Benefits of being 4,000 years old.

[KnejaTurch]

Greetings playgrounders, I just started a new campaign and one of my players refused to play unless I let him be a drow, which are extinct in my setting, having been killed off ~4,400 years ago. So we compromised and figured that his character witnessed the Illithids wiping out the drow and so decided to Crucimigrate himself (Libris Mortis 114-115) to escape getting his brain eaten. The setting takes place 4,000 so years later. My point being is that his character has been around for a while, he's witnessed several global empires rise and fall, and he's witnessed the inception of multiple now-pancontinental religions. So we figured that all those extra years had to come with some benefit, my question is this: What would be a balanced benefit to being 4,361 years old? We went with a kind of finagled bardic knowledge check, any other good ideas?

[Alleran]

Dragon Magazine includes (#354) rules for playing an extremely old character, in the form of feats and so on. You may want to take a look at that for some ideas.

[Phelix-Mu]

I would stick to role play benefits and bonuses to skills. Is he already undead? That comes with many tangible, robust benefits, and he probably still has some nifty drow traits. Too many goodies early on can make later improvements seem less cool in comparison.

The bardic knowledge was a good call. Maybe give him several skills that are always class skills, Know(history), Know(nob/royalty) and the like. Give him easy entry into certain types of PrC later on. Maybe give him some more benefits at regular intervals throughout the campaign, which will help avoid front-loading all the benefits.

[Yogibear41]

Have something similar to this in the game i'm currently playing in, but the character in question in our game was basically frozen in time after being defeated in combat kind of. He was basically in the middle of a battle hundreds of years ago when he suddenly saw his compatriots being frozen/turned to stone or something very similar, next thing he knows hes waking up in an unknown underground chamber walks a little ways ends up outside in a vastly different setting than where he was litterally minutes ago walks a little ways and runs into 2 humans (2 of our party memebers) who are speaking a language he doesn't understand(common). After a few minutes of frustration we eventually begin speaking elven which he understands to a degree but it seems as though the grammer/pronunciation is horrible (due to the changes in the language over the hundreds of years)

Probably went into a little to much detail but anyway my point is you could try doing something like this, and say that he was locked away somehow and survived the genocide of the drow, and the party happens to stumble across him and awaken him, this way you wouldn't have to give him anything for being old because he is basically the same age now as when he was frozen all those years ago.

[avr]

How much of the past 4 millennia does he actually remember? Humans get to remember ~30 years on average, elves may recall more ... but this guy sounds like he might legitimately be able to say "I've forgotten more than you've ever learned".

[KnejaTurch]

How much of the past 4 millennia does he actually remember? Humans get to remember ~30 years on average, elves may recall more ... but this guy sounds like he might legitimately be able to say "I've forgotten more than you've ever learned".

We've been going on the assumption that he remembers just about everything, being that as an elf, he's mentally equipped to deal with a far larger amount of memory than a person. And since he's a warrior (Samurai, specifically) he's fought in many major wars and battles just to keep his skills sharp. But you bring up a good point about him forgetting things.

[Crake]

We've been going on the assumption that he remembers just about everything, being that as an elf, he's mentally equipped to deal with a far larger amount of memory than a person. And since he's a warrior (Samurai, specifically) he's fought in many major wars and battles just to keep his skills sharp. But you bring up a good point about him forgetting things.

CW samurai or OA samurai?

[avr]

Even if it's all stored in his mind somewhere finding it could take time. The retraining rules might suffice; he can remember all the tricks of combat, just give him a while to retrain his reflexes. The Revenant Blade PrC (PGtE) and probably other sources can give floating feats if you want to augment that.

[Flickerdart]

I'm not sure that mechanics are the best way to represent this. He's already getting benefits from being Necropolitan.

A character of his age would have forgotten a ton of stuff even as an elf. This is not, however, a bad thing, because it means you as the DM can splice in things from his past as the plot demands. A four thousand year old being would have touched many lives, and even if those people aren't alive anymore, their descendants will probably still tell the one time an immortal super-elf rescued great-grandpappy from certain death. If that elf comes through town, they would be very grateful to him, and help him out a bit if he wants something. He may not have a mechanical advantage, but he has RP advantages due to his extensive reputation.

Of course, if the player wants to remember everything, just ask him for 4000 years of backstory.

[Ksheep]

CW samurai or OA samurai?

Or fighter, paladin, knight, marshal, etc. fluffed as a samurai?

[Anderlith]

It's not so much a forgetting thing than it is a priority thing. Things seem very brief to him. A single generation is like a few years to him. Tell me, what's the names of your elementary school teachers? Not many people will be able to name one, let alone two or three. That's what his life is like being that old. Only big things will stand out.

[Ksheep]

It's not so much a forgetting thing than it is a priority thing. Things seem very brief to him. A single generation is like a few years to him. Tell me, what's the names of your elementary school teachers? Not many people will be able to name one, let alone two or three. That's what his life is like being that old. Only big things will stand out.

"The War of Independence? Yeah, I fought in that. It lasted what, a week?"

"Um… no, that was a 50-year-long struggle. Are you sure you're thinking of the right war?"

[ArcturusV]

Or rather with very old, venerable people, what you find (even among elves in fiction), is that they can remember long ago much better than just a while ago. Your Drow can probably recall the night the Illithids attacked in detail, and will go on to people for hours about it if they'll let him.

