D&D 5E (2014) The unlimited fountain of youth

[jgsugden]

Strahd has a more effective method. Just saying.

 

[jayoungr]

So, 90 year old exotic dancers? Creepy.

Elf jokes aside, it only restores 3d10 years. So a 90-year-old exotic dancer could look like a 60-year-old exotic dancer, but not like a 20-year-old.

 

[delericho]

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?

Nope. Firstly because 14th level Transmuters are vanishingly rare (being at most 1/8th of all 14th level Wizards, who are at most 1/4 of all 14th level characters, who are already a rare breed).

But also, in the course of gathering the XP to reach 14th level, that Transmuter has gathered so much treasure that he can literally never spend it all. That being the case, it's going to take more than mere money to persuade him to act as a cosmetic surgeon.

 

[Green1]

It's more then just the rarity of 14th level transmuters.

How many campaigns last a hundred years in game time? It's rare enough to be considered an epic story for a campaign on forums to last to max level, much less a century pass.

That would seem rarer than transmuters rolling 3d10s.

Has anyone here EVER had a PC die of old age not magically induced in any edition of any game?

 

[Horwath]

A soldier is not a level 1 adventurer. Adventurers are a cut above. Pretty sure it even says so somewhere in the PHB. Again. Soldier is a background, not a class.

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Background is only description of where you came from, or where did you get your basic training to be a lvl1 character. And IMO a profesional soldier is hell of alot better and smarter that 1st level hothead that is going to get his head chopped off by first orc he sees.

 

[devincutler]

It's more then just the rarity of 14th level transmuters.

How many campaigns last a hundred years in game time? It's rare enough to be considered an epic story for a campaign on forums to last to max level, much less a century pass.

That would seem rarer than transmuters rolling 3d10s.

Has anyone here EVER had a PC die of old age not magically induced in any edition of any game?

Yes I have. I have had campaigns where the old PCs die and their progeny take over.

I run long term campaigns. My 3.5 campaign, which is winding down, is in its 8th real life year (PCs are just reaching 20th level). Before that I ran a 5 year long campaign 3.5, and before that a 2nd edition campaign that ran at least 12 years (yeah...I'm old). So my last 3 D&D campaigns have probably, together, lasted longer than some of you have been alive.

My PCs do not just hop from one scenario to the next. They tend to have lives and goals and interests outside of "adventuring" and often we will leap forward 1, 2, 5, or even 10 years in campaign world time, taking a gaming session and between session emails to determine what the PCs are doing during this time. They get married, divorced, have kids, build strongholds, research things, or just live and carouse and have a good time during these off years. This also allows long term campaign events to progress and makes the rate of level advancement a bit more palatable from an internal-consistency point of view. I don't have to explain how the PCs go from 1st level noobs to 15th level world shakers in 6 months of campaign time.

My current PCs are middle aged and we are about to take a 10 year leap ahead in campaign time, so some will be approaching old age.

But your question actually emphasizes my point. Yes, from a purely "How does this affect my PCs point of view it doesn't matter one whit. But from someone trying to design a campaign world where things make sense outside of the PC experience, it does matter.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Elf jokes aside, it only restores 3d10 years. So a 90-year-old exotic dancer could look like a 60-year-old exotic dancer, but not like a 20-year-old.

Repeated applications are not disallowed.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Background is only description of where you came from, or where did you get your basic training to be a lvl1 character. And IMO a profesional soldier is hell of alot better and smarter that 1st level hothead that is going to get his head chopped off by first orc he sees.

A Guard, the closest equivalent to a soldier in the MM, has a Strength of 13 at the equivalent of level 2. How is this better than a first level adventurer who starts with a 15 before racial modifiers? Even a Knight and a Veteran have only Strength 16 at the equivalent of levels 8 and 9. A first level adventurer is better than that. And this isn't taking into account class features.

So no, a soldier or mercenary isn't the same as an adventurer. An adventurer MAY be a soldier, for whatever reason, but to say some buck private straight from boot camp is the same is ridiculous.

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[Tony Vargas]

In 1e, a 1st-level fighter was a 'Veteran,' that's not just a Soldier, but a Soldier who's survived at least one battle.

Then again, in 5e, 1st-4th level is 'Apprentice Tier,' which implies something else, entirely about adventurers' relative competence and demographics.

Weird. It's almost like the core rulebooks aren't meant to be world-building simulators, and the appropriate amount of high-level wizards for a campaign world is "whatever the DM says it is."

I think that's the best call.

 

[Ancalagon]

Okay! As promised, this is the math.

So this is from the 2e (well, 2.5...) book Dungeon Master's Options: High Level Campaign. Specifically from chapter 1, a 23 page affair that has great guidance for anyone running a campaign ... at almost any levels really. Page 21-22 has a very relevant section on demographic.

So on a "roll 3d6 in order" stat set for generic humans, they figured out the portion that would meet the "requirement" to be a hero: a stat of 15 in a prime requisite, a con no lower than 9, and no other score lower than 8. About 1/10 people meet these requirement. That's interesting.

Now, then then figured that half of those would be level 2. Why half? Well a lot of them die, or have retired, haven't leveled up yet, or don't have the ambition. So 1/20 is level 2. And half of that is level 3, so one in 40.... and so on and so forth.

If you keep this up, you end with about 16 out of 1 million people are at level 14. and 1 out of 1 million are at level 18!

And of those 16 level 14 PCs, you will be lucky if *one* of them is a transmuter...

For the retired transmuter though, this power is a *great* deal! It's almost free money.