Big Beards and Pointy Ears

I may have my first thing I really dislike hearing on the play test rules: the change of base speed for most races to 25 feet. It feels REALLY unintuitive, and is going to be very annoying to keep track of after almost 20 years of humans getting 6 squares of movement. Plus, a base of 6 squares (or 30 feet) is easier to divide because it’s not a prime number like 5 is. You can easily halve or even third the 30 feet speed, but you can do neither to a base 25 speed without rounding down. I would rather they have kept base speed for humanoids at 30 feet, and make elves 35 speed if they wanted to give them a boost.

In another vein, We get a hint at some of the backgrounds! I can’t wait to get more info on those.

Is it just me, or do elves sound underwhelming compared to dwarves? I mean, they were in PF1e too. I was just hoping they'd be more playable in PF2e.

Edit: I agree with ENHenry on disliking the reduction of base speed, as well. It sounds like any condition that halves speed will be a PITA.

I like the movement speed in that there's bit more variation depending on the ancestry.

I see the point about effects halving the speed, but I think it can be simplyfied by expressing it in a simple manner, e.g. "you need 2 squares of movement to move one square" or "you need 10ft. of your movement to move 5 feet."
That you can't use the remaining 5 ft. of your movement is obvious then.

I may have my first thing I really dislike hearing on the play test rules: the change of base speed for most races to 25 feet. It feels REALLY unintuitive, and is going to be very annoying to keep track of after almost 20 years of humans getting 6 squares of movement. Plus, a base of 6 squares (or 30 feet) is easier to divide because it’s not a prime number like 5 is. You can easily halve or even third the 30 feet speed, but you can do neither to a base 25 speed without rounding down. I would rather they have kept base speed for humanoids at 30 feet, and make elves 35 speed if they wanted to give them a boost.

I'm quite fine with it to be honest. You can walk up to 75ft(!) a turn.

I think hit points should be devorced from race, just don't like the idea that elves can't be burly. But, I mostly can't complain this is just pathfinder 1e with that silly everything must be a feat thing. There maybe some issue with movement rates but it‘s likely minor. Overall not bad.

Blog wrote:

This feat allows your elf to become trained in a skill of your choice when she prepares for each day.

I think the "floating" proficiency is a great idea and hope for an ancestry feat for a second one, or even a "floating" skill feat to go along with it (like the brawler's floating combat feat).

Unfortunately, I can see a "floating" proficiency enforcing a 5-minute adventuring day. "Oh, there's a trap or lock?, Better rest to get the skill". "We need to talk to the king?", Better rest to get the skill". Alternatively, depending upon the wording of the ancestry trait, it can get rather weird RP-wise where suddenly a character has no ability to do X or Y (even though they have been doing just fine with it the last 20 times).

Dragon78 wrote:

I hope races like aasimar, tiefling, genie-kin, dhampir, etc. will not be done through ancestry feats. I don't want to have to wait several levels just to play the race I want. Let alone all that extra investment in the ancestry feats so you can't add anything fun to the race you would want to play.

That would be a down side true but their would also be the upside that you can have potentially abilities that are more useful or powerful at higher levels. Like right now You wouldn't think a genie kin could get something nowhere near wish but with the new ancestry stuff maybe a high level feat that lets you do something close to a wish is possible.

I don't think that is going to be the case. I think they will have a distinct ancestry for these, although it might be set up more like humans with different ethnicities, in this case different outsider groups.

Now...WHEN we get them, that is the question. Since again it's not clear to me that, with the way ancestry is being set up, that bestiaries will be able to include enough viable new information to actually play a race.

My only big concern about the ancestry situation is that it might render the races a bit boring if too many features are linked to the feats. Even if there are more options in the long run for players, if people perceive the baseline ancestry as weaker and less "elfish/dwarfish/gnomish" than the current PF1E races. It also may make future races harder to design.

...

The real question for all of us here is...Are elves still sweet and tasty or do we have to find another gourmet meat resorce?

I have to say i really like the speed modifications, it makes the whole environment look different. Things like "oh, an elf! people say you can almost fly when you run...is that true?" and stuff like that.

I do like the new feats system and how it improves the weight of your race history. I'm happy in general with the changes. We will send all our love dancing around a big stone and trying to hit as many seaguls as we can.

Unfortunately, I can see a "floating" proficiency enforcing a 5-minute adventuring day. "Oh, there's a trap or lock?, Better rest to get the skill". "We need to talk to the king?", Better rest to get the skill". Alternatively, depending upon the wording of the ancestry trait, it can get rather weird RP-wise where suddenly a character has no ability to do X or Y (even though they have been doing just fine with it the last 20 times).

