Character Age Limits

[AmayaElls]

So I was curious, DMs out there what is the youngest character you would allow in your games? What is the oldest (as in elderly not just elven)? Do you put any restrictions or modifiers on stats for the very young or very old?

For Players out there, what has been your youngest character? Have you played an elderly character? How did it go? Did you give yourself any modifiers for being either young or elderly?



In one campaign I played in our DM seemed amenable to young characters, so I designed a 14yr old (human), I couldn't imagine going much younger. For her I decided to give her the lowest strength I could (8 sadly for point buy) and was going to ask if she could count as a small creature (though that wouldn't change a whole heap). I never ended up playing her, but the idea of this wild forest child, lost and far from home but exploring the world full of wonder was really engaging.

I know young characters, and elderly characters are something each DM will treat differently, as will each Player. What works at one table won't always work at another.

[Sabeta]

My players and myself use something close to our own age because it makes roleplaying easier. However I've had a DM say things like "Studying magic requires a lifetime of work. You can't play a Wizard younger than 40." This same DM was convinced that Rogue's could "dodge" fall damage because the "earth is attacking you and you can see it.", and promptly banned rogues from his game...

I don't have any real restrictions on age though. If you're playing someone who's significantly under age (13 or less) or overage (100+) I will have questions. Both of which boil down to "why are you beginning your adventure NOW", especially since an especially old character may randomly "remember" historical events they were totally a part of.

[BoXOwl]

I think 14 is an okay age to set as the lowest, but again it depends on race. I personally don't think players should be much below the age the PHB sets as "adult" without some penalties such as lower stats for children, and lower physical stats for really old people.

This is mostly because you are going to go out and fight monsters and stuff, and I personally don't think children are too well-equipped to handle that in the long run.

[MrConsideration]

I don't think we really define it beyond broad categories like "Enid the Warlock looks really, really old - she's elderly."

I think if a person wanted to play an adolescent or a pensioner that would be fine, we'd just hand-wave their ability to keep up as extra experience, maturity or a past-life regression or whatever works for that concept.

[Corran]

So I was curious, DMs out there what is the youngest player you would allow in your games? What is the oldest (as in elderly not just elven)? Do you put any restrictions or modifiers on stats for the very young or very old?
As a DM I dont put any restriction regarding age, I always assume that the since a player consciously made an unusual age choice, he will be able to deal with the aspect of roleplaying that particular age. So if he wants to play a child prodigy or a veteran adventurer, I will let him try out his concept. Ofc, I might just point out to him beforehand some of the possible roleplay consequences from the world, that either a vrey young or a very old age would cause. So I would let him try out his unusual choice of an age. The only thing that might make me say no, would be if the rest of the party thought that they wouldnt be able to have either a very young or a vey old character with them in their adventures (for example, if the party consisted of good characters, they might have a problem bringing with them a young child in their adventures).


For Players out there, what has been your youngest character? Have you played an elderly character? How did it go? Did you give yourself any modifiers for being either young or elderly?

My youngest character was an evil 14 years old spoiled brat who belonged to a very sinister and powerful noble family, so he was used to getting away with being an a**hole, and was squiring for the paladin of the party. It took some time but the paladin managed to put some sense into him. A fun character overall, and it created for some fun times. I believe I got that idea because I had rolled for stats and they were too low, so it made sense to play a slightly underpowered character as a young person.

My oldest character was an elf cleric, he was an old elf (550 years old I believe). The main reason was because I wanted this character to have been alive some 500 years ago, when something important to the campaign plot has happened in the world. I remember I had reflected his age in his stats, meaning that I had prioritized my mental stats and I had put very little points in my phsysical stats. Another thing I remember is that I was not using his elven weapon proficiencies (it had been centuries since that character had wielded a longsword or a longbow, so he had simply forgotten), and he was not wearing any armor because he didnt have the stamina or the strength due to his old age.

[RickAllison]

My youngest characters were two brothers of four years. Admittedly, they were Aarakocra so being four years old was old enough that they were both military veterans and they played out more like the standard twenty-something ex-soldier. Heck, one of them had PTSD and the other had developed a drinking problem through all of it.

[NecroDancer]

Well I remember playing a 73 year old half-Orc rogue/Gunslinger, she constantly complained that was was to old for this ****. Her main weapon was a magical shotgun and a dull butterknife. Her name was Granny Snorb

[Ogh_the_Second]

Although most of the characters I've played and seen played were from young adult to middle aged, I've seen a few child prodigies and elderly types as well. I don't see any reason for limits, barring campaign-specific considerations. For most adventures, being able to talk & walk would be helpful. :smallwink:


In one campaign I played in our DM seemed amenable to young characters, so I designed a 14yr old (human), I couldn't imagine going much younger. For her I decided to give her the lowest strength I could (8 sadly for point buy) and was going to ask if she could count as a small creature (though that wouldn't change a whole heap).

