Curse of Childhood, adventure hook?

[Dalek Zek]

I was thinking about use this fore a adventure idea. I am not sure if the three benefits are balanced with eats other though. Also I would like a fourth benefit and use percentile dice. The age of the characters would be 12 fore humans.

Curse of Childhood

You where cursed ad birth by a unknown Deity. You can not grow older. Your permanently stuck just before your earliest adolescents. Because of this, you are physically and mentally under develop. You will still die however, if your natural time has run out. Sins it was a God how cursed you, it cannot be removed, not even with wish ore miracle.

This means you have a -4 to all stats.


Roll ad random ad character creation to determine the effect:

1-2: You learn very quickly. You get +20 skill point at level one and +5 ad every other level

3-4: You adept very quickly. You get a bonus feat ad level one, another ad level 5 and one ad every five levels there after.

5-6: You develop very quickly. You get +10% bonus on all experience gained

[Cipher Stars]

Repost, as well as my fourth ability suggestion at bottom.

"I was thinking about use this for an adventure idea. I am not sure if the three benefits are balanced with the others though, Also I would like to add a fourth benefit and use percentile dice. The age of the characters would be compare to around 12 for humans.

Curse of Childhood

You where cursed at birth by a unknown Deity. You cannot grow older. Your permanently stuck just before your earliest adolescents. Because of this, you are physically and mentally under developed. You will still die however, if your natural time has run out. Since it was a god that cursed you, it cannot be removed, not even with wish or miracle.

This means you have a -4 to all stats.

Roll a random chance at character creation to determine a special effect nature gifted you to compensate for your loss of stature:

1-25%: You learn very quickly. You get +20 skill point at level one and +5 at every other level

26-50%: You adapt very quickly. You get a bonus feat at level one, another at level 5 and one more every five levels there after.

51-75%: You develop very quickly. You get +10% bonus on all experience gained"

76-99%: You grow too fast. You age at twice your racial average, but don't suffer negative aging effects until the day you die of old age. In addition, you grow in size. Each new age segment (Adulthood-Venerable) you grow to the next largest size gaining benefits accordingly.

100%-100%: You do not age at all, your time will never come unless someone interferes. (you die in battle, by poisoning, Murder, ect.)

[Pyromancer999]

This means you have a -4 to all stats.

I have a problem with this. There are countless examples in stories, and also manga, where a character has been cursed or is willingly a child forever. So, while their bodies are underdeveloped, their minds certainly aren't. So, just a -4 to all physical stats would probably make more sense.

[Golden-Esque]

In my campaign, I treat the Youth age category and Child age category as so:

Adult: No modifiers
Youth: -1 Str, -1 Con, +1 Dex, +1 Cha
Child: -2 Str, -2 Con, +2 Dex, +2 Cha, reduce size category by one

Like any age categories, these two stack for a total of -3 Str, -3 Con, +3 Dex, and +3 Cha.

As an Elementary Teacher, I can tell you that this is pretty accurate. The younger they get, kids often have less stamina against actual physical work and feats of endurance (play is NOT work or feats of endurance, mind you) and their inexperienced immune systems mean they get sick easier. I don't think I need to make a point for Strength, as any one could tell you that your average child's muscles are underdeveloped.

As for the bonuses, you WANT your players to enjoy playing their character, so you need to give them some benefits. After all, your players are going to resent having a -4 to every stat if it means that it severely cripples their ability to play, say, a spellcaster (who need specific ability scores in order to cast spell levels). Anyway, kids are extremely limber. It's actually kind of cool, and scientists say that it leads back to monkey babies needing to be a little 'bouncy' if you will should they fall from trees. Part of it also comes from having less muscles mass, meaning they can move their bodies around a bit more freely then adults can. Finally, not only are kids extremely imaginative in their personalities, but kids have a way of making adults simply melt in their hands when asking for stuff, resulting in the Charisma bonus.

Is it perfectly accurate in terms of Piaget's Cognitive Development of a medical journal? Heck no! But its quick, fairly easy, and most importantly, it fits perfectly with the existing age-category rules. Just instead of adding category benefits as you get older, you remove then until you have no bonuses at Adulthood. Anyway, there's my 2 cp.