It irks me that, barring a few -age items, only necros have means to prolong their life significantly. I would imagine that transmuters, being masters of their body, knowing anatomy and physiology, would find ways not only to make themselves more powerful, but also preserve their good health longer. Also, invokers can basically become demielementals but their lifespan is unaltered.

Now, we don't want to give anyone a lot of extra hours, but how about an edge for transmuters that would double their remaining years AND double the hour/year ratio so they would have the same lifespan hours-wise. It should also prevent stat loss due to aging, since "middle-aged" and "old" thresholds would now be reached much faster hours-wise.

Could make the edge avaliable to druids, too, since they're renowned in fantasy for their longevity. Ditto for renewal of spring and demielemental transcendence.

Obviously, the edge would have a drawback in that -age items would have that much less effect on hours. It should also be incompatible with some transmuter edges like Reorganize innards.

nt

Are you suggesting we implement one or that he go get the one that currently exists? :)

Pick me, pick me?

Really though, in no specific order

- Has anyone ever actually gotten the Elixir of Longevity before?

- If someone has, did they drink it?

- Is there even a possibility that it is able to be gathered?

- What does it really do?!? (at least a story or hint to keep the masses wondering and the cut-throats spreading rumors?)

>- Has anyone ever actually gotten the Elixir of Longevity
>before?

Not as far as I know.

>- Is there even a possibility that it is able to be gathered?

Yup. (But you have to throw down with somebody really tough for it.)

>- What does it really do?!? (at least a story or hint to keep
>the masses wondering and the cut-throats spreading rumors?)

If I remember correctly, it undoes any premature aging to your character (e.g. wither and other assorted nastiness) and tacks a bit onto your lifespan besides.

You've revealed what a couple pieces do on the forums, and my assumptions were always much nastier than the reality :P

Thanks for sharing though!

I may be misremembering from a very long time ago, but I feel like one of my old groups got that and didn't quite know what to make of it. Maybe I'm mistaken.

t

Realistically, most necros don't *actually* stick around all that much longer than most characters. You've surely noticed how rare age death is. Most characters delete or die of con loss well before they reach the number of hours required for age death, and necromancers are no exception.

I'm unaware of any non-necromancer making it a part of their role to seek out longevity or renewed youth (rather than a con quest). If someone did, who's to say there's no chance they'd be successful?

that I'm not offering ways to prolong a char's lifespan hours-wise.

And actually the point about transmuters and other mages being able to prolong their life did form a large chunk of my last char's role. Of course the character in question deleted at 150 hours... my overconfidence in trying an extremely gimped build.

Yeah, I misunderstood what you were asking. The stat dings at old age don't seem consequential to me, so I wouldn't really even think in terms of that being worth investing mental energy in trying to avoid.

But then, when it comes to anything that involves number-crunching, I've long accepted that I play a WAY different game than some of you people do. Where I went "Oh! My stats changed as I aged! Clever!" and go back to whatever it was I was doing, some of you guys evaluate that as an item worthy of consideration.

That said, now that we have flaws & edges, I could see replacing the the stat dings with automatic age-based flaws & edges instead of stat changes, as stats are to a large degree a background mechanic rather than anything most people roleplay around. At the end of a day, still a low-priority item, as it's minor and most characters never even see late-age anyways.

But if someone that long-lived wanted to roleplay seeking the fountain of youth or something, it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that some imm might come out to play.

Like you said, so few people actually make it to age death, whether it be due to dying too much or getting bored. Why penalize those that play long-lived characters with con loss as they age? I get the whole slowing down and getting weaker thing, but you're already likely losing con by dying more as you live longer.

So why the need for -con as you age? It just seems to me that playing a character for a long time should not be penalized by being able to die even less.

I'd like to see an edge that makes you not lose con when you age, perhaps another that does extend the hours you can live--at least for some of the shorter lived races. Make the former cheap and the latter expensive; I doubt many would take the latter but it would be nice to have the option.

I am pretty sure you do for hitting old age, not as sure for middle-aged. So you can just take resurgent vitality when you hit it.
It's something, and that edge is relatively new and it is pretty cheap to take even twice.

So there's a small check against the con loss from aging.

Aging in terms of hours is generally not a big deal except maybe for arials and such really short lived races, I think worry about playing a 400+ hour char first, since I think that's around the minium for even short lived races.

Elves can probably hit 600 hours without leadering, so if age is in fact a determining thing for your char selection, play a longer lived race. I actually think that is part of the balancing of races, their longevity.
And most are pretty generous. Giants, dwarves, elves, gnomes all have pretty long lives.

That modifying metabolism is bad for you.