I think you underestimate 14-year-olds. :smallsmile: My son's almost 14, he's about 6ft tall, and has more speed and endurance than me, even though he is definitely less strong. He's stronger than his mother, though.

[RickAllison]

Although most of the characters I've played and seen played were from young adult to middle aged, I've seen a few child prodigies and elderly types as well. I don't see any reason for limits, barring campaign-specific considerations. For most adventures, being able to talk & walk would be helpful. :smallwink:



I think you underestimate 14-year-olds. :smallsmile: My son's almost 14, he's about 6ft tall, and has more speed and endurance than me, even though he is definitely less strong. He's stronger than his mother, though.

Oh yes. Adults tend to have a problem where they consider the age of legal maturity to be physical as well. Really, you can get kids as young as middle schoolers who have had an early growth spurt and so have a physically mature body. Especially for females, 14 is right about the age where biologically they are adults. Twelve could even work just fine. It is at ten and under where a DM really can say "You haven't even hit puberty yet." Well, mostly. Fourth and fifth grade are right around when the first evidence can show up, but those are definitely early-birds.

[pwykersotz]

I have no hard restrictions or alterations to stats. Though I generally lay down the expectation that your abnormally aged character will use a common sense stat distribution. Fortunately, my players are all on the same page regarding "common sense" so I haven't had any issues. But the vast majority of the time, people choose either a character right at the age of majority (16-20) or they choose to play someone older. I haven't had a child adventurer in a long time.

[Joe the Rat]

4th grade worked pretty well, though you could start players younger with the right kids. We had a 3rd grader in our FLGS game who did just fine, though he was munchkiny in every definition of the word.

As for characters, I haven't had anyone starting below "teenager" or the teenager equivalent for the species. Adolesence would be my low cut-off, as I don't feel like mucking with size-category shifts, and it would be extremely irresponsible for a group of adults to drag a child into dangerous situations when they should be working the coal mines or factories as other boys their age do. On the high side, "not dead" is good enough, but you should consider having your stats reflect your concept. "Extremely well preserved" and "Badass Grandpa" are valid concepts.

[R.Shackleford]

So I was curious, DMs out there what is the youngest player you would allow in your games? What is the oldest (as in elderly not just elven)? Do you put any restrictions or modifiers on stats for the very young or very old?

For Players out there, what has been your youngest character? Have you played an elderly character? How did it go? Did you give yourself any modifiers for being either young or elderly?



In one campaign I played in our DM seemed amenable to young characters, so I designed a 14yr old (human), I couldn't imagine going much younger. For her I decided to give her the lowest strength I could (8 sadly for point buy) and was going to ask if she could count as a small creature (though that wouldn't change a whole heap). I never ended up playing her, but the idea of this wild forest child, lost and far from home but exploring the world full of wonder was really engaging.

I know young characters, and elderly characters are something each DM will treat differently, as will each Player. What works at one table won't always work at another.

Adulthood is the youngest, or 18, whichever.

The oldest? As a DM I shouldn't be limiting the creativity of my players with ano aspect of their character that is so minor.

Let them be that 100 year old human that kicks butt and takes names and gives those names to other people who's butts theyou have kicked.

[rudy]

So I was curious, DMs out there what is the youngest player you would allow in your games?
I don't GM for anyone under 21 anymore. Occasionally you find a good teenaged roleplayer, but they're too often annoying, pushing, socially underdeveloped, or very ill-mannered.

Plus, I want to be able to drink.

[Corran]

I don't GM for anyone under 21 anymore. Occasionally you find a good teenaged roleplayer, but they're too often annoying, pushing, socially underdeveloped, or very ill-mannered.

Plus, I want to be able to drink.
I believe the op meant player characters and not actual players, though I can see how you got confused.

[rudy]

I believe the op meant player characters and not actual players, though I can see how you got confused.
...

:smallbiggrin: This is what I get for only reading the first sentence.

[Sigreid]

While I have played a child a few times my characters are usually whatever their racial equivalent to 16-25 would be. This is purely because that was an exceptionally good age range. :)

[AmayaElls]

Although most of the characters I've played and seen played were from young adult to middle aged, I've seen a few child prodigies and elderly types as well. I don't see any reason for limits, barring campaign-specific considerations. For most adventures, being able to talk & walk would be helpful. :smallwink:



I think you underestimate 14-year-olds. :smallsmile: My son's almost 14, he's about 6ft tall, and has more speed and endurance than me, even though he is definitely less strong. He's stronger than his mother, though.

