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TempusCCK
2007-01-15, 04:00 PM
So I'm working on some stuff for my campaigns, and I was looking at the Age Category graphs in the PHB, and I thought "Wow, I wonder if anyone actually follows this stuff?"

So, does anybody actually deduct one from Strength and Dex and Con and add to Int, Cha and Wis when their characters reach middle age?

TempusCCK
2007-01-15, 04:00 PM
So I'm working on some stuff for my campaigns, and I was looking at the Age Category graphs in the PHB, and I thought "Wow, I wonder if anyone actually follows this stuff?"

So, does anybody actually deduct one from Strength and Dex and Con and add to Int, Cha and Wis when their characters reach middle age?

TempusCCK
2007-01-15, 04:02 PM
I apologize for the repost, my window bugged out... or something, not sure.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-01-15, 04:02 PM
Yes, I think that is quite common.

Some casters even like to start out middle-aged and not just for the flavour.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-01-15, 04:03 PM
Often you can delete your post right after creating it.

Thomas
2007-01-15, 04:11 PM
Usually, yes, but not when it'd get in the way of things (like a middle-aged melee fighter using the elite array; you're kinda screwed if you apply the penalties).

Dr. Weasel
2007-01-15, 04:25 PM
Huh. This was the question I was about to ask here.
I don't see why not, but I can't think many DMs like level 1wizards with DC17 zero level spells and knowledge (pretty much everything) +10.

Scorpina
2007-01-15, 04:27 PM
Yeah, I commonly use it. In fact I don't remember ever not using it...

TempusCCK
2007-01-15, 05:15 PM
I kind of thought if a person, such as a fighter, were extremely active then you wouldn't normally decrease in physical prowess at something as low as 35. I could see maybe 45-50ish.

Dhavaer
2007-01-15, 05:19 PM
It doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me, so no. I might consider just the physical penalties to ordinaries, though.

John_D
2007-01-15, 05:28 PM
I've never really considered it before. My characters tend to be somewhere between mid-twenties and early thirties for humans and a corresponding age for non-humans, but we've never had a campaign advance far enough in game time for it to become an issue. TempusCCK makes an interesting point: outside of class features such as timeless body, you don't really see anything that would alter the way the bonuses and penalties for aging accrue. Has any homebrewer cooked up some nifty alternate options?


I may be alone in this, but in adventures that we play game time is not a huge issue in the long term. Characters seem to be trapped in a closed loop of their lifetime, in much the same way that Bart Simpson will be ten years old forever.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-15, 05:28 PM
My adventures always span years, so I inevitably apply penalties for flavor's sake. Because of this, no PC who's entire lifespan is about 100 years or less may start at middle age without talking it over with me first (since he'll either need to search for a way to extend his lifespan over the course of the adventure, or he'll need to pick a new character after a while, which I have no problem with so long as we can work it into the story in a cool way).

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-01-15, 05:54 PM
I think a better question is, "Has anyone actually played a campaign where one or more PCs actually advanced an age category?" :smallwink:

My responses:

To My Question: No, I haven't.
To Tempus's Question: If I ever were to play a campaign where it became relevant, yes, I would.

Stephen_E
2007-01-15, 05:59 PM
It's seldom relevant since my DnD GMs like to start us at 1st level, or at mostonly a couple of levels up. To me it makes no sense for a 1st level character to only be 1st level if he's middle aged.

Stephen

Fhaolan
2007-01-15, 06:00 PM
I have played a character that advanced through the age categories, but it was a very strange game. There were massive jumps in levels and age of the characters between sessions, and not always forward. The game jumped around as the DM took us through the characters' lives in a series of flashbacks.

It worked, but it was one of those games that I don't think you can do more than once. It was the freshness of the approach that made it work, and without that it would just fall apart.

