Children in dnd 5e

[Belac93]

So, I recently had an idea for a 5e character. Her doll came alive, and so she hunts dolls and other doll-like creatures in an attempt to kill them (ranger with construct favored enemy). So I was wondering, how could I stat a child character?
My thinking was something like:
6-8 years old: -4 str, -2 con, -3 wis, +4 cha, +3 dex.
9-12 years old: -2 str, -1 con, -1 wis, +2 cha, +2 dex.
13-14 years old: -1 str, +1 dex.
In medieval societies, a person was considered an adult around 15.
Thoughts?

[JNAProductions]

I think, honestly, don't futz with the stats. Just keep them the same and play to a kid's strengths. (Dexterity, Charisma, maybe Intelligence.)

It might not make perfect sense, but it's a heck of a lot more balanced than messing with stats.

Edit: Also, that's a damn cool character idea. Props to you for that!

[Belac93]

Alright, thanks.
I guess if I took the point buy, I could have something like 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8. I just wondered if this might be better.

[JNAProductions]

Imagine a Sorcerer or Warlock with those stat boosts. Hits to all dump stats (except Con, that stings) but a nice boost to both the casting stat and a defensive stat.

[Belac93]

Hmmm. I could see a wild magic sorcerer child without much control, simply because he/she is too young and doesn't have the brainpower for that much control.

[Logosloki]

I wouldn't fuss about with penalty stats unless the group is going to have time skips. Just use the standard array from the phb for stats. Love the idea though.

Work with the dm for a background though. An interesting flaw would be "people do not listen to what i say because of my age".

[PoeticDwarf]

So, I recently had an idea for a 5e character. Her doll came alive, and so she hunts dolls and other doll-like creatures in an attempt to kill them (ranger with construct favored enemy). So I was wondering, how could I stat a child character?
My thinking was something like:
6-8 years old: -4 str, -2 con, -3 wis, +4 cha, +3 dex.
9-12 years old: -2 str, -1 con, -1 wis, +2 cha, +2 dex.
13-14 years old: -1 str, +1 dex.
In medieval societies, a person was considered an adult around 15.
Thoughts?

I think a child is less inteligent than an adult. Children have very high wisdom in fact!

[Talyn]

My question is: do you expect to have a whole party of children? If so, keep the standard stat arrays and just scale down what those stats mean. (i.e. a 12 year old with a 16 Strength only has half the carrying capacity of an adult with 16 strength, but compared to an ordinary 12 year old with 11 Strength, can carry 50% more.)

If are having the child adventure with a bunch of adults, then stat modifications are probably necessary.

Speaking from my experiences as a father, 6-8 year olds should not get a DEX bonus. Their hand-coordination is still developing at that age, and their ability to avoid danger and precisely manipulate the world is not particularly impressive by adult standards. I'm sure you picked that stat boost to support the Oliver Twist-style thief urchin archetype, but that might be better reflected by some sort of circumstance modifier to checks under certain circumstances.

[Ceaon]

Children are less powerful, less coordinated, more frail, less intelligent, less aware and lack development of the self.
In other words, children would have penalties in all scores.
Which is why both in fantasy and real life, children do not participate as much as adults.

Edit: the only one I would be lenient on is intelligence, as children have the capacity to learn very quickly, and maybe charisma, as children are adorable. But I think circumstance modifiers instead of higher stats would work better for such things.

[Joe the Rat]

Somewhere I saw a game where one of the characters was a 12-year old Elf "Magical Girl" Warlock. All sparkles and stars, and when it came time to throw down, reeking brimstone flames.

I'd vote for "don't futz with stats, build to reflect." Since starting age is "whatever you like" and the effects of aging are "who cares," set up stats to reflect what you think a child should have. That may mean starting stat caps, of lowered/raised floors on traits. Having particularly young children drop a size category would make sense.

Now, if your game will run long enough (story-time-wise) that aging will be a factor, you could offer a rebuild to reflect a more adult body and mind. Alternatively, you could just hang the balance, and have them "hold back" some stat points: Build your "adult" stats, then pull back points in a few places, which are regained as they age. I'm not buying "you get older, and your ability to intimidate goes down." in a broad sense. You've also got a lot of social issues. Not so much the Sword Coast Child Services, as the not taking you seriously. You could build the party face, but it'll be an uphill battle to get someone to seriously negotiate with you rather than with the "adults." At the same time, you may have an easier time being ignored.

