D&D 5E The unlimited fountain of youth

[Mouseferatu]

I wonder whether the appearance of endless youth (withought actually having youthful vitality) would be in more demand or less in a world like that, and how much wealthy patrons would be willing to pay for it.

Given the presence of botox and plastic surgery in our world, where we don't have to compete with elves, I'd say there'd be some substantial demand, yeah.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you're running a high-magic world where there are lots of high-level caster NPCs, looking young, middle-aged or old could be little more than a fashion statement among the upper echelons. Could be an amusing throwaway campaign detail, or a concept up to a little RP exploration.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

There's a plot idea - elves aren't unnaturally long-lived at all. It's just spells that the elven nation has systematically lied to the world about to hide their dying out as they lost their immortality/long life rights when an evil necromancer corrupted their heart tree.
One day the last transmuter dies and elves everywhere "age" overnight...

 

[devincutler]

I figured out that characters with adventuring classes are close to 0.005% of the population, using the percentage of professional athletes in North America to set the numbers.
Low levels (less than 4) might be ten times as common, but high levels (above 10) are likely ten times as rare. The population of a region is 0.0005% level 10+ adventurers, with wizards in specific being a tenth that.

In a fantasy world (we'll go with the Realms, since we have numbers) there could be 50 to 75 million people on a continent. In the Realms, there'd be 34,000 adventurers, with over 30k being rookies while 3,400 are "professional". But only 34 wizards in the 10-20 range across Faerûn. A couple per major region or one per nation.
That'd be the guy you'd have to tap to remove the laugh lines from your face. It's like going to the Surgeon General for a face lift. They can do it, and if you throw enough money at them they'll probably say "yes", but since they're spending a full 8-hour work day on the task it's going to be expensive.

Not sure where you get these amounts, but I can guarantee just from the literature and the like that there are far more than 34 wizards in all of Faerun over 9th level.

 

[Jester David]

Not sure where you get these amounts, but I can guarantee just from the literature and the like that there are far more than 34 wizards in all of Faerun over 9th level.

There's an autocorrect error there. It should be "I figure that...". Since "professional athlete" seemed to be a good bar for adventurers, as we have hard numbers of that. (There's far fewer than you'd think.)

The Realms is an exception in that high level characters are more common. Maybe 3-4x as common. So maybe 100 wizards above level 10.

 

[crashtestdummy]

If this only gives the appearance of youthfulness, why not use the 1st level spell Disguise Self to look younger? A much more efficient use of resources for those that are vain. If it's someone else who wants to be vain, charge them for the training required to learn to cast the spell themselves...

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I do think a lot of the 14th-level wizard abilities feel like they should be 20th-level capstone abilities, and the transmuter's is a particularly egregious offender. But I agree with the others that it probably doesn't present a demographic problem in most campaigns.

 

[TarionzCousin]

"In order to sneak him into the top-secret, invitation only, super-heavy security war council, we disguised the rogue as a baby...."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So a 14th level transmuter can restore 3d10 years to anyone at no cost. Once per day. At no cost. Did I mention at no cost whatsoever?

Does anyone see this as a problem in a campaign setting? How do you ever meet a wizard or noble who is not walking around looking like a 20 year old?

Once per day. No cost. 3d10 years!

Ridiculous.

Why in the world would he be doing this for no cost? Charge what the market will bear, man. I always figured that ability was there primarily for the money-making potential, but if you just give it away for free like that... *shake my head*

Note that the Clone spell in 5E keeps wizards looking young anyway, if they can tolerate the squick factor of cutting out a cubic inch of flesh and then disposing of their old self. (The Prestige, yes?) So I figure that the Transmuter ability was specifically designed to be used on NPCs.

 

[devincutler]

Why in the world would he be doing this for no cost? Charge what the market will bear, man. I always figured that ability was there primarily for the money-making potential, but if you just give it away for free like that... *shake my head*

Note that the Clone spell in 5E keeps wizards looking young anyway, if they can tolerate the squick factor of cutting out a cubic inch of flesh and then disposing of their old self. (The Prestige, yes?) So I figure that the Transmuter ability was specifically designed to be used on NPCs.

I never said the transmuter wouldn't charge *shake my head*. I said it costs the Transmuter nothing. So he can do it at will once a day forever.