Thiel
2007-01-15, 06:03 PM
I have only used it once. It was near the end of a semester and we had just finished a story arc. To make up for any memory lapses during the holiday we decided that the party would split up for five years and then return to a specified place at a specified time and continue their adventuring life from there. This pushed me one year into the second age category.

Gamebird
2007-01-15, 06:05 PM
Yes, I've played in several games where PCs advanced age categories.

My own has not yet gone that far. However, for NPCs, I apply the penalties and bonuses.

Khantalas
2007-01-15, 06:05 PM
It doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me, so no. I might consider just the physical penalties to ordinaries, though.

Hey, not everyone knows what an ordinary is.

Gamebird
2007-01-15, 06:10 PM
See other thread. ::general annoyance at multiple threads on same topic::

Aximili
2007-01-15, 06:14 PM
So, does anybody actually deduct one from Strength and Dex and Con and add to Int, Cha and Wis when their characters reach middle age?
Don't you? It makes sense, and it's even a boost for some characters.

What's so silly about it?

Norsesmithy
2007-01-15, 07:16 PM
I have never played a charector to Middle age in his race before becoming something other than his race, whether reincanated as something immortal, acending to godhood or going from a 20 something human paladin to a YA Dragon.

Roland St. Jude
2007-01-15, 07:21 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Thread merger warning! This thread is the unholy amalgam of two identical threads created by the OP nearly simultaneously! As such, it's internal logic prior to the merger may be a bit off. Anyway, please continue...

Shazzbaa
2007-01-15, 07:26 PM
Wow, I didn't know mods could do that!

I couldn't really imagine these rules coming up that often, but I know in our next campaign there actually is one guy who's going to be playing a middle-aged character, so yeah, I know we do use 'em.

EDIT: Because somebody had to link this comic. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0218.html)

Khantalas
2007-01-15, 08:32 PM
Does it really make sense that any self respecting elan or elven adventurer is a god or something by the time they should hit middle age?

Dhavaer
2007-01-15, 09:20 PM
Hey, not everyone knows what an ordinary is.

Meh. It's fairly self-explanatory, and if someone really wants to know, they'll ask.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-15, 09:28 PM
What's an ordinary?

Khantalas
2007-01-15, 09:32 PM
Ordinaries are talentless people in d20 Modern. They are really "talent"less, they get all other mechanics of the attribute, or base, classes, but not the talents. Therefore, it is rare for an ordinary to have levels in advanced classes. And prestige classes, too.

Lithgon the Crazy
2007-01-15, 09:35 PM
I have a constitution check every level (starting at DC 10 and +1.5 (Rounded down) every level after) when they reach middle age for the affects.

Dhavaer
2007-01-15, 10:14 PM
Ordinaries are talentless people in d20 Modern. They are really "talent"less, they get all other mechanics of the attribute, or base, classes, but not the talents. Therefore, it is rare for an ordinary to have levels in advanced classes. And prestige classes, too.

Slight correction: Ordinaries cannot take levels in Advanced or Prestige classes, only Base classes.

TempusCCK
2007-01-15, 10:22 PM
In my campaigns I give the entire elven race the Timeless Body Special because my mind still lingers in Tolkiens fantasy. As for the applications at middle age, I can see it descreasing when a character gets into an older age category, but at 35 for a human? I just wondered it anyone out there houseruled differently. Either way, all of your feedback has been helpful, and maybe I'll post what I was working on in the Homebrew forum if anyone is interested.

Emperor Tippy
2007-01-16, 12:05 AM
Whenever I play level gestalt games as a wizard I use them if at all possible. You can reach timeless body at level 7 (Monk 4/Tattooed Monk 3). And monk complements wizard nicely in a gestalt so you get to level 7, buy scrolls of Smoky Confinement for the rest of the party, and sit down in a cave somewhere that is sealed off from the rest of the world and wait until your venerable. You then wake everyone else up and off you go adventuring with you having +3 to all mental abilities.

