An Attempt to Stat Children

[ahyangyi]

I would suggest just giving -2 overall for an uberchild and -4 overall & -1 size for a child. Anything younger gets gross.

So taking that wizard example, a 12-years-old uberchild would have
STR: 10
DEX: 9
CON: 13
INT: 14
WIS: 10
CHA: 11
which is about a low-point-buy character would look. Or what you get when you try to roll a character but had bad luck. Not good, but she can probably adventure like a real adult to some extent.

and a 9-years-old child would have
STR: 8
DEX: 7
CON: 11
INT: 12
WIS: 8
CHA: 9
which is weak but still compares favorably to a random commoner.

I think such a simple solution would be good enough.

The dexterity bonus in pathfinder's article looks weird to me, as that implies a child is better at using a bow than an adult, which isn't that case. Instead, the child looks more agile and nimble because she is smaller in size, and we already have rules for that.

Also, please don't touch the HD. The level-1 characters are fragile enough and taking a -4 penalty to CON is surely a penalty significant enough.