PCs as Kids - how'd YOU do it?
- Thread starter Ashy
- Start date
Antikinesis
First Post
Ashy said:
Something to consider... they may be starting out at about the same level of maturity, but the gnome will mature at more than twice the rate of the elf. Any humans introduced to the story now would be unlikely to witness the elf reaching adulthood.
(Barring magical or other unusual influences.)
But then, that might just be part of the story.
-AK
I think the Star Wars method is probably the best - subtracting 1d6 from stats would result in completely unrealistic variation of abilities, and could result in weird things like a PC with subhuman intelligence that'll get three or four times as smart as he grows up.
Although, to be perfectly honest, considering that various races age at wildly different speeds, I'm not so sure that this is even a workable idea.
Take the long-lived races - do you really subscribe to the idea that elves and dwarves spend 50 or 100 years as children in the same sense as humans do? I really can't see a 40 year old being equivalent to a human 6 or 7 year old... Did he spend 10 years of his life in diapers? I'd be inclined to make the longer-lived races physically (if not emotionally or mentally) mature a lot earlier than 50 or 100 years - the alternative really doesn't make sense.
Although, to be perfectly honest, considering that various races age at wildly different speeds, I'm not so sure that this is even a workable idea.
Take the long-lived races - do you really subscribe to the idea that elves and dwarves spend 50 or 100 years as children in the same sense as humans do? I really can't see a 40 year old being equivalent to a human 6 or 7 year old... Did he spend 10 years of his life in diapers? I'd be inclined to make the longer-lived races physically (if not emotionally or mentally) mature a lot earlier than 50 or 100 years - the alternative really doesn't make sense.
Kae'Yoss
First Post
Ashy said:
You are forgiven, my son!
The rules are in DMG, page 40 (Apprentice-Level Characters).
Star Wars d20 has a table for Starting Levels and Ages (p121, Table 6-4
The Young adult get 1st, as well as the Adult (although there are entries for Adults with limited, moderate and high experience, who start at 3/5/7). But they don't have 0-level characters in the Rules, and they don't list anything for Children, so 0-level will be alright.Someone, I think Monte Cook (on his website) wrote something about a one-night-stand RPG he had with one of his peeps: they were handed sheets by the DM, and they were all some youths and the story was that they went out camping. And then the Thing came and got them, just like in the campfire stories. He wrote that they all knew that their character would be dead by the end of the game - but it was fun even so. You don't copy that, do you
(If I told to much, I apologize and retroactively forbid everyone to read that! )
tsadkiel
Legend
I'm actually working on a four level class (the Prodigy) to represent underage characters - the kids start out weak, but are capable of gaining skills and class abilities and so on without Harry Potter gaining 10d4 hit dice and a +5 BAB before he can drive. I could send you the current draft if you'd like.
Spatzimaus
First Post
I've actually played a mini-campaign where the heroes were age 5-8. Basically, we were all "prodigy" style Wizards-to-be living at a school of magic (this was before Harry Potter, although it's not exactly a new concept).
Bad DM, though; he was one of those who had planned out exactly what was going to happen, complete with "visions" and such, and if we actually tried something different or made rolls he intended us to fail, he'd come up with some excuse why it'd happen anyway.
Anyway, my rules:
Toddler (0-5): don't even ask. A baby pretty much has a 3 in every stat. One to two sizes smaller.
Child (6-Puberty): -4 to STR and CON, -2 to all the other stats. One size smaller.
Or, you can use the MM rules for making a monster one size smaller, except that you need to subtract from the mental stats too. This gives bonuses for Hide, etc. and penalties to grapples.
Teen (Puberty-Maturity): -2 to STR and CON, -1 to all other stats. Yes, it sucks being a teenager.
For Humans, I say Puberty is at 12 and Maturity is at 18, but use whatever guidelines you want.
Just rough guidelines, of course.
Bad DM, though; he was one of those who had planned out exactly what was going to happen, complete with "visions" and such, and if we actually tried something different or made rolls he intended us to fail, he'd come up with some excuse why it'd happen anyway.
Anyway, my rules:
Toddler (0-5): don't even ask. A baby pretty much has a 3 in every stat. One to two sizes smaller.
Child (6-Puberty): -4 to STR and CON, -2 to all the other stats. One size smaller.
