MMCJawa's page

This is important to me because I believe representing these animals as animals is important, the new player core design more so fits in the designing them as monsters trope. It is barely feather, has pronated wrists(something impossible for any dinosaur to do), has a skull more akin to a carnosaur than a dromaeosaur and it's arm feathers don't look like proper quills like we know they had. Dromaeosaurs are one of the closest relatives to the avian dinosaurs(birds). The other closest is the troodontids which looks incredibly similar to dromaeosaurs. I know it is well past the point of any art being changed ofc, I would just hope that the artists referenced paleo art when rendering these animals in the future

Yeah...this is a straight downgrade in art. The second edition bestiaries all had pretty good looking and accurate dinosaur art.

It's not just not being accurate, it's also that this weird "throw some feathers randomly onto a scaled dinosaur" just straight up looks worse than either the old scientifically inaccurate dromaeosaur or the updated scientifically accurate view.

CorvusMask wrote:

Latest paizo live was really focusing on tian xia book stuff :O so hoping people give watch to it xD

Tsukumogami as a Poppet Heritage, some fun teases of Samsaran, Tanuki, and Wayang options, overviews of Wanshou and Valashmai, and a few other tasty hints - it was a fun one! TMS’s writeup is an essential resource, as always.

Where is the write-up? I don't follow the forum often enough to know who/what TMS refers to.

Demigod is also a term often used in Pathfinder to describe gods of a certain power-level. Strikes me as extra confusing to also use it for a class which presumably would start at a much lower power level.

Throwing out my likely wrong guesses.

Animist, although I think that could apply to either character: an animist from a more tribal background could very well look like the muscle dude in this image. Also an animist would fit in well with the upcoming Tian Xia sourcebook.

Archivist for the one with a million scrolls. If its a character whose entire thing is "delving into knowledge that man was not meant to know", than that might be enough to make it rare.

Beyond being second in command (and a living embodiment of Hell itself), Mephistopheles is also the kind of classic figure of fiction that I could see Paizo wanting to elevate to boss of Hell

As for what Cheliax does or how it affects the plans of Hell, I could only see a massive military mobilization occurring if Moloch gets placed in charge, but that seems unlikely. Mammon strikes me as someone more into economic domination than military.

Most Gods are not going to be rules lawyers or non-sapient magic dispensors. If you are a cleric doing horrible things that technically doesn't break a edict or fall into Anathema territory, I think the Deity is still going to yank your powers.

Good gods would have higher standards...I don't think in a few cases its going to be easier to play a evil or even "neutralish" character than it is with codified alignment.

It's probably a lot easier however to be a good character worshiping a evil. Mostly because I assume evil gods are less picky about there followers as long as they accomplish their goals in the world, and beings like devils probably actually appreciate the cover that good worshipers in the community give there less nice worshipers.

IIRC, WotC couldn't do anything about a already published book, even if they revoked the OGL. So they won't get some notice to immediately burn all the copies of Secrets of Magic in existence. So yeah, presuming there are not major issues they want to address no reason to really remaster every book.

Not sure exactly what that means for future printings though.

What if Asmodeus gets whacked… and Hell has an election to replace him?

A transparently-corrupt, nightmarish farce of the democratic process, of course, but that’s just politics, sweetheart.

This is a brilliant idea that I don't think would execute well in Pathfinder. For one, as others have stated, it strikes me as politically fraught since people would consciously or unconsciously, both the writers and the people interpreting the material, incorporate modern parallels.

Secondly, we are about to head into another election cycle in the US. I don't think anyone is going to want to think about elections in their fun escapism :(

My two cents:

I've recently just about finished the High Helm book, and with the caveat I am not Jewish, I don't really see anything that particularly looks like it was drawn from that real world culture or fills in those stereotypes. If anything, Dwarves are portrayed within that book are the opposite of greedy, certainly less so than humans.

Paizo 2E has done a pretty good job of adding cultural diversity to there different ancestries, especially with elves and dwarves. Of all the settings I have come across, it probably has the least amount of monoculture for those ancestries. Although to be honest, they are probably an ancestry that sort of makes sense to have a lot of cultural similarities with other groups. They all share a relatively recent origin, they take there traditions seriously, their seems to be a lot of contact between different groups, and of course they have long lives. If you assume stuff like the clan daggers was present in the pre-quest for sky population, than it makes sense it might be retained.

