Steal Years stacking

[pad300]

Does the effect of multiple castings of Steal Years (or Steal Years, Greater), stack?

ie. Johnny is a 9th level Half Orc wizard (51 years old) with a several of pet tortoises. On day 1, he casts Steal Year Greater on tortoise A. On day 2 he casts Steal Years Greater on Tortoise B... (and on Day 9 he casts it again on tortoise C, and starts the cycle over again, to never regain his actual age penalties).

Stolen Years, Day 1: 4d6 ⇒ (1, 1, 2, 6) = 10

Stolen Years, Day 2: 4d6 ⇒ (2, 1, 6, 2) = 11

After casting on Day 2 is Johnny effectively 30, 40 or 41?

[Ryze Kuja]

It doesn't explicitly say in the spell how this scenario of multiple castings is handled, so you're not going to get a definitive answer. But, here's how I'd handle that: You can cast multiple castings of this spell, but each time you do, it resets the 24 duration and you don't need to take the fatigue for 1d4 hours from rapidly aging back to your normal age; at each recasting of the spell, you reroll the 5d4 and take that new number as the amount you're now de-aged. Tortoises are one of my favorite animals, so your alignment shifts towards evil each time you target a tortoise with this spell >:D

[Pizza Lord]

They stack, on the same or different target. Stacking age isn't the same as stacking bonuses or penalties. Age modifiers specifically do stack with themselves anyway, even if you were to try and count 'years' or 'age' as a bonus or penalty.

Adulthood for a half-orc is 14, middle-age is 30, old is 45, and venerable is 60. So Johnny is old. He'll have received a total of –3 to his Str, Dex, and Con and a +2 to his Int, Wis, and Cha from his age.

Using your numbers for each casting (10 and 11), he would count as 30. Just inside middle-age.

Example:

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Johnny is 9th-level. Each casting of greater steal years will lower his apparent age by 4d6 years (1d6 per 2 caster levels) and add that amount to the 'donor'. That's an average of 14 years from one casting.

He casts the first spell, and his physical body is now as it was when he was 37 (51 – 14). That puts him into a middle-aged range for a half-orc. He would regain the 2 ability points to his physical abilities (no change to mentals, as per the spell description). The target would age 14 years. We don't know the target's current age or age ranges for a tortoise (I'll come back to that).

Johnny will retain this youth for 9 days (spell duration). If on the 2nd day, he casts the spell again (on the same or a different target), he would 'drop' another 14 days on average. He would count as 23. That would put him into adult range. He'd get another 1 point in his physical abilities (the points he lost when he became middle-aged at 30).

A 3rd casting the next day would drop him another 14 years on average, but only to an apparent age of 14, which is the minimum age considered to be adulthood for a half-orc. After day 9, he would lose the gained years from the first casting and regain an apparent age of 28 (the 14 he gained from the 1st casting added onto the 14 year 'floor' he hit with the 3rd casting. He'd still be below middle-aged (30) so no change to anything.

After another day, the 2nd casting would end and he'd gain 14 years putting him at 42 apparent age. That's into middle-age, so he'd 'lose' a point from his physical ability. After the 3rd casting ended, he'd lose whatever years he had stolen with that casting and be back at his original age, 51. Since that's old, he'd lose 2 points from his physical abilities and be basically as he was 12 days before.

He would have also had to deal with 1d4 hours of fatigue each of those last 3 days as each spell wore off, but I am sure that condition is easily remedied by a 9th-level character.
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Side note:

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On a side note, as a GM and for game purposes, not rules, I would probably not allow a familiar to be the target of its master's spell for this. A tortoise is fine, even any animal (I probably wouldn't let you steal more years than they would have). I believe a familiar is granted its lifespan (usually extended) based on its master's lifespan. For game purposes I would say the master would only be stealing his own bonded lifespan and I wouldn't allow. It's not too hard for him to find another target. Even though there's no actual wording about familiar lifespans, I think there's enough evidence that a familiar has such a bond with its master (often just counting as being the caster for some spells) that this is a fair ruling, not that you've asked for such a ruling. But obviously each GM can vary. Most tortoises can certainly have a life-span longer than humans and definitely half-orcs, but I wanted to add my thoughts on the choice of target from the question.
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[Claxon]

Why not cast the spell Age Resistance instead?

Less hassle to achieve the same general result. Steal Years potential requires multiple castings to remove the penalties (depending on rolls). With Age Resistance, you just need to be able to cast the version (spell level) needed for your age category.

However, the most correct thing to do (IMO) is to throw out age penalties and bonuses altogether. They are one of the things I've seen min max'd the most during character creation by players of spell casters.