Best APs for Young Character?

[deuxhero]

Since there's official rules for running pre-adult characters and one as an iconic I'm curious which APs are best suited story wise and thematically to including one in the party. No plans to actually run one, but I thought it would be an interesting thing to look at.

Shackled City isn't too hard to fit. Indeed there are at least two closely related reasons why a child is looking around into the disappearance: Find a friend and/or "Why are they trying to kidnap me?".

Age of Worms' basic hook ("Get rich enough plundering a tome that you can get out of this hellhole") works well enough for younger characters.

Rise of the Runelords has an opening suited to unlikely heroes. Finding a reason to drag them into the future books is harder but hardly exclusive to.

Jade Reagent is the best setup for it with the Younger Sibling campaign trait. A young Imperious bloodline Sorcerer would have few problems fitting into a party for this AP. Indeed it mitigates the issue of the group's main talker being a child (as the natural choices are almost always Oracle and Sorcerer) somewhat with their position.

Skulls and Shackles could accommodate a relatively young (mid-teens) characters, I doubt the press gangers checked for ages. Anything younger gets a bit absurd thematically I think: It may be a pirate AP but it's not Treasure Island.

Strange Aeons outright makes it impossible as written, though it could work well with a small adjustment

Spoiler:

The PCs have explicitly been in the count's service for at least a few years. Indeed it was required for the whole memory sacrifice thing to work in the first place.

If you wanted to make it fit however, there's the option of making the young PC the count's child. Now that sounds like fun.

Though being an Eldritch Horror AP kinda makes issues thematically.

Kingmaker has a weird hook to include a child in (and overland movement of small characters is a big pain in a campaign so focused on overland travel) and putting a child in any of the leadership positions has issues. Plus the timescale is long enough a character may stop being a child by the time it's over.

[Yakman]

Strange Aeons is a good idea.

in theory Ironfang Invasion might be a good choice as well.

most of the others... eh...

[Artofregicide]

I have a child character (human mesmerist) in strange aeons. She's Lowls' niece.

[Yqatuba]

How exactly would you stat a young character? Just give them the young template or something more complicated?

[Jenner2057]

Yqatuba wrote:

How exactly would you stat a young character? Just give them the young template or something more complicated?

Young Characters

As for other campaigns...

I'm about to start a Wrath of the Righteous campaign where everyone starts as a young character - a squire or apprentice to a knight or hero -coming to Kenabres. Hero Points and Mythic Powers will help to balance out the shortcoming of starting young once they find they're among the few survivors of the initial attack.

My friend ran a Reign of Winter campaign with all young characters. He liked the idea of using kid PCs with the "fairy tale" background of the adventure. He just had a group of kids from Heldren out hunting in the forest when the winter portal erupted. They get lost in the blowing snow, find the Black Rider and go from there.

Serpent's Skull could be also run with young characters since you start shipwrecked on an island. Almost a bit of "Lord of the Flies" if you will (well... with cannibals and monsters of course...) They arrive back on the mainland with this knowledge of a lost city and different factions try to recruit them to join their expedition. That could be a fun one too.

[neonWitch]

I'm GMing Strange Aeons and,

Spoiler:

somehow, Lowls having any interest or ability to do the things necessary to have a child seem.... unlikely. But that's just my Lowls, who I've primarily based on, of all things, Victor Vallakovich from the 5e campaign "Curse of Strahd"

As for a kid, we haven't started yet but I have a 15 year old varisian diviner set as my PC for Ironfang. She has been raised from a child to be the next harrower of the clan by the family elder as my way of explaining having a level in wizard as an adolescent.

Rules wise, in my Strange Aeons game we have an **old** investigator as a part of the party, and we just treat his starting stats as his "Old" stats, reverse engineering as appropriate when youth spells are thrown around. Of course, this would lead to some weirdness if he started as a character with high physical stats, but with the stats he rolled the narrative seemed to fit the crunch. In general, that'd probably be the simplest way of dealing with this kind of stuff, but the young template probably would help really cement the idea of "little kid"

[deuxhero]

Iron Gods 1 suggests an NPC child as a replacement character and notes Androids (which the PG explicitly recommends as a race option) can look like kids.

[Knight_Hammer]

In my Strange Aeons game I had a young character for a while. He was a summoner.

Spoiler:

He was an apprentice to Lowls, and his ability to summon and eidolon is what convinced Lowls to sacrifice his mind, as Lowls was convinced he had a special connection to the Great Old Ones. Sadly, that player had to leave the game, so he split from the party and another player came in and is playing as his older sister, who is tagging along with the party in hopes that they will lead her to him. Keeping story options open in case he can return to the game.

[zimmerwald1915]

The opening hook - if not much else - for Curse of the Crimson Throne suggests that a young character might fit well.

And of course Hell's Rebels could use a Gavroche.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like Reign of Winter could work well since there's a certain "dark fairy tale" quality to the whole thing.

[Dragonchess Player]

For Savage Tide, a PC can take the role of Tavey Nesk.

As mentioned, Curse of the Crimson Throne can start with any/all of the PCs being one of Lamm's Lambs.

Second Darkness can work similarly to Age of Worms.

If your group can handle a darker subject (child slavery), Legacy of Fire can have the child character take the Earning Your Freedom campaign trait. Finding Haleen or Reclaiming your Roots may also be options.

Skull and Shackles can always use a cabin boy/girl.