Orcs, Dromaar, and More!

Where is this dataset on the most popular ancestries in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and how was the data collected?

Where is this dataset on the most popular ancestries in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and how was the data collected?

In Paizo's database most likely.

As for method, I would guess through PFS.

As an interesting data point, PF2 goblins are more popular among players than dwarves, halflings, or basically any other ancestry that's not humans and elves. The PF2 audience is larger than the PF1 audience, and the majority of people playing PF2 now have never played PF1 at all. So whatever the special spice that makes goblins magic is, has arguably only grown more rich and well-rounded during the current cycle.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

I am vaguely curious whether the new name is because "half-orc" was feared to be an infringement on WOTC or because the devs felt they just deserved their own name.

I suggested horcs and was shot down u_u

Isn't horc what happens when a catfolk coughs up a hairball?

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

Where is this dataset on the most popular ancestries in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and how was the data collected?

In Paizo's database most likely.

As for method, I would guess through PFS.

Michael Sayre wrote:

As an interesting data point, PF2 goblins are more popular among players than dwarves, halflings, or basically any other ancestry that's not humans and elves. The PF2 audience is larger than the PF1 audience, and the majority of people playing PF2 now have never played PF1 at all. So whatever the special spice that makes goblins magic is, has arguably only grown more rich and well-rounded during the current cycle.

There's no way of tracking the common ancestries selected in PFS, but maybe they did a player survey that I missed. It would be pretty easy for Paizo to determine the most popular uncommon ancestries used in PFS, because players pay achievement points to play those. As far as core rulebook ancestries go... locally, I see more gnomes, elves and dwarves than I do goblins and kobolds. If there was a survey, I'd love to see the results!

Hmm

EDIT: And because tone is hard to detect on the internet.. This all is asked in a curious research librarian voice, and not meant to be combative at all. I LOVE data, and love diving in to how it's collected.

Couldn't they track it by registered PFS characters?

All you get with that is character number and faction, unless the player updates the character profile with ancestry. Not everyone uses the alias feature.

Couldn't they track it by registered PFS characters?

Great question, but no.

All you get with that is character number and faction, unless the player updates the character profile with ancestry. Not everyone uses the alias feature.

Basically, but there's even more information available if Paizo crunches the data. Here's what they have on registered PFS characters (based on what we're reporting):

1) Player OPF # - Useful for seeing how active various players are compared to one another.
2) Character # - Is this your first PF2 character or your seventeenth? Also useful data.
3) What games/adventures each character has played. Especially useful if people credit the APs they are playing, because that can tell them how popular some of the APs have been in the player base.
4) What event #s each character has played under - Great for tracking whether players do lots of different events or the same one for an entire quarter, and also convention activity.
5) Character Factions and progress therein because reputation is recorded.
6) Character XP - based on games reported. Paizo can approximate how many higher level characters are playing in PFS if they number-crunched.
7) What boons each character has bought or downloaded. This is how they could track uncommon ancestries / variant heritages, because players need to purchase those with Achievement Points.
8) Also from boons: what books a player might have, based on whether they are purchasing boons to access uncommon options with ACP.

What is not recorded:
1) Character classes
2) Character ancestries (if from the always available list rather than a boon.)
3) Other details like gender, region (though we can track multi-regional characters because that requires a boon.)

I'm not saying that Paizo is crunching these numbers. But these are all reasonable things they could derive from OrgPlay information.

Hmm

Where is this dataset on the most popular ancestries in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and how was the data collected?

I have a vague memory of Paizo conducting a survey regarding favorite ancestries, classes, etc. here on the boards a few years back. Possibly as part of the PF2 playtest? I vaguely recalling it having some influence on which options made it into the PF2 APG.

Assuming that my memory isn't faulty, perhaps that is the source of the data.

That was probably it!

What is not recorded:

1) Character classes
2) Character ancestries (if from the always available list rather than a boon.)
3) Other details like gender, region (though we can track multi-regional characters because that requires a boon.)

