My take on 3.5 aging/idea

[gooddragon1]

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[137beth]

I think it could work. I've never been in a game where PCs died from old age, and I usually prefer to have NPCs die from age at the pace of plot, but this at least makes a bit more sense than the core aging rules.

[Seer_of_Heart]

The player characters of D&D are far above what is normally possible, as such I propose that at maximum age a character must make a DC 20 fortitude save or die (and unless there is some reason they don't sleep there's a # of hours per day they sleep/24 % chance (rounded up) that they are asleep for this save). If they succeed on the save they start gaining artificial age categories. For a human the DM would roll 2d20 years and have the PC make another save at that time. In addition they would suffer -4 str/dex/con for the first artificial age category, -5 for the next, and so on. At 0 con they die obviously. So it's not immortality but it does give rise to some interesting possibilities imo.

What do you think?

Would they continue to gain mental ability score bonuses? Because if so I have a druid that would like this :smallyuk:.

edit: I personally like the idea but I feel like the 2d20 is too big a range at the upper end and can be too low on the other end. I'd personally do 5d6 taking the best 4.

[ArcturusV]

If they're asleep for the save, doesn't that mean an autofail? Pretty sure the rule is that you're asleep you fail all your saves. So you got an automatic 1 in 6 (Elves on 4 hours), or 1 in 3 for others, chance of auto dying.

Not a terrible idea, just wasn't sure if it was being calculated for.

Otherwise sounds neat. I'd probably tighten up the subsequent checks. Say for something short lived like Half-Orcs make it every 4 months. Humans and rough equivalents checking every 6. Long lived races checking every 8.

At the 4-40 years range, in practical experience you're not really going to end up requiring another check, ever. It's not like Haste still has the "Adds 10 years to the target's age" line on it's effect anymore. At a measure of months, it might actually come up towards the end of a campaign. Particularly players running Int/Wis/Cha based characters who choose Venerable Age for the bonuses at the start of the campaign.

[137beth]

Yea, if you want realism, you should probably make the checks more frequent. Every year or so is probably reasonable for humans...

[gooddragon1]

Was sorta going with how dragons age 200 per age category and taking the maximum age adjuster to determine the range for artificial age categories.

Also, for the sleep thing I didn't mean autofail but it might mean they won't have some of the options (the concentration check replacing maneuver for example) they would normally have.

I guess this is really more for NPC backstory as well as PC stuff. Age rules generally don't come into play from what I've seen but this could explain why a wizard can barely move and has a beard as long as the first movie Dumbledore.

[ArcturusV]

So might want to mention in the rule when you talk to players, or deal with things like NPCs (Players might still need to know for Cohort, Hireling, Followers, or "sages" they've hired, that the rule exists and how it works), that sleeping doesn't mean auto failing the save in this case. Just that you can only use your class Fort Save Bonuses, and Stat Bonus.

[Emmerask]

If you want realism then the stats that go down at age are.

Con, Str, Dex, Int

the stats that remain the same:

Cha

the stats that actually increase:

Wis

[gooddragon1]

So might want to mention in the rule when you talk to players, or deal with things like NPCs (Players might still need to know for Cohort, Hireling, Followers, or "sages" they've hired, that the rule exists and how it works), that sleeping doesn't mean auto failing the save in this case. Just that you can only use your class Fort Save Bonuses, and Stat Bonus.

Well, more like if you've got some sort of thing that lasts all day or would somehow be usable in a reason you could justify (generally most class features are a no-no) then it can work. Though I suppose auto-fail might make it easier. Also makes a ring of sustenance a good bargain ;).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Being asleep doesn't make you a uto-fail saves. It just makes you "willing" for the spells and effects with the "willing targets only" tag. You -always- get to make a save unless you (the player) choose to forgoe it.

[Xervous]

I remember some stuff from older edition sourcebooks I bumped into, might have been 2nd, AD&D2 or something along those lines. It was about dragons, and one part that stuck in my mind was how exactly the game went about killing the ones that got old.