I am also not a Tolkien scholar, but I will point out the "greedy dwarf" aspect is something Tolkien more likely (IMHO) pulled from Norse mythology, especially with the story of Regin and Fafnir, but other dwarves share these traits. It's also where the crafting and subterranean tendencies come from.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Second... modern games just don't sell as well. They don't, and they haven't. GURPS has a modern, because GURPS has everything, but other than that? We play TTRPGs to get away from the world we live in for a time. Making sure you have a certain minimum distance helps with the appeal. I've bought PF2 books, and I suspect I'll buy more. I've never bought Starfinder books, but SF2 is looking pretty shiny to me. I'll likely buy at least one or two of those at some point. A PF2-system Modern, though? There's not a lot of appeal there. There just isn't... and I don't think it's just me. D20 Modern didn't exactly fly off the shelves from what I can recall.

Vampire: The Masquerade and all those other systems which were part of the World of Darkness setting say "Hi!"

And, yeah, they aren't very popular anymore, but not because people stopped wanting to play in the modern world with fantasy elements, but because White Wolf screwed up by literally blowing up their very popular setting and replacing it with a not very good new version.

The popularity in recent years of the urban fantasy genre, which is sort of built from the tropes employed by the World of Darkness, is also evidence there is a market for that genre.

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

I think we will lose either Sarenrae, Urgathoa, Pharasma, or Shelyn.

I can’t imagine Paizo letting us keep a good or largely stabilizing force.

What about Urgathoa is either good or stabilizing?

I meant Urgathoa as the exception, with her death as the most likely ‘win’ they could give the forces of stability and/or good on Golarian.

If Urgathoa dies and is replaced by Arazni, that could do a lot to open up the idea of less evil undead, something Paizo has been moving towards in PF2E.

Also honestly I just find Arazni a more interesting goddess. Although I am skeptical about this happening is that I think it's more likely that a storyline will kick off with the death/murder of a god, than it being the end of the story. Sort of feels like if Urgathoa is going down, it would be the result of the PCs in some way.

It's been stated that Starfinder and Pathfinder can't be assumed to have the same canon. I'd be shocked if a minor bit of lore from Starfinder would lead to a complete revamp in Pathfinder.

Also, I just plain don't want to see Zon-Shelyn as a core 20 deity in Pathfinder. We already have enough dark edgy not-evil goddesses, with Calistria, Arazni, and Nocticula (and maybe Pharasma for that matter). The way I see it, Zon-Shelyn would reduce the diversity of archetypes for characters to emulate or worship.

I think it might be Asmodeus, who is replaced with Xanderghul.

1. Xanderghul was already a divine being with worshipers
2. Divine Domains: Xanderghul- Evil, Law, Trickery, Deception, Tyranny. Asmodeus- Evil, Fire, Law, Magic, Trickery, Arcane, Ash, Deception, Devil, Devine, Legislation, Smoke
3. Alignment (from 1E) Lawful Evil for both.
4. Areas of Concern: Asmodeus- Contracts, Pride, Slavery, Tyranny vs. Xanderghul- Mind, Body, Soul. I could easily see Xanderghul claiming Pride & Contracts and keeping Mind & Soul.
5. Upon "dying" Xanderghul transforms into a resplendent being before going to the Boneyard. Which doesn't really sound like dying.
6. Asmodeus has a lot of prophecies about his involvement in future events… but this is the Age of Lost Omens.

So what does a Hell Peacock look like, and I definitely what to see Xanderghul's new look as the Lord of Hell.

That...sounds very plausible. It's all been confirmed that Xanderghul is coming back in some form at this point.

It's just occurred to me that, with 2e moving away from static alignment as a concept, killing off Pharasma, the goddess who objectively measures it, is the perfect way to lore-justify a mechanical change. It also allows Paizo to make exciting new changes to how their afterlife works, and fix some peoples' biggest criticisms with it, being that it feels like mortals are just fuel or the building blocks of the universe -

But also if Pharasma dies, there goes the last person who probably knows for sure what actually happened to Aroden.

THe fate of mortal souls seems a bit more ingrained into the setting than simply a whim of Pharasma. If Pharasma died her daughter would probably take her place, and there really wouldn't be a big shake-up I would imagine.

The status quo is being thrown out anyway. Golem antimagic is out, and will-o-wisps will likely be purged and replaced to.

In relation to this thread, the kineticist doesn't need to be fixed on these fronts. The monsters do, and by all accounts so far are.

