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So, I know they come up as the bad guys every now and then, but are any of the Old Ones or Lovecraftian style outsiders available as deity choices in PFS? I have some fun character concepts that I'd love to flesh out...
Or lack of flesh, as the case may be.
edit: I just noticed that the "Unspeakable bond" trait is available... :D
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Aren't you allowed to worship the Dark Tapestry? Doesn't that have the Madness domain?
Can you? I'm looking up now but I think I'm missing it.
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I'm pretty sure NONE of the gods of the Dark Tapestry are available for divine spellcasters to choose as their patron, as they don't appear on the "Additional Resources" page. The first place they were "statted out" with alignments, domains, etc. was in "Wake of the Watcher" (which is the penultimate adventure in the Carrion Crown AP) and NOTHING from that publication is PFS-legal.
If you want something Lovecraftian that is PFS-legal, I'd pick Rovagug (as suggested above), Dagon (who is considered a demon-lord and is mentioned in Lovecraft's short story of the same name), Cyth-V'Sug (demon lord of parasites, fungus, and disease), Ghlaunder (just ask anyone who'se run a certain PFS-legal module), Groetus (god of oblivion and ruins), or Zyphus (god of accidental death). Note that all of these divine beings are statted in the "Inner Sea World Guide", so you'd need to have access to that (or one of the other publications they're listed in).
If, on the other hand, you just want to say you worship an Old One and get no mechanical benefit from it (i.e. not be a divine spellcaster), I think it's okay to just say you worship one.
But while we're on the subject, just be aware that picking such an obviously evil god for a PFS character (especially a divine spellcaster) is asking for intra-party conflict, IMO. In my experience, most folks who play PFS, play good- or at least neutral-aligned PCs, and a CN character who openly worships a demon-lord or evil god is going to open themselves up for criticism, especially if they hang out with Cheliax faction PCs ... those guys HATE demons more than followers of the Silver Crusade ;)
Of course, you could always just not mention who your patron deity is ...
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I've got a plan for half-orc Oracle who is half Shoggoth (as far as I've seen there's been nothing saying "must be half orc and half human") and was raised by shoggoths as a joke, with the tongues curse mumbling in Aklo the entire time. He is thoroughly and completely insane, being sent up by the Shoggoths as an attempt to proselytize (and also, again, as somewhat of a joke).
Still trying to figure out what deity would fit in with that. Also traits are giving me a hard time. I really wish there was a trait like "adopted" that wasn't just "pick another race trait"
e. Of course, the half orc half-shoggoth thing is flavour, though his physical appearance will be... mouthy.
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I've got a plan for half-orc Oracle who is half Shoggoth (as far as I've seen there's been nothing saying "must be half orc and half human")
Actually, there is:
Orc Blood: Half-orcs count as both humans and orcs for any effect related to race.and
half- orcs get the worst of both worlds: physically weaker than their orc kin, they also tend to be feared or attacked outright by the legions of humans who don’t bother making the distinction between full orcs and halfbloods ...
Note also that this type of re-skinning is frowned upon in PFS. Please see: http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/faq#v5748eaic9os9
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None of which says that a half-orc must be half human and half orc. Those are instead statements that a half-orc counts as both orcs and humans for mechanical effects. A mouthy insane person with an otherworldly appearance can easily be accounted for mechanically by choices I can make during character creation.
Still, I need a good deity for him. :(
e. And if someone truly and horrendously says I can't do it, I'll call them no fun and say he was lead to believe that. Then I'll point at his wisdom score.
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Dark Tapestry mystery, the Tongues curse meaning he gibbers constantly in Aklo, and a wisdom of seven. A distinctly orc-y appearance with perhaps traces of where extra mouths might have started forming, etc. or some other kind of otherworldly traits (and hey, he's a cursed oracle, who is to say that he has to look completely normal?)
"What religion is your Cleric?"
"Oh, he's... uh... Grundinnar?"
*gibbers madly, uses gift of madness, and tries to complete feel-good faction mission*
edit: or a warped sorcerer so he can pop his body shape around at will, but I kind of like the idea of a priest of things beyond.
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I love your character concept, but ...
None of which says that a half-orc must be half human and half orc. ...
Just because there is no rule that explicitly states you can't do it, does not mean that you can. And actually, in this case, Shoggoth is not an allowed race for PFS so a Half-Shoggoth certainly is not allowed either.
Half-Orcs are half Orc and half Human. Reskinning is not allowed in PFS. Your Half-Orc can tell everyone they are half Shoggoth, but most PCs will just look at him funny.
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None of which says that a half-orc must be half human and half orc. Those are instead statements that a half-orc counts as both orcs and humans for mechanical effects. A mouthy insane person with an otherworldly appearance can easily be accounted for mechanically by choices I can make during character creation.
Still, I need a good deity for him. :(
e. And if someone truly and horrendously says I can't do it, I'll call them no fun and say he was lead to believe that. Then I'll point at his wisdom score.
Actually it does say exactly that. You can't get human mechanical benefits as noted in the Half-Orc write-up, if you aren't half-human.
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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I've got a plan for half-orc Oracle who is half Shoggoth (as far as I've seen there's been nothing saying "must be half orc and half human") and was raised by shoggoths as a joke, with the tongues curse mumbling in Aklo the entire time. He is thoroughly and completely insane, being sent up by the Shoggoths as an attempt to proselytize (and also, again, as somewhat of a joke).
So I've got a question (one which probably most of the players in PFS probably never even think of): Why is he a Pathfinder? or more specifically, Why would the Pathfinders have accepted a "thoroughly and completely insane" person into their ranks?
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I love your character concept, but ...
None of which says that a half-orc must be half human and half orc. ...Just because there is no rule that explicitly states you can't do it, does not mean that you can. And actually, in this case, Shoggoth is not an allowed race for PFS so a Half-Shoggoth certainly is not allowed either.
Half-Orcs are half Orc and half Human. Reskinning is not allowed in PFS. Your Half-Orc can tell everyone they are half Shoggoth, but most PCs will just look at him funny.
But he does not have to tell them that he is a half-orc either. He can just be a grey, weirdly fanged gentleman. He can play down the orc part, without positively declaring something else. Especially since in the ARG there should be a way to play up the "lovecraftian horror from outer space heritage" that he wants.
Also I feel very uncomfortable about promoting telling players "no you are actually Y" when they say "I want to be X". It just goes against my philosophy of DMing, even in PFS. I understand that other people have different ideas about DMing though.
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I love your character concept, but ...
None of which says that a half-orc must be half human and half orc. ...Just because there is no rule that explicitly states you can't do it, does not mean that you can. And actually, in this case, Shoggoth is not an allowed race for PFS so a Half-Shoggoth certainly is not allowed either.
Half-Orcs are half Orc and half Human. Reskinning is not allowed in PFS. Your Half-Orc can tell everyone they are half Shoggoth, but most PCs will just look at him funny.
But he does not have to tell them that he is a half-orc either. He can just be a grey, weirdly fanged gentleman. He can play down the orc part, without positively declaring something else. Especially since in the ARG there should be a way to play up the "lovecraftian horror from outer space heritage" that he wants.
Also I feel very uncomfortable about promoting telling players "no you are actually Y" when they say "I want to be X". It just goes against my philosophy of DMing, even in PFS. I understand that other people have different ideas about DMing though.
Should there be a way to play it up.. possibly, but we haven't been told that there are rules in place for that, so at this time no there aren't rules, so the simple answer is no, he cannot have a non-legal race even as a reskinned race right now.
That's not to say that that couldn't change, but making a character based on the miniscule possibility that a rule might change or be made is generally a bad idea.
He's asking in a PFS forum so we have to answer given PFS rules. If this were being asked in a home game I'm confident the answer would be different. Homegame GMs have all the leeway they want since it's their game, this is Paizo's game (OP) and so we have to work within their set of rules.
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I think that you misunderstood me a little. He would be playing a half-orc using PFS legal options from the ARG, not trying to make up a new race. You absolutely can play up the lovecraftian aspects of the race. Maybe the orcs he is descended from made a pact with the Dark Tapestry when they first emerged onto the surface during the Age of Darkness and now the powers from beyond the stars are collecting on that debt to mold the orc's descendants in the shape of their choosing. Thus he can have shoggoth-like traits and still be vanilla orc enough to be acceptable to PFS no-fluff rules.
He can take the Sacred Tattoo alternate racial trait and say that it is the dark glyphs of the gods beyond appearing on his skin. He could take the Toothy alternate racial trait and say that it is the first of many shoggoth-like traits which will manifest in him and his descendants.
I personally think that the aberrant nature of the original concept can be adequately conveyed solely through
Or are you saying that the Sacred Tattoo cannot be anything other than a literal tattoo of tribal orc motifs crafted by an orc shaman which your character has gotten? Can the fangs manifest only as a feature of your orc genes? I think that describing the origin of the markings on your skin or the precise genetic basis on which you have fangs is permissible, even in PFS.
There are ways to get the favor you want, even when staying as vanilla as you are required to by the rules of PFS.
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I've got a plan for half-orc Oracle who is half Shoggoth (as far as I've seen there's been nothing saying "must be half orc and half human") and was raised by shoggoths as a joke, with the tongues curse mumbling in Aklo the entire time. He is thoroughly and completely insane, being sent up by the Shoggoths as an attempt to proselytize (and also, again, as somewhat of a joke).So I've got a question (one which probably most of the players in PFS probably never even think of): Why is he a Pathfinder? or more specifically, Why would the Pathfinders have accepted a "thoroughly and completely insane" person into their ranks?
Paracountess wanted some new entertainment ?
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So I've got a question (one which probably most of the players in PFS probably never even think of): Why is he a Pathfinder? or more specifically, Why would the Pathfinders have accepted a "thoroughly and completely insane" person into their ranks?Paracountess wanted some new entertainment ?
I scoff at the very suggestion that I would ever sully myself with such half-breed filth. And furthermore, I have no say in who the Ten select as their lackeys...I only get to decide who will serve me from within their ranks.
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There are ways to get the favor you want, even when staying as vanilla as you are required to by the rules of PFS.
This is what I don't get about the attitude of a lot of people in this thread. I'm not at any point asking for a mechanical advantage from any things I'm talking about doing. Strictly speaking, the degree to which I'm re-skinning something isn't even that solid, since:
I think that you misunderstood me a little. He would be playing a half-orc using PFS legal options from the ARG, not trying to make up a new race. You absolutely can play up the lovecraftian aspects of the race. Maybe the orcs he is descended from made a pact with the Dark Tapestry when they first emerged onto the surface during the Age of Darkness and now the powers from beyond the stars are collecting on that debt to mold the orc's descendants in the shape of their choosing. Thus he can have shoggoth-like traits and still be vanilla orc enough to be acceptable to PFS no-fluff rules.
This is kind of the direction I was thinking of. If I was saying "oh yeah he looks horrible and aberrant at first glance it's obviously he's part something else and everyone should treat him as such" then there's no argument I'd be needlessly reskinning from a mechanics standpoint. I we're talking about "reskinning" insofar as it makes sense for the assigned mechanics (a dark tapestry oracle showing a hint of the dark tapestry? That's not RAW you're having badwrongfun!).
Also, I still maintain that half orcs, while mechanically obviously intended to be anything other than half-orc and half-human, are never explicitly stated as having their two immediate parents be a human and an orc (I am breaking the spirit, not the letter of the rules). That said I do like the idea of the more aberrant touched than a literal half-shoggoth.
I actaully was thinking about it last night an what might be more fun to say is the combination of tainted by aberrants and then some kind of really messed up Remus & Romulus style thing where his parents died in a cave and some insane masses of tentacles and mouths decided to find out what would happen if they raised him.
Director of Brand Strategy
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If you want to expressly show a trace of Lovecraftian ancestry, you may consider the aberrant sorcerer bloodline, as that actually provides a mechanical manifestation of such (with stretchy arms and the like). But playing one race and saying you're something else is reskinning, whether it seems reasonable or not. As has been pointed out above, half-orcs are the progeny of orcs and humans, just as half-elves are the progeny of elves and humans. Unless you're using alternate racial traits that grant you a different sire, that's what playing that race means.
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Welp, I can't particularly argue with a developer! I'd suggested the aberrant sorcerer above. I am curious why even saying there's a hint of something else somewhere in the bloodline in the past that could manifest itself through taken traits would constitute egregious reskinning. Am I not allowed to say that maybe there was a recessive gene from some kind of forbidden relationship showing itself just now that maybe manifests in ways depicted by a trait?
Basically what I'm asking is if I have to stay exactly on-queue for physical traits and apply some serious Nuremberg laws thinking to any character that may or may have not have interbred at some point in their ancestral past?
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If you want to expressly show a trace of Lovecraftian ancestry, you may consider the aberrant sorcerer bloodline, as that actually provides a mechanical manifestation of such (with stretchy arms and the like). But playing one race and saying you're something else is reskinning, whether it seems reasonable or not. As has been pointed out above, half-orcs are the progeny of orcs and humans, just as half-elves are the progeny of elves and humans. Unless you're using alternate racial traits that grant you a different sire, that's what playing that race means.
I agree that the it is far easier to capture the particular flavor of a character through class, but I just want to clarify. Would the example of using alternate racial traits above be ok or do the orcs he is descended from have to be the vanilla always-CE orcs for PFS since no printed sourcebook mentions fluff about orcs consorting with the Dark Tapestry?
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But he does not have to tell them that he is a half-orc either. He can just be a grey, weirdly fanged gentleman. He can play down the orc part, without positively declaring something else.
I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it really can't work that way. Orcs, and half-orcs, are a known race in Golarion. He can't describe his character as belonging to some other race when that is not what he is.
Take for example, if one were playing an half-elf, and the player wanted to say that they were actually a half-sylph or a creature from the Far Realm that is actually thin with pointy ears that in no other way resembles an elf. It doesn't work that way.PFS OP is a shared world experience, and in the setting and rules there are descriptions of what a half-orc looks like, and the NPCs of the world recognize them as much as we as players do. Without getting into a discussion about boon races, the core races are easily identifiable ... and it is not appropriate for someone to try to create their own race by calling it fluff and saying that no one can tell them different.
And as far as specific text saying that half-orcs are mixed-breed humans, and not some other race, there doesn't have to be a single sentence declaring that. The entire opus of work on half-orcs clearly indicates that they are of both orcish and human decent.
[Edit: Well, there it is, from the Developer himself.
Saint Caleth ... I don't think that anyone would reasonably object to saying where any particular orc parentage came from. Especially if there were an Alternate Racial Trait in there to back it up. Just like if he wanted to choose which tribe of orcs his sire came from, I think he could pick the religion of his sire.]
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I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it really can't work that way. Orcs, and half-orcs, are a known race in Golarion. He can't describe his character as belonging to some other race when that is not what he is.
I would like you to show me where I said I was planning on doing this.
And as far as specific text saying that half-orcs are mixed-breed humans, and not some other race, there doesn't have to be a single sentence declaring that. The entire opus of work on half-orcs clearly indicates that they are of both orcish and human decent.
It's a cardinal rule of gaming that if you leave some kind of hole, someone will try to stick something that doesn't fit in it. Either way, I acknowledge I was trying to abuse the lack of explicit statement of parentage, but I don't particularly see how it's not possible to say SOMEWHERE IN HIS DISTANT/NOT TOO DISTANT PAST there was something else.
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I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it really can't work that way. Orcs, and half-orcs, are a known race in Golarion. He can't describe his character as belonging to some other race when that is not what he is.I would like you to show me where I said I was planning on doing this.
It's a cardinal rule of gaming that if you leave some kind of hole, someone will try to stick something that doesn't fit in it. Either way, I acknowledge I was trying to abuse the lack of explicit statement of parentage, but I don't particularly see how it's not possible to say SOMEWHERE IN HIS DISTANT/NOT TOO DISTANT PAST there was something else.
And as far as specific text saying that half-orcs are mixed-breed humans, and not some other race, there doesn't have to be a single sentence declaring that. The entire opus of work on half-orcs clearly indicates that they are of both orcish and human decent.
In a home game you can certainly do that.
If for fluff, you want to claim there is a rumor of your great grandmother's Aunt being a Shoggoth... I don't see why that would be an issue. Albeit if you actually claim this verbally in game, most NPCs will look at you funny, probably wondering what a shoggoth is, and shrug their shoulders and say, ok, whatever. And players will likely roll their eyes as well. It also cannot ever have any mechanical benefit. And if for some strange reason later on, a half-orc/half-shoggoth or even a shoggoth-ancestry feat or racial trait becomes available, it will not be available for this character regardless of what background fluff you come up with.
Its easier to be creative within the allowable material. There are nearly infinite possibilities and ideas that could be concocted, without going outside the allowed resources.
As soon as you open the door for a minor reskin that isn't codified (such as if you want a lynx which isn't in the book, you can call a small cat (leopard) a lynx, but you can't call a small cat (cheetah) an elven hound) you open the door for ridiculous reskins, like calling a riding dog a pig. Or someone who calls their bastard sword a katana, and then when a katana becomes available claiming the stats of a katana.
This is stuff that has already been hashed out, at length, publicly. And a decision on how it works has already been decided. Take a look at the FAQ to see how reskinning works.
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I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it really can't work that way. Orcs, and half-orcs, are a known race in Golarion. He can't describe his character as belonging to some other race when that is not what he is.I would like you to show me where I said I was planning on doing this.
if you're going to ask for an example....
I've got a plan for half-orc Oracle who is half Shoggoth (as far as I've seen there's been nothing saying "must be half orc and half human") and was raised by shoggoths as a joke, with the tongues curse mumbling in Aklo the entire time. He is thoroughly and completely insane, being sent up by the Shoggoths as an attempt to proselytize (and also, again, as somewhat of a joke).
I think that's where people are getting the idea that you're trying to reskin or change the race of your character ...
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Stonecunning,
I'm sorry if you feel we've all jumped down your throat about this subject. Organized Play is a different beast from non-, and there simply are certain rules everyone has to agree to adhere to ... and one of them is the reskinning rule. Reskinning by definition (it deals with the outer layer, not the inside, after all) is about a surface appearance that doesn't affect the mechanics of whatever you are talking about. If you search the messageboards, you'll find tons of discussion on this subject.
We're definitely not trying to say that you are having badwrongfun, it's just that there are certain rules in Organized Play, and you may have just run into one you weren't aware of before.
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But he does not have to tell them that he is a half-orc either. He can just be a grey, weirdly fanged gentleman. He can play down the orc part, without positively declaring something else.I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it really can't work that way. Orcs, and half-orcs, are a known race in Golarion. He can't describe his character as belonging to some other race when that is not what he is.
I know that saying you are something else is not ok in PFS. What would you do though as the DM if a player passed you a not saying "My charcter is a half-orc" and then proceeded to describe themselves to the other players as "Dull grey skinned with twisted, misshapen fangs and with a leathery tracery of maddeningly circuitous hieroglyphics traced across his muscular shoulders, the legacy of the deal his ancestors made with the outer darkness." In character he speaks of himself as a man tainted by the legacy of his ancestors.
He is a half-orc with the toothy alternate racial trait and the feat from the APG which gives you +1 natural armor. I would find it to be positive that the player put enough thought into the personality of the character to have him describe his orc blood as a taint on his "humanness". Would you respect that, or would you consider that to be too far from the vanilla PFS baseline?
I know I am pushing the rule with this example.
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First: A slippery slope argument is literally fallacious.
Secondly: I'm not saying "am I allowed to completely reskin something and just take rules from elsewhere?" I'm asking to which degree can there be a flavor difference that doesn't provide tangible game mechanics (or at least mechanics that can't be supported). I mean, realistically enough ranks in disguise and I could simply tell people I'm half aberrant anyways and without the skills to beat my disguise they'd probably assume I was telling the truth (and that I'm insane and dangerous, etc.).
Andrew, please stop saying things are already completely decided when clearly even referencing what you have linked there is some ambiguity to more players than myself. Your feedback is appreciated and helpful for the most part, but try to be a little more willing to look at an argument than go YOU'RE WRONG THANKS WE'VE ALREADY BEEN THROUGH THIS.
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But he does not have to tell them that he is a half-orc either. He can just be a grey, weirdly fanged gentleman. He can play down the orc part, without positively declaring something else.I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it really can't work that way. Orcs, and half-orcs, are a known race in Golarion. He can't describe his character as belonging to some other race when that is not what he is.I know that saying you are something else is not ok in PFS. What would you do though as the DM if a player passed you a not saying "My charcter is a half-orc" and then proceeded to describe themselves to the other players as "Dull grey skinned with twisted, misshapen fangs and with a leathery tracery of maddeningly circuitous hieroglyphics traced across his muscular shoulders, the legacy of the deal his ancestors made with the outer darkness." In character he speaks of himself as a man tainted by the legacy of his ancestors.
He is a half-orc with the toothy alternate racial trait and the feat from the APG which gives you +1 natural armor. I would find it to be positive that the player put enough thought into the personality of the character to have him describe his orc blood as a taint on his "humanness". Would you respect that, or would you consider that to be too far from the vanilla PFS baseline?
Creatively describing how you are a half-orc and what it all means, and having slightly different skin color and defining exactly what the sacred tattoo or ritual scarring was, would be perfectly fine.
Because after all, its still a half-orc. Just a half-orc with an interesting background and ancestral story.
Defining yourself as half-orc/half-shoggoth is not.
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I would like you to show me where I said I was planning on doing this.Stonecunning ... my remark was actually in reference to Saint Caleth saying that you could downplay the race and make it seem as though you were something else. But, you specifically said:
I've got a plan for half-orc Oracle who is half Shoggoth
Now, before we get up in arms about this, I realize that your comment also specified that it was "as a joke". This thread took the assertion that you were planning on making a PFS character in that fashion. But I realize 9or at least presume) that wasn't your intent, simply the nature of forum discussions straying from the OP.
It's a cardinal rule of gaming that if you leave some kind of hole, someone will try to stick something that doesn't fit in it. Either way, I acknowledge I was trying to abuse the lack of explicit statement of parentage, but I don't particularly see how it's not possible to say SOMEWHERE IN HIS DISTANT/NOT TOO DISTANT PAST there was something else.
While I agree that it is generally known that people will attempt to find loopholes, I believe that we should all try not to do that. Thank you for acknowledging what you were doing, as I realize that it was more an excercise in conversation than a serious attempt at rules-lawyering.
Insofar as the question of descent goes, you certainly could claim that there was mixed ancestry in your character's past. In a similar way to how I can say that six generations back on my Mother's side, my family was pure-blooded Cherokee. But, that doesn't mean that I can claim to be Cherokee. At least not by the standards of the Cherokee nation or the US Government Native American Registry. But, my last name is Nolen (a strongly Irish name), and if on the Festival of Saint Patrick I want to say that I am Irish ... I don't think that anyone's gonna argue the point.
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I think that's where people are getting the idea that you're trying to reskin or change the race of your character ...
Keeping in mind I've been told I'm wrong by a developer and am not actually arguing this point anymore, but a half-orc half-turkey is still half-orc. :P
Stonecunning,
I'm sorry if you feel we've all jumped down your throat about this subject. Organized Play is a different beast from non-
Been playing organized play since the early early days of the RPGA, and I have to admit this is actually the only place I've found Pathfinder more restrictive than the RPGA was. I actually had a character in Living Greyhawk who claimed outsider heritage and had visible vestigial features which were okayed by the campaign coordinators on the grounds of "no mechanical benefit, players and NPCs may react weirdly to them, if the DM feels it's appropriate there could be a minor bonus/penalty on checks here and there as is available to all players."
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I think that's where people are getting the idea that you're trying to reskin or change the race of your character ...Keeping in mind I've been told I'm wrong by a developer and am not actually arguing this point anymore, but a half-orc half-turkey is still half-orc. :P
Actually no it isn't ... two different animal types so they wouldn't actually be able to cross breed ...
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First: A slippery slope argument is literally fallacious.
Secondly: I'm not saying "am I allowed to completely reskin something and just take rules from elsewhere?" I'm asking to which degree can there be a flavor difference that doesn't provide tangible game mechanics (or at least mechanics that can't be supported). I mean, realistically enough ranks in disguise and I could simply tell people I'm half aberrant anyways and without the skills to beat my disguise they'd probably assume I was telling the truth (and that I'm insane and dangerous, etc.).
Andrew, please stop saying things are already completely decided when clearly even referencing what you have linked there is some ambiguity to more players than myself. Your feedback is appreciated and helpful for the most part, but try to be a little more willing to look at an argument than go YOU'RE WRONG THANKS WE'VE ALREADY BEEN THROUGH THIS.
I'm trying to remain civil. I don't know if you are young and don't understand how organized play works, or if you come from a different organized play campaign that allowed rampant reskinning, rebuilding, and opened up every option under the sun, and so you want it here as well.
But its hard to remain civil when you tell me that my premise is completely bogus and that I can't tell you that its already been decided and I can't tell you that its already been discussed.
Because frankly, those things I'm saying are true. It has already been decided. It has already been discussed, ad nauseum, and the arguments I'm using are very similar if not exactly the same to the arguments used by Mark Moreland and Mike Brock when formulating the FAQ rule on reskinning.
It isn't ambiguous. The reskinning rule is pretty clear.
It isn't reskinning to tell me that you are a gray-skinned orc with big teeth (toothy), and heiroglyphics (sacred tattoo), etc. You are just descriptively defining something and giving it body and atmosphere.
What you cannot do is introduce something that is either specifically not allowed by the rules (shoggoth) or something that doesn't exist at all. This is pretty clear in the FAQ entry on reskinning.
The fact it is in the FAQ means it has already been discussed and decided.
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I know that saying you are something else is not ok in PFS. What would you do though as the DM if a player passed you a not saying "My charcter is a half-orc" and then proceeded to describe themselves to the other players as "Dull grey skinned with twisted, misshapen fangs and with a leathery tracery of maddeningly circuitous hieroglyphics traced across his muscular shoulders, the legacy of the deal his ancestors made with the outer darkness." In character he speaks of himself as a man tainted by the legacy of his ancestors.
He is a half-orc with the toothy alternate racial trait and the feat from the APG which gives you +1 natural armor. I would find it to be positive that the player put enough thought into the personality of the character to have him describe his orc blood as a taint on his "humanness". Would you respect that, or would you consider that to be too far from the vanilla PFS baseline?
I know I am pushing the rule with this example.
I think that would be a fine enough example of backing something up with rules to make it be acceptable enough. I would put the proviso on it that I think that it would still be apparent that he was of orcish blood and not just human. But I would also assert with just as much certainty that he was not your "typical" half-orc, and that the "Toothy" racial trait would reasonably decribe him as something unusual. I wouldn't object to a player saying "a man tainted by the legacy of his ancestors" ... but I would object if that same player tried to imply "a human tainted, etc". Otherwise, I think that putting that much effort into RP background would be marvelous.
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Been playing organized play since the early early days of the RPGA, and I have to admit this is actually the only place I've found Pathfinder more restrictive than the RPGA was.
PFS is super restrictive about this kind of thing, to me it seems that the community is mor restrictive than the actual FAQ. I don't know if that comes from the leadership or from the general attitude if the more elite DMs/players though.
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But its hard to remain civil when you tell me that my premise is completely bogus and that I can't tell you that its already been decided and I can't tell you that its already been discussed.
I'd say it's hard to remain civil if you're not particularly coming off as civil from the start. Like I said, your input is greatly appreciated but you're coming off as very hostile. There are legitimate questions about the extent that background is allowed to influence physical characteristics and representations of characters beyond the obviously not allowed "taking one race and saying it's another." Furthermore, I'm not trying to be rude but your slippery slope premise is, in fact, fallacious: http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html#Slippery%20slope
It isn't ambiguous. The reskinning rule is pretty clear.It isn't reskinning to tell me that you are a gray-skinned orc with big teeth (toothy), and heiroglyphics (sacred tattoo), etc. You are just descriptively defining something and giving it body and atmosphere.
This isn't abundantly clear to myself, several people in this thread, and isn't readily made apparent by the FAQ. You're welcome to interpret it that way, but the level of discussion in here should indicate that maybe what you see as set in stone is still obfuscated to many other people and your repeating "IT'S THERE JUST READ IT" doesn't particularly change the lack of clarity.
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Keeping in mind I've been told I'm wrong by a developer and am not actually arguing this point anymore, but a half-orc half-turkey is still half-orc. :P
I know that you're still just poking fun at it (mostly). So, since we've had the Grammar Nazi on this thread, I'll try to parse what you said a little differently to make it more agreeable to me. :)
A Half-orc is defined. So, what you may've said more correctly could be:"... a half-orc/half-turkey is still half orcish."
Half orcish isn't the same as Half-orc. All dobermans are dogs, but not all dogs are dobermans.
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I think that would be a fine enough example of backing something up with rules to make it be acceptable enough. I would put the proviso on it that I think that it would still be apparent that he was of orcish blood and not just human. But I would also assert with just as much certainty that he was not your "typical" half-orc, and that the "Toothy" racial trait would reasonably decribe him as something unusual. I wouldn't object to a player saying "a man tainted by the legacy of his ancestors" ... but I would object if that same player tried to imply "a human tainted, etc". Otherwise, I think that putting that much effort into RP background would be marvelous.I know that saying you are something else is not ok in PFS. What would you do though as the DM if a player passed you a not saying "My charcter is a half-orc" and then proceeded to describe themselves to the other players as "Dull grey skinned with twisted, misshapen fangs and with a leathery tracery of maddeningly circuitous hieroglyphics traced across his muscular shoulders, the legacy of the deal his ancestors made with the outer darkness." In character he speaks of himself as a man tainted by the legacy of his ancestors.
He is a half-orc with the toothy alternate racial trait and the feat from the APG which gives you +1 natural armor. I would find it to be positive that the player put enough thought into the personality of the character to have him describe his orc blood as a taint on his "humanness". Would you respect that, or would you consider that to be too far from the vanilla PFS baseline?
I know I am pushing the rule with this example.
In this case someone with Knowledge (Local) to identify humanoids could obviously roll and tell he had orc DNA if they cared.
My question was just about letting the player have freedom to describe their character that way without mentioning race. Also not having the NPCs magically know "oh, half-orc" unless of course they had the knowledge skill to identify humanoids. I have had DMs given a similar example casually refer to the character in question as "the half-orc", which I found incredibly disrespectful and condescending to the player, even given the OP rulings.
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Been playing organized play since the early early days of the RPGA, and I have to admit this is actually the only place I've found Pathfinder more restrictive than the RPGA was.PFS is super restrictive about this kind of thing, to me it seems that the community is mor restrictive than the actual FAQ. I don't know if that comes from the leadership or from the general attitude if the more elite DMs/players though.
This is kind of the impression I'm getting as well. Nothing in the PFS FAQ looks more restrictive than anything the RPGA ever put out, but there's a lot of people harping on RAW so religiously that it actually takes out some of the roleplaying flexibility in a needless way.
If I sit down at a table with someone who says to me "Somewhere in my characters past there was a touch of an outsider, and from her tunic sprouts two small growth of poorly developed and useless wings" my response is going to be, in character "What's with those things coming out of your back!?" not "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT HOW DARE YOU THIS IS PFS WE HAVE STANDARDS!"
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You may choose a specific type of animal companion from any of the base forms listed on pages 53–54 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook or a legal Additional Resource but may not use stats for one base form with the flavor of another type of animal. Thus, a small cat could be a cheetah or leopard, as suggested, as well as a lynx, bobcat, puma, or other similar animal; it could not, however, be "re-skinned" to be a giant hairless swamp rat or a differently-statted wolf. If a GM feels that a re-skinning is inappropriate or could have mechanical implications in the specific adventure being played, he may require that the creature simply be considered its generic base form for the duration of the adventure. A player may not re-skin items to be something for which there are no specific rules, and any item a character uses for which there are no stats is considered an improvised weapon (see page 144 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook).
Now granted, it doesn't specifically talk about race here. But if you are going to extrapolate half-orc the way that you have, then you have to also show the same extrapolation skills on the above quote.
And I think you are being a bit hyperbolic here. Nobody is going to castigate you unless you continuously skirt the rules.
However, saying you have a touch of outsider in you and then going on to say that you have small vestigial wings is actually not allowed. That's reskinning yourself into something that you are not. You can't do it.
The reason the above reskinning rule didn't include anything about races, is because it never became an issue. Perhaps the FAQ needs to be updated if we are going to get an influx of people clamoring for reskins that aren't expressly discussed in the above FAQ quote.
And I think you are reading into my tone. Something many people do on the internet for some odd reason.
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In this case someone with Knowledge (Local) to identify humanoids could obviously roll and tell he had orc DNA if they cared.
My question was just about letting the player have freedom to describe their character that way without mentioning race. Also not having the NPCs magically know "oh, half-orc" unless of course they had the...
I agree that if a player is trying to RP some other trait that he had, it would be disrespectful of the DM to refer to him simply as "the half-orc". But, I would say that there is no skill roll required to identify an elf, dwarf, halfling, human, gnome, or half-orc. If the PC were playing something unusual, a roll could be made to discover that he is a "toothy" half-orc, or what have you, but, the fact that they are a core race would still be identifiable without a roll. I might go so far as to say that it would be a free DC10 check that they could Take 10 on. That wouldn't get them anything other than the base race. It's not about the DNA, it's about the physical appearance still matching (for the most part) a half-orc.
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Been playing organized play since the early early days of the RPGA, and I have to admit this is actually the only place I've found Pathfinder more restrictive than the RPGA was.PFS is super restrictive about this kind of thing, to me it seems that the community is mor restrictive than the actual FAQ. I don't know if that comes from the leadership or from the general attitude if the more elite DMs/players though.This is kind of the impression I'm getting as well. Nothing in the PFS FAQ looks more restrictive than anything the RPGA ever put out, but there's a lot of people harping on RAW so religiously that it actually takes out some of the roleplaying flexibility in a needless way.
If I sit down at a table with someone who says to me "Somewhere in my characters past there was a touch of an outsider, and from her tunic sprouts two small growth of poorly developed and useless wings" my response is going to be, in character "What's with those things coming out of your back!?" not "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT HOW DARE YOU THIS IS PFS WE HAVE STANDARDS!"
I came to that realization when at one of my tables a player got angry when another player had used the random tiefling physical traits table in the description of their abyssal sorcerer. The player whotarted it was playing a tiefling and thought that the human sorcerer having infernal physical traits "devalued his boon" or something like that.
Its the closesnt I have ever come to booting someone from my table. Granted this was particularly atrocious but it springs from the same source.
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I agree that if a player is trying to RP some other trait that he had, it would be disrespectful of the DM to refer to him simply as "the half-orc". But, I would say that there is no skill roll required to identify an elf, dwarf, halfling, human, gnome, or half-orc. If the PC were playing something unusual, a roll could be made to discover that he is a "toothy" half-orc, or what have you, but, the fact that they are a core race would still be identifiable without a roll. I might go so far as to say that it would be a free DC10 check that they could Take 10 on. That wouldn't get them anything other than the base race. It's not about the DNA, it's about the physical appearance still matching (for the most part) a half-orc.In this case someone with Knowledge (Local) to identify humanoids could obviously roll and tell he had orc DNA if they cared.
My question was just about letting the player have freedom to describe their character that way without mentioning race. Also not having the NPCs magically know "oh, half-orc" unless of course they had the...
Yea, the DC10 knowledge check is pretty much what I would consider fair too.
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However, saying you have a touch of outsider in you and then going on to say that you have small vestigial wings is actually not allowed. That's reskinning yourself into something that you are not. You can't do it.
To be fair, I don't agree with you. If you're not changing mechanics then I haven't seen anything anywhere saying that vestigial changes aren't allowed, and even then, how would you respond if someone sat down at your table and said that? You're seriously extrapolating rules for purchasing cats to say you can't have genetic traits in a moderately visible way.
I came to that realization when at one of my tables a player got angry when another player had used the random tiefling physical traits table in the description of their abyssal sorcerer. The angry player was playing a tiefling and thought that the human sorcerer having infernal physical traits "devalued his boon" or something like that.Its the closesnt I have ever come to booting someone from my table. Granted this was particularly atrocious but it springs from the same source.
If I was sitting at that table and the GM did anything but tell the person playing a tiefling to shut up and stop being a whiny brat I'd probably just leave the table. I can't abide people who take their imaginary games so seriously as to get upset at someone else having fun.
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And I think you are reading into my tone. Something many people do on the internet for some odd reason.
You post in difinitives and as if your opinion is the highest authority. Tone arguments on the internet are generally bad, but 90% of what you've been saying is coming across as "I'm right, you're wrong, here's my (potentially questionable) evidence now lets stop talking about it and move on."
It's clear you bring a lot of expertise to the discussion, but you're not Mark Moreland who has the advantage of speaking from a position of actual authority on rules. Don't feel like bashing your head against a wall because we don't instantly accept your arguments, but maybe do take it as a sign that what seems completely clear to you is ambiguous to others and that attempting an argument from (your own) authority is just going to frustrate people and make you come across as a bit bull-headed. Even if you're right in the end.
Seriously though, your feedback is good, just not the final say on the matter.
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To be fair, I don't agree with you. If you're not changing mechanics then I haven't seen anything anywhere saying that vestigial changes aren't allowed
Stonecunning ...
I generally agree with you here ... but, the problem is that it *is* changing mechanics. The physical descriptions listed in the core rulebook for racial norms are mechanics. If one is describing something that is not within the bounds of racial diversity, then they are changing the mechanics.More importantly, they are changing the fabirc of the setting by implying that there are other things that fit within what is described. But, Alternate Racial Traits have gone a long way toward opening this up a little. But, a "beastial" half-orc or "toothy" half-orc, or one with "Sacred Tattoos" is still identifiable as a half-orc by others who see it. Just as there are different depictions of orcs/hlaf-orcs by various artists, but we still can tell that tey illustrated a half-orc.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I've got a plan for half-orc Oracle who is half Shoggoth (as far as I've seen there's been nothing saying "must be half orc and half human") and was raised by shoggoths as a joke, with the tongues curse mumbling in Aklo the entire time. He is thoroughly and completely insane, being sent up by the Shoggoths as an attempt to proselytize (and also, again, as somewhat of a joke).
Still trying to figure out what deity would fit in with that. Also traits are giving me a hard time. I really wish there was a trait like "adopted" that wasn't just "pick another race trait"
e. Of course, the half orc half-shoggoth thing is flavour, though his physical appearance will be... mouthy.
Although it's not exactly what you were going for... there's a way to make something visually like this actually legal.
Step 1. Get a tiefling boon (play at a con, or other sanctioned event large enough to get Paizo support).Step 2. Purchase a copy of the Blood of Fiends sourcebook, then flip to page 23. Apply the qlippoth heritage to your tiefling.
Step 3. Take a level in abberant sorc for the bendy arm trick.
Step 4. Go the rest into oracle with tongues. Huzzah, you've got a really freaking weird PC!