500 year old kid

[fireater]

I have a character concept in mind for a backup character I am making which involves a character being both very old and very young at the same time. So the idea is this character (as a kid) pickpockets a very powerful wizard and when the wizard finds out he curses the character to never be able to age. Which at first sounds great but he is now forever trapped in the body of a kid. It takes the character a few years to figure out he is cursed and when he does he starts looking for a way to remove the curse. The catch is that by the time he is able to remove the curse he has become so old that without its magic he would die. So now he is looking for true immortality so that he can remove the curse and grow up without dying.

This type of character concept is nothing new but my question is how would this type of character be represented mechanically? There are rules for young characters, and there are rules for old characters but what about both at the same time. I know most of this will fall into ask your dm/gm territory but I am asking, if you where the dm/gm what would you do?
Thanks for any help.

PS: let me know if this is the wrong forum to post this in.

[boring7]

Young characters and effects of aging.

I'd do the physical effects of the young stat mod, not do the stat mods for old age Because Magic™ and because you "never learn." XP is an issue since you're supposed to be old enough to be experienced, but maybe you got level drained or start in a higher-level game.

Role-play wise, if you don't have like 17 levels and/or a pocket empire after 500 years, you need some kind of reason why you suck so much. Maybe you're dumb, maybe the curse gives you memory problems with lots of "mental resets," maybe you're just epically lazy, but whatever the case you're not even remotely a part of the human condition anymore, you've been around so long that the language has changed from Middle Common to New Common, you've been around longer that kingdoms, you've seen gods die. In fact, given the weird nature of your curse, you've probably met gods personally, mortal wizards don't usually jump to "immortality curse" like that.

And through it all, you haven't learned anything, or you haven't learned much. I mean, you're still stuck on gaining a permanent adult body instead of just embracing permanent kid-hood with the occasional "vacation" with a contracted polymorph spell. You're still trying to live forever. You want to have your cake and eat it too.

But maybe there's more to you than a selfish brat. Maybe you're a more complicated character. You certainly have potential to be interesting.

[fireater]

Like I said this is a backup character in case my current one dies/I get bored with him. As a backup he will be higher than level one, probably between 7th and 12th level. As for a pocket empire that could be arranged as I'm playing kingmaker. This character could be the leader of a rival kingdom that decides to join forces with the rest of the parties kingdom instead of fighting them. Also 500 years was just what was in my head at the time. He could be any age really as long as he is old enough that if he lost his immortality he would die of old age.

You just gave me an idea, he could be an oracle and this is his divine curse.

[Ipslore the Red]

I believe there's a variant vampire called the Ancient Youth like this. Small size, and it gets a +4 to bluff.

[fireater]

The ancient youth looks interesting and I will definitely keep it in my back pocket in case my dm says no to the curse idea. My main problem with the ancient youth is he would have to be evil and while this character would not be very nice I don't want him to be completely evil either. Plus all the other bad stuff that goes along with being a vampire like blood lust, allergy to garlic, being damaged by sunlight, holy water, and moving water.

[boring7]

Well those levels will probably work, and you can ALSO have a brain-curse damaging his ability to keep long-term memories if you want, might make another excuse for why he really wants this curse gone.

"The last of my family died long ago, and I clung to their memory. Then the memory OF the memory, then nothing, the curse took even that from me. I can't even remember their names or faces or their love as my perpetual youth erodes my past! A man cannot live like this, I must find a cure or die trying!"

And of course shorter-lived races like ratfolk, strix, and grippli don't have as long before old age hits.

[fireater]

That is a great idea. I think I would probably explain it as less of a different curse and more that while his body doesn't age his mind still does and it cant handle all the memories kinda like alzheimer's (note I am not trying to make light of the diseases I'm just using it for a comparison please don't take offense).

[The NPC]

boring7 wrote:

Well those levels will probably work, and you can ALSO have a brain-curse damaging his ability to keep long-term memories if you want, might make another excuse for why he really wants this curse gone.