As him what he had for breakfast yesterday? *shrug* He can't remember.

It's just the way the mind works.

[Juntao112]

This is why you need Autohypnosis.

[TypoNinja]

It's not so much a forgetting thing than it is a priority thing. Things seem very brief to him. A single generation is like a few years to him. Tell me, what's the names of your elementary school teachers? Not many people will be able to name one, let alone two or three. That's what his life is like being that old. Only big things will stand out.

Remember sitting in class as a kid waiting for those last 5 minutes before recess watching the clock and having it drag out on and on and on? And now that you are an adult hours can slip by without your notice, hell the whole weekend can vanish when you aren't looking.

As we age our perception of time changes, at 4000 years old 50 years ago was 'recently'. Whole generations could fly by and escape notice. Worse without applied study, less and less of your daily experiences are unique enough to get picked up by long term memory. You might quite literally have no memory of entire years. Not only does time seem to move faster for you, but your last solid memory might not even be from this year.

You will always be an outsider, your language, and use of it will sound odd to everyone else. And overly formal, because slang changes fast enough that a teenager can confuse his own parents, 15 years ago the word Google meant nothing, now its a word that anyone knows.

This would tend to lead to a very detached personality, in my opinion. It'd be almost impossible to find something new, most other people have short enough life spans that they might entirely disappear to in a memory gap. Nothing is interesting, even unique events you've seen enough of to have them blur together. Storm of the century? Seen 40.

[Carth]

What's the problem with just making him venerable? The bonus to int hits every one of his knowledge skills on top of giving him extra skill points.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Knowledge History automatically as a class skill, and he can take a 20 on it?

[Erik Vale]

If he's yet to build his character, I suggest this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194834)class [Probably Disciplined ACF], or being able to use martial aptitude/similar as a feat.

I would say Vernerable age and an feats with benifits based on age would be good, however if he wants any non-dm-fiat maybe good maybe bad, he needs to write a reeeeaally long backstory, and should be heavily DM monitered as to be roleplaying at a suitible level [I.E., not having a murder-hobo as the last survivor of the Drow Race].

[Ellrin]

Of course, if the player wants to remember everything, just ask him for 4000 years of backstory.

That's a dangerous ultimatum to make. If he goes through with it, you've got to read 4000 years of backstory.

[TypoNinja]

That's a dangerous ultimatum to make. If he goes through with it, you've got to read 4000 years of backstory.

I'd write it.

[rot42]

Refusing to play any race except one incompatible with your setting without significant finagling is a bit of a red flag. I would simply say "okay, you are a forest elf but your unique combination of genetics and environment have coincidentally given you exactly the Drow stats and abilities", but you seem to be on board with this plan. Your plan actually sounds pretty fun, and you should probably consider "conservation of awesomeness" to make sure your other players do not feel overshadowed.

Compound interest comes to those who wait. If your campaign involves traveling, you can use stashes that he has squirreled away over the years as a way to dole out treasure.

A recent encounter with a level-draining monster could be used to explain how "extreme age" + "adventuring spirit" != "high level adventurer". Continuing infestation with a bespoke level-draining parasite could do the same and give an in-universe cause for LA buyoff (and a sidequest plothook).

[Lorsa]

While I am afraid I can offer you little help on the benefits of being extremely old (as it simply seems very likely the character would have level ~50) my first thought when reading this was that you should have let the player go. When someone refuses to play unless they can play THIS ONE thing that the DM has stated isn't even in the setting it can only lead to even worse scenarios down the line. While I like to let my players play whatever they want there has to be some restrictions and I hope this doesn't lead to a scenario where he can put more pressure on you in the future to allow whatever weird feats / spells / items he might want but you think are not fitting in your setting.

If this is a solo player endevour this idea will work out quite fine but if it's not consider how it might clash with the other player characters. Either the 4000+ year backstory will not have any place at all roleplaying / story wise and the world and people around won't react a single bit at an extinct drow walking around OR it will take over the play so much that the other players will not get any room. Unless they also play equally attention-attracting characters.

If all you really will do is fight monsters and get loot to fight more monsters then everything's fine I guess. But if your play will have lots of interacting with your world (which it probably will given you seem to have given it lots of thought) then the implications for the group-dynamics is troublesome.

But if you are going through it with it I will wish you good luck, I hope you find a reasonable advantage (along with a reasonable disadvantage as well). :)

[hymer]

Just a thought: He was turned to stone and spent the 4k years like that. Then someone turned him back to flesh, and it turns out he didn't age in that time. It's not without problems, but they are less than what you otherwise encounter.

[Vaz]

Evolved Undead. You get a 1% chance every 100 years, +1% every hundred years. So he has likely around 10-12 evolved undead templates.

There are two problems with this - 1 the template is a +1 LA, so 4400 years old drow has around +11-13 LA

Necropolitan requires someone else to complete the transformation, as the words of the ritual are spoken after his death. So that requires a Drow to put enough trust into someone to raise them from the dead. It is apcalypse scenario so might be slightly different than normal, but it doesn't et around that there was someone else who survived, and likely had enough power to survive the destruction of the race, and also be safe for 24 hours to make a Necropolitan on the whim. In all likelihood they became a Lich.

I suppose that could be an interesting recurrent baddy.

