Just a quick query to see if I am interpreting this right.
imagine I have a character with decrepitude 1 and no xp towards level 2 (I.e. he needs 10 aging points to get to decrepitude 2.
This same character rolls aging and gets the result that gives him enough aging points in a characteristic to get him to the next level of decrepitude and a crisis.
does this really mean he gets 10 aging points in one characteristic? That would take an average stat of 0, down to -4. In one go. That seems brutal. I am.getting it wrong?
My grandma lost her sight almost completely in less than 6 months (really heavy cataracts) and had to undergo surgery to solve that. I guess we are talking about something similar, minus the surgery.
And it's not uncommon when an elderly person breaks their hip that they are not long for this world. These are the kinds of events represented by those disastrous aging rolls...
Thus the importance of using magic to keep those stats high! It doesn't hurt so bad with the stat was +5....... Now, on the topic, say you had a stat at +5, and had an aging crisis, and now it is +4. Can you use magic to raise it back to +5?
Hence why magi tend to last till their final twilight if nothing truly lethal happens to them. Me? I enjoy being unaging, despite the fact that it also makes it hard for me to deal with mundanes despite the gentle gift (knowing they will die soon and I won't even look older is depressing to a mild degree)
The description in "Aging points" (p. 169-170) states: "If an Aging Point "in any Characteristic" is gained, the player may choose the Characteristic." I assume, this refers to the result 10-12 ("1 Aging point in any characteristic"). The results 13 and 22+ implicate "Gain sufficient Aging Points (in any Characteristics) to reach the next level in Decrepitude, and Crisis)." In my eyes the use of the plural indicates the possibility of splitting the Aging Points between different characteristics.
Yes... I cited just this sentence. Did you understand my point? Do you agree with me? The sentence is about one Aging Point. If you earn more Aging Points (results 13 and 22+) there is talk of Characteristics (plural) - I assume in this cases you´re allowed to split the Aging Points.
I think I will make it an official house rule IMS that where you get more than one aging point at a time, you can split them between characteristics. Otherwise I'll face a batch of characters going blind, senile or enfeebled, etc from a single aging roll.
Has anyone noticed the extreme proliferation of bonuses to aging rolls?
City and Guild allows a bonus to aging rolls based on the quality of bread you eat.
Arts and Acadame has aging bonuses for a dietary regimine based on skill in medicine.
Covenants has bonuses for good environment.
A person can easily rack up +6 or better bonuses to aging rolls before even involving magic...
Not everything from all books should be used. Indeed not everything in a book is even meant to be used in one saga, and I'm referring to The Mysteries. But, yes, you can get huge bonuses to the aging roll before accounting for Longevity Rituals.
"Easily" ... depends on the resources of that person, and the diet and regime she wishes to restrict herself to.
Look at Covenants p.107ff Non-Standard Laboratory Routines for reasons why many magi instead actually reduce their Living Condition modifiers.
The covenant cook has skill 8 in craft:cooking, and leadership:4, allowing them to have a "workshop" total of 16, with a +2 bonus from item quality that applies to "everything" which according to the text includes aging and recovery rolls.
I have a brewer and a butcher with similar benefits (I will also point out that this happened by coincidence, I was just trying o get the cost of living for the covenant down)
accordingly the bonus from these 3 is +6 to aging rolls for the covenant.
If I then have a doctor construct a diet and exercise regimen for the covenant for an additional +1. If the covenant is in a healthy location that would be yet another +1. Now we have every grog in the covenant having a +8 to aging rolls which they get just from living and eating at the covenant, where strong faerie blood only gives a 3 point bonus to aging rolls, essentially the equivalent of a level 40 longevity ritual.
Because sometimes house rules aren't new things, they can be rulings on ways to read game mechanics. If as alpha GM I tell my troupe that this is how I think the mechanic should be interpreted (and as long as none of them can give me a good reason why it could be better another way), then my ruling clarifies what could be confusing.
The text also says "Once a character has a number of Aging Points greater than the absolute value of the Characteristic, the Characteristic is dropped by one point and all Aging Points are lost"
How I read that is that if your characteristic is 0, if you put 10 aging points into that Characteristic, you reduce it to -1.
I realize I am in a minority position here, but until I see errata saying otherwise, that is how I am going to read it.