I don't think this will be the case. You'll probably prepare Disable Device when a dungeon run is in order and there's no rogue in the group and diplomacy or knowledge(local) inside a city, but normally, you'll have someone with the required proficiency in the group already.

But it will help when you know you'll have to climb or swim at some point because you're in the mountains or near the sea. It's good for skills that everyone is required to be at least a little competent or skills you'll want to support other members of the group.

...

The real question for all of us here is...Are elves still sweet and tasty or do we have to find another gourmet meat resorce?

I have to say i really like the speed modifications, it makes the whole environment look different. Things like "oh, an elf! people say you can almost fly when you run...is that true?" and stuff like that.

I do like the new feats system and how it improves the weight of your race history. I'm happy in general with the changes. We will send all our love dancing around a big stone and trying to hit as many seaguls as we can.

elves probably still the gourmet meat every one likes. dou you want yours medium rare or well cooked.

...We will send all our love dancing around a big stone and trying to hit as many seaguls as we can.

{shakes tiny fist at swine seagulls} As many as we can! Teach 'em not to poke us in our coconuts or knees!

Since I've seen a couple folks asking about Backgrounds, I'll repost this tidbit from elsewhere:

FWIW, Jason and Stephen discuss PF2 Backgrounds in this presentation, starting at 43:00. It's a good overview. Some highlights.

Jason wrote:

Building your characters is following your ABCs: Pick your Ancestry, your Background, and your Class ... You pick your Ancestry, that's where you came from, that's how you were born; you pick your Background, which is how you grew up; and then you pick your Class, which is what you've trained to be.

Stephen describes Backgrounds as a more-robust system that serves about the same function as PF1 traits. "We wanted something a little more robust and mostly, that Adventure Path people could play with." The Core Rulebook will present generic Backgrounds (e.g., old barkeep, ex-slave, "all sorts of stuff") but the goal is to allow AP writers to create Backgrounds that really fit into the world of the AP (much like the AP traits from PF1).

Stephen: The Background system "affects the skills that you're good at and it also your ability scores to a certain degree."

Jason adds that your Background gives you one Lore for free, which is a highly specific Knowledge skill. He gives as examples Lore (Alcohol) and Lore (Warfare) (which Valeros has).

Also! Since I haven't commented on the main post yet, let me just say that I love what we've seen so far about Ancestries. It all looks really cool and like a great and flexible design structure.

I do share the concerns others have identified about characters who don't grow up in the culture of their Ancestry. Separating out Heritage Feats is a great start, but I would love to see a system that is fully designed to separate these aspects to better handle that kind of story. For example, notice the logical misstep in these sequential sentences:

You speak Common and Dwarf, as you may expect, and you can see in the dark just fine.

All that represents what's common to all dwarves, and comes from their innate tendencies.

But language, of course, isn't innate. The Goblin babies dropped in the Sandpoint orphanage by generations of adventurers probably don't grow up speaking Goblin! A Dwarf child, the only survivor of her village, is found by adventurers along with her clan dagger—she adventures to discover her past, but never had a chance to learn her ancestral language. Etc. etc.

(I know I'm not the first to point this out. I think someone called it in the Goblin thread, but if there was a direct mention in this thread I missed it so thought I'd drop the note.)

I honestly think the extra 1-3 squares of movement the Elves get is going to far increase their survivability than their less base health decreases it. Even before accounting that being faster stays as strong from levels 1-20 while starting health becomes a smaller and smaller portion of your total health, being about to move in such a way that many opponents have to use 2 actions to catch up to your 1 any elf taking basic positioning precautions is going to be subject to way less attacks each and every combat. As soon as they have avoided a single hit in this way they have gained more effective survivability than having an extra 2hp.

Mhmm. Dwarf wizards presumably lose out on the benefits of not having armor reduce their speed. They're still good, but their movement will be a big deal until they can get some magic to address the issue.

I don't expect an elf's advantage in speed to remain relevant forever, though. If flight speeds still work like they do in PF1, then that's the point where it stops being a big advantage.

Mhmm. Dwarf wizards presumably lose out on the benefits of not having armor reduce their speed. They're still good, but their movement will be a big deal until they can get some magic to address the issue.

I don't expect an elf's advantage in speed to remain relevant forever, though. If flight speeds still work like they do in PF1, then that's the point where it stops being a big advantage.

You could be right, but I think it is very premature to hazard any guesses about how magic is going to be changing yet. We have gotten very little but precursory glances at how spells and spell durations are going to be working yet. It is possible that starting speed might be a much more significant and long term trait than it is currently.