Something like every year they lost 1 con and had to make a save vs. death. This gave them a capped amount of time for their final days, though most wouldn't live to the last hour (and I doubt they would want to, given what dying of old age is like).

[Jeff the Green]

If you want realism then the stats that go down at age are.

Con, Str, Dex, Int

the stats that remain the same:

Cha

the stats that actually increase:

Wis

Except that dementia isn't universal among the aged, while impaired vision and hearing are (or are nearly).

[ArcturusV]

That and some people end up looking like they got hit by the ugly treant as they age. Others end up just "distinguished" and such. Nothing is really all that universal with aging.

[Carth]

The most realistic thing to do for aging would be to roll and choose from a table for its effects, as not everyone ages the same way.

And then you still need to make the system somehow reconcile the fact that elves reach adulthood at 110 years old, and yet humans max age by rolling under the current system is 110 years old. And by the time an elf hits venerable at 350, it'll have outlived at least 3 generations of humans, just still be just as intelligent and wise as any venerable human. Sure, you can use flimsy fluff reasons to justify this, but, well, I've never seen one that isn't just that, flimsy.

[ArcturusV]

I dunno if it's necessarily flimsy though.

I mean if life expectancy is 35, we're declaring people full adults at age 15ish, and kicking them out to go make a living.

With life expectancy at 82, we have kids who are 25 and still wet behind the ears and ignorant to the ways of the world, not really ready to go it as an adult.

So I'd say that there is some basis to it. Not to mention physical maturity times possibly representing a gulf.

[Carth]

I agree that there's some basis to it, just not enough to be other than what I described it as. :smallbiggrin: The disparity between races makes giving each their own aging table with different effects the prudent thing to do, if you want to have a sense of verisimilitude. Starting ages I can see, but the enormous stretch is that in order to become as intelligent and wise as a 70 year old human, a similarly statted elf, gnome, or dwarf needs to crack 200+ years, which is multiple human lifetimes. Or just get rid of the benefits of aging altogether, and allow PCs to not suffer the ill-efects, because they're heroes.

[tyckspoon]

I remember some stuff from older edition sourcebooks I bumped into, might have been 2nd, AD&D2 or something along those lines. It was about dragons, and one part that stuck in my mind was how exactly the game went about killing the ones that got old.


Draconomicon has those rules for a 3.5 update- they get some years past their normal maximum based on their Charisma modifier, and then go into a declining state with ramping Fortitude saves until they finally give it up. It also offers a few ways that they can voluntarily die before that (I like the one that involves transforming themselves into the protective spirit of a landscape feature, where other dragons of the same kind will often come to lay their clutches and let their whelps grow until they're ready to establish their own lairs.)

[Emmerask]

Except that dementia isn't universal among the aged, while impaired vision and hearing are (or are nearly).

You are correct in that wisdom should also go down, I did not think about the skills attached and only about "Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations" which naturally comes with having lived longer (for a lot of people at least ^^).

As for the dementia part I would completely agree if all skills where based on intelligence, however there are skills that are based on knowledge that don´t use int (survival/track for example).
And since its well established that brain functionality goes downhill at ~45 there is just no reason for intelligence to go up imo.

[Jeff the Green]

That and some people end up looking like they got hit by the ugly treant as they age. Others end up just "distinguished" and such. Nothing is really all that universal with aging.

Charisma ≠ comeliness. Christopher Lee, for example, has sky-high Charisma, but he's not someone many people fantasize about.


You are correct in that wisdom should also go down, I did not think about the skills attached and only about "Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations" which naturally comes with having lived longer (for a lot of people at least ^^).

That's better modeled with increased skill points in Sense Motive.


And since its well established that brain functionality goes downhill at ~45 there is just no reason for intelligence to go up imo.

That's not true. Absent dementia, brain function stays the same as long as it's used. The reason so many people have declining brain function as they age is that they tend to have settled routines and so don't have to learn new things or adapt. So the brain 'atrophies.'

I agree that Intelligence shouldn't go up with age, though. I'd rather it be something like Taint in HoH, where you roll on a table every n years and get some malady.