Pathfinder 1E PCs having kids

[Gfreak2x9]

I am a DM that gets pretty heavy into the science of the game so when I am asked a question I like to back it up with as much rules and facts as I can. This particular question is reguarding the rules behind PCs having children. How do we determin the child’s ability scores? What if two PCs have a child? Are there rules for this??? Do the PCs high stats effect the stats of the child?

 

[Crothian]

I'd use the same method the parents used. There are no official rules for it, I'm not sure there are good rules for stating kids.

 

[Kinak]

I'm pretty sure this is entirely in the hands of the GM. You're kind of on your own.

That said, I'd suggest checking out Ultimate Campaign. It has some rules in there for very young characters. I'm not sure if it has what you need, but that's where the rules would be if they exist.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Celebrim]

I am a DM that gets pretty heavy into the science of the game so when I am asked a question I like to back it up with as much rules and facts as I can. This particular question is reguarding the rules behind PCs having children. How do we determin the child’s ability scores? What if two PCs have a child? Are there rules for this??? Do the PCs high stats effect the stats of the child?

Woot! You know you've had a healthy campaign when it goes long enough that pregnancies and offspring are a legitimate issue.

Back in my 1e days when this first happened, I created complex rules around determining the children's attributes and personalities based on a combination of genetics (attributes and alignment of the parents), destiny (level of the parents), and astrology (when the kid was born).

Basically, attributes are rolled randomly from dice pools. For each 6 points of the combined ability score of both parents, you get one dice. So if the parents strength sums to 24, the kid gets 4 dice (take the best three) to determine strength. If the parents both have 18's in intelligence, the kid gets 6 dice (take the best three) to determine intelligence. You get 1 bonus dice in all attributes for each parent that is at least a 5th level character, and 2 bonus dice for each parent that is at least a 10th level character - provided that the parents offer appropriate sacrifices in honor of their child's birth and properly conduct all rituals around the child's naming. These represent the blessings of the gods, fairy god mothers, ancestors and other concerned parties.

This will tend to generate children with rather high ability scores if the PC's marry well. Heroes begat heroes (or villains, depending on the personality).

Alignment was determined randomly from a table, with the entries being things like 'alignment of father', 'alignment of mother', 'one step more lawful than father (or same if already lawful)', 'one step more evil than mother (or same if already evil)', 'two steps more good than father...', and so forth. The most common results obviously would favor the child inheriting the parents predispositions.

Personality and to a small extent attributes were further modified by the zodiac and by the planet the child was born under (zodiac following the calendar, and planet being determined randomly). Personality was determined by slightly modifying the tables for randomly determining NPC alignment in the 1e DMG - reorganizing them so that linear modifiers made more sense. Each sign or planet gave modifiers to the rolls. Ability scores had a small chance of going up or down depending on the sign born under (Leo for example gave something like a 10% chance of +1 strength, a 10% chance of +1 charisma, and 10% chance of -1 wisdom. Cancer on the other hand gave mostly negatives, but boosted the chance of naturally occurring psionics under the 1e appendix rules.)

Modified for 3e, I'd probably have rules for determining the 'Traits' of the child.

Of course, these represent the adult stats of the character. There were also rules for determining the stats of the character at any age given the stats of the mature character, as well as rules for children acquiring XP from training and education. So, you get to know just how dangerous your 9 year old is or isn't.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I am not aware of any published rules beyond the recently published young characters section for PF.

If I were trying to do this, I would generate the new character's ability scores the same way the parents' were generated (use the same array/point buy/dice method). I would make efforts to make the new character resemble the parents, but would not create many hard restrictions.

After all, a child is not simply the average of his or her parents. Even the sheer genetics are much more complicated than that, and environmental factors are likely to create even more differentiation.

In the real world, it is common for some personality characteristics or behaviors to skip generations. For example, children of very strict parents tend to react by being less strict parents themselves, creating a third generation that craves structure and returns to the tendencies of their grandparents. In a D&D context, I could easily imagine that the children of two fighters might despise being in the trenches and would aspire to learn magic, while the children of two clerics might forgo religion and discipline and become barbarians.

I don't think it's always appropriate for the parents to directly influence children, and to me, it makes the most sense to simply create the child character the way you want it and develop a rationale for how it got to be that way, rather than trying to create a systematized process for inheritance of traits. After all, you probably didn't develop your PCs based on their parents.

 

[Ramaster]

Ok, I'll just say it...

The Book of Erotic Fantasy has some great rules for conceptions, pregnancies and related stuff. It is 3.5, but highly compatible with Pathfinder.

 

[Celebrim]

Ok, I'll just say it...

The Book of Erotic Fantasy has some great rules for conceptions, pregnancies and related stuff. It is 3.5, but highly compatible with Pathfinder.

Perhaps it was just because I had my own biases and expectations based on the fact I'd had to create rules for conceptions, pregnancies, and children, or perhaps I just could never get over the title and the illustrations, but I really wasn't that impressed with the BoEF when I looked at it.

Frankly, I thought I could have done a better job. And I probably would have chosen a different title and emphasis - like maybe 'Fantasy Dynasty Handbook'. I've never been much of a believer that controversy for its own sake sells.

 

[brvheart]

I only have had one character (well it had to be two didn't it it?) actually have a child that ended up as a character. The father was an NPC and the mother was a PC. I didn't worry much about the stats of the parents for rolling him up, especially since 20+ years had passed and the new PC was now 3rd Edition while the parents were 1E.
I think this is one of those areas that one shouldn't look to having rules for and just wing it. Don't we have enough specialized rules since 3.x?

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

Ultimate Campaign: Young Characters (pg 194-195)

From the Random Young Staring Ages table, footnote 1) During youth, +2 Dex, -2 to Str, Con and Wis

 

[Celebrim]

I only have had one character (well it had to be two didn't it it?) actually have a child that ended up as a character.

I've never managed to make it that far though admittedly it would be very cool. I find that in general, game time passes much more slowly than real time. Even with the occasional, "Five years of peace and prosperity pass, until the 5th month of the year 1645, when...", I've never had a campaign that went so long that even the children of the PC's were grown into PC's themselves. My present campaign is progressing at about 1 game month for 1 real life year. I suspect on those terms, even children are out of the question.

I think this is one of those areas that one shouldn't look to having rules for and just wing it. Don't we have enough specialized rules since 3.x?

Keep in mind I wrote 5 pages of house rules on this question for 1e way back in the early 90's. Specialized rules are nothing new. They occur any time you are trying to adjudicate something that lies outside the normal framework. The problem with winging it is that winging it tends to be more predictable and less satisfying than the results of well crafted specialized rules. Rules help you overcome your biases, your stereotypes, and your easy answers. They are the well spring of creativity. You don't have to be hidebound to your rules, but if you don't have rules you are almost always hidebound to something else far more rigid.

I've been playing this game in some form or the other for more than 30 years now. If you think 'winging it' is superior to planning, you are usually fooling yourself. The best DMs I've met at 'winging it' where the ones that planned the most, and the DMs that praised their own ability to 'wing it' were consistently inferior. Being a DM is hard work. There is no way around that. Rules in my experience ease that work; they don't add to it. Getting someone else to write the rules is gold in your hand (which is why I'll put 'gold' in the hands of a writer in exchange for good rules).