Mhmm. Dwarf wizards presumably lose out on the benefits of not having armor reduce their speed. They're still good, but their movement will be a big deal until they can get some magic to address the issue.

I don't expect an elf's advantage in speed to remain relevant forever, though. If flight speeds still work like they do in PF1, then that's the point where it stops being a big advantage.

True, but at that point I'd argue the base health is such a small part of your total health that it isn't a major concern. Especially how often the extra movement speed will mean you don't have to spend spell slots on movement boosting magics.

This.

I really hope that Paizo takes the opportunity with PF2 to re-balance aasimar. For some unknown reason aasimar lost their Constitution penalty when they made the transition between 2e and 3e. "Translated" properly, they should have had a -4 penalty to Constitution.

I am not suggesting giving them a -4 penalty now, but at least give them a -2 penalty to Constitution, please!

Well, they seem likely to make Humans a race with two floating stat bonuses, so they can easily just do the same with aasimar this edition. No need for flaws, and still balanced with the others.

They may even do the same with Tieflings. It'd make sense since the other half human races all have the same floating bonus as humans. Why not Tieflings and Aasimar, too?

I may have my first thing I really dislike hearing on the play test rules: the change of base speed for most races to 25 feet. It feels REALLY unintuitive, and is going to be very annoying to keep track of after almost 20 years of humans getting 6 squares of movement. Plus, a base of 6 squares (or 30 feet) is easier to divide because it’s not a prime number like 5 is. You can easily halve or even third the 30 feet speed, but you can do neither to a base 25 speed without rounding down. I would rather they have kept base speed for humanoids at 30 feet, and make elves 35 speed if they wanted to give them a boost.

We really and legitimately do not know that conditions that halve your speed will be at all common. Conditions might mostly do things like -10 feet speed or things like that.

I think hit points should be devorced from race, just don't like the idea that elves can't be burly. But, I mostly can't complain this is just pathfinder 1e with that silly everything must be a feat thing. There maybe some issue with movement rates but it‘s likely minor. Overall not bad.

The HP thing is only at 1st level. It's a one time reduction of 2 HP lower than a Human. And they can now get rid of their Con penalty. They can thus be pretty tough if you choose to invest in it.

Dragon78 wrote:

I hope races like aasimar, tiefling, genie-kin, dhampir, etc. will not be done through ancestry feats. I don't want to have to wait several levels just to play the race I want. Let alone all that extra investment in the ancestry feats so you can't add anything fun to the race you would want to play.

That would be a down side true but their would also be the upside that you can have potentially abilities that are more useful or powerful at higher levels. Like right now You wouldn't think a genie kin could get something nowhere near wish but with the new ancestry stuff maybe a high level feat that lets you do something close to a wish is possible.

From my experience, the higher levels don't see as much play as the lower levels [in pathfinder classic] so if play ends up the same in the new game it's not particularly satisfying to have super nifty high level abilities you're likely to not see much in play. This especially true if the bulk of your time playing is with the 'buy in' feats when others get to actually pick cool abilities right away.

So I'm in agreement with Dragon78. I would feel better with it as an ancestry feat if it's an actually compelling feat and hopefully flexible feat. For instance, if the feat mimicked the Subraces, I feel better about it than one that just gives a minor bonus and access to the race.

So one thing I am curious about the feasibility of- is whether frontloading the ancestry feats so as to let people establish both "I am genetically catfolk, I possess claws" and "I was raised by others of my kind who taught me their ways" early on in a character's career.

Maybe something at 1st and 2nd (like fighter bonus feats in PF1) would work?

I don't know if it's really a problem if we ask Dwarves to choose what they focused on in their youth- whether it's axes, who to use axes on, smithing, stonework, etc. It's fine to have "well, I didn't really pay attention in axe class" so you're not adept with them right off but eventually you understand what your dwarf tutors were trying to get through your thick skull.

So one thing I am curious about the feasibility of- is whether frontloading the ancestry feats so as to let people establish both "I am genetically catfolk, I possess claws" and "I was raised by others of my kind who taught me their ways" early on in a character's career.

Maybe something at 1st and 2nd (like fighter bonus feats in PF1) would work?

I don't know if it's really a problem if we ask Dwarves to choose what they focused on in their youth- whether it's axes, who to use axes on, smithing, stonework, etc. It's fine to have "well, I didn't really pay attention in axe class" so you're not adept with them right off but eventually you understand what your dwarf tutors were trying to get through your thick skull.