If you do opt to make some drawbacks for youth, you should throw in some benefits. Reduced time / investment to learn proficiencies would be a good option. You could even do a "one less now, one more later" on skill proficiencies: The adventuring adolescent is going to pick up a lot of adventure-y skills

[Naanomi]

As a teacher, depending on your exact interpretation of the stats (always an issue), I'd say children have a penalty to everything but Con... Kids are resiliant and bounce back quick compared to older folks, but they are weaker, less coordinated, make poor decisions, have less knowledge (and apply it less consistently), and developing social skills.

Some of this changes as children become pre-teens and teens developmentally but overall stat penalties across the board except in Con

[Knaight]

C
Edit: the only one I would be lenient on is intelligence, as children have the capacity to learn very quickly, and maybe charisma, as children are adorable. But I think circumstance modifiers instead of higher stats would work better for such things.

I think there's a good case to be made for intelligence scores staying the same, with the gap coming largely from skill differences, where children have lowered Proficiency across the board.

[NNescio]

So, I recently had an idea for a 5e character. Her doll came alive, and so she hunts dolls and other doll-like creatures in an attempt to kill them (ranger with construct favored enemy). So I was wondering, how could I stat a child character?
My thinking was something like:
6-8 years old: -4 str, -2 con, -3 wis, +4 cha, +3 dex.
9-12 years old: -2 str, -1 con, -1 wis, +2 cha, +2 dex.
13-14 years old: -1 str, +1 dex.
In medieval societies, a person was considered an adult around 15.
Thoughts?

Take Halfling and refluff it. There, done.

Lucky racial trait even fits in well.

[Mr.Moron]

Take Halfling and refluff it. There, done.

Lucky racial trait even fits in well.

This seems pretty fitting to me, maybe not perfect but it's a low-fuss way that mostly works.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

Yeah. As a DM, I'd probably try to tweak one or two things (I don't feel like most children I'vek nown would have advantage on saves against fear but I'm not sure what I'd replace it with; would bumping the speed up to 30 be fair, maybe?) but otherwise a Lightfoot Halfling does a pretty good job of feeling like a kid to me.

[TopCheese]

So, I recently had an idea for a 5e character. Her doll came alive, and so she hunts dolls and other doll-like creatures in an attempt to kill them (ranger with construct favored enemy). So I was wondering, how could I stat a child character?
My thinking was something like:
6-8 years old: -4 str, -2 con, -3 wis, +4 cha, +3 dex.
9-12 years old: -2 str, -1 con, -1 wis, +2 cha, +2 dex.
13-14 years old: -1 str, +1 dex.
In medieval societies, a person was considered an adult around 15.
Thoughts?

No.

Unless the DM specifically says the game will stay PG (maybe PG 13) the answer to "can I play a kid" is always "no".

Also, random note, medieval society doesn't matter as D&D is not a simulation game. D&D has their own set age ranges.

[Mandrake]

So I was wondering, how could I stat a child character?

Awesome idea.

As a DM who had a player playing a kid I just wish to share how he solved it: he took levels of Warlock.

Basically, the explanation was that his bond was giving him "unnatural" constitution and intelligence, as if he had a "helper" (shadows intervene when he takes damage, he has that evil eye smart look even though he is but eight years old and so on). Otherwise, he kept everything the same, we even counted him as pretty tall for a human kid, like tall as a dwarf, even, so he remained medium etc.

You could get this in many ways - the mentioned pact, sorcerous magic (someone mentioned that), divine boon (if he gets a level of paladin or cleric)...

I hope this helps. :)

[Inevitability]

Star Wars saga (3.5) had stat adjustments for about every age category.

[Belac93]

I decided to just reflavor lightfoot halfling. If I use the point buy array I can get: 8 Strength, 17 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 11 Intelligence, 8 Wisdom, and 16 Charisma.
I know children are very wise, and so my character would take proficiency in child-like skills, such as: Animal handling, insight, nature, and stealth. But I will not take skills that require a large attention span, such as: Arcana, history, religion, perception, or investigation.
Thanks for all the help! The idea for the bond is great, I'll probably use that.