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Considerations of Youth

Source Ultimate Campaign pg. 195
You might choose to play a young character to gain insight into your PC’s life or indulge a character concept you haven’t tried. A GM might start your campaign at a young age to mimic adventures common in young adult fiction, video games, superhero teams from comics, and various other media. If you are thinking about playing a young character, consider the following points. The GM planning for this should be aware of and have methods of addressing each topic.

Roleplaying: Unlike modern society, which tends to treat even very competent youths like children, medieval societies usually treated children like adults as soon as they proved they were able to handle adult tasks and responsibilities. This means NPCs might treat a group of young PC adventurers just like they would treat adult adventurers, though any physical shortcomings could be a source of jokes or disdain.

Uneven Parties: NPC classes are not as powerful as PC classes. Therefore, if some players have young characters and others have adult characters, the adults in the group will be more powerful and have other advantages. Even if you are fine with playing an underpowered character, the other players in the group might not be okay with a weaker character tagging along, especially if your character’s relative weakness potentially jeopardizes the group. Before you create a young character, make sure that all players are willing to accept a young character into the party.

Child Endangerment: It’s one thing to throw traps, monsters, and deadly magic into the path of willing adults, but another thing to threaten young people with such dangers. Although fantasy fiction is filled with instances of peril giving juvenile characters the opportunity to be heroic and prove their potential, not all players are going to be comfortable with putting young characters in danger. Before including them in a game, the GM should discuss with the group whether or not this might negatively impact any players’ enjoyment of the campaign.

Weakness: Young PCs are weaker than standard PCs. Published adventures are designed assuming PCs have the abilities, skills, flexibility, and full potential of base classes, making them too lethal for young characters. As a quick rule, the Average Party Level (APL) of a party of NPC-classed characters is approximately 2 character levels lower than that of a party of PC-classed characters of the same level.

Archives of Nethys

Rules Index | GM Screen

Considerations of Youth