It's a bit weird when that can include "Slept through my Poison Resistance Class" too, is the thing. I'd rather the Ancestry Feats be frontloaded completely and then got better, not acquired piecemeal through my adventuring career. It makes much more sense.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So one thing I am curious about the feasibility of- is whether frontloading the ancestry feats so as to let people establish both "I am genetically catfolk, I possess claws" and "I was raised by others of my kind who taught me their ways" early on in a character's career.

Maybe something at 1st and 2nd (like fighter bonus feats in PF1) would work?

I don't know if it's really a problem if we ask Dwarves to choose what they focused on in their youth- whether it's axes, who to use axes on, smithing, stonework, etc. It's fine to have "well, I didn't really pay attention in axe class" so you're not adept with them right off but eventually you understand what your dwarf tutors were trying to get through your thick skull.

It's a bit weird when that can include "Slept through my Poison Resistance Class" too, is the thing. I'd rather the Ancestry Feats be frontloaded completely and then got better, not acquired piecemeal through my adventuring career. It makes much more sense.

Luckily, Hardy (poison resistance) is a Heritage feat only available at level 1. So it is more a case of some dwarfs being less susceptible to poison than others.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So one thing I am curious about the feasibility of- is whether frontloading the ancestry feats so as to let people establish both "I am genetically catfolk, I possess claws" and "I was raised by others of my kind who taught me their ways" early on in a character's career.

Maybe something at 1st and 2nd (like fighter bonus feats in PF1) would work?

I don't know if it's really a problem if we ask Dwarves to choose what they focused on in their youth- whether it's axes, who to use axes on, smithing, stonework, etc. It's fine to have "well, I didn't really pay attention in axe class" so you're not adept with them right off but eventually you understand what your dwarf tutors were trying to get through your thick skull.

It's a bit weird when that can include "Slept through my Poison Resistance Class" too, is the thing. I'd rather the Ancestry Feats be frontloaded completely and then got better, not acquired piecemeal through my adventuring career. It makes much more sense.

Yeah, that works much better. Say you choose 3-5 ancestry feats at 1st level. Then at every level where they currently have you gaining an ancestry feat, you instead "tier up" one or two of the ancestry feats you started with.

For instance: the elven floating skill upgrades so you can choose it at the moment you need it instead of at the start of the day, then later becomes two floating skills. A dwarf's Hardy trait starts out preventing automatic damage when you have to save vs afflictions (pleeeeeaase make it all afflictions and not just poison), then evolves to make it harder to fall down the affliction track and easier to climb back up, then later makes you outright immune. And so on.

Hmm, it might work like the current trait system where it says something to the effect of “You normally pick x amount though your GM May increase this amount, etc”

but at least I can build my traditional dwarf with poison resistance, axe and hammer proficiency, and hatred of goblinoids.

Well, it would appear that with the elevation of goblins to core PC, dwarves are no longer allowed to hate goblins.

TheFinish wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So one thing I am curious about the feasibility of- is whether frontloading the ancestry feats so as to let people establish both "I am genetically catfolk, I possess claws" and "I was raised by others of my kind who taught me their ways" early on in a character's career.

Maybe something at 1st and 2nd (like fighter bonus feats in PF1) would work?

I don't know if it's really a problem if we ask Dwarves to choose what they focused on in their youth- whether it's axes, who to use axes on, smithing, stonework, etc. It's fine to have "well, I didn't really pay attention in axe class" so you're not adept with them right off but eventually you understand what your dwarf tutors were trying to get through your thick skull.

It's a bit weird when that can include "Slept through my Poison Resistance Class" too, is the thing. I'd rather the Ancestry Feats be frontloaded completely and then got better, not acquired piecemeal through my adventuring career. It makes much more sense.

Yeah, that works much better. Say you choose 3-5 ancestry feats at 1st level. Then at every level where they currently have you gaining an ancestry feat, you instead "tier up" one or two of the ancestry feats you started with.

For instance: the elven floating skill upgrades so you can choose it at the moment you need it instead of at the start of the day, then later becomes two floating skills. A dwarf's Hardy trait starts out preventing automatic damage when you have to save vs afflictions (pleeeeeaase make it all afflictions and not just poison), then evolves to make it harder to fall down the affliction track and easier to climb back up, then later makes you outright immune. And so on.

Quite so, excellently put. You could even work on different sort of "sidegrades" too. Like, the Elven floating skill could be upgraded to it being two skills, but also a similar upgrade would be that whatever skill you choose is at a higher proficiency.

You can do this upgrades with the current system too, but with only one choice at 1st level it'd basically be "Okay, so how much of a dwarf is my character?" instead of "What kind of Dwarf is my character?"

