Up until the 1900s (and even today in many parts of the world), an individual is considered an adult somewhere between the ages of 13 and 15.Keep in mind that for much of that time period, we're talking about an averatge lifespan of 30ish, and a child mortality rate so high, it wasn't considered unusual that only two (or was it one?) of Abraham Lincoln's four children survived his Presidency.
Is that actually accurrate?
Just saying- lots of dead babies from measels and such means that the average life expectancy was relatively low.
But yes, the average was generally lower. I would imagine it was more 50-ish. Still, if you look at marriage records (which tend to go fairly far back, since it was a "gotta read so we can write bibles" church thing), the average age at marriage was around 25-30 in Shakespearean times. Yeah, I know the stereotypes...but that mostly comes from the fact that people mostly wrote about nobles...and yeah...nobles.
So overall...people did not entirely change that much in some areas, surprisingly. Makes sense- it takes time to go from 15 year old 'working adult' to a 'home owner'.
I always find it odd that this topic comes up every once in a while and its always about elves. Dwarves live very long lives too, compared to us humans and no one ever asks how much they're supposed to know or how to make sense of a being of their years being on the relative same level as a human many years younger. No one ever seems to bother and I wonder why.Dwarf starting age is 40 and some.
Common attitude is to treat all dwarves like middle-aged people, all in all.
Elves starts way older if you go by the rules.
I don't dispute any of this. I'm just saying that despite the difference between elves' and dwarves' longevity and maturation the relative difference compared to humans is still significant even if the actual difference is much smaller. Enough so that it is still odd that no one asks how much a dwarf is supposed to know. Actually, its even worse, as dwarves are often described as beings with very good memories, though I don't recall this ever being mentioned in PF, certainly not in mechanical terms.
And really, you can substitute dwarves with any other race that lives significantly longer than humans. Like I said longevity has a strong impact on perspective, as evidenced already in our own race in our real world. Teenagers think very differently compared to elderly folk, for instance. Now imagine that stretched out over a couple hundred years, a culture as much a product of such longevity as that same longevity is steeped within it, and tell me it doesn't make a difference.As for dwarves being treated as middle-aged folk, well, I dislike admitting it but much of that seems to me to come from their physical depiction and the generally gruff demeanor they're often portrayed to have. They seem stuck as perpetually 'old' (even though they don't have to be) whereas elves are perpetually 'young'. Dwarves look their age, elves don't.
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Historically short average lifespan was indeed largely due to the high child mortality rate.
I've considered making dwarves relatively passive learners, particularly when young. They don't experiment in the way human children do and don't actively interact with other dwarves until much later in their relative development. This relates to (1) their tendency to prefer tried-and-true methods (2) their high wisdom from intent observation (3) their low charisma from a lesser tendency to exert their will on the world and a lesser facility with communicating with others and (4) somewhat reduced learning speed as children compared with the more active humans.
I think elves should have a different progression, though, especially with their different mental stats.
An elf, however, might not be ready for adventuring until they hit that adolescent/teenager phase; the bones just aren't ready for it, whatever you want to say.
Well, that's interesting - the idea that elves may appear physically mature but be frail in a way that prevents adventuring. Wouldn't prevent the issue of elves pursuing extra knowledge in that time beyond what can be represented by +2 Int.
Weirdo makes an interesting point. We tend to think of Dwarves as maturing similarly to humans, just having far longer in the middle age and old age categories.
Tolkein, the primary source for today's RPGs, did treat the age differences between races to some extent. IIRC, young hobits were welcomed into adulthood at age 33, and before that they were considered impulsive, flighty, unreliable and immature, prone to antics like stealing mushrooms from a neighbor's field.
I don't recall anything about the youth of dwarves, just the feeling that as they aged their beards grew longer and grayer, stretching out their adulthood and old age.
In Tolkein, I don't recall ever seeing elf children as such. Of course there are significant differences between Tolkein's elves and PF (or D&D) elves, since Tolkein's elves are for all intents and purposes immortal.
In a more recent literary source, Ed Greenwood's Elminster novels show young elves as headstrong, overconfident and lacking an ounce of common sense.
