Effects of aging vs youth-restoring magic

[jcbdragon]

The DMG lists several effects of aging, such as decreases in CON, STR and DEX, as well as increases in INT and WIS.

If a character ages to the point that these effects kick in, then gets some sort of youth-restoring effect, what happens to the changes in stats? Do the physical ones revert to their more youthful levels? Do the mental ones remain?

For example, a character with all 10's for stats ages until his physical stats have all dropped by one and his mental stats have all increased by one. So now we have:

Str 9
Dex 9
Con 9
Int 11
Wis 11
Cha 10

His youth is magically restored. Which of the following reflects his new stats?

Option 1: unchanged

Option 2: all stats revert to their original (unaged) values, all 10's

Option 3: Mental stats remain altered, physical stats reset to original values
Str 10
Dex 10
Con 10
Int 11
Wis 11
Cha 10

Option 4: something else entirely?

 

[jcbdragon]

And as a follow-up, what effect to Rings of Regeneration have on physical aging? The tissues never break down, so does the body age physically while such a ring is worn?

 

[Vespucci]

Ring of Regeneration is the easy one. "It's magic, I don't gotta explain nothin'." More seriously, the Ring can only restore the character to the condition that the laws of the Gods or magic or Xagyg intended him or her to be in at that age. In other words, aging is as much a magical as a physical process. (That's why raise dead and similar magics don't work on people who died of old age, and why youth-restoring magics are typically quite rare.)

When and if these effects do come into play, I would advocate having them reverse penalties but leave bonuses unaffected. The bonuses reflect the benefits of experience, and should no more be removed than the levels during the years restored to the character.

(In my heart of hearts, this is one of the reasons that I don't think that Wisdom is a very good ability, but that's a whole different argument.)

 

[Dandu]

You could argue that the mental bonuses from aging are lost.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Can you make reference to which particular youth-restoring magic ability would be used in this scinario?

 

[nijineko]

generally speaking, any effect which ends in the result of moving from one age category to another incurs the change in stats, regardless of direction of movement, unless the effect specifically states otherwise.

i was fond of the potion of immortality which detailed its affects on the aging process, every 100 years after you've hit your max age category, you incur an additional -1 to all physical stats and a +1 to all mental stats... or something to that effect. (from memory)

it kinda made more sense to me than the current setup where you have certain races living for so much longer than others, but they all get the exact same bonuses, just at different times. yet another example of illogical effects in the rules. if a race lives so much longer than another, then it should get wiser from the extended experience, at least in theory. ^^ anyway.

the interaction between aging, leveling, and age categories are not that well detailed, imho.

 

[anest1s]

Why to remove the bonus? Because what gives the wisdom and the intelligence is the new weakness....someone who does not age, no matter how long he lives, gets no bonus. This means that the physical age is tied to this bonus, and when the body is restored, the bonuses should also be lost.

Why not to remove it? Because once you feel how it feels to be weaker, and once you start thinking more in order to survive, you will keep the same mentality even though you are younger. But will you actually be able to? If a 100years old barbarian gets restored to his teen age...would he be wiser than what he was?

I would give the player the option to either keep both bonuses and penalties from old age or I would let him have the bonuses- except every time he was tempted to do something childish, not wise etc he would have to resist (will save or RP) or lose the +s. If the teen barbarian starts repeating past mistakes, its obvious that aging did no good to him.

 

[El Mahdi]

I'd go with option 3 as there seems to be no specific rule covering this (therefore no pesky RAW to deal with). We are allowed to model this on the real world without causing a rules conflict.

Changes to Physical Attributes are directly linked to aging. Specifically decreases in hormone levels, metabolic changes, accumulated injury and cellular damage, etc. The increase in Mental Attributes is less to do with actual Aging, as it is to do with years of experience (but independent of levels).

The D&D modelling of increases in Mental Attributes and decreases in Physical Attributes for aging, is fairly realistic when compared to the real world. Though one might be able to make an argument that Intelligence doesn't really increase, just Wisdom does - though having both increase is a fair gamist trade for the loss in Physical Attributes.

In the real world, our brains do lose some of their ability to learn new things as we age, though to much less affect than previously thought. Science believed for a long time that you lose the ability to make new neural pathways (which is basically what is happening when you "learn" something new) as you get older. Now they know that this process keeps going until the day you die, though it does slow down a bit. But even though this process slows down, our ability to problem solve and process information actually gets better with age, as these pathways and processes in the brain continually become more efficient (at least the ones we use - knowledge really is a case of use it or lose it - usually). (But also remember, in the real world "Memory" is not specifically linked to "Intelligence" - case in point: people with Eidetic Memories (perfect recall) have the same statistical spread of IQ's as the rest of mankind.)

But since this isn't specifically a thing linked to "Age" but rather to accumulated experience, I'd say that someone who has recieved some kind of magical age restoration would retain the improved mental abilities - along with gaining back the physical losses that aging inflicted on them. The problem with the rationale behind losing the gained Mental improvements, is it essentially means that the neural pathways one has gained over time has regressed or been erased due to the magic - in which case any skills, attack bonuses, etc., learned since the improvement due to age should also disappear. That doesn't make much sense to me, and seems unfair as far as game play goes (IMO).

 

[Jack Simth]

When and if these effects do come into play, I would advocate having them reverse penalties but leave bonuses unaffected. The bonuses reflect the benefits of experience, and should no more be removed than the levels during the years restored to the character.

Does this mean that Elves get experienced much more slowly than humans, and humans are rather dim compared to Kobolds?

 

[Vespucci]

Does this mean that Elves get experienced much more slowly than humans, and humans are rather dim compared to Kobolds?

I'm happy to say that Elves take more experience to learn things than humans. That's something with a proud heritage in the game.

Regarding kobolds and other savage humanoids, it's not until fairly recently that people started rolling such things up as characters. One consequence of abandoning stern Lawful defenders of the wreckage of civilization and replacing them with Liberal Good appeasers who get most of the XP from negotiation.

Have I mentioned that your characters should get haircuts, sensible armor, and real jobs (like "caller" and "mapper") yet?