Yeah, this feels like a very missed opportunity. Reported games from PFS would probably be the least biased data that is easily available.

Anyhoo I'm back now that I've slept and sulking less about feeling being ignored upon x'D

I think one thing 2e goblins could use more of is reminders of their cultural hatred of dogs and fear of horses. Like, since people love dogs and goblins are now supposed to be likable, while dogslicers and horsechoppers are retained, we don't actually get much of references to that anymore. Like we could at least have references to goblins eating dog meat or something.

On the other hand, we've previously had at least 1 example of a Goblin that doesn't hate dogs, and even reads . . . .

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

What is not recorded:

1) Character classes
2) Character ancestries (if from the always available list rather than a boon.)
3) Other details like gender, region (though we can track multi-regional characters because that requires a boon.)

Yeah, this feels like a very missed opportunity. Reported games from PFS would probably be the least biased data that is easily available.

It's not 'easily available' though. Making people record also this in addition is not free and costs goodwill. It's rather nice that paizo tries to minimize bureaucracy. The level of which is still noticeably higher than such of one bigger rival.

It's not 'easily available' though. Making people record also this in addition is not free and costs goodwill. It's rather nice that paizo tries to minimize bureaucracy. The level of which is still noticeably higher than such of one bigger rival.

*shrugs* You can play the PFS scenarios without reporting them as long as you aren't interested in getting PFS credit for them.

As Hmm mentioned, PFS gameplay and credit reporting already happens. Adding fields for Ancestry, Heritage, Class, and Subclass doesn't seem like all that big of an additional ask. I know the Ancestry/Class of all of my characters. I don't have my PFS number memorized, and that field of the report is mandatory.

Riddlyn wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

The Expertise feat is *also* rolled into the base feat now.

Out of curiosity did they do something similar to unconventional weaponry?

Yes

Unconventional Weaponry wrote:

You’ve familiarized yourself with a particular weapon, potentially from another ancestry or culture. Choose an uncommon simple or martial weapon with a trait corresponding to an ancestry (such as dwarf, goblin, or orc) or that is common in another culture. You gain access to that weapon, and for the purpose of proficiency, you treat it as a simple weapon.
If you are trained in all martial weapons, you can instead choose an uncommon advanced weapon that has an ancestry’s trait or is common in another culture. You gain access to that weapon and have familiarity with that weapon. For the purpose of proficiency, you treat it as a martial weapon.

Which means, although the opportunity cost has gotten smaller, it's still easier for a sorcerer from Absalom to become proficient with a katana than a sorcerer from Minkai. Sigh.

CorvusMask wrote:

Anyhoo I'm back now that I've slept and sulking less about feeling being ignored upon x'D

I think one thing 2e goblins could use more of is reminders of their cultural hatred of dogs and fear of horses. Like, since people love dogs and goblins are now supposed to be likable, while dogslicers and horsechoppers are retained, we don't actually get much of references to that anymore. Like we could at least have references to goblins eating dog meat or something.

On the other hand, we've previously had at least 1 example of a Goblin that doesn't hate dogs, and even reads . . . .

My first PFS2 character is a Goblin Bard. He was raised from an infant by a Taldan Linguistics professor. Goblin is his second language, which he speaks with a thick Taldan accent.

Not really? Because you have to remember different parts of the world have different rarities. Its up to your GM to decide whether its different rarity in your part of the of the world, but I can't imagine a GM deciding that a katana is still uncommon in Minkai.

Not really? Because you have to remember different parts of the world have different rarities. Its up to your GM to decide whether its different rarity in your part of the of the world, but I can't imagine a GM deciding that a katana is still uncommon in Minkai.

It'd be real weird if Katana Man, of the Katana Clan, who hales from the Katana Land, had as little access to katanas as Mr. Longsword, of the Long Swordsmen, resident of Longswordshire, definitely.

