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Everyone seems to have some issue with this area of the game, and I wanted to collect all the ones I've seen and experienced in one post. The problems appear to be:
>Growing into a race is weird roleplay wise. The game assumes I'm an adult adventurer, why am I still developing core racial abilities.
>The races feel really flat and flavorless.
>General Training and Natural Ambition are so far out of the league of everything else it hurts
>Race abilities (for the most part) are situational to the point of being painful
>Low incentive for players to branch out of human
The best example I can give is that an arcane caster elf has no incentive to take two of their strongest abilities - weapon familiarity and otherworldly magic, leaving Ancestral Longevity as the good pick with little growth. The other abilities are situational or not beneficial to a build. While abilities don't all need to line up for a build (I'm personally a big fan of suboptimal play - halfing barbarian and all) it would help if there were some flavor synergy that felt good.
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I can agree with you. It takes up to 17th level to gain all the Dwarven Ancetry abilities you start out with at 1sy level of PF 1... and I’d be okay with that if the base Ancestry compared equally across the board. Deadmanwalking has an excellent comparison of all the listed Ancestry options for PF 2 HERE for those interested. Looking at that, the proposed change to add an extra Ancestry feat at 1st level STILL doesn’t balance the playing field.
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I can agree with you. It takes up to 17th level to gain all the Dwarven Ancetry abilities you start out with at 1sy level of PF 1... and I’d be okay with that if the base Ancestry compared equally across the board. Deadmanwalking has an excellent comparison of all the listed Ancestry options for PF 2 HERE for those interested. Looking at that, the proposed change to add an extra Ancestry feat at 1st level STILL doesn’t balance the playing field.
The dwarf base package in PF1 was STACKED! and it's not something that I would like to see replicated in PF2.
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The first problem is actually the biggest one for me -- I mean, don't get me wrong, balance between the races is very important -- but I just can't wrap my head around:
"You know, I was raised and trained with these racial weapons for decades, but it wasn't 'til I stopped all that ridiculousness and sent adventuring for two years away from that environment and those weapons before any of that training kicked in and I could actually use them."
And the sight-based ones are even stranger. "Yep, I grew into my darkvision after helping kill that black dragon threatening the village."
Racial abilities should be just that -- abilities -- that said feats that improve them make sense -- whether by scaling up, broadening or focussing those abilities (ie - familiarity with weapons becomes expertise, racial attack/defensive bonuses against certain foes increase or broaden to include other creatures, etc)
The best example I can give is that an arcane caster elf has no incentive to take two of their strongest abilities - weapon familiarity and otherworldly magic, leaving Ancestral Longevity as the good pick with little growth. The other abilities are situational or not beneficial to a build. While abilities don't all need to line up for a build (I'm personally a big fan of suboptimal play - halfing barbarian and all) it would help if there were some flavor synergy that felt good.
Arcane caster elves can take nimble and overcome the greatest weakness of casters in this edition, which is positioning. Casters have to use 2 of their actions nearly every turn to cast spells. That leaves them with 1 action to reposition or get in range to cast the spell. Having 35 movement and later on 40 movement with the general feat is HUGE compared to a gnome caster with 20/25 movement.
Seriously, if that was your best example then you just proved that the system is more than fine.| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Did you have the same problem with dragons getting new abilities as they aged?
Hardly a fair comparison - dragons, which are very magical beings develop new powers and abilities as they age -- because age is how their power is measured -- plus, they gain new *magical* abilities... Their sense package of darkvision and blindsense is there from hatching. Yes, they gain new natural weapon attacks, but those are still logical because the dragon is becoming physically larger and becoming stronger -- and, what is especially true -- all dragons of the same race gain those abilities in the same order (which represents a natural progression)...
PC races, on the other hand, get weird "racial" abilities all willy-nilly as they gain experience and progress in their careers. And the history/backstory of those abilities are either:
- The character had years, maybe decades, of training/practice to (..use the curve blade / kill goblins / dodge giants / etc. ) - so, then, either you have that training or you don't... Instead, we're now saying the training was actually some sort of post-hypnotic suggestion that gets activated weeks/months/years later -- without needing to, you know, be pracribg or working on it in the interim (might not have touched a curve blade or seen a goblin in years, but suddenly...). Basically, these sorts of things should only be selectable at level 1, reflecting that either your dwarf trained in goblin-killing, or he spent his time doing something else (training in rune-casting, for instance) -- otherwise what we're saying is that all PCs, even the Wizards with 18 into, are real slow learners. [Plus, if you can figure out this thing on the road, why can't your colleagues of other races?]
