Setting aside that I am the DM and have a decent amount of control on how magical effects manifest in the world, I'm curious if anything "official" has been handed down on the following subject. A player's female character expressed a desire to have a romantic relationship with the possibility of pregnancy. The PC is a great role-player and isn't trying to play into deliberate pushing the envelope just to see how far they can go; they really seem to want to legitimately explore the possibility to adventuring through at least a portion of pregnancy and what being a mother would mean after the fact. After some consideration I decided I would allow for the possibility of conception after their romantic encounters; again not overly descriptive, they're cool with the scene just fading to black and do not expect or volunteer extraneous details. I allowed for the possibility by the will of the dice gods and a percentage range on a d100... they're now pregnant, it's early, they don't know they're pregnant yet.
My party is in a haunted situation and may soon find themselves among ghastly entities that can age them, and fortunately this terrible thought occurred to me before, and not after. So, anybody have any thoughts on how magical aging affects certain metabolic processes? Perhaps like, how come when people age rapidly, they don't automatically starve or dehydrate to death after their bodies have aged 10 years in 10 seconds without proper sustenance? Maybe more pertinently, what happens to a gestating neonate when its mother ages 10 years in 10 seconds? Do "9 months" pass as part of that first year of "aging" and the baby magically completes growth and is born? Does the mother just age around the little bundle while it remains unaffected? If the child is born and survives, should it be prone to some affect of "aging" as well?
I do not have to cross this bridge yet, but I see it on the horizon and would appreciate any insight and opinions. I personally have always viewed magical aging like someone just pressed super fast forward on your metabolism to magically force the physical aging process, so I have an idea of what I would do, but has anything even semi-official been adjudicated before on this matter? Thanks for any help.
Personally, I would rule that unless the aging effect is an AoE, it only affects the target creature - despite the neonate being dependent on the mother, it's a different creature. So, the mother ages around the baby but the baby just continues aging as per normal.
My assumption about magical aging isn't so much that time has passed in a micro-envelope around you while magically protecting you from starvation (imagine the cloud of years of dandruff etc. that would slough off of you in an instant, ugh!), but rather that your body has been harmed permanently in a way that has had the same effect that aging normally does over time. It isn't the passage of time that gives us wrinkles and gray hair, or even a countdown timer of our metabolism, its the degradation of the integrity of our cells. If that's the understanding, then there's no reason to think that magical aging would age or impact the (separate creature) fetus, other than perhaps making the mother's pregnancy more high-risk if her body is now too old to safely carry or deliver it.
Another angle to consider, for RPing magical aging: the aging is only PHYSICAL, not mental.
If you have a, say, 13-year-old get hit with twenty years of aging due to a ghost or whatnot? Mentally they're still just thirteen years old, with all of the immaturity/inexperience that implies. The body may be 33 now, but the mind isn't.
Even with adults, this can be a shock. Picture being in your mid-twenties, prime of your life physically ... and now you're fifty-something, with the aches and pains, the diminished eyesight and/or hearing, the erosion of strength and agility ... but in your mind, you're still in your mid-twenties. Your worldview doesn't change.
Agreeing a little with Pax. In 1E there was an age chart. I think it was add middle age +1 to mental stats, - 1 to physical. At old age +2 and -2 so overall a +3/-3 change. And I agree with Chicken about the baby being protected. Imagine. "Jr I carry you in my body for 9 years and 9 months and this is the way you repay me...."
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Setting aside that I am the DM and have a decent amount of control on how magical effects manifest in the world, I'm curious if anything "official" has been handed down on the following subject. A player's female character expressed a desire to have a romantic relationship with the possibility of pregnancy. The PC is a great role-player and isn't trying to play into deliberate pushing the envelope just to see how far they can go; they really seem to want to legitimately explore the possibility to adventuring through at least a portion of pregnancy and what being a mother would mean after the fact. After some consideration I decided I would allow for the possibility of conception after their romantic encounters; again not overly descriptive, they're cool with the scene just fading to black and do not expect or volunteer extraneous details. I allowed for the possibility by the will of the dice gods and a percentage range on a d100... they're now pregnant, it's early, they don't know they're pregnant yet.
My party is in a haunted situation and may soon find themselves among ghastly entities that can age them, and fortunately this terrible thought occurred to me before, and not after. So, anybody have any thoughts on how magical aging affects certain metabolic processes? Perhaps like, how come when people age rapidly, they don't automatically starve or dehydrate to death after their bodies have aged 10 years in 10 seconds without proper sustenance? Maybe more pertinently, what happens to a gestating neonate when its mother ages 10 years in 10 seconds? Do "9 months" pass as part of that first year of "aging" and the baby magically completes growth and is born? Does the mother just age around the little bundle while it remains unaffected? If the child is born and survives, should it be prone to some affect of "aging" as well?
I do not have to cross this bridge yet, but I see it on the horizon and would appreciate any insight and opinions. I personally have always viewed magical aging like someone just pressed super fast forward on your metabolism to magically force the physical aging process, so I have an idea of what I would do, but has anything even semi-official been adjudicated before on this matter? Thanks for any help.
Personally, I would rule that unless the aging effect is an AoE, it only affects the target creature - despite the neonate being dependent on the mother, it's a different creature. So, the mother ages around the baby but the baby just continues aging as per normal.
My assumption about magical aging isn't so much that time has passed in a micro-envelope around you while magically protecting you from starvation (imagine the cloud of years of dandruff etc. that would slough off of you in an instant, ugh!), but rather that your body has been harmed permanently in a way that has had the same effect that aging normally does over time. It isn't the passage of time that gives us wrinkles and gray hair, or even a countdown timer of our metabolism, its the degradation of the integrity of our cells. If that's the understanding, then there's no reason to think that magical aging would age or impact the (separate creature) fetus, other than perhaps making the mother's pregnancy more high-risk if her body is now too old to safely carry or deliver it.
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Thank you both.
Another angle to consider, for RPing magical aging: the aging is only PHYSICAL, not mental.
If you have a, say, 13-year-old get hit with twenty years of aging due to a ghost or whatnot? Mentally they're still just thirteen years old, with all of the immaturity/inexperience that implies. The body may be 33 now, but the mind isn't.
Even with adults, this can be a shock. Picture being in your mid-twenties, prime of your life physically ... and now you're fifty-something, with the aches and pains, the diminished eyesight and/or hearing, the erosion of strength and agility ... but in your mind, you're still in your mid-twenties. Your worldview doesn't change.
Agreeing a little with Pax. In 1E there was an age chart. I think it was add middle age +1 to mental stats, - 1 to physical. At old age +2 and -2 so overall a +3/-3 change. And I agree with Chicken about the baby being protected. Imagine. "Jr I carry you in my body for 9 years and 9 months and this is the way you repay me...."
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.