A bit sad that, for Organized Play, "The Pathfinder Society does not permit Half-elves or Half-orcs of ancestries other than Human."

Hope this will be opened to more ancestries in the future.

Not really? Because you have to remember different parts of the world have different rarities. Its up to your GM to decide whether its different rarity in your part of the of the world, but I can't imagine a GM deciding that a katana is still uncommon in Minkai.

No, that's exactly the problem. I didn't say "gain access to," I said "become proficient with." A weapon that is uncommon where you are (for this example, Absalom) that is common in another culture (in this example, Minkai) is the only valid choice for the feat (except for ancestry traits, which I am not talking about here) - and the feat allows a character with simple weapon proficiency (like a sorcerer) to treat a martial weapon (like a katana) as a simple weapon. So a sorcerer from Absalom can use Unconventional Weaponry to become proficient with a katana but a sorcerer from Minkai cannot.

The changes to Martial Weapon Proficiency have reduced the impact of this distinction, but Unconventional Weaponry is an ancestry feat, which everyone gets at 1st level, and Martial Weapon Proficiency is a general feat, which aren't available until 3rd. You can take General Training or Versatile Heritage to get around that, but that either means you can't use General Training for something else later or you have to give up your heritage choice, both of which are higher opportunity costs than just taking a single ancestry feat and being done with it.

A bit sad that, for Organized Play, "The Pathfinder Society does not permit Half-elves or Half-orcs of ancestries other than Human."

Hope this will be opened to more ancestries in the future.

From what they've seen this is because Paizo is framing this as "dromaar and aiuvarins in the inner sea are always mixed ancestry with humans". But they've also said elsewhere in the world things might be different.

I'm assuming PFS requires your character to be from the Inner Sea right? You can be from Varisia, or Rahadoum, or Jalmeray but not from Holomog, or Minkai, or Xopatl. PFS is based on the parts of the setting where the Pathfinder Society is based and they are not in Sarusan‎.

You can take General Training or Versatile Heritage to get around that, but that either means you can't use General Training for something else later

Actually General Training and its Advanced version can both be taken as many times as you like. As a Human you can take 11 General Feats!

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I'm assuming PFS requires your character to be from the Inner Sea right?

PFS doesn't even require your character be from Golarion.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

[

I'm assuming PFS requires your character to be from the Inner Sea right?

PFS doesn't even require your character be from Golarion.

Indeed.

My guess is that PFS wants to see how things end up with the new opened mix-Ancestry Heritages once everyone get their hands on them. And once the results of this test-run are clear, they might allow more.

Like they did for Ancestries.

A bit sad that, for Organized Play, "The Pathfinder Society does not permit Half-elves or Half-orcs of ancestries other than Human."

Hope this will be opened to more ancestries in the future.

Thanks a lot to PFS Powers that be :

"Removed restriction that half-orcs and half-elves must be half-human. This is replaced by the new versatile heritages aiuvarin (formerly half-elf) and dromaar (formerly half-orc), which can be applied to any ancestry."

The Raven Black wrote:

A bit sad that, for Organized Play, "The Pathfinder Society does not permit Half-elves or Half-orcs of ancestries other than Human."

Hope this will be opened to more ancestries in the future.

Thanks a lot to PFS Powers that be :

"Removed restriction that half-orcs and half-elves must be half-human. This is replaced by the new versatile heritages aiuvarin (formerly half-elf) and dromaar (formerly half-orc), which can be applied to any ancestry."

So I guess you'd get to choose whether the offspring of an elf and an orc counted as an aiuvarin or a dromaar. :)

If your parents are a aiuvarin half-elf and a dromaar half-orc, you could be an orc with the aiuvarin heritage or an elf with the dromaar heritage. That's probably a better solution than "pick which side is dominant."