- It's a physical ability of the race -- in which case all normal members of that race should have it from birth, from puberty, or from some other stage of physical development that it "grows in".
Now, can adventurers (or others) then practice to hone that ability? Absolutely! In fact, that's exactly what I was saying before about these things scaling with ancestry feats. [So, for example, if all gnomes have excellent senses of smell, better than the other PC races, we start them with a +1 on scent-based perception with no feat. Then, a feat can bump that to +2 that scales with level. A different feat (probably a l5 minimum) can let them use their sniffers to I'd potions. ]
Otherwise, the ancestry feats are either something learned (in which case, their racial restrictions make no sense) or they represent some sort of strange mutation that just spontaneously happens to members of that race ["Your keen ears popped in when you were only 42? You're lucky! I'd seen my third century before I got 'em, and my granddad never did.."].
Keen ears is a heritage feat that you can only take at level 1. That's the thing. Physical traits are easily explained in this edition because you can't take them later on. (except for the half-orcs who are admittedly horribly implemented in the current state).
Explaining getting new ancestry feats is no different than explaining all the other feats and skills you gain from leveling up. Or how do you explain that you go into a dungeon with no lore and come out with legendary lore skill? Or you knew the basics of smithing but when you come out you are a master of your craft? You can't explain these things realistically except for taking regular downtimes, which is not required.
Why do people use this argument when it comes to ancestries and not for the rest of the characterdevelopment? Because they need to construct a problem where no problem exists to justify getting more feats from the start.
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Ancestry feats give power to the players to create the type of character they envision. It adds diversity where everything was streamlined before. I don't read much about people actually complaining about the basic concept. Usually the opinions go apart when it comes to how much you can customize from the start.
The number of available ancestry feats will rise over time. This is just the playtest. And you say yourself that even without the feats you can still make any concepts. So I don't get why you then think it's restrictive if that's the case.
My suggestion would be to give each character 1 ancestral feats and 1 heritage feat @ lvl1. This way the "stronger" heritage feats are still limited and you get to at least feel like your ancestry.
As a level 1 dwarf, I didn't feel like a real dwarf. I had a slower speed, darkvision and resistance to poison. I would have felt a lot better had I had Stonecunning, hatred or giantbane. This same character also played the level 9 playtest. By level 9, it looked silly to get a +1 damage to 2 types of creatures.
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I think the concept of ancestry feats is fine. But it needs some fine-tuning to ensure all "born" traits are either automatic race abilities or feats that you can only take at level 1.
Half-orcs for example could easily be fixed by putting Darkvision in the list of things you can choose from with the Half Orc Heritage feat. It doesn't require a total overhaul of the design, just shuffling things into sensible places.
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(Looks like we're back!)
I'm not against the concept of ancestry feats, I would like them in addition to a few static ancestry so the races/species have a bit more apart from each other than a form of vision, base hp, and speed. Perhaps the heritage feat should be something that the race automatically gains?
Another possible way is to have ancestry feats build upon static abilities, similar to APG's Eagle Eyes feat; give elves their bonus to Perception, and they have a feat that can expand on their senses further.
I like DeciusNeros suggrstion
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My personal bugbear with ancestries I bumped into when adapting some of the species of my own setting for the playtest was as follows and I think would be fixed with many of these suggested tweaks, for example: to front-load more ancestry feats.
Say you introduce a race that simply has superior physiology, like a species that has can breathe both air and water and has a swim speed but isn't slower or more frail than many of the common ancestries. How do you balance that?
Under the current system the thing I basically said was: They don't get ancestry feats, period. Which will overtime balance them out if you count each trait like the extra movement option, the breath and the general robustness and speed as ancestry feats but it still frontloads them with HUGE benefits at low level.
I have many more... monstrous species running around my setting that are perfectly civilized and in PF1e were strong, but not crazy much stronger than any core race option, still within the what I'd like to call "fluff over crunch benefit zone" where their associated rules didn't make them tempting to play for players not interested in their fluff. Where you could expect everybody at the table to not regard another player's race choice with jealousy.
PF2e however my Aljhari species for example, wouldn't fly. They're faster and tougher than elves, which already makes them an objectively better choice before we even get to feats.
So... I dock them their first level feat, easy right? Not quite, see they also have conscious control of the chromatophores in their skin and heal their wounds abnormally fast. (I gave them level hp/day fast healing 1 in PF1e)
These aren't things members of their race "train" or "opt in to" or something, this is a core part of their physiology.
In PF1e I could balance this against the many perks elves get just for being an elf like their SR penetration, sleep immunity etc.