Why would you assume Will-o-wisps would be purged? They are straight out of folklore and mostly match folklore. At best they need minor tweaks.

Iomedae dying and Arazni taking over as "the Crusader Goddess" definitely crossed my mind as a possibility. It's now less important that the "Crusader Goddess" is "Lawful Good" since that's not even a thing anymore, and Arazni was Aroden's Herald first.

Keeping Arazni's nature of "survive, no matter what you have to do" and "hurt people hurt people" in that role would be a little edgy, but not more than is normal for Pathfinder from time to time.

Even if alignment itself is going away, I see Iomedae still filling an important goddess niche. Arazni is a VERY different god that I don't see having a whole lot in common with Iomedae, and I wouldn't want her to lose those aspects to make her a better fit.

What would be interesting to see, even if I don't think is likely, is for Urgathoa to die and for Arazni to replace her as a new Goddess of Undeath. With Alignment going away and Paizo seemingly stepping a bit back from Undead = evil in 99% of cases, this could have some great story potential. Urgathoa feels a lot more generic than Arazni in regards to undeath, So Arazni getting promoted to Core 20 WOULD improve the god roster.

I was tossing out a possibility and some of the thinking behind it. I have no more insight than anyone else and less than many. I know Asmodeus and the Nine Hells have been part of D and D since the early days. It is strongly a part of D&D. I know the source material is open source with the names and the idea of layers of Hell from Dante's Inferno or Milton's Paradise Lost.

I have no idea if WotC/Hasbro has copyrights they can cause trouble with over any of that material or names.

So maybe the creative minds plan to kill off Asmodeus and reshape Hell.

Just a guess.

The structure of Hell is straight out of Dante's inferno, so not really a need to reshape it. Most of the Archdevils are also from real world myth, although I can't recall how different they are from their DnD versions, as at this point I have become more familiar with the Pathfinder interpretations.

The types of devils IMHO are problematic OGL-wise than the individual demons.

I am sort of partial myself to the idea of one of the Queens of Night pulling a coupe if Asmodeus dies, and taking over. It would open up a lot of potential plotlines. Although failing that Mephistopheles would be my first choice for the new god of Hell

Sidenote, nobody has discussed possibilities of minor deities who are doomed.

The deity said to die was explicitly stated to be part of the core 20. So I mean, they could kill off some less important gods or demigods as well I guess, but that's kind of not what this thread is about.

I just hope this isn't like Marvel/DC event comics where authors make decisions to kill off minor characters willy nilly thinking "nobody cares if they die" and using them as canon fodder

I do kinda refuse to believe that if Sarenrae dies that its for permanent because I would consider it really mean decision to kill Sarenrae permanently and replace Kyra's deity. She is kinda too iconic to die for good and killing her off permanently wouldn't be shocking in good way

They have mentioned that one of the new classes we will be hearing about is "rare". Maybe that class is themed around followers of dead gods?

I think "conservation of threat" means that you can't replace Asmodeus (who threatens to end free will) or Rovagug (who threatens to end existence) with something that isn't similarly threatening.

Just because Asmodeus goes down doesn't mean devils in general aren't around

You would almost certainly have a civil war in hell, which would certainly distinguish Lost Omens versus the DnD baseline.

Also, I could easily see the Queens of Night acting as a unified whole to take over, which would promise a ton of story hooks.

The thing is... Pathfinder and Starfinder are two different genres, and that actually matters.

Questions like "how normal is it for people to be able to fly", "how normal is it to have a vehicle", "Do people who want to kill each other tend to do it up close or shoot each other from far away" and so forth are baked into the genre, and they lead to some very different design decisions. They have a real effect on what will and will not be disruptive to an adventure and thus on what will or will not be easily accessible. That's only the simplest and most obvious stuff.

Even where Pathfinder *does* have laser guns and robots, they are laser guns and robots that are designed to fit into the swords and sorcery genre. Those same laser guns and robots, if written for Starfinder natively, would be written differently.

The Starfinder people are concerned about having the answers to some of their core genre questions get overwritten by PF2's answers to the core genre questions... and that's a serious and reasonable concern. Now, I'm pretty sure that Paizo is aware of this, and making sure that that doesn't happen, but a big part of making that not happen is to have them be actually legitimately separate games.

Roll for Damage (I think that is the name) did a youtube interview with the devs about Starfinder 2E where they addressed these concerns. The plan is to basically just to treat the games as different genres with there own assumptions, with GM's having to take those accounts when allowing material to cross over.

