Character Age, Aging, Disease, and Death	Character Age	Aging	Disease	Death
DMG	-	-	-	*h*

At the onset of each and every character’s creation it is necessary that you establish his or her age.
For player characters and henchmen you must use the appropriate table.
You may do the same for other characters,
or you may assign age as you see fit in light of the milieu you have developed.

There are two tables, one for non-human (the demi-humans, part humans, and the like) and one for humans.

Non-Human Characters Table:

Race	Cleric	Fighter	Magic-User	Thief
dwarf	250 + 2d20	40 + 5d4	-	75 + 3d6
elf	500 + 10d10	130 + 5d6	150 + 5d6	100 + 5d6
gnome	300 + 3d12	60 + 5d4	100 + 2d12	80 + 5d4
half-elf	40 + 2d4	22 + 3d4	30 + 2d8	22 + 3d8
halfling	- <*>	20 + 3d4	-	40 + 2d4
half-orc	20 + 1d4	13 + 1d4	-	20 +2d4

Q: Now that dwarven PC clerics are
allowed, can you reduce the starting
age for dwarven clerics? There is no
good reason to make PCs start in the
old age category, especially when
human clerics can be young adult or
mature at worst.

A: The AD&D game is one of choices. If a
player wants to have a cleric character, he
must choose between a relatively young
human or a proportionately much older
demi-human. The variation in starting ages
can be explained by the ethnic differences
between humans and demi-humans, which
require a long period of initial training for
demi-human clerics.
(137.68)

Q: At what age does a drow cleric
start play as a PC?

A: The same age as any other elven cleric;
see page 12 of the DMG.
(137.68)

For multi-classed characters use the column which develops the highest age and use the greatest possible addition to the base age, i.e.,
do NOT generate the age variable by random die roll, but assign the max..

Humans Table:

Class	Age Plus Variable
cleric	18 + 1d4
druid	18 + 1d4
fighter	15 + 1d4
paladin	17 + 1d4
ranger	20 + 1d4
magic-user	24 + 2d8
illusionist	30 + 1d6
thief	18 + 1d4
assassin	20 + 1d4
monk	21 + 1d4

Bards begin at the age of the class in which they first begin.

A barbarian PC will be 15-19 (14 + 1d4) years old at the start of his or her career.

The starting age of a cavalier PC is the same as for a cleric of that race -- 500 + 10d10 for an elf,
40 + 2d4 for a half-elf, and 18 + 1d4 for a human.

Once character age is established, you must keep track of it from game year to game year.
(Cf. TIME IN THE CAMPAIGN.)
To normal game time years must be added any of the various unnatural causes of shortening life, i.e. aging.
These effectively add years to the character's age.
The effects of aging are given in the next section.
The maximum age of any character is likewise explained.