Is a constitution penalty consistent with the long lifespan of elves?

[Darkness]

What the hell do elves do for 20 hours a day without gaining any knowledge or skills? Play video games?

Maybe that's where their Dex bonus comes from.

 

[Staffan]

What the hell do elves do for 20 hours a day without gaining any knowledge or skills?

Frolic, mostly.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Simplicity:

Also, I wouldn't assume that a high Con means long life. Recent studies on caloric reduction show that you could probably increase your life span considerably by cutting down on the amount of food you eat and staying in a constant state of hunger. I might consider that a Con penalty...

Not to completely sidetrack this thread, but I am currently doing a series behavioral and immunohistochemical experiements in lab that are looking at decreased rates of neurogenesis in mice on a restricted calorie diet. From my data so far, the lesson seems to be "eat less, live longer, be dumber". So I would say Con AND Int penalty.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Originally posted by Simplicity:


Not to completely sidetrack this thread, but I am currently doing a series behavioral and immunohistochemical experiements in lab that are looking at decreased rates of neurogenesis in mice on a restricted calorie diet...

This is a VERY strong contender for my new signature quote!



So does eating directly effect intelligence, or is it really just concentration?

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by BigFreekinGoblinoid:

So does eating directly effect intelligence, or is it really just concentration?

Well, its kinda hard to tell, considering that mice cannot take questionaires or give you much feedback, but the caloric restriction mice are having a considerably harder time learning a Morris water maze task. Basically this entails a tub full of water with a platform just below the surface of the water. With successive trials, when mice figure out where the platform is, their latency to find the platform decreases. The caloric restriction mice don't seem to be finding it any faster (I'm on day 7 out of 10 on the trials), and their laterncies in some cases are growing as their weight continues to drop. They seem to engage in a lot more random searching.

This ties into brain activity in that neurogenesis occurs throughout the life of mammals in two areas of the brain: the lateral ventricles (whose neurons migrate into the olfactory bulbs), and the hippocampus (which is responsible for memory consolidation in large part). In particular, the Morris water maze tests a hippocampal "spatial mapping system" mode of memory. Pilot data I collected last summer suggests that cutting calories by 20% also causes a 20% reduction in neurogenesis in these areas (likely due to slowed mitotic cell division). I wanted to see if there was a functional defecit caused by this neurogenesis, and it looks like there is right now, although all the stats haven't been done on the data to see if it is significant yet.

How was that for long-winded and completely off topic?

PS- feel free to quote that hellacious sentence I wrote if you want.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

How was that for long-winded and completely off topic?

PS- feel free to quote that hellacious sentence I wrote if you want.

Heh! Thanks for the reply- actually very interesting work. Much more interesting than discussing the density migration for DRAM memory types which consume my workday.

Thanks for the permission to use your quote. I'm sure it will present much amoosement for all when read out of context in my every post...

 

[Simplicity]

Originally posted by Simplicity:
So I would say Con AND Int penalty.

Well, yeah... It's not quite lunch time here, and I'm starting
to feel an Int penalty coming on...

 

[Brennin Magalus]

I'd say becuase the stat penalties and bonuses don't blend well. For the classes that want a high int a str penalty is meaningless. Virtually the same is true for chr excpet for the case of the paladin, and a physical combat focussed bard.(which I have yet to see)

If your going to give a benefit to a stat I'd say look at what class that stat is primarily for. Now which stat is still important enough to that class that getting a bonus in your most important stat still balances it to some degree. A +2 int or chr isn't even balanced under this theory with a penalty to str. A +2 int and chr isn't even close to balanced with a penalty to str.

Heck in the case of INT for wizards virtually no penalty really balances well with this. Con comes close, but with a d4 hp its very easy to accept that fact that you just suck in HP and just do your best to just avoid getting hit or anywhere near melle combat.

I think my fellow San Mateo County-ite has a good point. Elves are sorcerers IMC, though, not wizards, so the +2 Int is not necessary, but still I would like to avoid -2 Strength, +2 Cha, which is not recommended. Of course, -2 Con, +2 Cha is said to balance out, provided I can overcome the objection that started this thread.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

How was that for long-winded and completely off topic?

I, for one, found it interesting. I wonder if there are any applications for a probability and statistics PhD student in neuroscience?