Starting Ages (Please Fix it)

[Quijenoth]

As a more realistic approach to starting ages adult-hood for all races should be brought down to a more reasonable level to remain in line with humans. Elves over 100 years old before they start their adventuring careers is a crazy idea IMHO.

I propose the following starting ages...

Race - Adulthood - 1 - 2 - 3
Human - 15 years - +1d4 - +1d6 - +2d6
Dwarf - 20 years - +3d6 - +5d6 - +7d6
Elf - 25 years - +4d6 - +6d6 - +10d6
Gnome - 20 years - +4d6 - +6d6 - +9d6
Half-elf - 15 years - +1d6 - +2d6 - +3d6
Half-orc - 14 years - +1d4 - +1d6 - +2d6
Halfling - 15 years - +2d4 - +3d6 - +4d6

1 = barbarian, rogue or sorcerer
2 = bard, fighter, paladin, or ranger
3 = cleric, druid, monk, or wizard

This does not, however, affect their ages of other maturity and all other aging effects are applied as indicated.

[seekerofshadowlight]

I'm ok with starting ages as is the longer a race lives the longer it takes it to mentally mature .the way I see it is an 80 year old elf looks alot like a 13 or 14 year old prob acts alot like one too.same with other long lived races they just take longer to mature mentally.

[Zynete]

I think this is unlikely as it requires the modification of the campaign setting. I doubt that they want to head in that direction.

[Coridan]

They have a really cool thing going with the Forlorn Elves. Elves who are raised or orphaned in human lands and have to deal with the pain of all their friends constantly outgrowing them. I wouldn't want to see it done away with.

[Noir le Lotus]

I agree that some starting ages must be changed. Seeing 100+-year-old elves that are level 1 characters really bugs me.

But I don't totally like Quijenoth's idea : why would an elf need 10d6 years to learn to be a mage when he is more intelligent than a human ? The dice rolls should be less variable if the age difference between races is lessened.

[John Weatherman]

Coridan wrote:

They have a really cool thing going with the Forlorn Elves. Elves who are raised or orphaned in human lands and have to deal with the pain of all their friends constantly outgrowing them. I wouldn't want to see it done away with.

I'm not sure that "fixing" starting ages unduely effects this. To bring in a totally unrelated example, the Highlander TV Series repeatedly went back to the difficulties of watching people grow old and die while you stayed the same. So the Forlorn, even if maturing at 30, still will have to watch his friends be born, live and die while he hasn't changed at all. In some ways this is even more terrible, as an adult he would have a more developed sense of that loss. Children have far les of a sense of the finality of it all.

That said, I don't have a strong feeling one was or the other.

[Andrew Phillips]

I agree that starting ages need to be lowered for non humans and Quijenoth's table is a good start, of course everyone will want small changes I'm sure. As a friend of mine said "NO race would exist that had children who were teenagers for 50ish years."

[Neithan]

Does anyone ever really use the rules for aging? It's purely a fluf thing, that should depend solely on the setting. No need for rules in the basic rulebook.