Longevity: am I doing it wrong?

[Grouchy Chris]

Per the aging rules, B444, Longevity means that you succeed on an aging roll on anything but a 17 or 18, or only on an 18 if your modified HT is 17 or more. And if you fail the roll, you only lose one attribute level. Rolling a 17 or 18 is only a chance of 1/54, and so it is likely to take hundreds of rolls to bring any of a character's attributes down to zero, starting from 10. At four rolls a year after age 90, that means very likely living well past the world record of 122 years.

Making aging rolls experimentally against a character starting with 10 for all attributes, I get an average age at death with Longevity of about 169. The advantage is not listed as exotic, unlike Extended Lifespan, so I don't think this is the intended result. Am I misreading the rules somehow?

[newtkeeper]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

Per the aging rules, B444, Longevity means that you succeed on an aging roll on anything but a 17 or 18, or only on an 18 if your modified HT is 17 or more. And if you fail the roll, you only lose one attribute level. Rolling a 17 or 18 is only a chance of 1/54, and so it is likely to take hundreds of rolls to bring any of a character's attributes down to zero, starting from 10. At four rolls a year after age 90, that means very likely living well past the world record of 122 years.

Making aging rolls experimentally against a character starting with 10 for all attributes, I get an average age at death with Longevity of about 169. The advantage is not listed as exotic, unlike Extended Lifespan, so I don't think this is the intended result. Am I misreading the rules somehow?

Well, a really low HT could easily result in your death years before any stat reaches zero. What is it they say- no one technically dies of 'old age', they just die of something while being old.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

Per the aging rules, B444, Longevity means that you succeed on an aging roll on anything but a 17 or 18, or only on an 18 if your modified HT is 17 or more. And if you fail the roll, you only lose one attribute level. Rolling a 17 or 18 is only a chance of 1/54, and so it is likely to take hundreds of rolls to bring any of a character's attributes down to zero, starting from 10. At four rolls a year after age 90, that means very likely living well past the world record of 122 years.

Making aging rolls experimentally against a character starting with 10 for all attributes, I get an average age at death with Longevity of about 169. The advantage is not listed as exotic, unlike Extended Lifespan, so I don't think this is the intended result. Am I misreading the rules somehow?

Low HT or ST will make a person especially vulnerable to harm. Low DX will make a person clumsy and likely to harm him or herself. Also aging slowly accelerates, as HT drops the odds of failing a roll increase.

[Victor Maxus]

Originally Posted by newtkeeper

Well, a really low HT could easily result in your death years before any stat reaches zero. What is it they say- no one technically dies of 'old age', they just die of something while being old.

Pneumonia. At least, that is one of the more common causes of death when you get older. But it is true, as we get older, our immune systems do get weaker. The body struggles harder to keep going and recover. But even with longevity, your HT score will drop, making health rolls against various diseases harder, and with a reduced ST score, less HP means less damage to kill you. So, longevity will keep you going, but there are other ways to die in GURPS.

[Grouchy Chris]

Originally Posted by lexington

Also aging slowly accelerates, as HT drops the odds of failing a roll increase.

Not with Longevity, as I understand the rule. Longevity means that you make your aging rolls on anything 16 or below, even if your HT is 1.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

Not with Longevity, as I understand the rule. Longevity means that you make your aging rolls on anything 16 or below, even if your HT is 1.

Oops, you're right. The other two still apply.

[Grouchy Chris]

I should make it clear that the average age at death of 169 I quoted is based on death from aging rolls only. I realize this means unrealistic assumptions about the absence of infant mortality, disease, accidents, homicide, and so on. Still, Longevity makes it possible for humans to live into their 130s or longer, even at low tech levels, and this doesn't look right to me.

[newtkeeper]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

I should make it clear that the average age at death of 169 I quoted is based on death from aging rolls only. I realize this means unrealistic assumptions about the absence of infant mortality, disease, accidents, homicide, and so on. Still, Longevity makes it possible for humans to live into their 130s or longer, even at low tech levels, and this doesn't look right to me.

Possible, yes, but no self-respecting low tech levels are going to let anyone live very long who'se HT/HP have gone down too far. I think it's pretty much avoidable that any would-be Methuselas are going to fail a roll against common diseases (such rolls are both more common and generally more penalized at lower TLs) well before reaching zero in any stat.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

I should make it clear that the average age at death of 169 I quoted is based on death from aging rolls only. I realize this means unrealistic assumptions about the absence of infant mortality, disease, accidents, homicide, and so on. Still, Longevity makes it possible for humans to live into their 130s or longer, even at low tech levels, and this doesn't look right to me.

But you can only live to 130 if you are in a sealed room free of disease, violence and unable to harm yourself accidentally. That's just not available at TL0 or even possible until TL7. At low TLs no one is ever going to die of failed aging rolls.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by lexington

Low HT or ST will make a person especially vulnerable to harm. Low DX will make a person clumsy and likely to harm him or herself. Also aging slowly accelerates, as HT drops the odds of failing a roll increase.

Loss of IQ will make you forget to take your pills, turn off the stove or eat, possibly all at the same time.

I think that it is taking the attributes all the way down to zero that is giving the funny answers. Very low attribute levels for all of them aren't spelled out but when your IQ drops below 6 you apparently aren't able to use human language any more.

When I've done brute force looks at Longevity and Aging I've considered death to be likely around scores of 7 or below and get numbers in the low hundreds.