Children Stats

[Fieari]

I hope to run a game soon involving children as PCs... I would allow standard classes and things. Mostly I'm interested in the roleplaying of "inferiors moving through a superior world"... it's the "I'm doing something important that no one else knows about, or would likely believe if I told them" aspect. And the "prevailing against impossible odds" thing as well... kids defeating (evil) grownups just has something... epic about it.

At any rate, I can't find any official rules around for generating statistics for children characters, even NPCs. A few things come to mind as house rules, but first I wanted to see if there were any REAL rules that I hadn't seen. And if not, some input on what house rules should be used... I was thinking that "drop one hitdie size, str-2" would work well for starters, but then, that might not be enough? I'm not sure what needs to be done in this respect...

 

[Crothian]

There are some in Quint Sorcerer by Mongoose

 

[Fieari]

How detailed? Are they GOOD rules? I'm on a limited budget...

 

[dcollins]

From the d20 Modern SRD, section "Ordinaries":

Children

Children (newborns to age 11) are handled differently from other characters. They do not have classes or levels. They begin with the same ability score package as ordinaries (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), but their ability scores are reduced as follows: –3 Str, –1 Dex, –3 Con, –1 Int, –1 Wis, –1 Cha.

Children have 1d4 hit points plus their Constitution modifier (minimum 1 hit point). They have no skills, feats, action points, or occupations. Their base attack bonus is +0, they have a +0 modifier on all saving throws (plus any modifiers for high or low ability scores), and their Reputation bonus is +0. Children have a +0 modifier to Defense and a normal speed of 20 feet. Children have no effective attacks and should be treated as noncombatants.

When a child turns 12, he or she is considered a young adult and takes his or her first level in one of the six basic classes. At that point, the character becomes an ordinary (or hero, in some cases).

 

[Olive]

rom the d20 Modern SRD:

Children
Children (newborns to age 11) are handled differently from other characters. They do not have classes or levels. They begin with the same ability score package as ordinaries (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), but their ability scores are reduced as follows: –3 Str, –1 Dex, –3 Con, –1 Int, –1 Wis, –1 Cha.
Children have 1d4 hit points plus their Constitution modifier (minimum 1 hit point). They have no skills, feats, action points, or occupations. Their base attack bonus is +0, they have a +0 modifier on all saving throws (plus any modifiers for high or low ability scores), and their Reputation bonus is +0. Children have a +0 modifier to Defense and a normal speed of 20 feet. Children have no effective attacks and should be treated as noncombatants.
When a child turns 12, he or she is considered a young adult and takes his or her first level in one of the six basic classes. At that point, the character becomes an ordinary (or hero, in some cases).

edit: Arrrgh, beaten to the punch!

 

[Crothian]

How detailed? Are they GOOD rules? I'm on a limited budget...

They do the job, but the ones listed above will probably do just as good.

 

[Fieari]

Cool. I'd, of course, have to house rule children having classes, but that'd be the point of the specific campaign. Or perhaps I'll work out some "Children Classes" based off the base classes that they can take.

 

[Krieg]

Remember that most children are going to be small.

A Small character gets a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks.

A Small character's carrying capacity is three-quarters of that of a Medium character.

A Small character generally moves about two-thirds as fast as a Medium character.

A Small character must use smaller weapons than a
Medium character.