Or, you can use the MM rules for making a monster one size smaller, except that you need to subtract from the mental stats too. This gives bonuses for Hide, etc. and penalties to grapples.
Teen (Puberty-Maturity): -2 to STR and CON, -1 to all other stats. Yes, it sucks being a teenager.
For Humans, I say Puberty is at 12 and Maturity is at 18, but use whatever guidelines you want.
Just rough guidelines, of course.
Celebrim
Legend
I actually had very complicated rules for this written out at one point for a first edition game which had been going on so long that the characters were having children.
I don't remember all of them, but here is an overview translated into 3rd edition.
In first edition, you couldn't gain a class level until at least one of your attributes was a 9. This percludes small children from being anything but 0 level, and is something that I think you'd want to keep doing even in 3rd edition. Most small children would start out as 0 level commoners - but I would allow them to switch out from commoner to 0 level anything else, or to first level anything else once they got some training.
You basically have to determine two attributes: attributes at maturity, and attributes at birth. Attributes at any point in between are assumed to be proportional to the time that has passed for the sake of simplicity. Attributes at maturity can be determined normally (I had a complex system for determining them based on the 'genetics' of the parents, their zodiological sign, and random chance). You may wish to modify the 'mature' stats by the young adult modifiers or other modifier.
Attributes at birth can be determined by assumption.
STR at birth is 1 for most humanoids.
DEX at birth is 1 for most humanoids.
CON at birth is 1/2 that of maturity.
INT at birth is 1 for most humanoids.
WIS at birth is 1 for most humanoids, and 1/2 maturity for feral ones. Feral is defined by the DM, but probably includes things such as Kobolds, Lizard Folk, Merfolk, and other humanoids needing survival skills of some degree from birth forward.
CHR at birth is 3/4 that of maturity.
Some people may quibble over the CHR, but I note that children can be quite charismatic, and that they are usually able to become quite skilled at skills that depend on charisma (bluff, perform, intimidate, etc.) Note also that intelligence is not strictly a measure of IQ, but also of general knowledge and experience.
At birth, humanoids tend to be two sizes smaller than at maturity and have the 'baby template'. After 1/4 of the time to maturity, they move up one size and have the 'child template', and after 3/4 of the time to maturity they move up to thier final size (and have the 'youth template'). Being small has its advantages, notably in ability to hide and apparant dexterity (the AC and attack bonus). Beings with the 'child template' also gain the extraordinary advantage 'Lithe' if they are small size or smaller, which has the following benifit: You gain a racial bonus (cumulative with other racial bonuses) to the skills balance, climb, escape artist, jump, and tumbling, equal to your attack bonus due to size (for example +1 for small creatures).
As I said before children should probably not be classed until they have at least a 9 in one attribute other than CON, and should probably not be 1st level before maturity unless they grow up in an environment in which they recieve unusually intence training (Paul Atredies for example). First edition had prime requisites. For this purpose alone I'd bring them back. Skills should be proportional in time to the point when they first gain a 9 other than in CON or reach maturity (which ever comes first), and unless a child has recieved unusually intence training they should probably have half normal skills.
Maturity should be determined randomly. Probably for humans, 1d4+12 should be fine for females and 1d6+13 for males. Maturity here does not mean emotional maturity of course. However, I do believe that in general a 15 year old has almost all if not all of the capacity of an adult it is just usually untapped.
As to what sort of campaign you would run for an all child cast; why you would run fairy tales of course!
I don't remember all of them, but here is an overview translated into 3rd edition.
In first edition, you couldn't gain a class level until at least one of your attributes was a 9. This percludes small children from being anything but 0 level, and is something that I think you'd want to keep doing even in 3rd edition. Most small children would start out as 0 level commoners - but I would allow them to switch out from commoner to 0 level anything else, or to first level anything else once they got some training.
You basically have to determine two attributes: attributes at maturity, and attributes at birth. Attributes at any point in between are assumed to be proportional to the time that has passed for the sake of simplicity. Attributes at maturity can be determined normally (I had a complex system for determining them based on the 'genetics' of the parents, their zodiological sign, and random chance). You may wish to modify the 'mature' stats by the young adult modifiers or other modifier.
Attributes at birth can be determined by assumption.
STR at birth is 1 for most humanoids.
DEX at birth is 1 for most humanoids.
