Shortening racial lifespans?

[Psion]

Would it ruin the game for you if all races had lifespans similar to humans (80-100 years)?

Balance-wise, no.

Flavor-wise, IMO yes.

Indeed, they shortened the lifespan of elves, dwarves, and gnomes between 1e and 3e, which never quite sat right with me. Unless you do some sort of "you play your character until death and then start new characters at 1st level" thing, lifespan of a PC race is largely inconsequential except as flavor. So nerfing it for balance purposes (which is the only reason I can think they did it) strikes me as a bit pointless.

If you are doing it for you OWN flavor reasons, I really don't see the problem.

 

[Umbran]

Okay, imagine this - you're a member of a race that lives for a thousand years. It takes a hundred years to reach adulthood. then, suddenly, a cataclysm happens, and you age like a human.

Your entire lifetime is less than it used to take to raise an infant to adulthood.

What would this do to your culture?

Well, unless some major magical thing happens to let all the people know their lifespans have changed, you're looking at a population crash.

So, let's say you've got elves, they don't even start to breed until a comparable human has died of old age. What happens at the cataclysm, do all the elves over 100 years - all the adults of breeding age by how you've got it - just die, leaving a culture of children? That's a fast route to most of those kids dying.

 

[Merkuri]

So, let's say you've got elves, they don't even start to breed until a comparable human has died of old age. What happens at the cataclysm, do all the elves over 100 years - all the adults of breeding age by how you've got it - just die, leaving a culture of children? That's a fast route to most of those kids dying.

I'd say that at the time of the lifespan change you'd scale the amount of time left to an individual. So if an elf was middle-aged when the cataclysm happened they'd start to age like a middle-aged human, meaning they would have about 40-50 years left to them, even if they were already 500 years old.

And I'd imagine that they'd be able to feel the advanced aging. It's a magical world, and it's a magical thing that made them age faster, so I don't think its unreasonable to say that they magically know what's happening. They just feel it. They wouldn't be caught unawares when they died 40 years after the cataclysm.

 

[Mercule]

Balance-wise, no.

Flavor-wise, IMO yes.

Indeed, they shortened the lifespan of elves, dwarves, and gnomes between 1e and 3e, which never quite sat right with me. Unless you do some sort of "you play your character until death and then start new characters at 1st level" thing, lifespan of a PC race is largely inconsequential except as flavor. So nerfing it for balance purposes (which is the only reason I can think they did it) strikes me as a bit pointless.

If you are doing it for you OWN flavor reasons, I really don't see the problem.

This. I can't stand that 3e & 4e elves don't still live for 1500+ years. Heck, my old campaign setting actually had a cataclysm like you're talking about to explain why elves only lived a piddly 1500 years rather than being effectively immortal. Of course, my elves have always been what 4e calls eladrin, so my view may be biased, there.

The 3e and 4e lifespans bother me considerably less for Eberron, so there's definitely a case for setting-specific alterations. It would still rub me very wrong to have elves and dwarves with effectively the same life expectancy as humans, though.

If I were a stakeholder in your game, my preference would be to have the cataclysm about 500 years ago and use the 4e lifespans. That'd take care of even elven parental concerns, but have it recent enough to still affect humans.

The Crusades were 500-800 years ago (off the top of my head) and they are arguably still impacting international politics. If you throw magic into the mix, with a more significant cataclysm, some longer-lived (via magical extension, potentially) human movers and shakers just to slow down the culture, etc. and it should work pretty well without completely killing an significant racial feature.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Also, if they suddenly have a shorter-than-expected lifetime, don't discount psychological problems. From an elf's perspective, he's suddenly aging 10x faster than normal. PCs could certainly withstand that, but it's possible that depression, suicide, psychopathy or other mental stresses/disorders might increase among the general population of long-lived races.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

And don't forget the written word. Someone should have written down a History of the Worlde, and kept records of what has happened since! (If you go to Baen's Bar and ask a historical question about 1632 you'll probably be pointed to lots and lots of historical documents that have survived.)

 

[Mort]

And don't forget the written word. Someone should have written down a History of the Worlde, and kept records of what has happened since! (If you go to Baen's Bar and ask a historical question about 1632 you'll probably be pointed to lots and lots of historical documents that have survived.)

For an great take on this as it relates to cataclysms read Nightfall by Isaac Asimov (It's not the main point of the short story or the novel, but has a very interesting take on it).

As for shortening lifespans, I don't think I'd have a huge problem with it, but I think the story could be better served without it. It could really enhance the story if the players could (eventually) meet beings that were alive during the cataclysm BUT have a radically different worldview than them.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I have no clue what rule set your using, but I am with the other the long lived races would no longer be what they are now, the culture impact would be massive and would have a few in game effects. Many of the long lived races start with weapons as they simply have time to learn them, reducing them to a human life span will take much of that away, same with dwarf fighting styles and stoneworking, they simply no longer have the time to work on such things or decades of training.

below is a list of items by race I think would really need looked at if your cutting lifespan down as they just no longer have the time to learn them use 3.5

Dwarf
*Stone cutting
*Weapon Familiarity
* +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against orcs and goblinoids.
* +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against monsters of the giant type
* +2 racial bonus on Appraise checks that are related to stone or metal items.
* +2 racial bonus on Craft checks that are related to stone or metal.

Elves
*Weapon Proficiency: Elves receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats.
possible
*Immunity to magic sleep effects, and a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects.

Gnome
*Weapon Familiarity: Gnomes may treat gnome hooked hammers as martial weapons rather than exotic weapons.
*+ 1 racial bonus on attack rolls against kobolds and goblinoids.
*+4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against monsters of the giant type. Any time a creature loses its Dexterity bonus (if any) to Armor Class, such as when it’s caught flat-footed, it loses its dodge bonus, too.
*+2 racial bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks.

Anyhow just my thoughts but shorten life span will have far reaching effects if you still within a few hundred years of the event such races would be rare most likly as many would not survive such a change over in large numbers I think

 

[Merkuri]

And don't forget the written word.

I'm imagining most books and records would have been lost in the cataclysm. They may still exist, but the PCs have to adventure to find them. I'm hoping part of the fun of this campaign will be in discovering lost history of the world and finding out that things might not be the way most people think.

 

[Mark Chance]

I generally use those extended lifespans as the basis for cultural behaviors that distinguish the various races. Remove the extended lifespans, there's less reason for the races to be distinctive - they are more likely to be more like humans with funny ears.

Given the large number of distinctive cultural behaviors among just humans with similar lifespans throughout history, the "humans with funny ears" trope hardly follows hard on the heels of adjusting how long races live.