[ahenobarbi]

Necropolitan requires someone else to complete the transformation, as the words of the ritual are spoken after his death. So that requires a Drow to put enough trust into someone to raise them from the dead. It is apcalypse scenario so might be slightly different than normal, but it doesn't et around that there was someone else who survived, and likely had enough power to survive the destruction of the race, and also be safe for 24 hours to make a Necropolitan on the whim. In all likelihood they became a Lich.

I'd say you could act as "ritual leader" for yourself to initiate chanting and have your undead minions do the rest.

As for the bonuses: ask player how much bonuses ([s]he|it) wants. If it's just some class skills and bardic-like lore it should be ok for free. If he wants more give it to him (evolved undead templates, extra wealth (access to landlord feat?), ...) but have him pay for this with LA.

[nedz]

The question is: How many ranks of Knowledge History does he actually have ?
This will determine what he knows, not his age.

Maybe he just spent his time going from tavern to tavern, or hugging one tree after the next? Age is fairly irrelevant in this game, OK there are some stat mods etc., it's all about levels and those skill points.

[Certified]

Pathfinder has a Feat that works well, especially if the character has a high Intelligence score. Breadth of Experience (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/breadth-of-experience) allows them to have effectively been many places and virtually every mundane thing there is to do whilst not outshining specialist characters.

This is a one Feat solution and allows the character some major flexibility especially if you use Knowledge and Profession skill rolls often.

[Vaz]

I'd say you could act as "ritual leader" for yourself to initiate chanting and have your undead minions do the rest.

AfB at the moment, but I believe it specifies ritual leader to finish chanting. Even if you were the ritual leader you would be dead before you could finish it.

[Xzar]

Greetings playgrounders, I just started a new campaign and one of my players refused to play unless I let him be a drow, which are extinct in my setting, having been killed off ~4,400 years ago.

Don't you hate players like that?

[Flickerdart]

That's a dangerous ultimatum to make. If he goes through with it, you've got to read 4000 years of backstory.
Why would you do that? :smalltongue:

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Other than maybe something like Venerable Mental stat bonuses I don't see a need to allow any real benefit other than being allowed to play a character the DM is bending over backwards to let him play.

An interesting benefit that is flavorful wthout adding too much power wise would be to allow him to select feats and classes from different campaign settings since they may have been appropriate in a lost epoch.

What level is this campaign going to be played at? If it isn't very high level his character is going to seem very silly.

[hoverfrog]

You can't give him anything more than the other players, not and treat them fairly.

Give him ranks in knowledge: ancient history by all means but make that history irrelevant to the game. Someone alive today who knew everything there was to know about the builders of Stone Henge might be interesting to talk to but the cultural nuances of Ancient Britons and their rites of passage just don't make a difference in the modern world. Give him ranks in Craft (flint knapping) or an equivalent if you like. It'll be useless to him except as flavour.

On the rules side you have to assume that his old and useless skills would have been forgotten (retrained) for more useful modern skills. In play his maxed out ranks in Knowledge (History) make sense but his knowledge is broad while the wizard in the party with the same ranks knowledge is specific to an era or topic of interest. The drow knows a lot about the last 4000 years because he lived it but the wizard has immersed himself in study of the Wizard War and it's causes. The drow might have been fighting as a mercenary and missing the politics or been involved in the politics and missed the battles. The wizard gets to look back and read up on the whole subject. The drow got to live through the Dark Ages but they were pretty dull. The wizard skipped those sections.

[Anderlith]

Instead of 4000 yrs of wandering, maybe say that Lolth, seeing that her children would be put to the sword, put him in a cocoon to protect him against the elements & time, so that not all drow would be lost. Now he is the last sion of race, & Chosen of Lolth, if he could survive perhaps Lolth left others cocooned somewhere, or has some other plan to bring her chosen race back from oblivion?

[kme]

Forgive me if it was already mentioned but it may be wiser to go with a simpler solution.

Temporal Stasis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/temporalStasis.htm)

[Shining Wrath]

Firstly, he's seen a lot of battles, so he ought to be able to recognize battle tactics and strategies. "Ah, this general graduated from the East Avalonian Institute of Martial Arts ... probably while ol' Bardolph was still teaching Heavy Infantry Maneuvers".

Secondly, as one of the only members of his race, and of a race that looks different, he's probably had a lot of experience with being The Other. That ought to give a plus to Bluff, Diplomacy, maybe a minus to Gather Information.

Having taken the long way through history, he's seen empires and religions rise and fall, and therefore both patriotism and faith are pretty much alien to his nature. That might give him a plus on some Will saves or Sense Motive.

[Darth Stabber]

Greetings playgrounders, I just started a new campaign and one of my players refused to play unless I let him be a drow, which are extinct in my setting, having been killed off ~4,400 years ago.

You are a lot nicer than me, I would have told exactly where to stick it. And not to let the door hit that same place on the way out, but again I am not increadibly nice, and fairly brash contrarian. "Unique Snowflake Syndrome" rubs me the wrong way, but luckily no one in the group I play with has any interest in GMing, so they tend to be willing to play along with reasonable fluff restrictions.

As far as bonuses for being old as the hills, knowledge is already represented by knowledge skills, if he wants to remember stuff, make know:history always class and let him spend skill points on it (I believe that it's already class for samurai, but I am away from my books at the moment). A wizard knows things about magic because he spends his skill points on spellcraft and know:arcana, not just because he's a wizard. A cleric without know:religion is going to know the bare minimum need to stay in his deities favor and likely little more. Rogues aren't that good at hiding unless they spend the points, paladin's can't ride their magic mount that well without ranks in ride, ect.

