| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BlackDragonKarameikos |
Posted - 09 Jun 2008 : 07:35:59
I have a PC in my campaign that is now pregnant and is carrying multiple children.
The PC is a half elf, and I know that an elf's gestation period is about 2 years give or take. I also know from doing some research on this site that a Half-elf's gestation period is about 1 year or so.
By doing some real world research I have been able to come up with several questions that I need your help answering.
1) Since she is carrying multiple children, how much shorter would her pregnancy be? Since she is a half-elf and their gestation period is about one year, I'm possibly thinking 10-11 months. Real world research says that a woman carrying more than one child could have her pregnancy shortened by several weeks up to a month.
2) how likely would it be for the PC to lose the child because of damage taken in combat? very likely or not too likely? Also, would the likeliness increase as the pregnancy continued to progress.
3) She has been given the ability to shapechange by a goddess, would her body react in the same way as a weretigers(for example), where during the final trimester she would not be able to change at all? or would she still retain her shapechanging abilities?
I've already talked to the player and mentioned what probably will happen during the pregnancy and what will happen if she does lose the baby, but I want to get the input of some of the wise and great scribes here and see what you think, and what ideas that you come up with. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| BlackDragonKarameikos |
Posted - 16 Jun 2008 : 14:12:37
quote:
Originally posted by QueenofShadows
Note that my DC was based on the standard DC's in the book, I haven't seen a DC save of 5 for anything, so yeah tinker with that certainly. ^^
It may be low to start with Queen of Shadows, but then you want the PC to be able to make the save in the begining. By the time the pregnancy is full term you want them to fail the save so that the child can be born, which is why I wentwith a DC 5 and a +1 every two weeks. By the time the PC reaches full term she will have a DC of 27 and will need to roll a natural 20 to be able to make the save.
I will also have to monitor the situation and possibly adjust the DC near the end so that it is hard for the PC to make it(Right now I can't remember what is the highest DC this paticular PC can make, but I think it may be in the 20's). |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 16 Jun 2008 : 04:50:33
quote:
Originally posted by QueenofShadows
Note that my DC was based on the standard DC's in the book, I haven't seen a DC save of 5 for anything, so yeah tinker with that certainly. ^^
I admit DCs of 5 are rare but they did exist in 3.0 IIRC, that most characters could take a 10 on and make it without a problem, however stats -(X), race -(X), situation - (X) could result in a fail taking the 10.
For the issue ar hand the chance of lost in first month are far lower then last month. It does need, IMO, to be scaled. |
| QueenofShadows |
Posted - 16 Jun 2008 : 04:14:03
Note that my DC was based on the standard DC's in the book, I haven't seen a DC save of 5 for anything, so yeah tinker with that certainly. ^^ |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 16 Jun 2008 : 03:25:01
http://americanpregnancy.org/duringpregnancy/index.htm might answer your questions more then you want. The tests I made appears to indicate it is political nuetral.
IAE it gives a week by week average of what to expect.
At least 3 months for an halfelf I would guess. |
| BlackDragonKarameikos |
Posted - 16 Jun 2008 : 03:02:12
Ok, I just thought of another couple of questions.
1) How soon after becoming pregnant would the baby begin to kick? Would it be around the second month or later?
2) how strong would the initial kicking be? would it be light, or a bit stronger?
3) Once the baby does start to kick, how often would it do so? |
| BlackDragonKarameikos |
Posted - 16 Jun 2008 : 02:48:53
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
None of my ideas are useful to you?
The ideas you gave Kentinal are good, it's just that I was responding to the part of your post about my use of RW comparisons is all. |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 15 Jun 2008 : 23:34:36
None of my ideas are useful to you? |
| BlackDragonKarameikos |
Posted - 15 Jun 2008 : 22:55:29
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
Well not sure how far you want to go to RW comparision. Elves are not real, at least right now *wink* that we know of.
I'm using RW comparisons Kentinal because that is the only info I can find. And since Half-Elves are part human it seems that their pregnancies would be similar to that of a humans(except that they are a bit longer).
And since this is the first time for me having to deal with one of my PC's being pregnant, I decided to do some research to prepare for having to DM and deal with possible problems that could arise during the pregnancy. |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 15 Jun 2008 : 22:13:05
Well not sure how far you want to go to RW comparision. Elves are not real, at least right now *wink* that we know of.
Queen of Shadows does have a valid point to some degree that the health of the Mother clearly impacts what might occur to the unborn within her. Consitution clearly is a part of that, but not all of that.
A DC 16 +1 per week makes no sense for even a deity when one is considering 52 +/- weeks. If is last week the DC check would be something like 68 depending on how many weeks are required for a viable birth.
The DC 5 +1 per month might be better base to work with if character does nothing (a monthly check) + situaction (special check perhaps) for situation (casts a spell + level of spell) (running +3) (combat +1 per round) (injury 1/10 of damage taken) and so on.
I clearly just throw ideas out there, hard to know how balanced it would be for the Realms. However I would start low rather then high because your player wants the unborn to survive. |
| BlackDragonKarameikos |
Posted - 15 Jun 2008 : 21:51:37
quote:
Originally posted by QueenofShadows
Okay,
I have had this come up before, sterenious activities will cause early birth, she would likely need to make a Fort Save DC 16 and maybe increase the DC by 1 per week more she is pregnant. (you can also deal with things like either bonuses or minuses to her for relaxation and stress if you want to go that far into it.)
Its good that she's excited,alot of people get bogged down in the combat of it.