The example discussed was flight. Flight is a huge issue in PF, where it is assumed many characters are melee and and flight can be overpowered. However the assumption is that everyone is using ranged weapons in Starfinder, so flight is less an issue. So flying ancestries will just be given full flight at level 1, versus the graded approach Pathfinder usually does.

Haha, ironically, Sarenrae is one of my favorites but I'd be pretty interested in seeing her die... But I do love my dramas. :B I'm low-key hoping for some tragic turn of events.

That said, I'm under the assumption that she is pretty well-beloved at Paizo and I'm not so sure that she would pass away because of that. Same thing with Desna. I could see Iomedae dying, more in the sense that I don't see a reason on why she couldn't be it, and maybe Calistria or Erastil as well. Having Nethys or Abadar die sounds like it should change a lot of things in the setting, especially for Nethys, and I'm not so sure that would happen right now.

I'd be pretty mild on any of the evil deities dying, though, unless their death could create some more cool hooks around Golarion. Wouldn't love if their death just wrapped some issues up. Ultimately and realistically, I do believe that it's Asmodeus though, for the post-OGL context.

My wildcard choice is Pharasma! That would be pretty unexpected.

I think the thing is, if you are going to kill a neutral/good god, it really has to be one with some popularity. I kind of feel like Erastil or Abadar would kind of get a collective shrug if you killed them off, versus a deity like Desna. Not that I think Desna will die mind you.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Wait what is the issue with the word golem?

Original first usage of the word was from Jewish mysticism, they were legendary constructs that could be created by inscribing words in Hebrew on their foreheads.

The most famous legend is the Golem of Prague from the 1500s, which was created by a rabbi to guard the Jewish people of the city from anti-Semitism. The golem goes mad on the Sabbath and eventually has to be shut down by the rabbi.

I can see an argument for it being problematic since it pulls from non-mainstream folklore. On the other hand, so do genies and kami, and they clearly aren't going away (and most people would argue they aren't problematic).

My Jewish friends like them because it's fun to see your culture represented in the game. For them, I get the impression that it's comparable to seeing Tian Xia if you have Asian ancestry, or Rusalkas if you have Slavic ancestry. Makes you feel more welcome. But I can see the counterarguments to the contrary, and I certainly don't want to argue with anyone Jewish who's offended by it.

*sigh* really that's it? That's why the name is changing? I don't even know what to say to that reason.

I suspect the name is changing for OGL reasons more than anything else.

One thing to consider when speculating on classes: even if there can now be mechanical cross-over, they are going to want major character archetypes available in the core rulebook for Starfinder. I don't see them dropping operative for that reason, as you shouldn't have to buy a completely different book just to play a rogue-like character.

For that reason, I would assume mechanic and operative to show up in the core rulebook. They can always revise the operative to make it more distinct, if there are concerns on similarity.

I don't think we can assume that the Starfinder deities are safe. I think it has been stated that Pathfinder and Starfinder could be separate timelines, to make the canon of one game not dependent on another.

From a Remaster perspective:
I could see Asmodeus, who is also used in DnD, even if he is a mythological character. It would also allow a shake-up to Hell, which might allow them to take that plane farther from DnD interpretations. Counterpoint would be that would be a pretty big chance to the game, since it would heavily impact Cheliax.

From a "kinder and gentler" Pathfinder approach, Torag (whose history kind of links him with genocide of what is a soon to be core ancestry) or Erastil (who original conception painted him as being overly patriarchal), Cayden Cailean (do they want one of the core 20 to be a drunk?). On the evil side of things, Lamashtu might be a bit too extreme and would be the most likely one I think to go down.

Counterpoint that any sort of Torag-related AP would have to feature dwarves heavily, and we are already getting a dwarf-heavy AP. Cayden Cailean seems pretty popular.

I mean, personally I think Asmodeus is most likely. Especially since they mentioned these events being a war of cosmic-scope, and the Ruler of Hell certainly fits that.

I guess our clamoring for a technology book really paid off! I can't wait to give my players their beloved rail guns and laser rifles again!

Going to be a lot easier to run a Iron Gods or Distant World campaign, since you can just pull in stuff from Starfinder now.