PF2e I can't balance this within what I'd like to think of as an acceptable margin of imbalance, the "fluff over crunch" zone basically.
So yeah, as somebody with a wide-range of sapient species running around my setting, most of which I have always kept open as options for players, the PF2e system really messes with balance for this in a way I don't like as an amateur game designer.
Making all these just raw physical traits feats just really doesn't sit with me fluff-wise.
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Not a big fan of the gnome/elf ancestral feats that feel like smell/hearing radar either--where you have a cone you can use to detect hidden foes. If you want to emulate an ancestry having better than average senses, just give them Alertness: expert training in Perception. Done.
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Say you introduce a race that simply has superior physiology, like a species that has can breathe both air and water and has a swim speed but isn't slower or more frail than many of the common ancestries. How do you balance that?You can balance that out by giving disadvantages somewhere else. Maybe that race can't see very well and has to apply dim light rules - concealment for every opponent. Maybe their mental abilities are lower so they get more flaws than other races. Maybe they can only speak one language, count as undead, or can only move 10 feet when they don't fly, etc.
Balancing that isn't a problem. It's only a problem when you want to create a superior race that only has benefits and no flaws. And that kind of race is not fun for all the other players on the table who stick to their normal races.
You didn't read my post. In PF1 you didn't have to give them drawbacks because core races had lots of perks baked in by default like the infamous human bonus feat.
dwarf thing is funny, since even without all those bonus, they were not out of balanced. Humans are still the best race in PF1. people still made Halfling rogues, and elf wizards, and asimar everthing.
your race abilities were so minor (save for humans) it didn't matter, there really is no reason to change races, it's really a needless change, that doesn't really benefit the game at all.
I also agree with those who said gaining ancestry feat, is just weird. it's feel very silly. I don't think of dwarves, elfs, et el as being the same as vampires and dragons.
if they want to add more flavor to the system, just let people pick 3 or 4 ancestry feats at level 1, and be done with it.
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I concur with front loading more ancestry feats. You can still have choices and customization you just do it on the front end.
Say you introduce a race that simply has superior physiology, like a species that has can breathe both air and water and has a swim speed but isn't slower or more frail than many of the common ancestries. How do you balance that?
Under the current system the thing I basically said was: They don't get ancestry feats, period. Which will overtime balance them out if you count each trait like the extra movement option, the breath and the general robustness and speed as ancestry feats but it still frontloads them with HUGE benefits at low level.
As a design idea, "Give them all the powers at first level, but none later" is a difficult one to balance, because it depends entirely on how long the campaign is going to go. In a one-shot session, the front-loaded powers are better than ancestry feats in every conceivable way. In a 20th level campaign, the gnome may end up better off (is being worse early and better later good balance?). In a conventional AP style, say, 1st to 14th level, the front-loaded race may still be better.
To follow the PF2 method, you'd need to introduce a series of ancestral feats. At 1st level, they can hold their breath underwater twice as long as another race. At 5th level, they can upgrade the power to simulate Water Breathing. At 10th, they're immune to drowning.
It's an inelegant, ugly solution, but it's about what will work with the PF2 design.
I think one extra general feat (which could be taken as Ancestral Paragon if desired) would be enough to take care of the worst of these problems.
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When Ancestry feats were first introduced, it was described by Paizo as "making my elf more elf-y" as they grew. I thought that this was a neat idea! I can easily see my character put in work to improve his racial abilities, or discover new ways of using them, or pick up some optional cultural skills related to my ancestry.
Instead, what we got was that Paizo chopped up all the basic racial abilities, and having you pick and choose which ones you wanted, sprinkled very sparingly over 20 levels (I had also expected for Ancestry feats to be selected much more frequently over a character's growth, instead of a meager 5 opportunities...).
What it should have been was that each ancestry had a number of distinct features that very much distinguished each one from the other, and Ancestry feats would be similar to PF1 Racial feats: feats that improve base ancestry features, or unlock new abilities stemming from them.
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Everyone seems to have some issue with this area of the game, and I wanted to collect all the ones I've seen and experienced in one post. The problems appear to be:
>Growing into a race is weird roleplay wise. The game assumes I'm an adult adventurer, why am I still developing core racial abilities.
>The races feel really flat and flavorless.
>General Training and Natural Ambition are so far out of the league of everything else it hurts
>Race abilities (for the most part) are situational to the point of being painful
>Low incentive for players to branch out of humanThe best example I can give is that an arcane caster elf has no incentive to take two of their strongest abilities - weapon familiarity and otherworldly magic, leaving Ancestral Longevity as the good pick with little growth. The other abilities are situational or not beneficial to a build. While abilities don't all need to line up for a build (I'm personally a big fan of suboptimal play - halfing barbarian and all) it would help if there were some flavor synergy that felt good.