[Slipperychicken]

Sincerely reminisce about how you rode dinosaurs to school. Even if you didn't actually ride dinosaurs, or go to school. And for epic burn, remind people about how the last time you heard that joke, you fell off your dinosaur.

Talk about how everything was better when you were their age. Men were Men, no need for this "saving throw" coddling, none of this fancy "book-learnin" rotting our minds, you could get a +5 Vorpal Longsword for a nickel at the malt shop...

Back in your day, you had to walk 15 miles to get to the Goblin cave. In 200 feet of snow. At level 0. Uphill both ways, and we walked out with less treasure than we had going in. And we used THAC0, none of this "Armor Class" garbage! And we liked it!

Talk about an old Kobold general named Tucker. Slippery bastard turned every adventuring party that went after him into a pincushion. And you didn't take 20 arrows and get knocked down to -9 for your country just to watch some stupid kids get themselves murdered in a pit trap!

[Darth Stabber]

Talk about how everything was better when you were their age. Men were Men, no need for this "saving throw" coddling, none of this fancy "book-learnin" rotting our minds, you could get a +5 Vorpal Longsword for a nickel at the malt shop...

Back in my day we had 4 saving throws, only fighters got bonus hp from constitution, and casting defensively consisted of standing out of reach. We had to qualify for our classes and stick with them all the way, and human's only redeeming factor was no level caps. Men were real men, women were real women and illusionists were gnomes. Also prostitution was a new profession.

[ArcturusV]

And being an Elf meant you were stuck as a Fighter/Mage combo. And being a Halfling meant you were a fighter, and to be honest, usually a better fighter than the Dwarf. There were only three alignments and 1st level wizards had 1 spell. 1. Period. None of this bonus spells for Intelligence, or specialization, or "Cantrips".

[killem2]

"Unique Snowflake Syndrome" rubs me the wrong way


Me too. D&D has more than enough options to be unqiue among a 4-5 player group very easily.



I would force vernable stats on this guy, and I would also, if actually Drow, make that a drawback too.

[Zubrowka74]

Back in my day we had 4 saving throws, only fighters got bonus hp from constitution, and casting defensively consisted of standing out of reach. We had to qualify for our classes and stick with them all the way, and human's only redeeming factor was no level caps. Men were real men, women were real women and illusionists were gnomes. Also prostitution was a new profession.

Hahaha yes, force him to play a 1e fighter. Or better yet : an OD&D "fighting man".

[hoverfrog]

Fighters needed an 18:00 Strength or Gauntlets of Ogre Power to be really effective.

[Flickerdart]

and casting defensively consisted of standing out of reach.
Didn't weapons not have reach back in the day?

[nedz]

Didn't weapons not have reach back in the day?

There were no squares — just inches.

[Noctani]

We've been going on the assumption that he remembers just about everything, being that as an elf, he's mentally equipped to deal with a far larger amount of memory than a person. And since he's a warrior (Samurai, specifically) he's fought in many major wars and battles just to keep his skills sharp. But you bring up a good point about him forgetting things.

I would refer to looking up Jordain Vizier. They have a special class feature in the Unapproachable east and near picture perfect recall. I would do some research on it.

But he definately wouldn't be able to recall everything, most likely he'd start to have a 6th sense due to muscle memory, reading other people's thoughts, or actions. It definately wouldn't be something he could control without some special class feature or special training ie feat.

I would assume most people who live that long also become self assured, prideful, careful, and somewhat removed from "society". Unless he is some sort of demi-god type figure. There should be legends of him.

[Slipperychicken]

I would assume most people who live that long also become self assured, prideful, careful, and somewhat removed from "society". Unless he is some sort of demi-god type figure. There should be legends of him.

Actually, after that much time, the guy should be so set in his ways that there's literally nothing to be done with it. You know people can grow intolerant and bitter in ~40-60 years?

Also, you know how a guy 40 years older than you might have different values and be somewhat behind the times, or even regarded as backward? For comparison, a guy who turned 4,000 today would have crystalized his views on morality, ethics, and human nature around the time stonehenge was completed. Hell, Rome still wouldn't even be founded for another 1,300 years.

This guy's moral and cultural sensitivity would be so ass-backwards he'd be liable to inspire riots every time he opened his mouth.

[Invader]

Keep in mind (no pun intended) that the brain can only retain and recall a finite amount of information. Being alive for 4,000 could be more of a detriment as it will cause confusion when trying to recall certain information.

[tiercel]

Possibly the biggest benefit will be the endless hours of hilarity as the other PCs constantly needle him about why, when he personally is likely older than their entire extant civilizations, that he swings the same damn sharpened hunks of metal that they do and with the same efficacy as a 16-year-old human punk.

...oh wait, you mean the benefit to his character...

Frankly, these issues already bug me about normal garden-variety elf lifespans across most of the Baskin-Robbins selection of usual elf subraces, much less this uber-Methuselah who presumably by now should be single-handedly researching Future Tech while finishing a Space Race Victory.

If he's actually been alive and active all that time, it really is an open question as to how he is *good* enough to survive all that time and yet *sucks* enough that his thousands of years of experience give him zero combat advantage compared to modern newbs. (Unless he's really been suspended-animation most all that time, or is under the curse of a malevolent entity who makes sure he is carefully yet constantly level-drained, never unto death/undeath, but just to the point of sucking.)