I do wonder if this will cause balance/weirdness issues. It might clash with the aesthetics if someone wants to bring in a a character from Pathfinder into Starfinder and vice versa. It kind of feels wrong if a ranger with a bow and arrow is equally as effective as Space marine with high tech armor and rail guns.

One thing they mentioned (I have it playing right now) is that the Starfinder and Pathfinder 2E editions will be more compatible. They mentioned that you could easily slot a Starfinder monster into a Pathfinder game and vice versa.

I'm kinda wondering whats point of aeons and proteans now since preview pdf seems to admit that law vs chaos conflict was irrelevant, are they just random outsider monsters for encounters now without really grand relevance in cosmology or stories?

(I'm mostly over it by now, but that did kinda hurt that text directly says it wasn't important x'D Like whats point of keeping axis and maelstrom around if the main themes of them are stated to be unimportant?)

I don't think the status quo as far as cosmology is concerns changes, other than some renames (and most of the monitors are Paizo originals, so even that is going to be minor)

It's mostly that APs, modules, and so forth mostly have characters dealing with evil forces. Chaos and Law might flavor evil, but usually the reason that characters are opposing them is the evil part, not so much the law or chaos part.

Although I do wish Paizo would do more with non-evil outsiders (or whatever the new term is?) The vast majority of souls going to the Great Beyond are probably some flavor of neutral, yet neutral outsiders are the least diverse group. And they became LESS diverse when Paizo merged the Aeons, inevitables, and axiomites together.

While I see the value in simpler execution of classes for the core rulebook, I think simple concepts are the wrong way to go when trying to make your brand identity legally distinct. But there's a tension between those two values I have not yet figured out how to reconcile.

PS Not sure how complicated kinecist will be in play yet. They have a wild amount of options to choose from while building, but any given build only has so many action choices.

The thing is that your core rulebooks by there very nature are entry points into the game. The more complex you make something, the more likely a new group might give up due to confusion or game issues, or just turn off some folks before they even try it.

I mean you can argue that is already an issue, and in part why 5E was so successful. How many recent PF 2E converts originally learned 5E first, then switched over to PF 2E? Certainly Pathfinder could occupy a "Sick of 5E, try us!" niche, but its better if they can stand on their own.

Now that Alignment has seen the axe with PF2 I am starting to doubt if the concept of the "Class" is going to survive the jump to PF3, they already figured out way better ways to set flavor/mechanics/theming with Archetypes between 1st and 2nd edition.

They could EASLY put out say 4 to 8 different base Chassis that you then bolt an Archetype that takes the full place of what the Class is now onto it and dramatically increase the variety of builds and ensure that the mechanical balance is fine as it's just the Chassis/type that you choose that defines all the baseline mathematical assumptions of how your numbers scale which are balanced against each other.

I don't see them getting rid of classes. They provide structure which can help guide players and reduce complexity, and also provide baselines to keep everything balanced.

I also think you can't underestimate the marketing and hype generation new classes bring. I don't think you could easily gen up excitement with just some extra class bits and bobs the way you can with a whole new class.

My interpretation is that the Inner Sea area in general is on the cusp of major technological change, with guns and gunpowder becoming more common and widespread. Even if Cheliax doesn't have much in the way of cannons or guns, it probably will in in a decade or two.

I'm surprised that the genies got revamped with new names. I figured a lot of those would be "safe".

The Raven Black wrote:

I do not see how the Laws could be relaxed without making the city a hotbed for religions of all stripes aiming to topple the Rahadoumi regime.

Makes for great stories, but, from the Rahadoumi government's point of view, it makes zero sense.

Do they have enough Pure Legion to occupy every street corner in the city? Do they want to treat a recently ‘liberated’ city like hostile enemy territory?

I think the Rahadoumi regime is smarter than to trade one crushing authoritarian hand for another, especially given that 2e writers have shown more moderation with the state.

I could easily see it as a Hong Kong situation, which was referenced above. Sure, the city starts with a fair amount of freedom, but Rahadoum could very well slowly phase out some of those freedoms and rules, to integrate the city into the greater country. Would actually make a decent AP, with the point being maybe independence for the city (although might be a bit to similar to the whole Ravounel situation).

I think one take to do if you want a Andoran-Cheliax war is to have the war started through false flag operations by the Whispering Way or some other greater threat, to weaken the nations against Tar-Baphon. You still get the war background, but it's up to you to stop the war and bring to justice the actual perpetrators.