"Dwarves
Adventuring is for the stout-hearted. Be stable. Be dependable. Be a dwarf! These fine folk live in isolated citadels, their surface empire having fallen long ago, but from time to time they venture out into the world of adventure."

I'm kind of surprised that I have yet to see anyone mention this, in another thread there was a discussion about how the nations of Golarion might change between editions. This states that the surface empire of the Dwarves, the (Five King Mountains?) and the Sky Citadels fell. I'm curious if this has anything to do with their new hatred for Darro and duergar?

"Dwarves

Adventuring is for the stout-hearted. Be stable. Be dependable. Be a dwarf! These fine folk live in isolated citadels, their surface empire having fallen long ago, but from time to time they venture out into the world of adventure."

I'm kind of surprised that I have yet to see anyone mention this, in another thread there was a discussion about how the nations of Golarion might change between editions. This states that the surface empire of the Dwarves, the (Five King Mountains?) and the Sky Citadels fell. I'm curious if this has anything to do with their new hatred for Darro and duergar?

No no, the Dwarven empire used to be enormous, spreading throughout most mountainous regions. After millenia, all that really remains are a few Sky Citadels and their holds in the Five Kings Mountains.

"In the 250 years since the fall of Droskar’s Kingdom, a period which the dwarves call the Collapsed Era, no dwarf has come forth to successfully unite his people in their old holdings. The remaining four Sky Citadels are robust metropolises, but none can claim to be more than a citystate; the “kingdoms” of the Five Kings mountains are only so in name. While many dwarves dream of reuniting their fractured empire, none have had the ability, prestige, or willpower to make it so."

It's always been that way for Dwarves in Golarion

Didn't the Dwarven empire fall like 2800 years ago, with the fall of Tar Taargadth? After which the Sky Citadels had to fend for themselves and it didn't go well for all of them?

It feels like "used to have a really great empire, but that collapsed a while ago and Dwarves have been in decline" is a thing that's true of pretty much all fantasy Dwarves.

Didn't the Dwarven empire fall like 2800 years ago, with the fall of Tar Taargadth? After which the Sky Citadels had to fend for themselves and it didn't go well for all of them?

It feels like "used to have a really great empire, but that collapsed a while ago and Dwarves have been in decline" is a thing that's true of pretty much all fantasy Dwarves.

Mostly because all Dwarfs borrow heavily from Tolkien.

But, for example, the Rhulic Empire of the Iron Kingdoms is still going strong after millenia. They weathered the Orgoth and countless other things. And they don't just survive, they thrive.

I'm glad to hear that the dwarves aren't worse of than they where in PF1e.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Didn't the Dwarven empire fall like 2800 years ago, with the fall of Tar Taargadth? After which the Sky Citadels had to fend for themselves and it didn't go well for all of them?

It feels like "used to have a really great empire, but that collapsed a while ago and Dwarves have been in decline" is a thing that's true of pretty much all fantasy Dwarves.

Mostly because all Dwarfs borrow heavily from Tolkien.

But, for example, the Rhulic Empire of the Iron Kingdoms is still going strong after millenia. They weathered the Orgoth and countless other things. And they don't just survive, they thrive.

To be fair, Iron Kingfoms puts a spin on most ... Shall we say, "classic" fantasy tropes. See the Elves out to murder all magic besides their own, most Undead are also Steampunk based, Druids being "If it has a wall tear it down" and Dragons being living vessels of Corruption.

TheFinish wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Didn't the Dwarven empire fall like 2800 years ago, with the fall of Tar Taargadth? After which the Sky Citadels had to fend for themselves and it didn't go well for all of them?

It feels like "used to have a really great empire, but that collapsed a while ago and Dwarves have been in decline" is a thing that's true of pretty much all fantasy Dwarves.

Mostly because all Dwarfs borrow heavily from Tolkien.

But, for example, the Rhulic Empire of the Iron Kingdoms is still going strong after millenia. They weathered the Orgoth and countless other things. And they don't just survive, they thrive.

To be fair, Iron Kingfoms puts a spin on most ... Shall we say, "classic" fantasy tropes. See the Elves out to murder all magic besides their own, most Undead are also Steampunk based, Druids being "If it has a wall tear it down" and Dragons being living vessels of Corruption.

Plus those Elves are the youngest of the races, created by gods that thought they could do better. They failed miserably. IK is a great setting.

MerlinCross wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Didn't the Dwarven empire fall like 2800 years ago, with the fall of Tar Taargadth? After which the Sky Citadels had to fend for themselves and it didn't go well for all of them?

