Combining Extended Lifespan with Self-Destruct [Basic]

[AlexanderHowl]

It depends. If they were great leaders, artists, philosophers, etc., then they would likely be given public display. Of course, the great thing for such a society is that everyone knows when they are going to die of old age, so they can have their wake while they are still alive to enjoy it. It would also encourage a long view without the stasis of true immortality, as everyone would know exactly how much time they have left (within a week's accuracy).

[Rupert]

As only their bodies would turn to marble, they'd be relying on their descendants (and community if they're important enough) to keep their statues clothed, assuming that having your naked ancestors standing around isn't a thing Dwarfs do, of course. Thus, if you want your legacy to not be of some old statue of a naked dwarf abandoned in a corner somewhere, you'll be taking the long view and working to ensure your descendants and community flourish part your demise.

[ravenfish]

Leaving aside game balance issues, it sounds great to me- living out several full lifetimes in the prime of one's health and then departing quickly without the slow and tragic decay of body and mind strikes me as one of the best gifts a person could ask for.

[AlexanderHowl]

I agree. As long as the final days are not agonizing, it seems like a perfect deal (I am not quite sure the game balance issues though, as aging is rarely a concern in most games, though a negative CP value would be broken). They would still age though, it would just be that they would avoid age-related disabilities because they would die before they could occur.

For the dwarven society, you could have a situation where humans assume that dwarves of different fairness are different races while dwarves would assume that humans of different fairness are different ages. That may result in some confusion when a young dwarf moves to a human community, as they would have to square the fact that fairness does not relate to age. Conversely, bigoted humans who focused on fairness would have a shock when they first realized that 'black' dwarves were the children of 'brown' dwarves and the grandchildren of 'white' dwarves.

[Aldric]

I don't think a negative point value would be any more broken than any other disadvantage that has no effect in game.

Self-Destruct in a game set to last 24 hrs would be a feature just as much as Terminally Ill that will kill you in a month.

It would probably end up as a feature on any player character out there, but for NPCs (who don't really need to bother about point cost) or to shape a culture like your example, it works.

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by Aldric

I don't think a negative point value would be any more broken than any other disadvantage that has no effect in game.

There's certainly a good argument to be made that "lifespan" traits should be 0-point features in general, but there are some conceivable campaigns where "is going to collapse sooner than a normal human would die" is actually disadvantageous, whereas it is hard to see how "will live several times longer than an ordinary human, then quickly collapse" could work out to a net negative.

[Plane]

Suddenly realizing it could be a good strategy to take Extended Lifespan merely as a Potential Advantage, because by the time you make your first aging roll you'll probably have enough Bonus CP to pay for the ability.

Which is probably why Extended Lifespan ought to function something akin to "reduced aging rate" where you always record a human equivalent but you basically consider yourself 50y at 100y because you only at 1 mo every 2mo.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

My first instinct however would be to say "No", there is some potential abuse I don't see but I feel is hidden... but it may be baseless suspicion.

As you sorta noted later, this is abusable in a game where aging-based attacks exist, as the character can soak more of such damage without deleterious effects. Also, a setting where you can have abilities that age you, sell time-to-live for various boons, etc, would get great use out of this - give the metatrait to Rosette from Chrno Crusade, and suddenly her Ally is a lot more useful (for those unfamiliar with the above, Rosette's not-boyfriend is an excessively-powerful demon, but is stuck in a weak, markedly diminished state; he can boost to full power, but doing so drains Rosette's lifespan at a prodigious rate).

[AlexanderHowl]

In both cases, use proportional aging, with every year translating to 32 years of life for the character with Extended Lifespan 5.

[SimonAce]

This is not RAW but in my game its a zero point feature since it will never matter in game.