This is especially fun when you play as an Elan, "I'm 500,000 years old." Is one of the best liens to ever give to someone.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-16, 12:16 AM
I thought you still died of old age even with timeless body?

Or was it homebrewed? I guess it's a neat homebrew rule.

Munchy
2007-01-16, 12:18 AM
In my group we allow people to choose the PC's age category at PC creation time. If they wish to min-max with it, so be it.

Emperor Tippy
2007-01-16, 02:01 AM
I thought you still died of old age even with timeless body?

Or was it homebrewed? I guess it's a neat homebrew rule.

Elan was (correctly) Errataed to having no maximum age.

Mewtarthio
2007-01-16, 02:11 AM
Where's smoky confinement from? 'Cause the way I'm reading Tippy's post now, it looks like he's sitting around being bored out of his immortal skull for half a million years while his poor teammates are being held in stasis to awaken upon a world completely and utterly different from their own.

Deepblue706
2007-01-16, 02:20 AM
I never play a character younger than 20, and often find myself playing those whose age would (more or less) be equal to about 30, sometimes older.

I actually have a great amount of fun playing as an old man who pretends to be senile (funny thing: a lot of sharp elderly folk I know actually enjoy faking it, too). When DMing my tabletop games, I have a recurring NPC known as "Surly", who constantly changes accents (but never identity), very commonly calls characters by the wrong name, confuses their gender, and often denies previous events had ever occurred, sometimes even immediately afterwards. He's also an epic-level gish.

Sometimes I enjoy playing as retired warriors, such as middle-aged Fighters, despite it hampering their abilities.

While I'll play a middle-aged caster, I honestly feel guilty aging more than that if it really tweaks out my character.

Cybren
2007-01-16, 04:00 AM
It won't though since -3 or -6 to all physical stats will be a real pain.

Ambrogino
2007-01-16, 06:33 AM
Since I use point buy, If a player of mine chooses to have an older or younger character for flavour purposes I presume that the age effects have already been applied. I'm not inclined to use them as aging effects in-game, as that seems to favour casting stats and as the game progresses it gets tilted towards casters anyway. I'm likely to bear them in mind when assigning abilities to NPC's, but not set in stone.

They're fantastic in BRP though. Call of Cthulhu parties should have as many 80 year old proffessors as possible.

Thomas
2007-01-16, 08:10 AM
Since I use point buy, If a player of mine chooses to have an older or younger character for flavour purposes I presume that the age effects have already been applied.

This is the approach the new GURPS edition took, too; it's a good basic approach. Then you can just use the tables for aging during game. (Too bad D&D ghosts no longer age you 1d4x10 years by touch.)


They're fantastic in BRP though. Call of Cthulhu parties should have as many 80 year old proffessors as possible.

They were even better in RuneQuest - you got skill points based on age, and there was no table for losing stats for aging! It was in the Deluxe edition errata...


As for aging in general, it does happen in a lot of games. Pendragon, for instance, is generational. The campaign is supposed to last the 80 or so years that Arthur's rule lasts according to the timeline, and you're supposed to play 2-5 characters in that time - the default is that you take up your previous character's son. (There's a bunch of rules for marriage and children, even.)

Epic-level D&D games especially seem like they should go on for decades of in-game time; and one of my players wanted to play a game in Glorantha, during the re-settlement of Dragon Pass, which could take up as much as 100-200 years (and that'd only lead up to the conquest of Tarsh; if we were to continue it into the Hero Wars, it could end up having spanned some 300 years!).

MrNexx
2007-01-16, 08:45 AM
None of my campaigns have actually needed the 3e age adjustments, but playing 1st edition, I came to realize how important they were... a mature adult getting +1 to Strength and Constitution was a wonderful bonus for your warrior-types, and the +1 to Con and -1 to Wisdom for a young adult wasn't too onerous for everyone else.

Ambrogino
2007-01-16, 09:13 AM
(Too bad D&D ghosts no longer age you 1d4x10 years by touch.)

