"Underage" PCs?

[d4]

I'm envisioning the PCs starting at around age 12 or 13.

FWIW, in Star Wars d20, Anakin Skywalker is a 1st-level character by age 9 (during Episode I).

 

[Bloodsparrow]

The best and most absurd at the same time were the rules from the first edition Greyhawk hardbound book for 0 level characters.

Can anybody elaborate? I do not have, nor have I ever looked through a 1ed Greyhawk book... (I've prolly seen one... Laying around. I used to game with a woman who's D&D collection was... "Extensive" just doesn't seem to cover it.)

A friend converted a 1ed module to 3ed a while ago that involved playing as 0 level characters. (The idea that we were normal people, thrust into an extrodenary situation.) It was actually pretty cool. We started with rolling stats and a few skills. I don't remember how many though... I'll talk to him and get back to y'all.

 

[Crothian]

This is going to be a little off, but the jist of it was any character could try and do anything from any class. And you could do it really darn good if you got really luicky. So, you could try to turn undead as a cleric and then try to backstap as a thief. It was really cool because you could try anything, it was absurd becasue I think if you got really lucky you could turn as if you were a 6th level cleric. And that seems a little good fora zero level character.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Well, you might note that the PHB guidelines on age can have characters starting at 16 or 17 years of age already. In psuedo-medieval terms, this might be "adult", but when was the last time you saw a person today consider that age fully mature? A modern player will probably play a 16 year old fighter like a modern 16 year old, rather than as an adult member of society...

With a normal group, I'd say you were right. I've got a pretty good group though and I think they'll do pretty good at this. Especially the lady who is writes children's books and is quite knowledgable about history.

In fact, we've been in that situation before due to the way the campaign started, though I was a player in that campaign. Of course, we advanced so far so fast in that campaign that I was considering ways to multiclass my druid before he hit the level where he didn't age anymore so he wouldn't be stuck as a only mostly grown 16 year old with zits for the rest of his life.

 

[Norfleet]

A friend converted a 1ed module to 3ed a while ago that involved playing as 0 level characters. (The idea that we were normal people, thrust into an extrodenary situation.) It was actually pretty cool. We started with rolling stats and a few skills. I don't remember how many though... I'll talk to him and get back to y'all.

Is that the one with the slaver-pirates and the island that's about to get nuked?

 

[Bloodsparrow]

Is that the one with the slaver-pirates and the island that's about to get nuked?

Yeah, that's the one. We survived... And became obsessed with buttons as a result.

It's called "Treasure Hunt" (N4) and it had information about making and running 0 level characters... (1ed)

The guy who ran it, Ray, got it on eBay for a buck and it looks like it's listed again for the same price...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3145962272&category=44112

Now that I think about it... The fact that it's called "Treasure Hunt" is rather strange... Unless the person who created the module didn't want the players to be able to guess what the module was all about by the title.

There is a spot where... Well, let's just say that the "Treasure Hunt" aspect of the module is a minor plot point.

But, anyway, accordng to Ray, it had some great info on making and running 0 level characters.

 

[reapersaurus]

just for fun, here's a thread from the Wayback Machine about the same thing, circa 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20010714141457/dynamic.gamespy.com/~dnd3e/ubb/Forum1/HTML/007225.html

 

[Silver Moon]

13 year old humans....-2 STR, -2WIS, -2 CHA at first.

As I mentioned before, in my children's game I did significant adjustsments for STR and WIS (-1 to -4 depending on age) and lesser adjustments for DEX and CON (-1 to -2 depending on age), however I left INT and CHA alone.

I considered adjusting CHA but it actually didn't make sense with my family of players, as in our household my 5-year-old son is the one with the highest CHA in real life. You should see this kid, not only is he cute, but he knows it and knows how to use it. When we arrive at any playground it only takes him about two minutes to scope the whole thing out, zero in on the prettiest teenage girl there, and then convince her to push him on the swings. At a picnic with my Boy Scout Troop last summer the teenage sisters of the scouts were all rather homely, so he picked out the youngest most attractive mother (late 20's) to get her to help fill his plate with food and then give him her undivided attention.

 

[diaglo]

A friend converted a 1ed module to 3ed a while ago that involved playing as 0 level characters. (The idea that we were normal people, thrust into an extrodenary situation.) It was actually pretty cool. We started with rolling stats and a few skills. I don't remember how many though... I'll talk to him and get back to y'all.

from your description i'm guessing the adventure was N4 Treasure Hunt

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

I considered adjusting CHA but it actually didn't make sense with my family of players, as in our household my 5-year-old son is the one with the highest CHA in real life. You should see this kid, not only is he cute, but he knows it and knows how to use it. When we arrive at any playground it only takes him about two minutes to scope the whole thing out, zero in on the prettiest teenage girl there, and then convince her to push him on the swings. At a picnic with my Boy Scout Troop last summer the teenage sisters of the scouts were all rather homely, so he picked out the youngest most attractive mother (late 20's) to get her to help fill his plate with food and then give him her undivided attention.

Yeah, kids definately don't need CHA adjusted. When my neice was 8 she lived in a huge apartment complex with a big pool. So she'd wade out into the pool and pretend she was not a good swimmer (she actually was an excellent swimmer) and call for all the boys to "rescue her". She'd then find herself surrounded by pretty much every 10-14 year old boy in the pool, all begging to be her hero.