STARTING AGES FOR PC RACES

Please forgive the 3-page length of this justification and explanation for starting ages, but if you wish to know why it works, please read on. It may prove insightful and useful later to you. However, if you really don't care why it works but simply wish to use the table, feel free to link right to it:

STARTING AGE TABLE

To my mind, 3e's standard starting ages for classes and races clearly presented several problems. First and foremost, they assume that even despite so-called aptitudes or affinities towards certain classes, some races still just took a lot longer to learn things. For example, elves are supposed to be gifted wizards, but for some reason they take, on average, 28 years longer to learn this class than a human. Furthermore an elf PC can unrealistically get around this problem by taking a class like rogue first and then multiclassing into the wizard class at 2nd level - about 21 years ahead of schedule. Of course such oddities were bound to arise when one builds their system on two basic premises, both of which are demonstrably wrong.

Different races age at different rates. This is rather apparent, especially when individuals are younger and not yet mature. Adolescent rates of learning ARE drastically different between the races, and it would be a mistake to assume this carries over and continues to be true after the onset of puberty. If it were true, we should be required to roleplay our characters of different races in drastically different ways, so we prefer an approach that makes adult rates of learning dependent on INT only and not on race. In this way, a player is only asked to keep his or her character's INT in mind when roleplaying how smart or dim or how quick or slow their characters are, and not have to also worry if they are playing their race's cognitive abilities properly, as 3e seems to suggest they should when they assert some races learn faster than others even as adults.

Besides, INT is DEFINED (in the game) as how quickly one learns, reasons, recalls, and figures things out in general. Thus, adding racial considerations on top of this seems to either ignore this very definition or demonstrates they have poorly and incompletely defined it in the first place.

Just as a chimpanzee learns its basic skills far quicker than a human does, so too does a human learn their basic skills quicker than an elf. Yet this does not mean chimps should have all sorts of advantages over humans because their learning curve is higher while in their adolescent years. This is a natural mistake, but it is a mistake nevertheless.

In the final analysis, what determines your PC's adult learning rate is not race, but intelligence, just as INT is defined in this game. And this is a MUST for roleplaying reasons as well, unless we wish to roleplay all long-lived demi-humans as rather slow on the uptake and almost incapable of learning, or at least uninterested in learning, taking perhaps 6 times longer to learn anything no matter what class or skill or feat or time of life, or similarly playing all shorter-lived demi-humans as smarter and quicker than humans. We do not want to do this in our games. As human players trying to play human and non-human characters, our play will all be derived from our own cognitive development. Therefore, it would be wise to assume ADULT PC races are of comparable cognitive development, and any differences we do employ can be handled by one variable (Intelligence).

Therefore we will assume after a character reaches 'majority' or adult status, their learning curves are virtually identical as far as the PC races will be concerned. Before this time, while they mature to adulthood but haven't yet reached puberty, to a human, a long lived race's children may seem as if they are arrested in their development - particularly elven children since it takes them nearly a century to start behaving and acting more like adults. Though mindful of this fact and a bit of a wonder what an elven childhood must be like, we cannot let this rate of learning carry over into the adult years without serious roleplaying problems and inconsistencies arising. So we don't.

This will mean all PC races, not counting an individual's personal intelligence score, will learn their skills and feats and classes at nearly identical rates. So, for example, an elf will not take 5 times longer to learn how to be a wizard, nor 6 times longer to learn how to be a cleric than a human does. They will all take about the SAME time. And they will all acquire experience points at virtually the same rate unless their race actually has some bona fide racial advantage for a particular class or skill. Even then, they will only learn associated or related skills quicker, and NOT skill or feats in general.

To help with game balance while maintaining 3e's given life spans for various races, I have adjusted maturity (majority) ages to happen later in life, thereby slightly extending the childhood of certain races. Elves, for example, now take an additional 20 years to reach puberty and become adults at 130 instead of 110. But once they get there, they'll learn at the same rate as any other PC race. Though the distinction between starting later before learning adult skills or just taking longer to learn adult skills as adults may be subtle - since the end results are the same for character generation - it is a very important distinction as the new system does not suggest non humans are slow to learn as adults, even if they are slower to learn as children. We are not, generally, roleplaying children, so this is fine.

But how long does it take to learn a class's skills? We first must appreciate that the skills that make up your average 'adventurer' are more alike then they are unalike, and they have more in common in general than they have class specific differences. So all classes learn how to fight, have physical training (CON), reflex training (DEX), and training in self-control (WIS), which is the basis of their saving throws. They also all learn stamina and fortitude and combat techniques like dodging to some degree (Hit Dice), and they all have already learned a host of general, non class specific skills anyone might learn, like languages, swimming, crafts, first-aid, etc. Finally, they've already learned social skills and anything else that may complete their cognitive development.

It is just some classes learn some things better than others do. More book learning and less physical training are typical of wizards, for example, which is why they are weaker fighters but better spell casters, whereas just the opposite is true of barbarians. But both learn something of the other's class, so neither is likely to be in total ignorance of the skills possessed by other classes. This common training will be known here as BASIC TRAINING, and to one degree or another, ALL PCs undergo similar training, whether it is formal under the tutelage of a mentor, master, or trainer, or somehow self taught.