It feels like "used to have a really great empire, but that collapsed a while ago and Dwarves have been in decline" is a thing that's true of pretty much all fantasy Dwarves.

Mostly because all Dwarfs borrow heavily from Tolkien.

But, for example, the Rhulic Empire of the Iron Kingdoms is still going strong after millenia. They weathered the Orgoth and countless other things. And they don't just survive, they thrive.

To be fair, Iron Kingfoms puts a spin on most ... Shall we say, "classic" fantasy tropes. See the Elves out to murder all magic besides their own, most Undead are also Steampunk based, Druids being "If it has a wall tear it down" and Dragons being living vessels of Corruption.

Plus those Elves are the youngest of the races, created by gods that thought they could do better. They failed miserably. IK is a great setting.

Just don't look too closely. IK's internal logic breaks hilariously under scrutiny.

Mhmm. Dwarf wizards presumably lose out on the benefits of not having armor reduce their speed. They're still good, but their movement will be a big deal until they can get some magic to address the issue.

I don't expect an elf's advantage in speed to remain relevant forever, though. If flight speeds still work like they do in PF1, then that's the point where it stops being a big advantage.

If I were to guess, I'd think a wizard who sinks feats into upping armor proficiency tiers might be able to reduce or eliminate arcane spell failure, if that's even a thing.

So a thing of interest to me is that the Goblin's floating stat bonus seems to be something that can go a lot of different ways- a Goblin cleric obviously wants to undo the Wis penalty, but goblins who are frontliners will likely put it in Str, Goblins who are Wizards or Alchemists will put it into Int, Goblin sorcerers and bards (and subsequent cha classes) will put it into Con, most likely.

I figure Dwarves are likely to put it into Str most of the time, but also Int or Cha for dwarves who are wizards or bards and the like.

Are any Elves going to put that floating bonus anywhere other than Con?

I could easily see that floating bonus going places other than Con if you're planning on avoiding the front like the plague anyways. Like any Con penalty race in PF1e, you make up for the HP penalty in other ways, like AC or miss chances.

So a thing of interest to me is that the Goblin's floating stat bonus seems to be something that can go a lot of different ways- a Goblin cleric obviously wants to undo the Wis penalty, but goblins who are frontliners will likely put it in Str, Goblins who are Wizards or Alchemists will put it into Int, Goblin sorcerers and bards (and subsequent cha classes) will put it into Con, most likely.

I figure Dwarves are likely to put it into Str most of the time, but also Int or Cha for dwarves who are wizards or bards and the like.

Are any Elves going to put that floating bonus anywhere other than Con?

I mean, yeah. If you're an Elven Druid/Cleric, it goes to Wis. Bard/Sorc goes to Cha. And that's just the casters.

-2 in PF weren't the end of the world. You still had plenty of Elven frontliners statted. I doubt it'll be any different now, especially with HP being fixed at max.

Scias Starset wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Didn't the Dwarven empire fall like 2800 years ago, with the fall of Tar Taargadth? After which the Sky Citadels had to fend for themselves and it didn't go well for all of them?

It feels like "used to have a really great empire, but that collapsed a while ago and Dwarves have been in decline" is a thing that's true of pretty much all fantasy Dwarves.

Mostly because all Dwarfs borrow heavily from Tolkien.

But, for example, the Rhulic Empire of the Iron Kingdoms is still going strong after millenia. They weathered the Orgoth and countless other things. And they don't just survive, they thrive.

To be fair, Iron Kingfoms puts a spin on most ... Shall we say, "classic" fantasy tropes. See the Elves out to murder all magic besides their own, most Undead are also Steampunk based, Druids being "If it has a wall tear it down" and Dragons being living vessels of Corruption.

Plus those Elves are the youngest of the races, created by gods that thought they could do better. They failed miserably. IK is a great setting.

Just don't look too closely. IK's internal logic breaks hilariously under scrutiny.

That's not fair, most fantasy internal logic breaks if you look at it too much. IK also didn't have the extra fluff/splats to fill in holes. Or open wider ones.

Which is a worry some of us do have when we go to make the jump into 2e

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Scias Starset wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Didn't the Dwarven empire fall like 2800 years ago, with the fall of Tar Taargadth? After which the Sky Citadels had to fend for themselves and it didn't go well for all of them?

It feels like "used to have a really great empire, but that collapsed a while ago and Dwarves have been in decline" is a thing that's true of pretty much all fantasy Dwarves.

Mostly because all Dwarfs borrow heavily from Tolkien.

But, for example, the Rhulic Empire of the Iron Kingdoms is still going strong after millenia. They weathered the Orgoth and countless other things. And they don't just survive, they thrive.