CON at birth is 1/2 that of maturity.
INT at birth is 1 for most humanoids.
WIS at birth is 1 for most humanoids, and 1/2 maturity for feral ones. Feral is defined by the DM, but probably includes things such as Kobolds, Lizard Folk, Merfolk, and other humanoids needing survival skills of some degree from birth forward.
CHR at birth is 3/4 that of maturity.
Some people may quibble over the CHR, but I note that children can be quite charismatic, and that they are usually able to become quite skilled at skills that depend on charisma (bluff, perform, intimidate, etc.) Note also that intelligence is not strictly a measure of IQ, but also of general knowledge and experience.
At birth, humanoids tend to be two sizes smaller than at maturity and have the 'baby template'. After 1/4 of the time to maturity, they move up one size and have the 'child template', and after 3/4 of the time to maturity they move up to thier final size (and have the 'youth template'). Being small has its advantages, notably in ability to hide and apparant dexterity (the AC and attack bonus). Beings with the 'child template' also gain the extraordinary advantage 'Lithe' if they are small size or smaller, which has the following benifit: You gain a racial bonus (cumulative with other racial bonuses) to the skills balance, climb, escape artist, jump, and tumbling, equal to your attack bonus due to size (for example +1 for small creatures).
As I said before children should probably not be classed until they have at least a 9 in one attribute other than CON, and should probably not be 1st level before maturity unless they grow up in an environment in which they recieve unusually intence training (Paul Atredies for example). First edition had prime requisites. For this purpose alone I'd bring them back. Skills should be proportional in time to the point when they first gain a 9 other than in CON or reach maturity (which ever comes first), and unless a child has recieved unusually intence training they should probably have half normal skills.
Maturity should be determined randomly. Probably for humans, 1d4+12 should be fine for females and 1d6+13 for males. Maturity here does not mean emotional maturity of course.
However, I do believe that in general a 15 year old has almost all if not all of the capacity of an adult it is just usually untapped.As to what sort of campaign you would run for an all child cast; why you would run fairy tales of course!
Note that the "level 0" rules in the DMG are not really for 0th level characters. Rather, they're for multiclassing at 1st level, where you essentially take 1/2 a level in two classes.
It's easy to figure out what a "real" lvl 0 character would look like though, working backwards from the normal character progression rules. Note for example that all 1st lvl characters essentially start with 4 "levels" worth of skill points, and that the first bonus feat and first ability increase should essentially happen at lvl 0 rather than lvl 1.
Here's how I would extend the "Level-Dependent Benefits" tables on page 22 in the PHB (3-1 and 3-2):
where I is the Int modifier, C is the Con modifier, and X and Y are the number of skill points and the HD of the first character class.
Note that I've assumed 2 skill points/lvl and all skills are cross-class. That way there's nowhere to go but up when reaching lvl 1. Only at first level do they get to pick an actual class level, before that it's just skill and (possibly) feats. At that point I would also recalculate their skill points remaining, so they wind up with a normal 1st level character in terms of class and cross-class skill points spent.
It's easy to figure out what a "real" lvl 0 character would look like though, working backwards from the normal character progression rules. Note for example that all 1st lvl characters essentially start with 4 "levels" worth of skill points, and that the first bonus feat and first ability increase should essentially happen at lvl 0 rather than lvl 1.
Here's how I would extend the "Level-Dependent Benefits" tables on page 22 in the PHB (3-1 and 3-2):
Code:
save max ability skill total
lvl bonus BAB XP ranks feats incr. points HPs
-2 -1/+1 -2 0 1/2 - - 2+I 1+C
-1 -1/+1 -1 200 1 - - (2+I)x2 2+C
0 +0/+2 +0 500 1 1/2 1st 1st (2+I)x3 3+C
1 +0/+2 +0/1 1000 2 - - (X+I)x4 Y+Cwhere I is the Int modifier, C is the Con modifier, and X and Y are the number of skill points and the HD of the first character class.
Note that I've assumed 2 skill points/lvl and all skills are cross-class. That way there's nowhere to go but up when reaching lvl 1. Only at first level do they get to pick an actual class level, before that it's just skill and (possibly) feats. At that point I would also recalculate their skill points remaining, so they wind up with a normal 1st level character in terms of class and cross-class skill points spent.
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