One of my players Characters had an unfortunate encounter with a Ghost and in a heartbeat aged 40 years.
I was a little surprised that there aren't official 5e rules for age and aging of PC, but I found quite a lot of nice homebrew age rules basically breaking racial lifespans in to categories of infant - adolescent - adult - middle-aged - etc and giving increases and decreases to stats in those categories. ie young +STR -WIS / old -STR +WIS
To me this all seemed very suited for character creation but not so much for aging 40 years in an instant via Horrifying Visage
which left me wondering how you handle this sort of thing in your adventures?
Thanks for any replies thoughts
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I would probably pull from previous editions, as that used to be an actual game mechanic.
Secondly, I might allow for a quest to restore the lost years and extend the age effect reversal from 24Hrs to within the month.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I've never wanted to mess about too much with changes to characters ability scores, so I have also run into this same question of what to do when someone is aged. For the elvish (or other long lived) characters, being aged 40 years is probably not a big deal, but for anything with a lifespan of under 80 years, this would be quite significant. Rather than punishing them with stat changes though, I just laid on thick the emphasis that they were no longer their younger self by having NPC's treat them as if they were frail. That always been more than enough for my players to be highly motivated to reverse what was done to them.
If they were aged beyond their normal lifespan, I still probably wouldn't want to punish them with changes to their character sheet, but I might (with the players enthuiastic consent) suggest that they are no longer able to take levels in martial classes, and might want to multi-class into something a little more befitting a fantastically old person (but that's just a half-baked idea for now).
A lot of variables unknown to consider. As stated, the long-lived races such as Elves would likely simply frown on the minor inconvenience. Humans, on the other hand, might be much more seriously impeded, depending on the character's age when it began. If it's something you intend to get reversed reasonably soon, I would certainly impose some penalties to the character sheet, as temporary measures, a bad side effect of having gone through this. Maybe 2 levels of exhaustion, if it took the character to the 80's or more for a Human? One level if it put them in their 60's? Again, I would base what to do strongly on if it can be UNdone without too much major fuss. Part of the story, an experience the players can learn from (maybe bonus XP, or the party levels a bit sooner than you'd initially planned?) If it's something they won't undo, I'd go cosmetic. That dashing young chap is now a weathered old man, sorry.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I don't like thinks like this that have permanent effects on a PC as it can break the first rule of D&D (ensure everyone has fun).
If at all possible I would give the party the option to fix it. I would make it a very low DC check to know that the effect can bve reversed by greater restoration if it is cast in the next 24 hours (Assuming the players are not able to cast it themselves I would then provide a way to get to either get to an NPC who can cast it on them (if that is credible) or let them find a spell scroll (maybe find the body of another adventurer who went prepared of such a ghostly effect); the problem with the scroll if the players are not level 9 is there is no guarantee of success (you could lessen the effect by providing 2 scrolls.
Alternatively I would speak to the player OOC about it, are they happy to continue 40 years older, for a 30 year old human who suddenly becomes 70 there is not need for mechanical changes they could just become a tough old man like these Tough Guys, but if the player wants a mechanical change you could agree something. For an elf there might be little difference for a Goblin things might be more difficult. If the player doesn't want to be 40 years older you could give the party a quest for a very powerful spellcaster who could remove the curse. RAW the ways I can see this happening is a level 20 using divine intervention or by use of wish (though the price of doing this via wish is extreemely high for the caster), you could also homebrew another cure for horryfying Visage that doesn't havethe 24 hour limit.
I'll go into a little more detail about my particular situation, something I knowingly didn't initially as I didn't want to detract with specifics from the rapid aging issue in general.
My unfortunate Players character was a human sorcerer of red dragon lineage, we figured Horrifying Visage took him out of his 20's into his 60's
The situation was a one on one session where in The House of Lament A PC is split from the group during a rest and is teleported to awaken in a new location, the Horrifying Visage took place at this awakening location! The rest of the session was a rather memorable chase through the House of Lament with the player's character frantically trying to reunite with the group... I rather meanly set a clowder? Gremishkas on his tail the likes of which the group had only encountered for the very first time last session and the sorcerer had expressed a particular loathing for... during which I noted his increasing breathlessness general decrepitude fumblings with door handles due to horrifically long fingernails and constant stepping on his beard... the player totally went with it and we ended the session with the player bursting into the room were the rest of the group were resting...
So I totally handled it cosmetically but during the session I constantly alluded to how his decrepit state was going to have him fall to the horror's of the house while rolling "something". I also had an "out" with a NPC resting with the group capable of Greater Restoration via (what on earth is that rule #1 Jegpeg ;) a potion of greater restoration!?! that he just happened to have with him)
Honestly I don't know how I would have handled it if it was going to be a permanent situation but it certainly made for a very fun one on one session with my player
PS sorry for the BOLD half way through the text it's somehow gotten locked in and I can't remove it... I ended up copy pasting the entire thing to a google doc and back to fix it sorry...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I just remembered what I did with another player who was aged 40 years (the d4 always seems to land on the highest value for the humans in my groups). He was a warlock, and his patron contacted him not long after it happened to offer him a deal. He would de-age one year for every enemy the group slew, as long as he laid two gold coins over its eyes. I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with that, since I've always struggled to come up with meaningful tasks for warlocks, and it gave the player something to spend his money on (another issue I tend to have in longer running games).
I'm sure you could have something like that crop up for any class really, and it ought to provide good drama for the group as long as you make it apparent that there is an unsavory fate for the souls of anyone they complete this ritual over. If they manage to get back to their original ages you could even give them the warlock acolyte feat as a bonus.