I don't really underestimate 14yr olds, I work with children. In her backstory she'd been travelling on her own since the age of 10 and had basically grown up "free-range" in a forest before that. I chose fourteen because it was the age when she was mostly physically mature so the party had a little less reason to dump her at the nearest church or orphanage. Also her ability to turn into a direwolf probably would have helped too.


...

:smallbiggrin: This is what I get for only reading the first sentence.

And this is what I get for not being clear. Though it is interesting to hear what age people think D&D can be suitable for. I used to work at a primary school after school care and was trying to introduce D&D to the seniors there. I had to leave though before I could see it through properly.

I will edit the first place to replace player with character though for clarity.

[rudy]

Though it is interesting to hear what age people think D&D can be suitable for.
I should be clear that I think D&D can be suitable to anyone old enough to do very basic math, and the ability to keep track of things. I'd probably use a different tabletop RPG for anyone below preteen, though.

I was simply making a statement about who *I* would run a game for. Because the game you run for adults is different than the one you run for teenagers.

[JumboWheat01]

My DM prefers that all our characters are adults as per the racial standards, and for the most part, we play young adults. So far the only older characters have been a gruff old dwarf fighter and a practically ancient elf wizard. My halfling rogue had so much fun picking on the dwarf, calling him "old man" and all that.


This same DM was convinced that Rogue's could "dodge" fall damage because the "earth is attacking you and you can see it.", and promptly banned rogues from his game...

I don't know if this logic is genius or out-right dumb, but it's certainly funny!

[Mellack]

I once played a child who was physically about 8 years old. However, he was mentally wiser as he was a fair bit older than that. He was a vampire. He was also very pissed that the vampires had turned him so that he would never be able to grow up. Made for a fun character.

[JumboWheat01]

I once played a child who was physically about 8 years old. However, he was mentally wiser as he was a fair bit older than that. He was a vampire. He was also very pissed that the vampires had turned him so that he would never be able to grow up. Made for a fun character.

That sounds a little like Babette (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Babette). A LITTLE. She was definitely more accepting of her gift, but still, child vampire.

[RickAllison]

That sounds a little like Babette (http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Babette). A LITTLE. She was definitely more accepting of her gift, but still, child vampire.

She was a little order than 8 (10 to 12, probably), but I think it was also that she had found why her curse was very useful.

[Plaguescarred]

I haven't had age play a factor in any 5E game yet. I'd probably use older edition mechanic if it was the case, such as the AD&D 2nd edition penalties.

[mgshamster]

If you're playing someone who's significantly... ...overage (100+) I will have questions. Both of which boil down to "why are you beginning your adventure NOW", especially since an especially old character may randomly "remember" historical events they were totally a part of.

Because I was put into a magically induced sleep for 100 years, which also slowed down my aging. The last thing I remember is trying to retrieve a magic powder from a group of goblins, and then the bag ripped open and I accidentally breathed the powder in.

Now, 100 years later, I'm just waking up, physically the equivalent of a 70 year old.

:)

[TripleD]

I think you could have tween or younger adventurers as long as the backstory makes sense.

Anyone ever read "The Dungeoneers" by John David Anderson? It takes place at a Hogwarts-esque school, only instead of training just wizards, they train entire parties of kids in the fine art of looting treasure from monster infested lairs. The main characters (a rogue, mage, barbarian, and druid) are all 11-13 years old.

[Laserlight]

On the high end, I played a pixie who implied that he was over six thousand years old, and had disliked Lolth even before she betrayed Corellon.

Since pixie heads don't have much room, most of his memory was in the equivalent of compressed files and not normally accessable, so he didn't really remember much more of history than the other PCs did.

Or at least that's what he claimed. But his concepts of Reality and Truth were quite fey.

[uraniumrooster]

Generally I don't have many players who want to play characters younger than 15-16, although I did once allow an 8 year old street urchin in a short run campaign I did. It was a Thieves' Guild campaign, and the kid was the leader of the guild's contingent of street kids who worked as pickpockets, lookouts, informants and messengers. I didn't put any explicit limits on stats, but the player built him with 8 Str and Con anyway (Dex and Cha primary stats). It turned out to be a really fun campaign, and the child character was a great addition - the player did an excellent job RPing a street kid who was too shrewd for his years, but still had some of the naivete you'd expect from an 8 year old.