I'd be curious if any of the Pathfinder novels get into such issues. Can anyone comment?
But I still can't help thinking that anyone claiming elf children are in nappies and still learning how to walk at age 10 are just trying to provoke reactions, trolling in other words.
Also real world life expectancies make no accounting for healing magic or fantasy beasts, so YMMV.
Even cantrips have been noted as life savers during childbirth. There is an entire Pharasma item that is just 'give guideance, stabilization, and virtue 1/day each', and it is noted as a tool for midwives.
I would personally think that a good bit of modern medicine would give a larger bonus than that (since doctors can deal with rather...unfortunate things), but it is still not 'leeches, whiskey, and bone saws' levels here.
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I always find it odd that this topic comes up every once in a while and its always about elves. Dwarves live very long lives too, compared to us humans and no one ever asks how much they're supposed to know or how to make sense of a being of their years being on the relative same level as a human many years younger. No one ever seems to bother and I wonder why.
Dwarves pop out of the earth fully grown don't you know? Before that, they're basically bearded potatos.
;P
Also real world life expectancies make no accounting for healing magic or fantasy beasts, so YMMV.Even cantrips have been noted as life savers during childbirth. There is an entire Pharasma item that is just 'give guideance, stabilization, and virtue 1/day each', and it is noted as a tool for midwives.
I would personally think that a good bit of modern medicine would give a larger bonus than that (since doctors can deal with rather...unfortunate things), but it is still not 'leeches, whiskey, and bone saws' levels here.
Simple things like "wash your hands" would probably do more than nearly anything. A basic understanding of germ theory was one of the biggest boosts in life expectancy in the real world.
Assuming of course that disease in the setting works like it does in the real world.
I generally assume the rules are the same as the real world unless magic and magical creatures.
I generally assume the rules are the same as the real world unless magic and magical creatures.
In general I think that is fair. However, the mere existence of magic and the supernatural would indeed change perceptions of things like diseases.
For example, if you actually have devils and demons and spirits going around possessing people, attributing mental illness to those causes makes a great deal more sense.
In addition, many (maybe even most or all) natural 'things' have an element of personality and self will represented by monsters such as elementals and kami. Trying to build any sort of scientific theory in a world where natural laws are only sometimes obeyed would be extremely difficult and result in a vastly different set of rules that what we are used to.
That said, the game itself rightly does assume that real world conditions apply except where altered specifically because trying to build a set of physics based on magic and getting us all to be able to visualize such a world would be a very daunting task.
So do I, though there might also be magical diseases, that might not follow normal rules.
I've occasionally toyed with settings where the world actually works more like people in the past thought it did, than like it actually does. Or like popular conceptions of what historical assumptions were anyway.
Of course, of course. Magic is magic after fall. I don't expect penicillin to work too well on a lycanthrope bite.
Still, I would see if I could get a tetanus shot.
In general I think that is fair. However, the mere existence of magic and the supernatural would indeed change perceptions of things like diseases.
For example, if you actually have devils and demons and spirits going around possessing people, attributing mental illness to those causes makes a great deal more sense.
In addition, many (maybe even most or all) natural 'things' have an element of personality and self will represented by monsters such as elementals and kami. Trying to build any sort of scientific theory in a world where natural laws are only sometimes obeyed would be extremely difficult and result in a vastly different set of rules that what we are used to.
That said, the game itself rightly does assume that real world conditions apply except where altered specifically because trying to build a set of physics based on magic and getting us all to be able to visualize such a world would be a very daunting task.
I might view it like a videogame riddled with magical bugs and glitches- I SHOULDN'T just randomly fall through the floor, but it doesn't mean that it can't happen, or that I don't know ways to encourage it to happen.
I should still generally work under the assumption that I shouldn't fall through the floor.
Side note- diagnose disease is a first level spell for a lot of the divine classes. So that helps. One of those weird 'getting the name of something you never heard about' things, but it works. I guess it is restricted to classes with gods and patrons and such because they are the ones with access to the info, and you are just scanning and doing WebMD.
It really isn't designed to simulate child and teen raising, nor do much exploration into a character's back story.
And yet it has rules for playing as children.
