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Recently I decided I wanted my character to get pregnant and have a baby. She's in a sense "dating" another PC in our group. I have talked to my DM, and we're trying to find out what's needed for when the baby is born. I already know at one point my character will be a bit incapacitated and I will have to wait X months in game time before the baby will even arrive.

The real questions I have are: is there anything I need to roll for, and if so what stuff will I need to roll? What stuff do I have to determine or does the DM need to determine, etc?

SevenSidedDie
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Xinck
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2 Answers2

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Outside of certain 3rd-party books, D&D doesn't normally have mechanics for sex and child birth, which is probably for the best. 5.0 continues this tradition, but lacks a 3rd party option at this time. As it stands, it would be an entirely RP thing for you to discuss with your GM, rather than something you roll for.

Epsilon Rose
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    If you can be confident in yourself there's no official content, it would be worthwhile to say there's no official content. Audiences will probably trust you on that. Otherwise, no need to say it, so it's up to you. (No need to try to account for homebrew; there will always be homebrew for any zany stuff, though it may not be any good.) – doppelgreener Sep 17 '15 at 02:46
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    If previous editions are any guide, sooner or later someone will make rules for childbirth in fifth edition and post them online. But like the other commenters have said, home-brewed material found online is a mixed bag; Even if you find something that's well-designed, there's no guarantee it'll be designed for the kind of game experience your group is interested in. (Also, if you search for information about reproduction on the internet, this can go badly wrong.) You are probably better off hand-waving it, or developing your own home-brewed rules in conjunction with your GM. – GMJoe Sep 17 '15 at 03:32
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Epsilon Rose's answer covers the official rules perfectly. I've been both a PC and GM in games that involve pregnancy and childbirth, so I wanted to offer some ideas for things to think about in your game.

In General

Any of the suggestions below can be handled through role playing or using 5Es mechanics. Feel free to ignore any of them that don't fit into your game.

If the GM decides to play this in detail, I would recommend picking up one of those weekly baby update calendars/apps. They usually offer a lot of interesting tidbits that the GM and PC can both use.

Note also that this may make some players uncomfortable. If they are on board with that, it's okay. Many players will be unfamiliar with pregnancy either because of their age, lifestyle, or sex. It's also outside the scope of the typical adventure story, which eschews everything not related to the adventure.

While Pregnant

  1. Damage done to the mother may harm the child. In combat terms, even a small amount of damage could represent a mortal risk to the baby. This adds an unusual dynamic to combat.
  2. Restricted mobility. If you want to handle this in game terms, it may hamper out of combat movement, speed, and Dexterity rolls.
  3. NPCs may (and probably should) react to the PC differently. How exactly this happens will depend on culture of the game world.
  4. Gestation takes a long time. Changes are very slow. Conventional wisdom is that humans gestate for 9 months. Think about how long 9 months is in game time - all of Lost Mine of Phandelver can be played in the first trimester.

Birth

  1. Birth may deal non-lethal or lethal damage, both for the mother and baby. It is entirely feasible for the heroic PC to die in childbirth.
  2. Medical complications are myriad. In my experience it's best to hand-wave the details unless they are a part of some sub-plot or story arc - or if you are playing with a group of med students.
  3. For a midwife or other NPC, the Heal skill is what should be used to assist with birth.
  4. Birth is not a short-term event that is handled in a single scene. It may take a PC out of commission for several days.
indigochild
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