[Pandoras Folly]

Actually a pretty cool bacground for a character as long as the other Players are getting simially awesome characters.

As far as criticism of letting a player Play a race that is unknown or foreign to a setting...... They ARE player characters is a good enough excuse in my book as dm or player. I played a warforged in a darksun game, we fluffed as a sorcerer king, Nibinay to be precise, did a papaltine and pieced me back together after I gave my life to protect him from an assassin ation attempt. I was a good Vader stuck on tatooine. Also played a bugbear in darksun, extinct race, by having been tossed their from Eberron during the Cyre incident. I was a Brelish bugbear barbarian of his majesty's 1st and only Black Wands.

But totally require a timeline of what he has been doing, the level drain monster enounter is gold, as is the caches of magical items as a simple way of giving out magical items. If you have any orgAnizations old enough to allow long term investment the character could be rich from simple compound interest.

[Pandoras Folly]

Arghleflargle

Double post.

[Pandoras Folly]

Possibly the biggest benefit will be the endless hours of hilarity as the other PCs constantly needle him about why, when he personally is likely older than their entire extant civilizations, that he swings the same damn sharpened hunks of metal that they do and with the same efficacy as a 16-year-old human punk.

...oh wait, you mean the benefit to his character...

Frankly, these issues already bug me about normal garden-variety elf lifespans across most of the Baskin-Robbins selection of usual elf subraces, much less this uber-Methuselah who presumably by now should be single-handedly researching Future Tech while finishing a Space Race Victory.

If he's actually been alive and active all that time, it really is an open question as to how he is *good* enough to survive all that time and yet *sucks* enough that his thousands of years of experience give him zero combat advantage compared to modern newbs. (Unless he's really been suspended-animation most all that time, or is under the curse of a malevolent entity who makes sure he is carefully yet constantly level-drained, never unto death/undeath, but just to the point of sucking.)


Its the law of averages at play is my theory of racial dominance in dnd style fantasy settings. So here is my best attempt. Its starts with humans on average we reproduce a lot more than elves and other faes, a great deal more than dwarves, and a fair amount more than gnomes and halflkngs, but less than orks and much less than goblins. While the elves and dwaves may be individually more competent across the board they dont have the numbers to avoid the golden BB that orcs and goblins bank on, whilr humans
can soak up the losses and replace them in a timely fashion. And even with huge life spans what percentage of elves born even make it to 400? Heck back the ye olde days you were doing really really well to get to 50. if you live long enough eventually a passing swallow beans you with a coconut, lightning strikes, and you eat a bad mushroom all at once.


have th

[Tr011]

This is such a usual problem:
First, a person that old will have had plenty of opportunities to gain XP. This doesn't mean he gets more XP than everyone else, just that he is unplayable that way if the party is about to begin at level 4 or something.
Second, he does not gain any bonuses to skills like knowledge (history), nor doesn't he need to make checks at all or something, he just invests a lot of his ressources (usually skills, but might also be feats like that +1 to all knowledge feat or class features that grant knowledge bonuses like bardic knowledge or lore) into knowledge, especially knowledge (history) because he saw a lot happening and knowledge (dungeoneering) because of the ilithid knowledge he gained.
Also it should fit to set him into the oldest age category before he gets undead for -6 to physical and +3 to mental stats.

The major advantage of being that old to have gained the knowledge just by standing by instead of learning hundreds of hours like a young wizard of the same level would have. They still invest the same ranks etc. into those knowledge skills.

Btw the next time you open a thread please say what starting level your party is. It's a basic info everyone wants to know in every thread.

[Kaulz]

In my current campain we meet an Warforged and take him whith us. (new PC) he lacks his entire past but remembre his apprenticeship. Thats why he actually dont know how long he is alive. I plan to give him pieces of his past in form of Memorycrystals step by step. Maybe ur Drow had stored some of his memorys too. ( like Dumbledore) I would use It mainly as Adventurehook.

[Slipperychicken]

Maybe he has an on-and-off relationship with his Succubus girlfriend (met her during a crawl when she wiped the rest of the party) who kept level-draining him back to ECL 1. They've been at it for a few hundred years now, and nothing can keep them apart for long.

[Aasimar]

In game terms?

More xp.

Perhaps people in the past were built using a different point buy / rolling method. (If you like that sort of Age of Heroes stuff)

possibly the option of taking classes or feats long forgotten.

Don't give them 'extra' stuff though.

[danzibr]

Still haven't heard what kind of samurai (or Samurai) this guy is. Actually I'll get up a samurai base class up before too long (sort of for lulz).

I like the being able to act like a crotchety old person.

And why can he only remember so much? I mean, perhaps our only limit to learning things is our mortality.

[hymer]

@ danzibr: Memory is a physical and chemical thing happening in the brain - a memory is made of structures or connections in the brain. There's only so much brain, and therefore only so much memory. That's why we can forget, because we need to get rid of things to make room for other things that are more immediate. :smallsmile:

[paigeoliver]

Really, if I had a player who refused to play if he couldn't be a Drow samurai then I would just look for another player. That is the sort of "I'm special LOOK AT ME" player that will suck the fun away from everyone else with constant bids for attention and will likely want to inject a whole bunch of eastern stuff into what I am guessing is a western campaign.