I'd like to get a lot more info on the Pit of Gormuz and Ninshabar

If I were to create a book like this, I would probably split off Vudra, since it is practically its own greater realm (I mean India itself is considered a subcontinent), and give it is own book. I still think Kelesh and everything else could be covered in a single book, as I see them having a lot of inter-relationships and drawing from some common lore elements from the real world.

AceofMoxen wrote:

JiCi wrote:

Any monster based on mythology is safe.

Any monster created by WotC is out.

The line is quite blurred with many creatures however. There's also "would Hasbro cause massive lawyer fees to protect this, even if they lost?" Derro might be safe, but Paizo is estimated as a $30 million company. Is it worth spending 10% of the company to protect derro?

Like I said, any creature that was created by WotC for DND is out. Derros are out, in this case.

Want a bigger case? The Tarrasque. THAT's owned by WotC. HOWEVER, the REAL Tarasque, that turtle/lion/snake hydridized dragon from French mythology, is open source for Paizo to use.

Less threatening, but still :P

Derro as a spelling is gone, but Dero themselves are from real world occult lore (specifically the Shaver mysteries), and the version in Pathfinder is pretty close to the Shaver version.

IF WotC wants to bury Paizo in lawsuits to shut them down, they are going to find someway of doing so. I don't think Paizo should cede all of fantasy on the risk of merit-less lawsuits.

Just had a thought, will some Qlippoth stuff need to change? First instance of them as the fiends from before demons arrived showed up in Green Ronins Book of Fiends after all (heck the lesser known Qlippoth Lord Shigarreb is from that book), and a number of them originated there too. Would some renaming/redesigning be in order to protect one of my favourite families of fiends?

That's a good question...I am not sure what the legal status of things created by a third party but shared using the OGL would be. Presumably WotC can't sue Paizo, since they themselves are not associated with the IP.

My understanding is that WotC revoking the OGL wouldn't effect already published material. It would only interfere with things in press or future product.

Ergo they can keep printing stuff like Dark Archive or Guns and Gears and whatnot.

Darrell Impey UK wrote:

Another thing about Awakened vs "Folk", beyond thumbs, is that as stands Awakened doesn't change size.

Awakened mice could have a problem...

Until they hop onto their large-sized construct companion. Then it is everyone else who could have a problem!

Pathfinder needs "Awakened Ferrets in mech suits" badly...

I assume we're losing derro, too, so a niche of "people who went too close to Rovagug's prison and were turned into murderous Reaver-esque monsters" may be open.

The Dero (the real spelling) are from real world occult lore. I don't think they are terribly different from the current Pathfinder version, since both creatures are malevolent diminutive subterranean creatures. As long as you use the Dero spelling you should be fine.

I shamelessly stole this the initial idea for this from from another poster, so my apologies on forgetting who said this.

Effectively, there were originally major Drow cities. But the timey-whimey antics of the adventuring group involved in the events of Return of the Runelords created ripples in time, one of which resulted in the subterranean elves never completely falling to darkness. This basically led to Drow never being created, rather the elves that stayed underground became the Cavern Elves, which didn't exist in the old timeline. The Cavern Elves weren't nearly as ruthless as the Drow however, which allowed the Serpentfolk to hold onto or reclaim their old cities.

The Serpentfolk are terrified of Zirnakayin, because it exists as a time anomaly, the abandoned ruins of a city that shouldn't exist. Time doesn't work correctly there, and things from the primeval past and the distant future haunt the city.

I imagine an Arcadia book would have room a lot of new ancestries, it could just be that they're getting a few out of the way first so they have more space for new ones.

They seem to be taking a slow drip approach to Arcadia. I remember way back in the day some of the Paizo folks regretted their approach to introducing Tian Xia, where they had to create everything at once. This seems to be an intentional attempt to avoid it.

Every Arcadian ancestry we get now also frees up more room for an Arcadia book to have other options.

Will be interesting long term how devesting DnD analogies will impact the recent converts from wotc latest "screwups". A big selling point was "it's DnD but better rules and company".

I'd be more concerned about the remaster existing at all. I have already heard complaints from folks angry they bought a bunch of books that they feel will be rendered useless in less than a year. I think scrapping DnD iconography won't really be noticed much at all, other than some folks really obsessed with certain options like Drow.