A child has his or her mothers Fort Save until born, once born you might want to decide what the babies Con is and than roll Con for survival. Shape changing would be a No no. Her body would shift the babies would not. The restructuring would likely crush the babies.
I think a DC 16 Fort save is a bit much to start with. Perhaps a DC 5 Fort save to start with and then adding +1 to it about every two weeks would probably be better(since the length of a human pregnancy is about 40 weeks it would work out to about a DC 25 or so near the end. But, since the players character is a half-elf, the length of her pregnancy will be about 52 weeks, it will be cut down to around 44 weeks due to her carrying quadruplets).
She is not the only one in the party that is now pregnant. The other half-elf that is in the party is now with child as well. Both me and the players sat down and talked about this long before it happened, so they weren't too surprised about it when it happened(If I'm thinking of doing something with one of the characters, I sit down with the player and discuss it with them beforehand, just in case they have an idea or two that might help).
As for Con, once the baby is born I'll probably start out all of the babies stat's at a 1 except for Con(I'll probably start that out at an 8). Once the child reaches the age of 2, I'll probably have the player raise all of the stat's to a 2 and then at each even age up until the age of 8 have the player raise the stat's by 2 until all of the child's other stat's reach an 8. The reason for this is because the players have shown interest in possibly wanting to at that time retire their main characters and possibly play one of the children, so a new generation of characters would be added into the existing campaign. |
| QueenofShadows |
Posted - 14 Jun 2008 : 19:13:02
Okay,
I have had this come up before, sterenious activities will cause early birth, she would likely need to make a Fort Save DC 16 and maybe increase the DC by 1 per week more she is pregnant. (you can also deal with things like either bonuses or minuses to her for relaxation and stress if you want to go that far into it.)
Its good that she's excited,alot of people get bogged down in the combat of it.
A child has his or her mothers Fort Save until born, once born you might want to decide what the babies Con is and than roll Con for survival. Shape changing would be a No no. Her body would shift the babies would not. The restructuring would likely crush the babies. |
| BlackDragonKarameikos |
Posted - 09 Jun 2008 : 21:35:59
quote:
Originally posted by Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
I'd think carefully about how you implement this in the game, though, especially if the player is really excited about having babies, and/or you get the impression that having the PC lose a child would lessen that player's fun. You might want to fudge it for the sake of the player by giving the child divine protection or something (really though, it's up to you how to handle it).
I actually have thought about it Rinonalyrna, and since the PC is carrying quadruplets the loss of one child wouldn't be a big thing(at least you would think it wouldn't be).
But as I stated as well, I let the player know about the possible consequences of going into battle and she has already stated that her character will not be participating in battle.
And Yes, the player is actuall excited about her character being with child which is why I mentioned to her about the consequences of her character going into battle(and the possible consequences of casting spells while she is pregnant, her character is a cleric), if I had waited to mention it until after she had been in combat once, I know I would have had a problem as she would have told me then "if I had known about the consequences, I wouldn't have had Ember (her character) go into battle".
Plus in doing some real world research on the web, I found out that if a woman is carrying multiples, she has a higher possibility of losing one or more of the babies, either during the pregnancy or after they are born(although so long as the player has her character try to take decent care of herself, doesn't get into combat, and doesn't cast too many spells, I don't see her losing any of the babies). |
| Rinonalyrna Fathomlin |
Posted - 09 Jun 2008 : 20:51:42
quote:
Originally posted by BlackDragonKarameikos
[2) how likely would it be for the PC to lose the child because of damage taken in combat? very likely or not too likely? Also, would the likeliness increase as the pregnancy continued to progress.
I'd think carefully about how you implement this in the game, though, especially if the player is really excited about having babies, and/or you get the impression that having the PC lose a child would lessen that player's fun. You might want to fudge it for the sake of the player by giving the child divine protection or something (really though, it's up to you how to handle it). |
| Gelcur |
Posted - 09 Jun 2008 : 14:23:41
This is a very interesting scenario.
1) I would say make this some what random. If she is in combat a lot roll 2d6 for early arrival if she is well taken care of minimal expenditure aside from maybe cross country travel, 2d4.
2) Again being a DM that likes to leave a lot to the dice I would come with some sort of roll to see system either d100 or just fort saves. I say fort save since the child is similar to an item in the mothers protection and would use her roll to save on. Off the top of my head I would have one fort save every combat no matter what DC 10 starting at month 0 and going up by 1 every month ending up at DC 22 the last month. Additional rolls if the PC became knocked out or dying.
3) You can probably better judge this very specific situation. My experience would dictate that normally gods make exceptions for pregnant characters with powers. Sometimes they remove them so they won't harm the child sometimes they replace them with a protective power till the child is born. I would say any option would be fine as long as the end results are no ill effect to the child from it.
I think this is a really cool idea. Have you thought about other things that might also come in to play. First thing that came to mind was a AC decrease probably 1/4 of the way through and again 3/4 of the way through, maybe just -1 for each. Maybe also if she wears armor does it accommodate for the pregnancy? |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 09 Jun 2008 : 13:34:02
1) 10 to 11 months sounds reasonable.
2) Quite likely. I had a friend whose girlfriend lost their baby when she slipped and fell hard on ice. Any damage to her stomach area -- even just a hard impact -- is going to affect her children. And the possibility of that grows the further along she is. Not only that, but pregnant women are often discouraged from strenuous activity, especially in the third trimester.
3) She'd still have the shapechanging abilities, just like weres do. But, just like a were, using that ability would likely kill her children.
If the player wants to keep the children, they need to find some place to hole up and wait until it's all done. |
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