Basically, I'm open to most ages if there's a good, setting-appropriate reason for it. If someone wanted to play an octogenarian human fighter just starting out on their adventuring career, I'd probably say no (although, a Don Quixote type character could work, as long as the player understood they'd actually be quite bad at fighting... maybe a Lore Bard who insists they're a Knight and wears heavy armor even though they're not proficient). On the other end of the spectrum, I would probably disallow an 8 year old Wizard, since I usually assume a young Wizard's arcane education takes place around middle & high school age, and potentially extends even later than that depending on their aptitude. A very young Sorcerer whose powers were manifesting early could be an interesting character though, especially if they went Wild Magic and RP'd as if they didn't know what was happening to them or how to control it (alternatively, it could be a Wild Sorcerer who is actually an adult, but experienced a wild surge that caused them to lose a decade).

[GlenSmash!]

My wife plays a Monk based on Aang from Avatar the last Air bender. We wanted youth to be a big part of her character. She's young and fresh out of the monastery and while she's a skilled martial artist she is emotionally and socially naive. We put her at 15 years old (human) but we could have gone down to 12 without any issues.

[SmokingSkull]

For me I don't really play younger characters, it's just simply not that appealing to me to play someone that much younger than myself. That being said however I love playing older ones, especially the far out there types that could be hundreds or even thousands of years old. The current character I'm playing is more middle aged going on old (Goliath Fighter/Barb, 45 years old). As for modifiers to my stats I don't really change them just because of age, I prefer to stat my char based on their history/background/backstory and how they developed from birth to whatever age I start them out as. I have no problem roleplaying their mindset however, and that is more the reason I'm drawn to play them than using numbers to reinforce it (After all, even people in their peak mess up bad a.k.a. the d20 is a swingy mistress to everyone old, young and in between).

But that's just my two copper, take it for what you will.

[Aldarin]

My youngest character was a human sorcerer. He was age 20, but then on a wild magic roll became nine years younger, so at the end of that campaign, my level-20 sorcerer was going through puberty!

[Sigreid]

So, thinking on it I did run a Beyond the Supernatural game once that the premise was that all of the players were completely ordinary 13 year old suburban American girls. It was a blast. Players were encouraged to talk about boys, giggle, scream etc. All the things any preteen would would do.

Beyond the Supernatural is a supernatural horror game, in case you don't know.

[JumboWheat01]

My youngest character was a human sorcerer. He was age 20, but then on a wild magic roll became nine years younger, so at the end of that campaign, my level-20 sorcerer was going through puberty!

Oh, gods, that's gotta be horrible, going through puberty multiple times.

[SmokingSkull]

My youngest character was a human sorcerer. He was age 20, but then on a wild magic roll became nine years younger, so at the end of that campaign, my level-20 sorcerer was going through puberty!

That's one reason I don't play any char younger than say in their prime or middle aged, going through puberty for me irl was awkward enough as is. To go through it again in game? Yeah, I am SO glad I'm done with that stage of my life...lol

[Vogonjeltz]

So I was curious, DMs out there what is the youngest character you would allow in your games? What is the oldest (as in elderly not just elven)? Do you put any restrictions or modifiers on stats for the very young or very old?

As with stories, heroes could be any age (For example, Stranger Things has 4 kid heroes, 3 high school age heroes, and 2 late 30s-40s adult heroes).

That being said, it has to be sensible within the confines of the story. If there isn't a good reason to be found in the narrative then there's no reason the characters shouldn't simply be between the (for a human example) ages of 18-70 give or take.

Part of that is because at a certain point, a 90 year old protagonist is going to stress disbelief, as would a too young protagonist.

Again, this can be thematic. If we're doing some kind of one-shot murder mystery set in the small town of Blahdity blah or Old Man Tillers place, then by all means, play Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

But if it's a palace intrigue or war scenario? It probably would be odd to have kids hanging around. It's not like anyone is going to invite them to the ball, and no adult would take them seriously or allow them anywhere near a battle.

[Tanarii]

I tell players over 20 that they should start their character between about 20 and their actual age. For non-humans, between 20 and their pro-rated actual age (with humans live to 100). If they want to calculate the prorate exactly, that's 20 + [RealAge-20]*[(RaceMaxAge-20)/80], otherwise just eyeball that ****. (The reason I say 20 is most races use approximately that as the baseline for physically mature.)

Being a math-y kind of guy, I'd calculate. I'm almost 41. The age range I'd recommend for myself if I were a player:
Human 20 to 41
Dwarf 20 to 107
Elven 20 to 212
Halfling 20 to 80

(Plus I point out to keep in mind that others of their race will consider them still socially a 'child' if they're under certain age, for certain races.)\

For players under about 16 or 17, I recommend they start their character at 16 to 17 or so.