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One of my players Characters had an unfortunate encounter with a Ghost and in a heartbeat aged 40 years.
I was a little surprised that there aren't official 5e rules for age and aging of PC, but I found quite a lot of nice homebrew age rules basically breaking racial lifespans in to categories of infant - adolescent - adult - middle-aged - etc and giving increases and decreases to stats in those categories.
ie young +STR -WIS / old -STR +WIS
To me this all seemed very suited for character creation but not so much for aging 40 years in an instant via Horrifying Visage
which left me wondering how you handle this sort of thing in your adventures?
Thanks for any replies thoughts
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I would probably pull from previous editions, as that used to be an actual game mechanic.
Secondly, I might allow for a quest to restore the lost years and extend the age effect reversal from 24Hrs to within the month.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I've never wanted to mess about too much with changes to characters ability scores, so I have also run into this same question of what to do when someone is aged. For the elvish (or other long lived) characters, being aged 40 years is probably not a big deal, but for anything with a lifespan of under 80 years, this would be quite significant. Rather than punishing them with stat changes though, I just laid on thick the emphasis that they were no longer their younger self by having NPC's treat them as if they were frail. That always been more than enough for my players to be highly motivated to reverse what was done to them.
If they were aged beyond their normal lifespan, I still probably wouldn't want to punish them with changes to their character sheet, but I might (with the players enthuiastic consent) suggest that they are no longer able to take levels in martial classes, and might want to multi-class into something a little more befitting a fantastically old person (but that's just a half-baked idea for now).
A lot of variables unknown to consider. As stated, the long-lived races such as Elves would likely simply frown on the minor inconvenience. Humans, on the other hand, might be much more seriously impeded, depending on the character's age when it began. If it's something you intend to get reversed reasonably soon, I would certainly impose some penalties to the character sheet, as temporary measures, a bad side effect of having gone through this. Maybe 2 levels of exhaustion, if it took the character to the 80's or more for a Human? One level if it put them in their 60's? Again, I would base what to do strongly on if it can be UNdone without too much major fuss. Part of the story, an experience the players can learn from (maybe bonus XP, or the party levels a bit sooner than you'd initially planned?) If it's something they won't undo, I'd go cosmetic. That dashing young chap is now a weathered old man, sorry.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I don't like thinks like this that have permanent effects on a PC as it can break the first rule of D&D (ensure everyone has fun).
If at all possible I would give the party the option to fix it. I would make it a very low DC check to know that the effect can bve reversed by greater restoration if it is cast in the next 24 hours (Assuming the players are not able to cast it themselves I would then provide a way to get to either get to an NPC who can cast it on them (if that is credible) or let them find a spell scroll (maybe find the body of another adventurer who went prepared of such a ghostly effect); the problem with the scroll if the players are not level 9 is there is no guarantee of success (you could lessen the effect by providing 2 scrolls.
Alternatively I would speak to the player OOC about it, are they happy to continue 40 years older, for a 30 year old human who suddenly becomes 70 there is not need for mechanical changes they could just become a tough old man like these Tough Guys, but if the player wants a mechanical change you could agree something. For an elf there might be little difference for a Goblin things might be more difficult. If the player doesn't want to be 40 years older you could give the party a quest for a very powerful spellcaster who could remove the curse. RAW the ways I can see this happening is a level 20 using divine intervention or by use of wish (though the price of doing this via wish is extreemely high for the caster), you could also homebrew another cure for horryfying Visage that doesn't havethe 24 hour limit.
Super Thank you for all your replies,
I'll go into a little more detail about my particular situation, something I knowingly didn't initially as I didn't want to detract with specifics from the rapid aging issue in general.
My unfortunate Players character was a human sorcerer of red dragon lineage, we figured Horrifying Visage took him out of his 20's into his 60's
The situation was a one on one session where in The House of Lament A PC is split from the group during a rest and is teleported to awaken in a new location, the Horrifying Visage took place at this awakening location! The rest of the session was a rather memorable chase through the House of Lament with the player's character frantically trying to reunite with the group... I rather meanly set a clowder? Gremishkas on his tail the likes of which the group had only encountered for the very first time last session and the sorcerer had expressed a particular loathing for... during which I noted his increasing breathlessness general decrepitude fumblings with door handles due to horrifically long fingernails and constant stepping on his beard... the player totally went with it and we ended the session with the player bursting into the room were the rest of the group were resting...
So I totally handled it cosmetically but during the session I constantly alluded to how his decrepit state was going to have him fall to the horror's of the house while rolling "something". I also had an "out" with a NPC resting with the group capable of Greater Restoration via (what on earth is that rule #1 Jegpeg ;) a potion of greater restoration!?! that he just happened to have with him)
Honestly I don't know how I would have handled it if it was going to be a permanent situation but it certainly made for a very fun one on one session with my player
PS sorry for the BOLD half way through the text it's somehow gotten locked in and I can't remove it... I ended up copy pasting the entire thing to a google doc and back to fix it sorry...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
I just remembered what I did with another player who was aged 40 years (the d4 always seems to land on the highest value for the humans in my groups). He was a warlock, and his patron contacted him not long after it happened to offer him a deal. He would de-age one year for every enemy the group slew, as long as he laid two gold coins over its eyes. I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with that, since I've always struggled to come up with meaningful tasks for warlocks, and it gave the player something to spend his money on (another issue I tend to have in longer running games).
I'm sure you could have something like that crop up for any class really, and it ought to provide good drama for the group as long as you make it apparent that there is an unsavory fate for the souls of anyone they complete this ritual over. If they manage to get back to their original ages you could even give them the warlock acolyte feat as a bonus.