Or casting Haste (age 1 year per casting IIRC?).

Lord Iames Osari
2007-01-16, 09:28 AM
Waitwait... I thought ordinaries didn't get the bonus feats either... have I ben gimping my ordinaries even more than they were supposed to be gimped?:smalleek:

Jayabalard
2007-01-16, 09:33 AM
I kind of thought if a person, such as a fighter, were extremely active then you wouldn't normally decrease in physical prowess at something as low as 35. I could see maybe 45-50ish.well, if you're working on maintaining your physique, then you'd theoretically be putting more points into those stats, so they wouldn't actually be decreasing from a younger age (they just wouldn't be going any higher).

Deepblue706
2007-01-16, 12:23 PM
It won't though since -3 or -6 to all physical stats will be a real pain.

That's not necessarily true at all. Depends on the level of power in the game.

Dark
2007-01-16, 12:42 PM
If they've already used wishes to get +5 to every stat, then they can afford to lose -6 from the physical ones, in exchange for ULTIMATE ARCANE POWER!

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-01-16, 01:15 PM
(Too bad D&D ghosts no longer age you 1d4x10 years by touch.)
Uh, I don't believe the mental bonuses were ever applied for instantaneous age effects. Those bonuses represent knowledge wisdom gained from experience. And that just didn't happen when you looked at a ghost or cast haste one too many times.

Naturally, the physical deterioration of aging was always applied.

Thomas
2007-01-16, 01:56 PM
Uh, I don't believe the mental bonuses were ever applied for instantaneous age effects. Those bonuses represent knowledge wisdom gained from experience. And that just didn't happen when you looked at a ghost or cast haste one too many times.

I don't even remember seeing AD&D aging tables. My regret was for the general loss of the concept. (Although considering how grossly it favored non-humans, it's just as well.)

MrNexx
2007-01-16, 01:59 PM
They were at the end of Chapter 2, just after they described the races.

Matthew
2007-01-16, 07:10 PM
Nexx:
I think you are thinking of (A)D&D 1.x DMG Aging Tables; the (A)D&D 2.x PHB only has penalties for getting older. [Edit] Of course you are, as you clearly indicate, apparently I can't read.

And, yeah, despite what may be inferred from KotDT and other D&D humour, only physical aging effects were applied to character's whose age was magically accelerated. In short, they are playing it wrong...

AtomicKitKat
2007-01-17, 12:23 AM
I don't even remember seeing AD&D aging tables. My regret was for the general loss of the concept. (Although considering how grossly it favored non-humans, it's just as well.)

Considering that Humans were the only ones who could advance to maximum levels in all classes(honestly, an elf had literally an eternity to hone his expertise in any class he chose, and yet he's stuck being less than half as powerful as a human?), I didn't see this as a problem. It also forced one to consider whether they wanted/needed the advantage from Haste, instead of always pointing their sword at the wizard first thing in the morning, growling "Baldy, make sure you put Haste in a slot!"

Dhavaer
2007-01-17, 12:24 AM
Waitwait... I thought ordinaries didn't get the bonus feats either... have I ben gimping my ordinaries even more than they were supposed to be gimped?:smalleek:

No, you've been doing it fine. Ordinaries only get the Simple Weapons bonus feat, none of the others.

Gamebird
2007-01-17, 12:15 PM
It also forced one to consider whether they wanted/needed the advantage from Haste, instead of always pointing their sword at the wizard first thing in the morning, growling "Baldy, make sure you put Haste in a slot!"

Except for those of us who were completely mercenary and used Haste anytime we wanted. When the aging penalties became onerous, we started new characters.

The DM eliminated the spell when he figured that one out.

MrNexx
2007-01-17, 12:20 PM
We switched to an exhaustion mechanic... you can use haste all you want, but a turn of exhaustion makes people leery of casting it in combat (except as a "clincher", and even then, they'd seldom target everyone).