It will further be assumed most of basic training is acquired in the last years just before a race's designated age of 'adulthood.' That way, a character may have taken years and years, almost from infancy if their player wishes, to acquire their basic skills, or perhaps just a few years. Once basic training is done, they are just at their adult age as given below.

The practical point here is that when someone wishes to multiclass, it would be an error to assume they had to go through basic training again and thus take as long to pick up their second class as it took them to pick up their first class. It would still take a long time, but not years and years. Thus, subsequent classes would forego most of the repetitive basic training and the only additional time required would be the time necessary to learn class specific skills.

But again, how long is this? Unfortunately, to make matters too detailed will detract from the game, and random factors will already be larger than most of these adjustments. So though one could present a formula to take dozens of factors into account, they could all be subsumed in ONE random roll. Still, higher INT should shave off some time. Therefore in addition to the adult starting age given below, one adds a number of years depending on the class.

Here is the starting age table, which also includes other age information. Below this table, you will also find the age adjustments due to INT and class.

STARTING ADULT AGE DUE TO RACE

These starting ages are different from those found in the PHB

# -1 STR, -1 CON, -1 DEX, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 CHA

## -2 STR, -2 CON, -2 DEX, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 CHA

### -3 STR, -3 CON, -3 DEX, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 CHA

NOTE: Age modifiers are cumulative. For example, by the time venerable age is reached, a total of 6 would have been subtracted from STR, etc. (-1, -2, and -3 = -6 total).

MAXIMUM AGE is rolled in secret by the DM, but only after the character reaches venerable age.

AGE ADJUSTMENTS DUE TO CLASS AND INTELLIGENCE

All races use the same adjustments. Only the class differs.

Barbarian, Rogue, and Sorcerer: (ADULT +1d4 - INT bonus) years.

Bard, Fighter, Paladin (Holy Warrior), Ranger: (ADULT +1d6 - INT bonus) years.

Cleric, Druid, Monk, Wizard: (ADULT +2d6 - INT bonus) years.

The INT bonus will be 0 to 4 for starting characters (PHB, page 8, ignore any negative bonus), and no matter what the roll or INT adjustment, a minimum of one year will be required. And remember, though this time is class specific training, a lot of their adventurer training or Basic Training should be kept in mind if you wish to know just how many TOTAL years of training these people have above the masses and common folk. It is considerable and often impressive.

For example, if a human bard's player rolled 4 and had an INT bonus of 2, they add (4-2) or 2 years to ADULT (human adult is 15). Thus, they are finished training and ready to adventure at age 17. But this does not necessarily mean they only studied 2 years. In fact, this PC may have been under the tutelage of a master bard since he or she was a child. It is only in the last 2 years they really excelled and finally finished their class specific training. Though this system would enable someone to come in off the street and finish bard training in a scant two years, this would still be an exception, and it would probably be the case such an individual already had an aptitude for this class and a remarkable amount of learning in their background, and probably most of their non bard specific skills and feats already intact.

Finally, since we gamers rarely like to shelve our PCs and wait to play them until an appropriate number of game years have passed before acquiring our PC's second class, as we might if our rolls were bad, we will adopt the N level rule. For example, if my PC were a rogue and he wanted to become a wizard, one would think they should take a number of years off from adventuring equal to (+2d6 - INT bonus) years. Even with a fantastic INT, assuming average rolls, this would still be 3 years off of game world time. Unless all other PCs in the game also wanted to knock off for a three-year vacation, this isn't going to work too well.

The best way to handle this problem is forethought and planning. If you know your PC is aiming to acquire a second class, go ahead and add those years for training for their subsequent classes to their starting age during character generation. This is pre-aging your PC. This incomplete training is nigh useless until finished, but when it comes time to acquire their next class, they only need finish it in a few months or less than a year, probably between levels and adventures under the N level rule. For example, instead of starting at 17, as the bard above may have done, the player knows they will wish to become a wizard, makes those rolls (gets an adjusted 3 years), and starts their PC at age 20 instead. Thus, they are a bard for N level around age 20, and at N+1 level, they become a wizard, finally completing the lengthy training to become a wizard.

The N Level Rule

But this detail and forethought isn't as necessary as some others considerations, so just using the N level rule alone will still naturally stretch out the time between changing classes, thus giving your PC much, much longer to realistically pick up a new class and its skills rather than face the Herculean and unrealistic problems of SUDDEN DEVELOPMENT. True, many gamers may not even care about such problems, but many do.

Therefore, all these new factors considerably mitigate some of the harsher and less realistic aspects of 3e's starting ages, learning curves, and racial biases that appear to be true in some places but are mysteriously ignored in others. This more natural approach should solve these problems and aid in roleplaying, but mostly, adequately conceal the gamer's footprint while portraying our game world in more consistent and realistic ways.