I solved the drow problem in my campaign a long time ago. I house ruled that they look EXACTLY like normal elves and that elven society has long had a problem with Drow infiltration since there is no way to detect them easily. Take away the "Look at me" part and suddenly nobody wants to eat the level adjust for the worthless drow abilities.



Greetings playgrounders, I just started a new campaign and one of my players refused to play unless I let him be a drow, which are extinct in my setting, having been killed off ~4,400 years ago.

[ArcturusV]

I solved it the other way Paigeoliver. Drow are elves in most of my settings, not rebel outcasts cursed races. They never were "Driven below" so they never got exposed to the usual eldritch powers or Underdark Radiation and such that warped them into the Drow we know. So you're an elf. With Elf powers and elf benefits who just happens to have dark skin and pale hair.

[danzibr]

@ danzibr: Memory is a physical and chemical thing happening in the brain - a memory is made of structures or connections in the brain. There's only so much brain, and therefore only so much memory. That's why we can forget, because we need to get rid of things to make room for other things that are more immediate. :smallsmile:
Good point.

But for all we know of the brain (and Drow brains are probably different, and undead Drow brains maybe more different), the finiteness of the brain in that respect might not be realized for tens of thousands of years.

[Aquillion]

So we figured that all those extra years had to come with some benefit, my question is this: What would be a balanced benefit to being 4,361 years old?No-thing! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBoesEFWZnM)

A fancy-written backstory gets you exactly zilch above other players (and should get you exactly zilch.) Doing it any other way encourages players to optimize their backstory, which is ultimately bad for the group and for the game as a whole. You don't get to start with an extra level of fighter just because your backstory says you were in the city guard for ten years.

Instead, his backstory just explains whatever he already has. Perhaps he once knew things, but has forgotten them over his long life and slowly recovers them as he gains levels. It's up to him to work out how his backstory translates into the game's established mechanics. Either way, though, his backstory shouldn't make him a better fighter (or whatever) than the other guys at the table.

[GnomeGninjas]

In game terms?

More xp.

Perhaps people in the past were built using a different point buy / rolling method. (If you like that sort of Age of Heroes stuff)

possibly the option of taking classes or feats long forgotten.

Don't give them 'extra' stuff though.

None of this makes sense to me. Why should he should get more XP for refusing to make a character that fits the setting? How does people having different point buy/rolling back then make any sense? Why should you make up new feats and classes for him? What is "'extra' stuff"?

[Darth Stabber]

None of this makes sense to me. Why should he should get more XP for refusing to make a character that fits the setting? How does people having different point buy/rolling back then make any sense? Why should you make up new feats and classes for him? What is "'extra' stuff"?

^so much this. Not only are you giving in to a whiny baby, you're giving him a bonus for doing so? Anything you give him is too much, infact you should give him an extra flaw or two for being an annoying t***. I'm glad to see that my lack of friendliness isn't mine alone. People are like dogs in that Pavlovian way. You are teaching this person that not only does whining get you your way, if you whine enough you get extras too. If your dog peed on the carpet, you wouldn't give him a treat. Any issues you have with this player in the future are now partially your fault for conditioning him. Sometimes the dog whisperer can help you deal with people too. Tssst!

My honest recommendation is to find a way to kill his character early (don't make it obvious that he was being targeted), and force him to build a character within the framework that everyone else was mature enough to play in. I make that recommendation because it's a little late at this point to kick him out of the game. The mistake was giving in, a proper dungeon master never shows weakness, nor fear, nor restraint. If your players don't fear your wrath, how will you ever rule you sessions with an iron fist? It is better to be feared than to be loved -Machiavelli

If you feel absolutely compelled to give him anything, just give him know:history as a class skill if it isn't. Anything else is rewarding bad behavior.

[GnomeGninjas]

^so much this. Not only are you giving in to a whiny baby, you're giving him a bonus for doing so? Anything you give him is too much, infact you should give him an extra flaw or two for being an annoying t***. I'm glad to see that my lack of friendliness isn't mine alone. People are like dogs in that Pavlovian way. You are teaching this person that not only does whining get you your way, if you whine enough you get extras too. If your dog peed on the carpet, you wouldn't give him a treat. Any issues you have with this player in the future are now partially your fault for conditioning him. Sometimes the dog whisperer can help you deal with people too. Tssst!

My honest recommendation is to find a way to kill his character early (don't make it obvious that he was being targeted), and force him to build a character within the framework that everyone else was mature enough to play in. I make that recommendation because it's a little late at this point to kick him out of the game. The mistake was giving in, a proper dungeon master never shows weakness, nor fear, nor restraint. If your players don't fear your wrath, how will you ever rule you sessions with an iron fist? It is better to be feared than to be loved -Machiavelli

If you feel absolutely compelled to give him anything, just give him know:history as a class skill if it isn't. Anything else is rewarding bad behavior.

This isn't quite what I meant. I don't support killing his character and I think giving him an insignificant trait/power (not extra XP or special feats/classes only he can take) might add depth to the game if you also give some other backstory-based traits/powers to the other PCs.

[Aasimar]

None of this makes sense to me. Why should he should get more XP for refusing to make a character that fits the setting? How does people having different point buy/rolling back then make any sense? Why should you make up new feats and classes for him? What is "'extra' stuff"?