Kevin Mack wrote:

Also as I mentioned elsewhere I'm honestly suprised they dont seem to need to change Kobolds since unless I am mistaken Kobolds as little lizard creatures were as much Wizards of the coasts as Drow or color coded dragons

I suspect the Kobolds being changed may either be likewise done via the change to Dragons (2 birds 1 stone kind of thing), or is something that they are wanting more delicate balance from in regards to changing them.

Worst case scenario, Kobolds go the way of the Drow, or become so far removed from the original canon that it's not going to bother the OGL (but may still bother the players). Only the ORC lawyers (who I believe are also the one[s] that drafted the OGL) are the ones who know the answer to this question for sure.

The Kobold situation also confuses me, but one obvious difference is that PF 2E sunk a lot of effort into reinventing them, in the same manner they did with Goblins. Versus Drow, which didn't get much focus. So Paizo might be more invested in re-jiggering them. At least they are not Kobold Press, which obviously has even more invested into the little guys.

BookBird wrote:

I remember it being said they used this book to expand on what they could get away with in ancestry design, and I'm curious now which of these characters it most relates to. Obviously Centaur and Minotaur are large, and Merfolk are aquatic (no idea how walking will work), but I'm wondering what the deal is with the remaining ones. Really excited for Merfolk though, I'm so curious as to their mechanics and lore.

Centaur is not only Large, but particularly rideable. Like, my understanding is that there are going to be feats that are specifically designed to make the "players riding on other players" thing a viable option.

For the badger... a dig speed, possibly?

Does this mean my dreams of recreating Master Blaster might finally happen?

The bug ancestry sort of reminds me of the Trox, although a bit smaller. Could be a 2E reinvention of that creature.

Badgerfolk would be pretty cool, and have a folklore precedent. Just like Tanuki and Kitsune, mujina are badger yokai, although more withdrawn and shy than the other yokai.

Eh, I'm just gonna pretend in my games that the Drow which are canon on Golarion were immigrants from a realm best forgotten and therefore there's a limited supply of them around, thus there's no new lore to be had.

Starfinder, OTOH... that's gonna be doubly painful for the players of that system when the hammer comes down, because Drow are much more ingrained in that world.

Somewhere else a member of the Starfinder team commented that when Starfinder does eventually switch over to ORC (which isn't for a few years), the "Drow" will stick around, but get tweaked and a new name. An example was for instance getting rid of the houses and just having them have corporations. Starfinder Drow are already pretty distinctive what with them having taken over Apostae and being space arms dealers.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

The skin color choice was made to my understanding because it's scarier to have underground elves that blend in with the darkness.

Gygax could have gone the typical albino for underground creatures for the drow. He wanted to do something different that was scarier than the standard colorless albino type of creature you normally find underground.

I thought it was a cool choice that gave them an incredibly unique appearance.

The fact that they blended in so perfectly with the Underdark while being able to see perfectly in it was one of the scarier aspects of the drow.

I think he merely did it for the literal negative aspect of the very white elves. And maybe also inspired by Elric the Melnibonean, even though Elric ended up fighting demons and (Evil) Chaos and other Melniboneans (who were clearly elves, but CE, summoning demons and worshipping CE deities) did not have white hair.

It's been commented on before in the forums, but Drow are heavily drawn from the Black Martians of the John Carter novels.

Well, generally, like in a movie/television production, you want everything in your narrative/game to serve some purpose. It's kind of unclear to me why Axis and Maelstrom are there beyond, "they are." They and everything associated with them now take up valuable page space that might be used for more compelling concepts.

Like if chaos/law damage doesn't figure heavily in existing APs, would Aeons and Proteans figure heavily in them? My working assumption is that they don't (thus the dearth of chaos/law damage being important).

Personally, I miss what has been lost and channeling my best Solo Lando Calrissian, "I don't agree with it. I don't like it. But I accept it."

Just because alignment is going away doesn't mean they are going to junk all of the neutral outsiders and planes. You can still have the war between Axis and the Maelstrom, even if the players no longer have a specific tag for there damage to target those of opposite alignment.

The idea of a grig being a centaur-like fairy with a cricket's lower body and a person's upper body is pretty singularly D&D. So is the idea of kobolds being remotely connected to dragons. Kobolds in folklore were just helpful or mischievous mining spirits, like goblins or brownies.

Like, they might be fine, but just the fact that the word exists already doesn't protect it from being D&D's domain.

For the same reason, I'll be surprised if basilisks remain six-legged lizards.

There is medieval art if I recall with Basilisks with more than four legs, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Grig though....yeah. That might need to go away.