develop actual child rules, they would very quickly become very complex (even when using the Young template as a baseline).

[hamishspence]

Giants get special rules for younger than adult giants- but extrapolating those to normal humans would require a little houseruling.

[Ashtagon]

My advice for heroic children is: Use point-buy for abilities, make Strength and Wisdom into dump stats, and role-play the rest.

[Rubik]

I'm playing a child in a 3.5 monstrous game, and I just refluffed the kobold (Dragonwrought, but still). Of course, my backstory has illithids in it, which accounts for the fact that he's level 10 gestalt, psionic, and has an Int score above 25.

[Ravens_cry]

I had a halfling who was a Reincarnated child, having being Reincarnated as a toddler, and they used disguise checks to look like a human child and basically still had the mentality of one.

[Roguenewb]

I feel like I've seen inverse age categories somewhere before... curse you time, why can't I remember?!

I think it may have been in the Star Wars RPG (the one that was exactly like 3.5), but I no longer have any of those books, if you have access a little peek might not hurt.

[Solaris]

d20 Modern has them. It's a -1 penalty to all for young adult, and I don't recall child offhand.

[Taelas]

No, d20 Modern only has penalties for children, not for young adults, and they are -3 Str, -1 Dex, -3 Con, -1 Int, -1 Wis, -1 Cha. For humans, anything younger than 12 is considered a child. Young adults (ages 12-15) have identical stats to adults.

Star Wars d20 and Star Wars SAGA has identical penalties for children, but -1 to all stats for young adults, with identical ranges for humans.

[Solaris]

Star Wars d20 and Star Wars SAGA has identical penalties for children, but -1 to all stats for young adults, with identical ranges for humans.

Yep, that's what I was thinking of. Good catch.

[the Blue Morpho]

Thanks for pointing out the template. The character is ten, so I nixed the size decrease and halved the stat mods.

Considering adding a -2 to WIS, or perhaps just Perception. Thoughts?

[Roguenewb]

Ask him to spend less points on Wisdom? Then he gets more Point Buy without having to apply an extra hit. And -2 to wis and a -2 to a skill are a little different power wise.

[the Blue Morpho]

Ask him to spend less points on Wisdom? Then he gets more Point Buy without having to apply an extra hit. And -2 to wis and a -2 to a skill are a little different power wise.

Making him spend points a certain way is a bit micromanaging for my taste.

You're right about the power difference though. How does -2 to Perception and a +2 bonus to one Social Charisma skill (Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate) sound?

[BlueEyes]

Making him spend points a certain way is a bit micromanaging for my taste.

You're right about the power difference though. How does -2 to Perception and a +2 bonus to one Social Charisma skill (Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate) sound?
Why should a child get a bonus to social skills?

[Hiro Protagonest]

Why should a child get a bonus to social skills?

Yeah. If anything, people are more likely to brush them off. You *might* be able to get away with a bluff bonus, but nothing else really works.

Plus, as far back as I can remember (so at least 12), I've had leagues better hearing and sight than my parents. 20:15 vision, and both my parents wear glasses. Your senses aren't worse as a 10 year old than they are normally.

[Callista]

You can't give them a bonus to all social skills. For example--Intimidate? Sense Motive? Social skills are skills like any other and kids haven't learned them as well as adults. Not that particular NPCs wouldn't react to you differently if you were playing a kid, but then they'd react differently to you for playing an orc or a guy in heavy armor or an obvious magic-user too.

It really just comes down to role-playing. The youngest character I've played was thirteen years old, and s/he* was statted out just like an adult. The rest was all me playing him/her as a young, somewhat uncertain person who dealt with the dangerous world with a lot of bravado and general resilience. It was an interesting character and I don't think the lack of specific stats for children caused any trouble whatsoever.

*Androgynous character. Gotta love the pronoun confusion. I actually chose such a young age precisely because it would still be feasible for a (mostly) human to be physically androgynous without any genetic glitches involved.

[Ashtagon]

Yeah. If anything, people are more likely to brush them off. You *might* be able to get away with a bluff bonus, but nothing else really works.

Plus, as far back as I can remember (so at least 12), I've had leagues better hearing and sight than my parents. 20:15 vision, and both my parents wear glasses. Your senses aren't worse as a 10 year old than they are normally.

Your senses as raw data may be better, but your experience and understanding of the world necessary to intelligently interpret the data your senses are delivering to you are certainly not better, and are almost certainly worse.

A child may smell smoke. A war veteran may recognise it as the smoke from a specific kind of rifle. A child may see a flash of light in the hills. With ore experience, he'll know it is someone using a mirror to send morse code. A child might hear birds chirping. A ranger will tell you what species it is, and that it wasn't a bird but an infiltrator imitating one to create his own distraction. And so on.

I wouldn't adjust skills though.

As others have noted, a bonus to social skills makes no sense. And the inferior perception talent is reflected quite well by a combination of low level and point buy constraint of having to make Wisdom low.

Incidentally, when I said "point buy, make Strength and Wisdom dump stats", I meant that those two should be the two lowest, not that you can't spend points on them.

[Taelas]

Incidentally, when I said "point buy, make Strength and Wisdom dump stats", I meant that those two should be the two lowest, not that you can't spend points on them.

That can become a problem as soon as the character reaches adult age, though (assuming it does so within a campaign), as the character will have "child-like" Str/Wis scores as an adult. It can be mitigated somewhat by using the level-increases to up those two, but that means you can't use them elsewhere.

If the child remains a child throughout the entire campaign, there's no problem, but that's not always possible.

[Ashtagon]

That can become a problem as soon as the character reaches adult age, though (assuming it does so within a campaign), as the character will have "child-like" Str/Wis scores as an adult. It can be mitigated somewhat by using the level-increases to up those two, but that means you can't use them elsewhere.

If the child remains a child throughout the entire campaign, there's no problem, but that's not always possible.

Not Strictly PF, but PHB2 allows for re-training. When the character becomes officially an "adult", allow a one-time re-allocation of his ability point buy to reflect how he matured. This should require GM oversight to avoid abuse.

[Taelas]

That just spreads the problem around.