If your parents are a aiuvarin half-elf and a dromaar half-orc, you could be an orc with the aiuvarin heritage or an elf with the dromaar heritage. That's probably a better solution than "pick which side is dominant."

I agree with your first sentence, but I don't understand what point you are making in your second sentence.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

If your parents are a aiuvarin half-elf and a dromaar half-orc, you could be an orc with the aiuvarin heritage or an elf with the dromaar heritage. That's probably a better solution than "pick which side is dominant."

I agree with your first sentence, but I don't understand what point you are making in your second sentence.

It used to be that the solution to "my parents are a half-orc and a half-elf, what am I?" was "okay, you're a human and you pick one of the two half-heritages" which wasn't ideal.

Gisher wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

If your parents are a aiuvarin half-elf and a dromaar half-orc, you could be an orc with the aiuvarin heritage or an elf with the dromaar heritage. That's probably a better solution than "pick which side is dominant."

I agree with your first sentence, but I don't understand what point you are making in your second sentence.

It used to be that the solution to "my parents are a half-orc and a half-elf, what am I?" was "okay, you're a human and you pick one of the two half-heritages" which wasn't ideal.

But then you lose the influence of your 2 human grandparents. Which is even less ideal.

The Raven Black wrote:

A bit sad that, for Organized Play, "The Pathfinder Society does not permit Half-elves or Half-orcs of ancestries other than Human."

Hope this will be opened to more ancestries in the future.

Thanks a lot to PFS Powers that be :

"Removed restriction that half-orcs and half-elves must be half-human. This is replaced by the new versatile heritages aiuvarin (formerly half-elf) and dromaar (formerly half-orc), which can be applied to any ancestry."

I'm kinda confused of how half elf/orc leshy and automatons differ from human though

As in, leshies are nature spirits given form in druid ritual and automatons are former humans, so how exactly would they be half orc/elf? x'D Its not like automatons can pick human feats as freebies, they'd need half human heritage for that

The Raven Black wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

A bit sad that, for Organized Play, "The Pathfinder Society does not permit Half-elves or Half-orcs of ancestries other than Human."

Hope this will be opened to more ancestries in the future.

Thanks a lot to PFS Powers that be :

"Removed restriction that half-orcs and half-elves must be half-human. This is replaced by the new versatile heritages aiuvarin (formerly half-elf) and dromaar (formerly half-orc), which can be applied to any ancestry."

I'm kinda confused of how half elf/orc leshy and automatons differ from human though

As in, leshies are nature spirits given form in druid ritual and automatons are former humans, so how exactly would they be half orc/elf? x'D Its not like automatons can pick human feats as freebies, they'd need half human heritage for that

I figure things that "were human" is a good indicator of something that is now different enough from what it was that it shouldn't use a heritage to denote its previous existence. Automatons are no longer human, so they should also no longer be elf or halfling either unless we also establish that some automatons are fundamentally more human than typical via half-human heritage etc.

Likewise I can accept a skeleton having enough planar essence that it's got nephilim heritage, but the point of a skeleton as an ancestry is that it mostly doesn't matter what meat the skeleton used to wear, now that is mainly only relevant to its shape. On the other hand, again I can imagine exceptional skeletons with unique memories of their old meat life having a humanoid heritage, just as long as "human heritage skeleton" is just as unusual and remarkable, and "elf heritage" isn't being used to specify the skeleton wasn't originally human.

There are some ancestries it just doesn't make much sense to say conventionally created a mixed ancestry heritage, but on the other hand you can come up with a wild one-off idea for almost any concept.

For example, imagine a fungus leshy that though some bizarre accident of primal magic ended up fused to a humans body. Play that as a human with leshy heritage and you could probably get away with a lot of neat concept things that don't require bespoke characterisation.

Gisher wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

If your parents are a aiuvarin half-elf and a dromaar half-orc, you could be an orc with the aiuvarin heritage or an elf with the dromaar heritage. That's probably a better solution than "pick which side is dominant."