Extra stuff is like 'feats or abilities other than those granted by your race, classes or items'

He shouldn't get stuff like that.

I was under the impression that it was a) a thought experiment or b) either done with the GM's approval or a GM character.

I don't think he 'deserves' anything other than the regular things a PC gets at character creation, what I was suggesting was ways to make a 4000 year old character different without breaking the chargen-system.

I also wouldn't recommend creating new classes or feats, but maybe allowing rare or seldom used ones, if the GM wanted to make the character feel 'unusual'

[GnomeGninjas]

Extra stuff is like 'feats or abilities other than those granted by your race, classes or items'

He shouldn't get stuff like that.

I was under the impression that it was a) a thought experiment or b) either done with the GM's approval or a GM character.

I don't think he 'deserves' anything other than the regular things a PC gets at character creation, what I was suggesting was ways to make a 4000 year old character different without breaking the chargen-system.

I also wouldn't recommend creating new classes or feats, but maybe allowing rare or seldom used ones, if the GM wanted to make the character feel 'unusual'
The OP said "one of my players refused to play unless I let him be a drow", I'm not sure how this led you to believe that it was a thought experiment or GM character.

[Aasimar]

Maybe I didn't read the whole thing?

I just went straight into 'how to make a 4000 year old character'

[Cirrylius]

...and undead Drow brains maybe more different

^This. The undead brain should logically be as chemically and electrically inert as the rest of them. Whatever changes in consciousness take place due to thousands of years of accumulated memories would have completely different mechanisms. I'm not necessarily saying they SHOULDN'T have issues as they get older, mind you, just that those issues aren't biological and therefore won't be the same as they would for, say, a five hundred year old mortal. Libris Mortis doesn't have a lot on the subject, but the theme it drives home repeatedly is that undead are creatures of stasis; to me, that says that their consciousness continues to function as it did at/around death, to the point of debilitating inflexibility in extreme cases (as in LM). While that means that a Necropolitan's mind should be stable (for a given value of stable, considering the wierdness of undeath), it also means that it would also be staggeringly inhuman.

[hymer]

@ danzibr and Cirrylius: I agree, we can only speculate on drow and undead brains. I do, however, still feel that the difference can't be too great. If the ability to forget disappeared and there was no practical upper limit to the mind or brain's storage capacity, would the Intelligence score not go up by quite a bit? Drow get +2, necropolitans get nothing. But that, of course, is also in the realm of speculation, since we aren't told what those +2 are meant to mean.
In the end, I guess it's up to the DM in the particular gameto decide this, if he cares to. :smallsmile:

[Pesimismrocks]

Really the player shouldn't get any benefits.
Give him the standard stat changes for playing a venerable character. Perhaps make him max ranks in Knowledge History. Also as an extinct race he wouldn't be treated well by the community. Even a group of adventurers, societies outcasts, would never accept him. Any commoners would'nt trust nor deal with him and a noble or wizard may capture him for scientific/magical research

[Slipperychicken]

Really the player shouldn't get any benefits.
Give him the standard stat changes for playing a venerable character. Perhaps make him max ranks in Knowledge History. Also as an extinct race he wouldn't be treated well by the community. Even a group of adventurers, societies outcasts, would never accept him. Any commoners would'nt trust nor deal with him and a noble or wizard may capture him for scientific/magical research

Seconding the bolded bit. He doesn't deserve extra benefits for bullying the DM.

Also, people would probably think he's some kind of evil undead demon-monster and try to kill him. And they wouldn't be far off :smallbiggrin:

[Saito Takuji]

Instead of 4000 yrs of wandering, maybe say that Lolth, seeing that her children would be put to the sword, put him in a cocoon to protect him against the elements & time, so that not all drow would be lost. Now he is the last sion of race, & Chosen of Lolth, if he could survive perhaps Lolth left others cocooned somewhere, or has some other plan to bring her chosen race back from oblivion?

okay thats actually a really awesome idea for a game, works for most any race really, would you mind if i were to take that and run with it for a game, might not actually get around to doing so, but just in case

[Rogue Shadows]

Challenge to the player: Make him a happy immortal. He thinks living forever is awesome and highly recommends it. Rather than being a huge big-picture guy, make him take immense joy in the moment. Sure, he remembers an immense amount, but a large chunk of that is through the haze of alcohol-fueled parties.

Not that he's nihilistic; he deeply believes in the importance of life. But nothing gets old for him.

While the depressed, "who wants to live forever?" style of immortal is fun, it's also very overplayed and overdone these days. I'd like to see more "I am a man who will go far, climb a moon and reach for the stars" kind of immortal.

So basically other immortals hate him 'cause while they're waxing philosophical and sleeping for long periods just to while away the centuries and shouting "IRRRREEEENNNNAAAA!!!" to the Heavens, he's out getting laid.

[Cirrylius]

If the ability to forget disappeared and there was no practical upper limit to the mind or brain's storage capacity, would the Intelligence score not go up by quite a bit?
Mmm... not really. The ability to functionally remember many lifetimes of events wouldn't necessarily mean you're any better at assimilating new (or old) information.