To be fair, Iron Kingfoms puts a spin on most ... Shall we say, "classic" fantasy tropes. See the Elves out to murder all magic besides their own, most Undead are also Steampunk based, Druids being "If it has a wall tear it down" and Dragons being living vessels of Corruption.

Plus those Elves are the youngest of the races, created by gods that thought they could do better. They failed miserably. IK is a great setting.

Just don't look too closely. IK's internal logic breaks hilariously under scrutiny.

That's not fair, most fantasy internal logic breaks if you look at it too much. IK also didn't have the extra fluff/splats to fill in holes. Or open wider ones.

Which is a worry some of us do have when we go to make the jump into 2e

I agree it's not particularly fair, but I still get a laugh at some of the internal goofiness that springs up in IK. My personal favorite is some stats that Immoren by all acounts should be entirely extinct at least once over comparing casualties to population sizes or something to that effect.

Elves sound really exciting. Although I'll have to wait to see what Humans are like because I really have a hard time giving up the extra skill and feat with the flexible attribute boost from first edition.

I'll confess to being skeptical that Pathfinder II would run in a direction that really gave me the options needed to create an outside-the-box character, but what I'm seeing so far is looking really promising - when the stolid old ELF and DWARF characters in a D&D game actually look fresh and exciting again, and I find myself itching for a chance to see what I can do with just the core options for those characters alone and I start getting that eerie feeling that deciding during character creation that "my Dwarf grew up as a Sailor on his great-great-grandfather's fishing boat before he was recruited as a Ranger in the Derro Wars" is something that actually results in real chances to later use that background to do something cooler than become a smudged footnote on the character sheet forgotten by the GM, I figure that's got to be a good sign.

Also! Since I haven't commented on the main post yet, let me just say that I love what we've seen so far about Ancestries. It all looks really cool and like a great and flexible design structure.

I do share the concerns others have identified about characters who don't grow up in the culture of their Ancestry. Separating out Heritage Feats is a great start, but I would love to see a system that is fully designed to separate these aspects to better handle that kind of story. For example, notice the logical misstep in these sequential sentences:

Blog wrote:

You speak Common and Dwarf, as you may expect, and you can see in the dark just fine.

All that represents what's common to all dwarves, and comes from their innate tendencies.

But language, of course, isn't innate. The Goblin babies dropped in the Sandpoint orphanage by generations of adventurers probably don't grow up speaking Goblin! A Dwarf child, the only survivor of her village, is found by adventurers along with her clan dagger—she adventures to discover her past, but never had a chance to learn her ancestral language. Etc. etc.

(I know I'm not the first to point this out. I think someone called it in the Goblin thread, but if there was a direct mention in this thread I missed it so thought I'd drop the note.)

I think I can see why they did things that way - it doesn't make quite as much sense for the languages to be added on as part of the character's Background/profession, for example, or certainly as part of the character's Class (the character might normally learn the Dwarven language as part of his education growing up as a Dwarven farmer, but then it would get kind of unmanageable to draw the distinctions between backgrounds as Dwarven, Elven, Hobbit, Human, Orc, Goblin, etc. farmers mechanically - best to keep the mechanics more generic, and let the player fill in as many blanks as the player likes with descriptive text.)

It's probably easier to just work on the assumption that the character was raised speaking his/her "racial language" (whatever that actually means), and house-rule the exceptions as needed - and, fortunately, that seems easy enough to do.

It's probably just as easy, and better still, to just gain a choice of languages instead of set languages as an innate part of the Ancestry, with Dwarves and Elves assumed to have one more more "extra" languages compared to humans due to their longer life-spans... the suggested defaults would be Common for humans, and Common and e.g. Dwarven for Dwarves, though players wouldn't HAVE to choose the defaults - maybe that Dwarf orphan grew up speaking Common with his human family, and maybe chose to learn Dwarven on his own later on from an eccentric Elven tutor - or, then again, maybe the Dwarf chose instead to learn Goblin from his time growing up on a human farm trading produce to Goblin tribes outside of town for bland mushrooms, rare medicines made from licking toads, and shiny metal things dug up from some secret location known only to the Goblin muck-rakers in the swamps outside of town..... I would like having the choice to pick an offbeat language for background's sake if I wanted to, instead of taking a default "innate" language I had no choice over, and I'll be surprised if that's not the way they go with it. Even so, it's still easy to house-rule around, if it comes to that.

