Octavia's Mother

[ericsaxon35]

Why is Octavia's mother in her 40s? I mean Octavia looks to be in her 70s or even 80s for a half-elf. Or did someone not realize that her mother should be pushing 90 if she had Octavia in her late teens?

Unless Octavia is 20 years old, which means she would look like an 7 year old human child...

[Babbles]

"the YOUNG wizard joined our quest out of thanks, and to bring joy and freedom to the Stolen Lands"

[ericsaxon35]

Originally posted by Babbles:

"the YOUNG wizard joined our quest out of thanks, and to bring joy and freedom to the Stolen Lands"

Yes, call her what you like. She's young by half-elf standards. But still 2.5-3 times Regongar's age.

Half-elves don't have the longevity of elves but they do out live humans and half-orcs by at least a century. And they take much longer to mature.

[solthusx]

Half elves reach adulthood at 20 years of age:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/half-elf/

[Procrastinating Gamer]

What solthusx said - they age slower than humans but not that much slower.

[ericsaxon35]

Originally posted by Shadow88:

What solthusx said - they age slower than humans but not that much slower.

Apparently this is different in Golarion than in other D&D Worlds.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by ericsaxon35:

Originally posted by Shadow88:

What solthusx said - they age slower than humans but not that much slower.

Apparently this is different in Golarion than in other D&D Worlds.

Actually it was the same in DnD 3.5. Maturity at age 20, middle age at 62, old age at 93, venerable at 125, and their maximum age is another 3d20 years after that (so half-elf lifespan is anywhere between 128 and 185 years).

[ericsaxon35]

Originally posted by Shadow88:

Originally posted by ericsaxon35:

Apparently this is different in Golarion than in other D&D Worlds.

Actually it was the same in DnD 3.5. Maturity at age 20, middle age at 62, old age at 93, venerable at 125, and their maximum age is another 3d20 years after that (so half-elf lifespan is anywhere between 128 and 185 years).

I'm old school, Tanis Half-Elven is where I'm coming from. Born in 258 and marries in 353, at the age of 95. 95 is NOT old in DnD for a Half-Elf.

3.5 or whatever nonsense is being played today, means nothing to me, since I've been away from DnD for so long, it's not even funny.

[solthusx]

Apparently, the overall lifespan for all the elven races (including half elves) have been getting lower with each Edition of D&D up to the 'Edition that we don't talk about" and was raised again in 5th Edition. Pathfinder uses the DnD 3.5 standard.

Note that the example you used (Tanis) was introduced in 1st Edition D&D where 95 was the half elf equivalent to a human in his late 30s. Using this standard, Octavia could be anywhere from 40 to 70 years old. Personally, I'd put her in the 40 - 50 range, she does tend to be a bit immature at times.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

I think half-elf lifespans in general tend to vary a lot by setting, outside of DnD. Assuming a setting even has them (Iron Kingdoms, the setting for Warmachine and Hordes, doesn't have hybrids like that at all, for example).

But yeah, for those tabletop RPGs that still have them they seem to stick to about what was used in 3.5, and what is being used by Pathfinder and DnD 5e, which is that they reach maturity a bit after humans and tend to top out somewhere around the 200-year mark. Starfinder uses that sort of age as well, but since its setting is just Pathfinder's after a few thousand years that kind of surprised nobody.

What I think more people are going to be talking about, at least in regards to species age, is that Pathfinder 2nd Edition seems to be retconning full-blood elves so that they mature at nearly the same rate as humans (so your 1st level elven rogue could be 25 years old rather than 225, which at least gets around the narrative weirdness of an elf taking decades to reach the same level of skill as a human in their late teens).

Originally posted by Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest, Elven Ancestry:

Elves typically reach physical adulthood around the age of 20 (though they’re considered by other elves to be fully emotionally mature at close to the end of their first century), and they can live to around 600 years old.

The playtest doesn't mention an age of maturity for half-elves* but mentions that they tend to live til around 150. So they probably now mature at the same rate as humans rather than slower.


*Mainly because them and half-orcs have now been rolled into a variant heritage of humans... long story, the original entry in the playtest rulebook isn't a great implementation but it got overhauled in an update to be something a hell of a lot better.