Step Two: Determining Character Age Category

The second step in character creation is to determine how old your character is relative to his species norms.  To do this, you
select an age category, and make any corresponding adjustments to your character's traits, skills, etc.  This choice is not
absolutely essential for first-time players, and a GM is free to just require all characters take the default Age Category of Young
Adult.  For older characters, or the rare younger ones, however, these modifications can be important.  Consult the chart
below for modifications based on Age Category.

Table Two: Age Category Modifications
Category Comparable 
Human Age		 Initial Skill Multiplier Weakness Points Benefit Points for a Typical Human
Infant 0-2 x1 140 ---
Very Young 2-8 x2 80 ---
Young 8-13 x3 45 ---
Juvenile 13-16 x4 10 ---
Young Adult 16-21 x5 0 ---
Adult 21-35 x7 5 5
Mature Adult 35-50 x8 7 7
Old 50-70 x10* 10 8
Very Old 70-85 x13* 40 9
Venerable 85-100 x15* 90 10
Ancient 100-125 x18* 130 10
Extreme 125+ x20* 130 11

Category

This is the name assigned to a particular age category.  It tends to represent a phase of life rather than a particular number of years.  Judge what category your character is by how a human acts in a particular category.

Comparable Human Age

This is an age range in which a typical human would be considered part of that particular age category.

Initial Skill Multiplier

This number determines the number of skill points a character has to spend in section five.  Multiply the character's base Intelligence (the number you have assigned it in step one) by the Initial Skill Multiplier to get the number of Skill Points you have to spend.  Write this number down.

NOTE: Age categories of Old and above have an asterisks by the Initial Skill Multiplier.  This means that the skills must check for degradation.  Degradation of skills is explained in Character Advancement Section.

Weakness Points

This is the number of character points of disadvantages the character must take to represent the penalties of youth or aging.  These will usually be physical and racial traits, but can include mental and social disadvantages (for example, dependents, obligations, etc.) with the GM's consent.  The most common traits that are used to fill these Weakness Points are listed below, with point values.  These are for quick reference and will be discussed more extensively later.

Benefit Points

All species have a total of 60 Benefit Points to distribute over the course of their lifespans.  In some cases, many of the points will translate into racial advantages early in life and then have little effect later on.  In other cases, the points will be spread out over a long period, granting slight benefits at each stage.

The human distribution is shown on the chart.  As can be seen, humans don't receive Benefit Points until late in life.  In the case of humans, these Benefit Points represent social and mental advantages gained with age.  For another species, it might be that many of the points are spent early on to gain racial abilities above the norm (for example, an innately intelligent species might allocate 8 points to the infant stage to raise Intelligence by 1).  Benefit point distributions will be shown for each species covered in detail.

To use Benefit Points, take the number of Benefit Points you have at each Age category, spend them on advantages as suggested by your species template or GM, then move on to the next Age category.  DO NOT total the points before spending them.  For example, an Old Human would spend 5 points, then 7 points, and finally 8 points, NOT 20 pts. at once.

Issue: When do I spend all these points, anyway?

You don't spend the points you accumulate in this stage (either Weakness Points or Benefit Points) right now.  You will spend them later, in Step Five of Character Creation.  Just note how many you have for right now and move to the next step.

Issue: Am I stuck with all these disadvantages forever?

No!  Well, maybe not.  If you are making a younger-than average character, you will start with many points of disadvantages.  As you age, these disads will go away.  This is why Age-related disadvantages will be kept track of separately from others.  For example, if you make a Young character, you must take 45 pts. worth of disadvantages.  If you age to the category of Juvenile, 35 of those points go away automatically. (It would be more realistic for a player to spend experience to buy them off in play for those years, but if the campaign jumps forward in time quite a bit, the GM can just give the points to the character.)

On the other hand, as your character ages, he will eventually get old enough to start acquiring Weakness Points for being old.  The disadvantages these purchase do not go away with age, in fact they get worse!  The only way to reverse the process at that point would be youth drugs or other esoteric methods; time on its own will only make you worse off.

Issue: I Don't Age!

There are two subsets of this issue, which we will address separately:

You age normally to a certain point and then effectively stop aging altogether

In this case, if you are making a character before the point you stop aging, make him normally.  If you are making a character after the point when your species stops aging, make that character as though he was from the Age Category where the species stops aging.  For example, if Xarkons age to effective Adult and then stop aging, you could make a Juvenile Xarkon normally, and any Xarkon beyond the age of Adult would be built as an Adult Xarkon.

Coincidentally, species like this should allocate Benefit Points to the advantage Unaging at the point when aging stops, and a number of future Benefit Points should go towards skills.

You never age to begin with and retain the same functionality throughout existence

This is the case primarily with robots and other constructs.  In this case, build all characters as Young Adults.  Benefit Points should still pay for Unaging, and can also be allocated to increase starting skills.

Back to Character Creation Overview
Back to the Table of Contents