I may have my first thing I really dislike hearing on the play test rules: the change of base speed for most races to 25 feet. It feels REALLY unintuitive, and is going to be very annoying to keep track of after almost 20 years of humans getting 6 squares of movement. Plus, a base of 6 squares (or 30 feet) is easier to divide because it’s not a prime number like 5 is. You can easily halve or even third the 30 feet speed, but you can do neither to a base 25 speed without rounding down. I would rather they have kept base speed for humanoids at 30 feet, and make elves 35 speed if they wanted to give them a boost.

I think a lot of people are looking at this through the lens of PF1E. Sure if 25 move was the standard in 1E, it would be problematic because it does not "half" equally. However, what's to say that mechanic is even used in 2E? Maybe, movement penalties are being converted to number adjustments rather than ratios. Maybe difficult terrain (if it even exists in 2E) is a -10 to move. Then you are free to have a more diverse movement/speed system throughout the rules without having to worry about fractions and decimals. Personally, I would prefer this system to having to calculate fractional movement due to climbing, swimming, crawling, etc.

I think that's a good point about the mechanics of reduced speed, Twilight - no doubt, <i>Pathfinder II</i> will find an easier way to handle that within its own version of the mechanics.

It won't make things any easier for those of us who've memorized rules like how many spaces each PF1 character moved, but that's the downside to adapting to any new set of rules, for better or worse.

ENHenry wrote:

I may have my first thing I really dislike hearing on the play test rules: the change of base speed for most races to 25 feet. It feels REALLY unintuitive, and is going to be very annoying to keep track of after almost 20 years of humans getting 6 squares of movement. Plus, a base of 6 squares (or 30 feet) is easier to divide because it’s not a prime number like 5 is. You can easily halve or even third the 30 feet speed, but you can do neither to a base 25 speed without rounding down. I would rather they have kept base speed for humanoids at 30 feet, and make elves 35 speed if they wanted to give them a boost.

I think a lot of people are looking at this through the lens of PF1E. Sure if 25 move was the standard in 1E, it would be problematic because it does not "half" equally. However, what's to say that mechanic is even used in 2E? Maybe, movement penalties are being converted to number adjustments rather than ratios. Maybe difficult terrain (if it even exists in 2E) is a -10 to move. Then you are free to have a more diverse movement/speed system throughout the rules without having to worry about fractions and decimals. Personally, I would prefer this system to having to calculate fractional movement due to climbing, swimming, crawling, etc.

Mobility in 2E has already been mentioned by the developers as being a benefit for moving at half speed.

TwilightKnight wrote:

ENHenry wrote:

I may have my first thing I really dislike hearing on the play test rules: the change of base speed for most races to 25 feet. It feels REALLY unintuitive, and is going to be very annoying to keep track of after almost 20 years of humans getting 6 squares of movement. Plus, a base of 6 squares (or 30 feet) is easier to divide because it’s not a prime number like 5 is. You can easily halve or even third the 30 feet speed, but you can do neither to a base 25 speed without rounding down. I would rather they have kept base speed for humanoids at 30 feet, and make elves 35 speed if they wanted to give them a boost.

I think a lot of people are looking at this through the lens of PF1E. Sure if 25 move was the standard in 1E, it would be problematic because it does not "half" equally. However, what's to say that mechanic is even used in 2E? Maybe, movement penalties are being converted to number adjustments rather than ratios. Maybe difficult terrain (if it even exists in 2E) is a -10 to move. Then you are free to have a more diverse movement/speed system throughout the rules without having to worry about fractions and decimals. Personally, I would prefer this system to having to calculate fractional movement due to climbing, swimming, crawling, etc.

Mobility in 2E has already been mentioned by the developers as being a benefit for moving at half speed.

Keep in mind, it's entirely possible that was just unclear terminology. For example, if the actual rule is "each square costs an additional 5 feet of movement", then it might seem like simple shorthand to just say "you move at half speed", but the actual rule is much easier to handle on the fly in the middle of a game. The devs have already made minor mistakes in the way they phrase things like that, it's possible that this is just another thing like that.

I will say that I really hope this is the case. Increasing the cost of each square of movement is a much simpler way of doing things than dividing movement speeds by a certain amount.

As long as there is a standard for rounding, it should be fine.

Cutting up the various racial features into more modular blocks sounds interesting.

I am not a fan of completely pre-set hit points for all levels. I am fine with that for 1st level though. (At my table for levels 2+, we roll the hit point dice twice and take the highest value, re-rolling any "1s", and even then if the rolls are still lousy we get half the maximum value of the die.)

House Rule Suggestion: use Iron Heroes HP rules.

so 6hp/level becomes d4+2
8hp/level becomes d4+4
etc...