Nephilim lifespan

In Realms of power - the divine, we read that nephilim can live to be thousands of years old. But from the rules as written, this does not seem to be the case to me. If you only have the "basic" blood of the nephilim virtue, you first roll for aging at age 150, once every 10 years, with a -5 to your aging roll. Now, assuming no living condition modifier, at age 150 this means a +15-5=+10 to your aging roll; the next roll at 160 is at +11, at 170 at +12 and so on. I'd say a nephilim is likely to die before completing his third century. Now, it is reasonable to assume that some of the powers they gain from their strong angelic heritage might be used to provide a bonus to aging rolls; but a quick calculation again shows that this might buy them an extra century at most. Am I missing something? Perhaps the book meant that they live for centuries?

Keep In Mind that most Nephilim will be retired from play long before they will actually 'die'. After your 5th failed aging roll, somewhere around 200 years of age, it becomes nearly impossible to advance your skills any farther (1 xp a season, at best). Given that most magi have already passed on due to twilight, age, or mis-adventure by this point in most sagas (mysteries non-withstanding), it's a fair trade off.

However, you could go with (Age / 5) + 5 for your aging modifier "Age" , which brings it in line with the aging modifiers for other characters who make aging rolls. You may want to subtract aging points from advancement totals, meaning as the aging points pile up, you learn less and less... Realize, however, that the character will be around a long, long time... The thousands of years the book is quite easily accomplished. And again, the character would have been removed from play long before that...

Also keep in mind while your divine might score increases, you don't get any more powers other than what you got with "Strong Angelic Heritage." at character creation, unless you took the virtues for the methods and powers instead... Good Luck with that, since they are all major virtues (10 in all...)

Steve

Actually, IIRC Nephilim cannot purchase Methods & Powers. They can however learn other Supernatural Virtues at character creation such as the new Accelerated Abilities in HoH:Societas (Banishment, Sihr, Warding) and even possibly the Goetic Art of Summoning (can be any Realm)...

They could probably gain other Supernatural Virtues through Mystery Initiation in play however, which would be interesting...

Ah, Nephilim Mysteries anyone?

Regards,

Jarkman

Nephilim can life for 1000s of years, but most do not, particularly the younger ones that are not as pure blooded. Each generation gets weaker and less potent.

Alex

Hmmm, I see! Thanks a lot for the clarification!

Hmm, I re-read the description of the Blood of the Nephilim virtue in RoP:D, and I do not find your explanation convincing! The text describing the virtue seems inconsistent, and should, in my opinion, be fixed in the errata. The description of the Virtue explictly says (emphasis mine):

The first sentence is in sharp contrast with the rest of the paragraph. Even assuming a ridiculously high living conditions modifier of +8, your are more likely than not to die before age 250. And it's mathematically impossible to reach age 400 (not to mention "thousands of years"): any roll starting from age 350 will produce a result of at least:

0 (stress die, no botch) + 35(age/10) - 8 (living conditions) - 5 (blood of the Nephilim) = 22

This increases your Decrepitude at least once per decade; thus death comes no later than age 390. (Of course, this assumes you have somehow survived all your crises, which, by this point, are all terminal). I think the errata should either remove the "and may live for thousands of years" (or replace it with "and may live for centuries"), or perhaps change the formulas.

Yes, i have the same problem with Nephilims...
Maybe we have to take only age/100 rounded up?

ExarKun, necroposting.

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I like the idea of giving the nephilim an ability to "sleep off" decrepitude and aging points by hitting the sack for years or decades (and then clearly not having them roll for aging while they are asleep).

I believe there should be errata, to the effect that "You need make an aging roll only once every 10 years as if only a single year had passed after the age of 150, and receive a -5 to Aging Rolls."

Would that make a 1000 year life-span more in the realms of possibility.

Cheers
Alex

It basically goes the same that with age/100 no?

(because it's what i was thinking to do ^^)

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They have a second disadvantage: growing is slowing in this game, so they will become incredibly slow over time.

Strange you should mention that: a lot of RPGs use the Nephilim story from Jwish theological tradition, but there's an older story about the giant men with copper weapons and six fingers that could well be made into an interesting mystery. THe graves of these guys are meant to be in a single valley in the Levnant.

It sais in the text that the rules are only meant for young Nephilim, and that probably includes the aging rules. So the rules as written are only used to find out when the Nephilim stops learning. Naturally they somehow keep aging after that, and quite likely a lot slower, but that's all we know.

Out of curiousity, is there anyone who has found the mythic companion Nephilim overpowering as a player character?

Nephilim = mythic compagnion => take place of a magus :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:
Nephilim != mythic compagnion => not much other virtues lol , i will not take it.

But for NPC... good!

Well, those Nephilim can't be older than Methuselah. So I think there should be a divine ruling that they die just before reaching 969 years of age. :smiling_imp: