I don't work at paizo but I can tell you that the half elf is a distinct race with some attributes of both its parent races. The free beta download could tell you more about it though.
Half elves have their own traits that are separate from elf traits and human traits; they do not get access to human or elf traits as a result.
While that makes sense, it's a little disappointing. I thought this was a very nice *actual* benefit of being considered "both" instead of just "elf" (or "orc" for half-orcs). The detriment of being vulnerable to human and elf-bane weapons is strong enough.
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I think that may be a house rule for me then, that half-elves and half-orcs can take either human or elvish/orcish traits as well as any specific 'half-elf' or 'half-orc' traits that come out.
If the rule about no 'two traits from the same category' still applies by the time we see some relevant traits, it still means that a half-elf won't be able to take a human trait *and* an elven trait, since he'll only be able to take a single Racial Trait in any event.
Kind of reminds me of the Choice of the Half-Elven offered to Elrond and Elros. I might consider offering a one time choice - access to either elven or human traits an option, but not a mix of both in the same character.
Creative Director
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It's an interesting house rule... but why would anyone play an elf or a human if they can play a half-elf, get all of the elf or human traits, and then get all the half-elf traits on top of that? (Apart from for roleplaying reasons, of course.)
I do feel that the half-elf doesn't have enough racial traits yet... but this house rule takes things too far for my tastes, since it basically makes choosing to play a human or an elf an obvious suboptimal choice.
Hybrid vigor? :D
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It's an interesting house rule... but why would anyone play an elf or a human if they can play a half-elf, get all of the elf or human traits, and then get all the half-elf traits on top of that? (Apart from for roleplaying reasons, of course.)
If they are already ignoring the 'only one trait per category' rule that would forbid them from taking multiple racial traits, then the only thing that would stop them would be if they wanted to play a human or an elf more than a half-elf, either for mechanical reasons (free bonus feat, elven weapon proficiencies, etc.) or for flavor reasons.
Even with the option to choose a single racial trait from among the elven or theoretical human and half-elven trait categories (I say 'theoretical,' because they don't exist yet), I'd still pick a human for the bonus feat for purely mechanical reasons.
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The Social Trait of Adopted (Pathfinder Companion - Second Darkness, page 13) allows a character to take a Racial Trait form an adoptive parent or society. That said, Pathfinder Companion has only had basic starter Traits and Elven Racial Traits to date.
I love the Trait mechanic, but it seems to be being doled out way too slowly for me. There are other races that have yet to have Racial Traits. At one Companion every two months, and only every other designed to develop a Race or Region (the others dedicated to the current AP), this could take forever. Any way we could see some starter Traits for other races sooner?
It's an interesting house rule... but why would anyone play an elf or a human if they can play a half-elf, get all of the elf or human traits, and then get all the half-elf traits on top of that? (Apart from for roleplaying reasons, of course.)
Good point. We haven't played with traits yet. I don't have a good feel yet as to potential for unbalancing play, though purely from reading, there seems to be some margin for error. I know my group though, and they won't be choosing traits for builds. They'll do it to add spark to a character. Half elves aren't popular with them - not hated, just kind of ignored. A little wider field of choice in this aspect might get someone's creative juices going. But who knows. I'm not making any decisions until after PFRPG is out.
Hybrid vigor? :D
Only if they're green elves, otherwise heterosis is hard to justify;p
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It's an interesting house rule... but why would anyone play an elf or a human if they can play a half-elf, get all of the elf or human traits, and then get all the half-elf traits on top of that? (Apart from for roleplaying reasons, of course.)
I do feel that the half-elf doesn't have enough racial traits yet... but this house rule takes things too far for my tastes, since it basically makes choosing to play a human or an elf an obvious suboptimal choice.
To be fair many peolple see half-elf's as a suboptimal choice as it is even if you allow halfelves access to human and racial traits they dont get the other abilities these two races get. Besides if Im not mistaken the adopted racial trait lets you do this to an extent anyway unless ive misread it.
Wait, are we talking about racial traits, or racial traits?
There's Racial Traits, as in Pathfinder Companion "half-feats" like "Iadaran Illusionist".
And then there's Racial Traits, as in the stuff every member of a race gets, like "immune to sleep", "+2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Con".
Letting half-elves access all "companion racial traits" of both humans and elves wouldn't be that bad (so they can be use Iadaran Illusionist even though they're not an elf), But granting half-elves all racial abilities of either human or elf, or even both (so they'd get +2 to one ability score and also to int and dex and -2 con, and also an extra feat and one extra skill point per level) would, of course, be way over the line.
I guess the naming was problematic here, especially since the companion traits have a Racial category.
I also think that with the "Adopted" trait, you basically abolish racial traits for your average situation: Usually, you get two traits, no two of which can be from the same category. And usually, one of them has to be a campaign trait. That leaves only one spot open for a potential racial trait. But if you can use adopted and access one racial trait, you basically get the same range of choices as a native member of that race. And since this basically works with every racial combination, all racial traits are now open to everyone.
Somewhat off topic...in what book are all the racial traits?
Racial traits for elves are in Pathfinder Companion: Elves. There aren't any other racial traits yet.
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Creative Director
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Yeah... it's an unfortunate naming error on our part that we call the new things Racial Traits (along with Regional, Religion, Basic, and Campaign traits, of course).
Going forward, we call them Race Traits to help a little bit.
Racial Traits: The benefits you gain (like darkvision or favored classes or stonecunning or natural attacks or spell-like abilities or whatever) you gain from your chosen race. These will be in the Pathfinder RPG, and have been in the game pretty much forever.
Race Character Traits: These were introduced in the Adventure Path player's guides and the Pathfinder Companions as a way to give new players an edge up and to encourage players to develop backstories for their characters in a way that ties them in to Golarion and their current Adventure Path. We'll be putting a free PDF up about how these work in a few weeks, rather than just keeping the info in the Pathfinder Companions. Race Traits are one of five categories of traits, the others being Religion, Campaign, Region, and Basic. A character trait is about equal in power to half a feat; by allowing a player to pick two traits when he creates his character you're essentially giving them a bonus feat, similar (but more customizable) to the Regional Feats introduced in the 3.5 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Character traits will NOT be part of the Pathfinder RPG core rules; they're a Golarion thing.
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So uh which one where we all discussing again? (Just want to be sure were all on the same page here.)As far as I know, things started out with Racial Traits, and the Race Character Traits got mixed in halfway through.
Ah well Ignore anything I mentioned (Thought we were talking about traits from the companion elves of Golarion traits.)
So uh which one where we all discussing again? (Just want to be sure were all on the same page here.)As far as I know, things started out with Racial Traits, and the Race Character Traits got mixed in halfway through.
Oh. Yeah, I was talking about the Race Character Traits part. So not part of Pathfinder RPG? And here I was expecting a core selection to get collected together in the hardcover. Maybe at some point we'll need a "Trait Treasury" to keep track of them.
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Creative Director
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Oh. Yeah, I was talking about the Race Character Traits part. So not part of Pathfinder RPG? And here I was expecting a core selection to get collected together in the hardcover. Maybe at some point we'll need a "Trait Treasury" to keep track of them.So uh which one where we all discussing again? (Just want to be sure were all on the same page here.)As far as I know, things started out with Racial Traits, and the Race Character Traits got mixed in halfway through.
The Character Traits will be in SOME form available for folks come the launch of the PF RPG. At this point, I suspect they'll be a free PDF download and eventually get absorbed into some other big book of alternate rules somewhere down the road...