Pregnancy and newborns...

[Legatus Legionis]

To date, any such things always happened to an NPC, not a PC.

Sure, we had an 18 year old male Barbarian fail his 19 constitution score when getting it on with an 18 year old female barbarian with a 18 comeliness score.

Boy oh boy did the group have a ten-twenty minute laughing fit over that encounter.

Otherwise, my longest played PC has to date sired a dozen off-springs.

So no, we have never had a PC get pregnant.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

You seem to think that pregnant women having to work hard is some sort of rare occurrence on the level with performing surgery on yourself. It isn't. My mother worked as a cleaner up until a few days before I was born. A good friend of mine works in childcare, also worked right up until a few days before labour (4 times!) My pump instructor was still teaching classes (4 a week!) up until two weeks before she was due. These are all physically demanding jobs.

And these stories come from the rich, well-to-do West. In developing countries many women don't get the luxury of things like maternity leave. Women work hard as long as they can and get back to work as soon as they can.

Does pregnancy slow a person down? Not at all in the early stages. Somewhat in later stages. Can a heavily pregnant woman say to herself "naughty word that!" and power on through discomfort to do what needs to be done? Yes. Obviously. And all of this before we assume that PCs are made of sterner stuff (in the classic heroic mould) than we mere mortals.

If you want to give a penalty to attack because of a large belly and out of whack abdominal muscles?* Go for it. But if you're going to be this " realistic" don't forget to give pregnant women increased hit points & fort saves to represent better tolerance for pain.

As for the penalties you list to mental prowess, really? "Baby brain" is not a real thing. A pregnant woman in a dangerous situation is going to have more Will** to fight and survive than most.


*You can compensate for this with back muscles. Tiring? Sure. But you know, higher pain tolerance and all that.
** capitalised to indicate it's being used in the game jargon sense, as well as the common English usage.

I think that pregnant women being able to be highly effective murder hobos for hire that can keep up with the same group of people they did before being pregnant as well as they did is not in any way a thing. And im right. Can they maybe pull it off? Yes. Are they as good at it as when they arent pregnant? I find that insulting to non pregnant women. No. Not a chance.

Fun side note: pregnancy (especially the first one) has some interesting implications for future athleticism. The steroidal augmentation kind. Due to the hormonal effects of pregnancies and their effects on muscle growth when properly leveraged there are many sports in which the woman who medals gold in the olympics is often one that recently had her first child. In some sports this is quite pronounced. For instance, the world record holder for the woman's marathon is almost always held by a woman who in the last couple years had her first child. They literally out perform childless comparables. After pregnancy of course. The more you know...

 

[uzirath]

On the realism front, campaigns that feature pregnancy prominently will likely have a cascade of other important changes. The economic demand for birth control and sex-related magic would make a huge market in any supposedly realistic setting with real magic. Hedge wizards and magically gifted midwives would be features. I would expect potions and magic items related to that. Wealthy families would have long ago commissioned the development of spells or magic items to assist with the challenges of pregnancy. Gods or goddesses of motherhood would certainly provide their clerics with a host of spells to assist with this too. Perhaps it would be considered reckless endangerment not to purchase a Girdle of Uterine Protection from the temple of the fertility goddess after a confirmed pregnancy.

 

[Eltab]

I've never seen a pregnancy played out in-game. Until this thread, I had never heard of one, either.

My groups (since high school / college years) often include a parent / child pair. I have no problem with just staying away from this minefield. There are too many ways to make somebody uncomfortable.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

On the realism front, campaigns that feature pregnancy prominently will likely have a cascade of other important changes. The economic demand for birth control and sex-related magic would make a huge market in any supposedly realistic setting with real magic. Hedge wizards and magically gifted midwives would be features. I would expect potions and magic items related to that. Wealthy families would have long ago commissioned the development of spells or magic items to assist with the challenges of pregnancy. Gods or goddesses of motherhood would certainly provide their clerics with a host of spells to assist with this too. Perhaps it would be considered reckless endangerment not to purchase a Girdle of Uterine Protection from the temple of the fertility goddess after a confirmed pregnancy.

matter of fact, we've dabbled in this.

Earlier in this thread i even mentioned three wishes that were made relevant to a pregnancy.

That said yes. A realistic setting will have magic relevant to pregnancies. Ours does. And it can and will chamge a lot of things.

But the disadvantages of the condition still exist (in a vacuum) just as the disadvantages of having your leg torn off do without proper magical healing.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I've never seen a pregnancy played out in-game. Until this thread, I had never heard of one, either.

My groups (since high school / college years) often include a parent / child pair. I have no problem with just staying away from this minefield. There are too many ways to make somebody uncomfortable.

this is a very wise course of action. Just not poking the hornet's nest and avoiding the whole thing.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Are they as good at it as when they arent pregnant? I find that insulting to non pregnant women. No. Not a chance.

Insulting to women who aren't pregnant? WTF? I'm out.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Insulting to women who aren't pregnant? WTF? I'm out.

Um...yeah? Women arent all as incapable at things as pregnant women are. To say otherwise is well...to have a low opinion of women's default capabilities. To assume that they are all no better capable than a pregnant one.

Its like saying a similar thing about a man compared to a man with a temporary debilitating effect of some kind. Its actually exactly the same.

 

[Shiroiken]

I've had only 1 PC become pregnant in decades of gaming, but numerous NPCs have (the fact that I've primarily played with guys plays a major role in both of these). The one PC became so from rape by a minotaur (we have a mature NSFW group), and she chose to terminate the pregnancy using herbal medicines.

Under normal circumstances, I'd really not worry about it too much. Given how much activity a pregnant woman can perform until the third trimester, that gives 6 months easily of activity (although I don't understand the mutation you refer to). In the last trimester, you might start performing more social adventures, where heavy activity isn't an issue. Eventually you should have the events of the campaign stall out, leaving no adventuring long enough for the pregnancy to come to term, then the PC can continue to return to adventuring as a "working mom." Obviously these time frames are based on human timeframes, and should be lengthened as needed for longer lived races.

 

[delph]

I'v add some facts about our game in first post. And I'm surprised how big discussion is here.