Old-Fogy Characters

[shilsen]

Here's a related rules question. Are the penalties for the "3 stages of aging" cumulative or separate? I'm not sure how to interpret the rules as written. I've somehow always assumed it was cumulative (-1, -2, -3... so if you played a Venerable guy you'd get a whopping total of -6 to your physical stats, but only +3 to your mental stats, which makes being aged actually an overall bad thing as opposed to something every wizard would want).

Or is this a difference between 3.5 and earlier editions?

Jason

You're correct - they are cumulative.

As for the original question, I'm currently running an old wizard in an online game. The PCs started at 12th lvl, so my background was that of a retired adventurer who was coming out for one last fling.

 

[Aaron L]

I liked in 1E the starting ages for wizards and illusionists were at least in thier mid to late 30s. Magic is hard to learn, mang.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

We did this at Gen Con this past summer for the Arcana Evolved tournament. On Round Two, the PCs were middle aged. They roleplayed it well - there were some hysterical and well-played "hot flash" moments from a couple female players at my table, for example, and a couple "midlife crisis" comments from some of the male players, plus a lot of other "aging banter". Then in Round Three, the PCs were ancient. That threw them for a loop.

 

[Nellisir]

I had an old guy called Eb. He started adventuring after a long life of shopkeeping. He'd made a bargain with his god that is she spared his wifes life from a terrible disease he'd dedicate himself to helping others. His wife died. He took up adventuring, knowing it would result in a quick end.

joe b.

I had a character with a very similar backstory. He was a very content farmer, until his wife was murdered by bandits. He, his brothers, his cousins, his uncles, and everyone else they could gather took care of the bandits, but there just wasn't anything really left in life for him. He wandered a bit, came across a monastary dedicated the goddess of defenders and protection, and became a priest. He was 14th level the last time I played him, and wracked with guilt -- he wants to die, and be reunited with his wife, but dying (in his view) would be a failure to protect the innocent, and make him unworthy of her.

Bleak, but one of my favorite characters.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm playing a middle-aged cleric who used to be a high-level mage... until he got all his levels burned away by a vampire (it's a dm-approved backstory, so he didn't really miss 17 saves in a row, and he also didn't become a vampire-spawn for some reason...) So now he's a 42-year old 2nd level cleric out for revengs against all undead.

Heh. And that's not dissimilar to Toad's backstory either. He was a powerful wizard/archmage, but whatever earned him the honor of becoming a ruathar ("elf-friend") and the respect of the celestial Court of Stars cost him most of his levels and apparently a good chunk of memory. The only person that really knows what happened is his familiar Molly, a coure eladrin.

 

[Drowbane]

I played a Venerable Elven (subrace with the +2 Int) Wizard named Saevel (short version of his name ) the Twig (he insisted, it was "the Sage"... but people insisted on the Twig ) He made it to 3rd lvl!! He had 3hp!

 

[Kuld]

I was going to write a short story about two salty elderly dwarves.
It was a blast just to sit down and think about the story, possible leads and character development. Actually, I wouldn’t mind playing them as PCs one bit.

Maybe I’ll start again, my son’s still asleep and I should take advantage of the peace and quiet.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

I've run a oneshot for elderly characters at a Hive gathering last year. The premise was they were all old, retired adventuring buddies (each now a lord in the same kingdom). Crothian (Cleric), Maldur (Monk), Terraism (sorcerer), Steve Jung (Paladin/Dwarven Defender) all decided to play crotchety dwarves.

They sat around for an hour roleplaying a poker game between the characters at the beginning and discussing how to get to the adventure. They decided Teleport was too bumpy and, if they took a carriage, they could continue the game on the way. They talked about their grandkids (Crothian's grand daughter had been teething on the Mace of Moradin [god changed from St Cuthbert]).

It was a blast of a game, they complained about arthritis, bitched about people not respecting their elders, and beat up some naughty elven vampires and the turned cohort of Steve's.

 

[Sledge]

I've known too many old people that had not gotten smarter to even think that mental abilities should increase automatically with age. I let them increase with experience.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, back in the 1e days I had a few golden oldies.

I always run it such that the pc's rolled stats are their starting stats- aging mods are assumed to have been accounted for within the rolls rather than being applies to the stats.