It really isn't designed to simulate child and teen raising, nor do much exploration into a character's back story.And yet it has rules for playing as children.
But it doesn't have very good rules for playing as children.
But it doesn't have very good rules for playing as children.
You can say that about a lot of things in PF though :P
Strangely, I don't think "Because that's not adventuring and that's what the game is designed for." really stands as a reason anymore. Paizo has made many systems and rules for the game that aren't related to adventuring, including rules for things like friendship, playing the piano, ruling nations, investing in a bank, building a library, etc.
Trees live a long, long time. They must have the best Knowledge checks of all.
Not to mention Colossal size, natural armor, damage reduction, hundreds o' hit points, and enough limbs ta make a dozen or more attacks per round.
Trees live a long, long time. They must have the best Knowledge checks of all.Not to mention Colossal size, natural armor, damage reduction, hundreds o' hit points, and enough limbs ta make a dozen or more attacks per round.
In the Eberron setting the most powerful being that I can recall was a colossal awakened tree druid 20. It had something like 32 HD before the druid levels.
And he just happened to be mentioned in casual passing...
"Yeah, he fully plans to conquer the earth and enslave all animalkind...but his malevolent master plan puts that event a few thousand years out."
"Yeah, he fully plans to conquer the earth and enslave all animalkind...but his malevolent master plan puts that event a few thousand years out."
Is that a direct quote?
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I always find it odd that this topic comes up every once in a while and its always about elves. Dwarves live very long lives too, compared to us humans and no one ever asks how much they're supposed to know or how to make sense of a being of their years being on the relative same level as a human many years younger. No one ever seems to bother and I wonder why.Dwarves pop out of the earth fully grown don't you know? Before that, they're basically bearded potatos.
;P
I've seen similar theories about elves spending a lot of their early lives in hibernation. Might explain why in some settings they don't need to sleep as adults.
I've seen similar theories about elves spending a lot of their early lives in hibernation. Might explain why in some settings they don't need to sleep as adults.I always find it odd that this topic comes up every once in a while and its always about elves. Dwarves live very long lives too, compared to us humans and no one ever asks how much they're supposed to know or how to make sense of a being of their years being on the relative same level as a human many years younger. No one ever seems to bother and I wonder why.Dwarves pop out of the earth fully grown don't you know? Before that, they're basically bearded potatos.
;P
And unlike the dwarves, hibernating elves awaken and pop out of trees! :P
Ooh, ooh, ooh! What if, despite their long lives, elves have really terrible long term memories (like, physiologically or something) and the reason they like songs and dances and other varied forms of art so much is because they require mnemonic devices to remember anything? Anything as in, who their parents are, but nothing that would actually effect game mechanics. Well, beyond putting a whole new spin on Bardic Knowledge, I guess, but that's fluff, right?
Elves of Golarion talks about this somewhat. More or less, due to their long lifespans combating their intense emotions, Elves sometimes have trouble "reconciling" memories. It's nothing like PTSD or the like. But this is one of the reasons they have a Chaotic alignment despite having a very Lawful society in many ways. They may see someone carrying a rose and the smell will trigger the memory of their first lover's perfume which will trigger the memory of their deep loving connection which will trigger the memory of the intense pain felt when their lover was killed which will, in a span of milliseconds. Which could make the elf start to weep when seeing the rose. They're kind of like people with ADHD (REAL ADHD - not the ability to focus, but the inability to prioritize trying to focus on EVERYTHING at once) in very short doses but with excellent long term memories and the will to concentrate when they want to.
Speaking from someone who has lived with such issues his whole life. And neurologically speaking, it's pretty much fully explainable by modern medicine, too.
In the setting, in 3.5 at least, this was the reason for Elven Reverie. Since Elves didn't sleep, they more or less had waking/meditative dreams replaying and sorting their memories for 4 hours (I think? In 2E at least. Maybe 8 in 3.5.) But obviously, despite having a high Int, with age comes more memories to manage, from second to second of life, and more in the overall "memory hard drive" for Reverie.
Basically, as they age, the more memories they have, it's kind of like having to Defrag a slightly bigger hard drive every night.