I agree with your first sentence, but I don't understand what point you are making in your second sentence.

It used to be that the solution to "my parents are a half-orc and a half-elf, what am I?" was "okay, you're a human and you pick one of the two half-heritages" which wasn't ideal.

Oh, I see. I misread your earlier first sentence to say that the parents were

• an Orc Aiuvarin (so mixed orc and elf) and

• an Elf Dromaar (so also mixed elf and orc).

In that case you could pick either orc or elf as your ancestry and then select the either aiuvarin heritage or dromaar, respectively, as your versatile heritage. So it would work just like the Elf and Orc parents that I had cited.

But what you actually laid out was

• a Human Aiuvarin (so mixed human and elf) and

• a Human Dromaar (so mixed human and orc).

My mistake.

I agree with The Raven Black that leaving out human seems a little odd in your example, but I suppose it would be possible to inherit mostly the elf genes from one parent and mostly orc genes from the other so you would be mostly elf and orc with maybe just a (mechanically meaningless) trace of human.

You could always take adopted heritage of one of the three ancestries, human, elf, or orc.

Yeah, it's hard to balance "one has a clear-cut claim to being part of three ancestries" versus "my ancestors have all been Dwarves all the way back" with the way the mechanics are set up.

Being an Orc Aluvarin or Orc Dromaar and taking human as an adopted ancestry (or some other combination of the three) lets you take ancestry feats from three different ancestries, but is probably the best way to do this sort of thing.

Well either way, guess we now need half dorf and half human heritages at least :'D

Well either way, guess we now need half dorf and half human heritages at least :'D

And now we can have the Half Halfling Heritage.

Quarterlings to canon

The only issue with quarterlings is the confusion with future generations. How do you vocally express the difference in between a group of "three eighthlings" verses a group of "3/8-lings"?

The only issue with quarterlings is the confusion with future generations. How do you vocally express the difference in between a group of "three eighthlings" verses a group of "3/8-lings"?

Decimals! "Three .125-lings" vs ".375-lings" is perfectly clear. :-P

By the time we get the half-halfling heritage, we will need a diagetic name for "what these people call themselves" to use.

By the time we get the half-halfling heritage, we will need a diagetic name for "what these people call themselves" to use.

Shirelings

PossibleCabbage wrote:

By the time we get the half-halfling heritage, we will need a diagetic name for "what these people call themselves" to use.

Shirelings

That gasp you just heard was the sound of Paizo’s lawyers reading your comment.

What the heck is a shire?

What the heck is a shire?

That gasp you just heard was the sound of Tolkien fans reading your comment.

Cori Marie wrote:

Not really? Because you have to remember different parts of the world have different rarities. Its up to your GM to decide whether its different rarity in your part of the of the world, but I can't imagine a GM deciding that a katana is still uncommon in Minkai.

It'd be real weird if Katana Man, of the Katana Clan, who hales from the Katana Land, had as little access to katanas as Mr. Longsword, of the Long Swordsmen, resident of Longswordshire, definitely.

. . . And if Mr. Longsword ventured to Katana Land and got outside of a major overseas trading port, getting a new longsword should actually be some trouble.

Perpdepog wrote:

Cori Marie wrote:

Not really? Because you have to remember different parts of the world have different rarities. Its up to your GM to decide whether its different rarity in your part of the of the world, but I can't imagine a GM deciding that a katana is still uncommon in Minkai.

It'd be real weird if Katana Man, of the Katana Clan, who hales from the Katana Land, had as little access to katanas as Mr. Longsword, of the Long Swordsmen, resident of Longswordshire, definitely.

. . . And if Mr. Longsword ventured to Katana Land and got outside of a major overseas trading port, getting a new longsword should actually be some trouble.

Whatever you do, don't try explaining that longswords are just smaller greatswords to anyone from Zweihandberg; they do not find the comparison amusing.