If balance were a non-issue, I'd suggest an additional rank of a random Knowledge every hundred years or so, up to a max of, say, five ranks, just to reflect the kind of everyday junk picked up by the brain on a daily basis, with the understanding that a lot of that information would potentially become obsolete with the passage of time. Obviously, that's untenable if not all characters are the same age, though, and becomes ridiculous as character age stretches into millenia. Personally, I think the Bardic Knowledge thing is a good idea, with maybe a unique skill of Knowledge: History [mine] with a lower or higher number of skill ranks to reflect exactly how much of your own history the DM is comfortable with him remembering, if for no other reason than to deny the player the opportunity to keep saying "oh, yeah, I was there for that" about every damn thing the DM brings up about the world's history.



While the depressed, "who wants to live forever?" style of immortal is fun, it's also very overplayed and overdone these days.
OH GOD THIS. I hate that guy. Who wants to play Louis forever when you can play Lestat? To mangle a famous quote "while I imagine life would become dull as the years passed, I would be entirely willing to devote centuries to the problem".


Now he is the last sion of race, & Chosen of Lolth, if he could survive perhaps Lolth left others cocooned somewhere, or has some other plan to bring her chosen race back from oblivion?
Heh. If you combine this with the 4k hedonist backstory, you could get a wandering deadbeat dad known as the Boner of Ages whose quest is to gradually re-introduce Drow into the world's gene pool one tryst at a time:smallsmile:

[Slipperychicken]

Challenge to the player: Make him a happy immortal. He thinks living forever is awesome and highly recommends it. Rather than being a huge big-picture guy, make him take immense joy in the moment. Sure, he remembers an immense amount, but a large chunk of that is through the haze of alcohol-fueled parties.


YOLF = You Only Live Forever.

But more importantly, how is our Necropolitan going to get krunked? Laid is easy (necrophiliacs), but undead are immune to poisons (and alcohol counts as a poison) and effects requiring Fort saves.

[Flickerdart]

YOLF = You Only Live Forever.

But more importantly, how is our Necropolitan going to get krunked? Laid is easy (necrophiliacs), but undead are immune to poisons (and alcohol counts as a poison) and effects requiring Fort saves.
Positoxins (and possibly ravages?) work on undead, so strongly good-aligned booze should still get him properly hammered.

[Cirrylius]

But more importantly, how is our Necropolitan going to get krunked? Laid is easy (necrophiliacs), but undead are immune to poisons (and alcohol counts as a poison) and effects requiring Fort saves.
A wizard did it.

[Ravanan]

But more importantly, how is our Necropolitan going to get krunked? Laid is easy (necrophiliacs), but undead are immune to poisons (and alcohol counts as a poison) and effects requiring Fort saves.

And this is why I love D&D nerds.

Anyways, while I strongly agree with the direct practical standpoint of many of the posters that an ass of a player who insists on special treatment and going outside of the setting should not be rewarded for doing so, I think at the same time we should acknowledge that in the hands of a more mature player, that this is actually some very good material.

What I would say is the BEST way to represent that much age (is probably that Breadth of Experience feat and maybe let him take it two or three times, but without involving Pathfinder...) is not to force him to invest his points in any particular way, but to change the DCs or type of certain checks for him, specifically Knowledge checks. In the real world, Roman dining etiquette is likely to be something like a DC25 or higher Knowledge: History check. For someone that dined with the Romans on numerous occasions, even if he did it thousands of years ago, it'd be more like a DC15 check, and he could probably optionally make a Knowledge: Nobility check instead. On the other hand, you could also penalize him a bit in this way. Let's say the party travelled back in time and REALLY needed to know that dining etiquette, and he blew his roll. Well, instead of Roman etiquette from his fine meals in the Roman Empire, he remembered Briton party etiquette instead and happened to mix the two up. Hijinks ensue. Hijinks involving a furious Roman Emperor and a LOT of swords.

[Psyren]

I'd see him being pretty absent-minded all the time - Like Hohennheim on steroids.

[Slipperychicken]

Positoxins (and possibly ravages?) work on undead, so strongly good-aligned booze should still get him properly hammered.

An undead Drow partygoer hailing from the dawn of civilization, who parties with, among others, a bunch of good-aligned Clerics (many of them Dwarves), and they all get crazy-drunk off Holy Beer. Paladins could probably join in the fun without much trouble.

Who said immortality gets dull? :smallbiggrin:

[Flickerdart]

An undead Drow partygoer hailing from the dawn of civilization, who parties with, among others, a bunch of good-aligned Clerics (many of them Dwarves), and they all get crazy-drunk off Holy Beer. Paladins could probably join in the fun without much trouble.

Who said immortality gets dull? :smallbiggrin:
Parties with the clerics? This guy is old enough to party with the gods.

[Forrestfire]

Honestly, I would go with simply letting him have Knowledge: History as a class skill. I'm not sure if undead get aging bonuses or penalties, so there's that.

However, this sort of character opens up so many roleplaying opportunities! :smallbiggrin:

Maybe the king's lineage was slighted by him 200 years ago, or an offhand remark of his inspired something important. Make him the Forrest Gump of the world, for good or ill.

I'd try to not let it take the spotlight, but even if it's just occasional, it'd still be awesome.

Off-topic: In my last campaign, I allowed one of my players to play a fallen god (of debauchery and alcohol) who had survived for 700 years after losing his divinity in a war between the Tippyverse and the gods.

He was a bard with max charisma, and I gave him several ties to major organizations. After a few sessions, his own roleplaying had turned him into The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Sadly the campaign ended after a semester of playing. :smallfrown: