[Intelligence Check] What's Old Is Young Again

[Alzrius]

The newest article from Intelligence Check pays tribute to the Grand OGL Wiki, and begins to repost some of the Open Game Content I submitted to its DM Sketchpad.

Here, I rework the aging tables into something that doesn't have the longer-lived demihumans spending potentially half their lives as wizened old geezers. Check it out here: What's Old Is Young Again.

[DracoDruid]

If there is anything needing a fix, it's the stupid bonuses from high age.

Humans (at least) have their physical and mental prime in the 20s.

That's a fact.

So increase in INT doesn't make sense.

Wisdom? Quote: "Through knowledge, not age, you aquire wisdom".

Also, increased senses in old age? Doesn't seem right, right?

Charisma? Who's more charismatic: the young flexible sunnyboy, or an old geezer?

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A rules concept i was thinking about:

Beginning at a certain age and once every X years thereafter, you roll 1d20 for every of your abilities.
If you roll ABOVE your ability score, you must reduce it by 1.

Effect: The higher the stat, the less likely that it will decrease, but the weak wizard will wither fast, and the dump barbarian will quickly be senile.

[Alzrius]

DracoDruid wrote:

A rules concept i was thinking about:

Beginning at a certain age and once every X years thereafter, you roll 1d20 for every of your abilities.
If you roll ABOVE your ability score, you must reduce it by 1.

Effect: The higher the stat, the less likely that it will decrease, but the weak wizard will wither fast, and the dump barbarian will quickly be senile.

DracoDruid, I like the idea, but it seems to suggest that your peak-abilities are less likely to decline, to the point where ability scores of 20 and above are NEVER going to get worse due to age. So a supremely intelligent wizard or a massively-muscular barbarian will never lose those particular edges. Likewise, their worst attributes will quickly get much, much worse.

It seems more likely, to me at least, that your peak abilities will decline the fastest, as they have more to lose due to senescence; likewise, your worst attributes will likely have their declination slowed at some point, simply because once you lose so much there's not much left to lose.

In other words, what about reversing your system - at a certain age, you roll a d20 for each ability score, and if it's UNDER your ability score, you must reduce it by 1?

[DracoDruid]

I guess you could do so.

I came from the perspective: "the things you strongly care about (training your muscles for a barbarian, freshing your mind for a wizard) are the less likely do decline, since you will train these even in old age, while further neglecting those you don't think to need".

On the other hand,

Why not roll once and let the player decide which of his abilities to decrease.

(question is, roll above or beyond)