Ghost Aging

[Captain_K]

Why are Gnomes lumped in with Dwarves? They get screwed by Ghosts. Gnomes, with aging per the CKG, should be lumped in with half elves.

Thoughts?

Follow up question, is there a save vs this aging?

Is there a way to restore the lost years? Restoration?

[Treebore]

I just age the race 10 years for every 100 years they are "expected" to live. As for a save? You could give one, treat it as a death attack and make it CHA based. As for regaining lost years? You would have to go back to 1E and 2E magic potions and magical pools of youth and port them into your C&C games.

[Go0gleplex]

Wish. Restoration only works on level drain. I think there was a chronomancer spell also that would work though I would have to dig that stuff out of my storage box.

[Jyrdan Fairblade]

Something about Ghost’s aging has always bothered me to the point that I think I’ve used a ghost in combat once in all my years. It can quickly be fatal and or extremely damaging to the character’s long-term viability. Same goes for level-draining. As much as these monsters can be vicious at putting the smack-down on unruly PCs, I think it’s ultimately a very nuclear option that genuinely damages the fun of the game.

[serleran]

Couple of points...

1) Maximum age for races was not determined at the time of the ghost being written

2) The aging effect was to be a percentage, so that all races were impacted equally. No more "I'm an elf so I can be drained 40 years 40 times over." If I remember right, it was to be 10%.

3) Aging was once per individual ghost, per character. Escaping and meeting them again was not to continue the aging. In fact, ghosts were intended to be unique and some may not have even had the power to age... but this was canned early on.

[Omote]

In a particular Rappan Athuk game I was running back in the day, the characters came upon a bunch of ghosts in short period of time. In seeing this as a possibility of TPKing the party, I changed the number of years aged from decades, to single digits - except when it came to elves. F### elves. I have since gone back to playing it a little bit more by the book.

I like the idea of making a CHA saving throw to shorten the amount of time aged, as well as only being affected by such an attack once per ghost. I shall adopt some of these ideas pronto.

~O

[Captain_K]

So, I like what I'm hearing, aging should be uniform for all races, reasonably scary but not game killing AND allowing the save option for partial aging is not out of line and finally, some sort of spell or divine favor to undo some or all the damage might not be a bad thing either.. what that is should be cool. If the clerics can heal, regrow limbs, regain levels, and raise the dead, then turning back the clock on ARTIFICAL or SUPERMATURAL aging (only) seems fair also.

Great input.. thanks all, its going to immediate use, let's see how you like it in: "The Snakes of the Withered Corpse" is taking shape and will be seen in a Domesday near you soon.... "The nature of these magical blades shows in their dull black exterior, vibratory damping, and pulsing warmth. Something truly scary flows within their core, the Snakes of the Withered Corpse promise all an aged death (these blades pierce elven immunity from aging, even elves fear death and aging from these dark blades)."

So Omote, I got your F###ing elves covered!