100% agree. Love the concept and the variation in speed and hit points, but the ancestry feats are not powerful or meaningful enough, and we need more of them to make characters unique at first level.
Compare a Pathfinder Elf to a D&D 5E Elf
Pathfinder Elf
Hit points 6
Speed 30
Low-Light Vision
1 Ancestry Feat (Otherworldly Magic grants 1 cantrip)
D&D 5E Elf
Speed 30
Darkvision 60 ft.
Keen Senses (proficiency in Perception)
Fey Ancestry (Advantage versus charm saves, can't be put to sleep)
Trance (sleep less)
Subrace (even more customization, for example, High Elf)
Elf Weapon Training
Cantrip (grants 1 cantrip)
1 Extra Language
Hands down the 5E elf is cooler. The Pathfinder 2E elf is about 5 abilities short. Customizing our elf-iness over 20 levels is a cool optimization over 5E, but more power needs to be front loaded.
If Pathfinder 2E added about 2-3 more ancestry feats at first level and made them more powerful, and let you customize further as you level up, then it would be better than 5E.
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Everyone seems to have some issue with this area of the game, and I wanted to collect all the ones I've seen and experienced in one post. The problems appear to be:
>Growing into a race is weird roleplay wise. The game assumes I'm an adult adventurer, why am I still developing core racial abilities.
>The races feel really flat and flavorless.
>General Training and Natural Ambition are so far out of the league of everything else it hurts
>Race abilities (for the most part) are situational to the point of being painful
>Low incentive for players to branch out of humanThe best example I can give is that an arcane caster elf has no incentive to take two of their strongest abilities - weapon familiarity and otherworldly magic, leaving Ancestral Longevity as the good pick with little growth. The other abilities are situational or not beneficial to a build. While abilities don't all need to line up for a build (I'm personally a big fan of suboptimal play - halfing barbarian and all) it would help if there were some flavor synergy that felt good.
100% agree. Love the concept and the variation in speed and hit points, but the ancestry feats are not powerful or meaningful enough, and we need more of them to make characters unique at first level.
Compare a Pathfinder Elf to a D&D 5E Elf
Pathfinder Elf
Hit points 6
Speed 30
Low-Light Vision
1 Ancestry Feat (Otherworldly Magic grants 1 cantrip)D&D 5E Elf
Speed 30
Darkvision 60 ft.
Keen Senses (proficiency in Perception)
Fey Ancestry (Advantage versus charm saves, can't be put to sleep)
Trance (sleep less)
Subrace (even more customization, for example, High Elf)
Elf Weapon Training
Cantrip (grants 1 cantrip)
1 Extra LanguageHands down the 5E elf is cooler. The Pathfinder 2E elf is about 5 abilities short. Customizing our elf-iness over 20 levels is a cool optimization over 5E, but more power needs to be front loaded.
If Pathfinder 2E added about 2-3 more ancestry feats at first level and made...
Wow, just checked out the 5E dwarf (1st time taking a look at it)
So ironically, PF2's playtest is pointing me to a dwarf that looks a lot more dwarfy than their own...For those interested:
Dwarf Traits
Your dwarf character has an assortment of inborn Abilities, part and parcel of dwarven Nature.
Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score increases by 2.
Age: Dwarves mature at the same rate as humans, but they’re considered young until they reach the age of 50. On average, they live about 350 years.
Alignment: Most Dwarves are lawful, believing firmly in the benefits of a well-ordered society. They tend toward good as well, with a strong sense of Fair Play and a belief that everyone deserves to share in the benefits of a just order.
Size: Dwarves stand between 4 and 5 feet tall and average about 150 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing Heavy Armor.
Darkvision: Accustomed to life underground, you have superior vision in dark and dim Conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in Darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in Darkness, only shades of gray.
Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on Saving Throws against poison, and you have Resistance against poison damage.
Dwarven Combat Training: You have proficiency with the Battleaxe, Handaxe, Light Hammer, and Warhammer.
Tool Proficiency: You gain proficiency with the artisan’s tools of your choice: smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools.
Stonecunning: Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to the Origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Dwarvish. Dwarvish is full of hard consonants and guttural sounds, and those characteristics spill over into whatever other language a dwarf might speak.
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the more characters we make for the playtest the more annoyed we become with the ancestry system.