"The last of my family died long ago, and I clung to their memory. Then the memory OF the memory, then nothing, the curse took even that from me. I can't even remember their names or faces or their love as my perpetual youth erodes my past! A man cannot live like this, I must find a cure or die trying!"

And of course shorter-lived races like ratfolk, strix, and grippli don't have as long before old age hits.

I see what you did there.

[CraziFuzzy]

mechanically, I'd agree with the use of the Young modifier for physical stat, and the Venerable modifier for mental stats. You've been around long enough for the wisdom, int and cha to improve. This would be an effective:
STR -2 (young)
DEX +2 (young)
CON -2 (young)
INT +3 (venerable)
WIS +3 (venerable)
CHA +3 (venerable)
modifier from your base rolls.

As mentioned above, though, it would be hard to swallow this as a 1st level character. Can't imaging living, even as a child, for 70+ years and not picking up some serious life skills. And by comparison to the magics listed in the game, it takes a 7th level spell to ignore the effects of venerable age for just a single day, or a mythic tier (Longevity). This curse you speak of would have to be from some mythic/deitic source to fit into the world power level.

[thejeff]

CraziFuzzy wrote:

mechanically, I'd agree with the use of the Young modifier for physical stat, and the Venerable modifier for mental stats. You've been around long enough for the wisdom, int and cha to improve. This would be an effective:

STR -2 (young)
DEX +2 (young)
CON -2 (young)
INT +3 (venerable)
WIS +3 (venerable)
CHA +3 (venerable)
modifier from your base rolls.

As mentioned above, though, it would be hard to swallow this as a 1st level character. Can't imaging living, even as a child, for 70+ years and not picking up some serious life skills. And by comparison to the magics listed in the game, it takes a 7th level spell to ignore the effects of venerable age for just a single day, or a mythic tier (Longevity). This curse you speak of would have to be from some mythic/deitic source to fit into the world power level.

The mental stats may depend on whether you think those come from just experience or whether there's a handicap from the still undeveloped nature of the brain.

I'd be tempted to apply both: The -2 penalty to Wisdom for youth and the +3 from age, for a net +1. :)

[CraziFuzzy]

The brain doesn't really develop much past a VERY young age. What develops are the connections created as memories are stored (experience and learning). Think about the learning capacity of a child to that of a middle aged person. The child can learn every bit as fast, if not faster, than the middle aged person. To me that is evident that a young character's brain is fully developed, just not fully loaded.

This hypothetical individual, however, WOULD be fully loaded.

[thejeff]

CraziFuzzy wrote:

The brain doesn't really develop much past a VERY young age. What develops are the connections created as memories are stored (experience and learning). Think about the learning capacity of a child to that of a middle aged person. The child can learn every bit as fast, if not faster, than the middle aged person. To me that is evident that a young character's brain is fully developed, just not fully loaded.

This hypothetical individual, however, WOULD be fully loaded.

There are an awful lot of changes that occur in adolesence. Particularly in things like impulse control, delayed gratification, attention span. Current theory has it that development doesn't really finish until the early 20s.

You're correct about learning capacity. Kids can definitely learn many things more quickly than older people. But that's not the whole story.

That's partly why the Youth template only penalizes Wisdom and why I followed that model.

[boring7]

The NPC wrote:

boring7 wrote:

Well those levels will probably work, and you can ALSO have a brain-curse damaging his ability to keep long-term memories if you want, might make another excuse for why he really wants this curse gone.

"The last of my family died long ago, and I clung to their memory. Then the memory OF the memory, then nothing, the curse took even that from me. I can't even remember their names or faces or their love as my perpetual youth erodes my past! A man cannot live like this, I must find a cure or die trying!"

And of course shorter-lived races like ratfolk, strix, and grippli don't have as long before old age hits.

I see what you did there.

It was a good game and a good line.