I am brand new to the table top rpg scene, and wanted to join some online sessions since there is nothing in my area. I was told by a few people that the official rules only allow the 7 core races along with tiefling, aasimar, and another that I am forgetting. But the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play states the following:
Step 2: Race and Class
Select your character’s class and race from the choices
offered in the Core Rulebook. You may also select aasimar,
tengu, or tiefling as your character’s race with access to
the proper Additional Resources book. Other races are not
legal unless the character’s Chronicle stack includes a race
boon. Additional class and race options from resources like
the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Guide, Pathfinder RPG
Ultimate Magic, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat, Pathfinder
RPG Advanced Race Guide, and Pathfinder Campaign Setting:
The Inner Sea World Guide are generally available with few
or no alterations, as well.
Naturally I am confused, because GM's are telling me one thing is the official rules but the guide is saying another.
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this question, and further apologies if this is a totally asinine query. lol
The other race your forgetting are tengu.
When it says race options, it doesn't mean options OF other races it means options FOR other races... IE blood of angels has a lot of options for aasimar. The advanced race guide has nifty options for tengu including the ability to glide etc.
BigNorseWolf wrote: The other race your forgetting are tengu.
When it says race options, it doesn't mean options OF other races it means options FOR other races... IE blood of angels has a lot of options for aasimar. The advanced race guide has nifty options for tengu including the ability to glide etc.
Ahhhhh... ok. That's disappointing. haha So then how do I get, idk, permission? How would I get permission to play as a Dhampir or one of the other featured races from the advanced guide?
Standard CRB Races as well as Aasimar, Tiefling and Tengu are Legal
some others are Legal if you have a Boon granting you Access
TheMadTemplar wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: The other race your forgetting are tengu.
When it says race options, it doesn't mean options OF other races it means options FOR other races... IE blood of angels has a lot of options for aasimar. The advanced race guide has nifty options for tengu including the ability to glide etc.
Ahhhhh... ok. That's disappointing. haha So then how do I get, idk, permission? How would I get permission to play as a Dhampir or one of the other featured races from the advanced guide? You get a boon. Primarily you get a race boon from Dming or playing at a convention large enough to get con support. (which for me makes it a big convention). You can try to beg for one on the Boon trading thread, but its pretty unlikely unless you have your own race boon trade. (ie, I tried to get a kitsune boon for a painted mini: time waiting 1 year 3 months. Once i had an ifreet boon i had three responses in 28 minutes)
For a Dhampire, Kitsune, The four elemental races (oread slyph. air thingy, Ifrite) and a few others they were fairly common when they were handed out. Getting any other boon should let you trade for one.
Goblin boons were handed out as a one time thing. You're NOT going to pry those out of someone's cold dead hands with or without a crowbar.
I would guess that when the Blood of the Elements book arrives that at least one of the 5 elemental races in it becomes core for PFS. Similar to what happened with Aasimars and Tieflings. (i.e. it makes business sense)
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
ZomB wrote: I would guess that when the Blood of the Elements book arrives that at least one of the 5 elemental races in it becomes core for PFS. Similar to what happened with Aasimars and Tieflings. (i.e. it makes business sense) I would not hold my breath. They haven't made skinwalkers or dhamphir core yet. Though I have seen dhamphir boons.
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BigNorseWolf wrote: TheMadTemplar wrote: BigNorseWolf wrote: The other race your forgetting are tengu.
When it says race options, it doesn't mean options OF other races it means options FOR other races... IE blood of angels has a lot of options for aasimar. The advanced race guide has nifty options for tengu including the ability to glide etc.
Ahhhhh... ok. That's disappointing. haha So then how do I get, idk, permission? How would I get permission to play as a Dhampir or one of the other featured races from the advanced guide? "You get a boon. Primarily you get a race boon from Dming or playing at a convention large enough to get con support. (which for me makes it a big convention). You can try to beg for one on the Boon trading thread, but its pretty unlikely unless you have your own race boon trade. (ie, I tried to get a kitsune boon for a painted mini: time waiting 1 year 3 months. Once i had an ifreet boon i had three responses in 28 minutes)
For a Dhampire, Kitsune, The four elemental races (oread slyph. air thingy, Ifrite) and a few others they were fairly common when they were handed out. Getting any other boon should let you trade for one.
Goblin boons were handed out as a one time thing. You're NOT going to pry those out of someone's cold dead hands with or without a crowbar. "
Holy cow, that's immensely disappointing. I've recently been brought into PF-- this being literally my first post-- and was debating PFS as a way to get RP in between sessions since I'm really burnt out on GMing, but I think I'll be sticking to non-society play when/if I can get it, then.
Strike one for me was reading a post while searching for ideas that Aasimar were out; I've always liked the holy/prophetic types and a blood tie to the Celestials (beyond just the Bloodline powers, which feels like pigeonholing too much for me) and the resultant backstories have always seemed neat to me.
After that, I said, 'Hmm, let's make some characters and see what sticks.' I looked around, thought about the Cavalier, checked a few guides and figured that a Small race would be best so that mount and character could fit into more potential environments. I like playing unusual characters, so I came up with a Goblin Cavalier, Order of the Dragon and Beastrider, devoted to Sarenrae.
Smart and tough for his kind, he realized that Goblin life, as it is, is terrible for Goblins, and that part of that comes from being cruel gits who eat people. He self-trained himself and out of most of his cultural assumptions (though he's rather bitter and cranky) and badgered a missionary of the Dawnflower to teach him about deities that didn't eat and torture their followers and this whole 'civilization' thing. Learning about writing was the worst part, but he figures that's the god's job to protect him from.
Now, he wants to civilize his own kind, except for one problem: he's an uncharismatic and short-tempered type. He means well; it's more along the lines of, "You give that boy his toy back or I will STAB YOU IN YOUR DOG-RAMMED EYE," but between that and being stuck between two worlds, he knows it's going to be hard for him to convince any of his people to change. Which means he needs a 'face'-- someone tough enough to impress other goblins but who's good at this whole... organizing... talking... getting people to -agree- with you thing. Hence, Pathfinder Society. He gets a chance to meet people, and if he's careful (ie, I have no intention of using the background/temperament as an excuse to disrupt table play), he might be able to find his "face of the revolution."
So I did a quick skim of the stats building rules, made sure I wasn't looking at any third party choices, and then made the character. Around the time I was going to work on his mount and equipment I remembered the whole reason I hadn't gone with my first blush, and checked back up at the top. "Huh. That's a limited group of non-Core races," I thought, "What's this race boon/Chronicle stack thing?" Strike two, I grit my teeth and look around
Which began my search. They aren't referenced in the character generation rules or the quick guide other than that one line, and they aren't called by that name anywhere in the PDF; ctl-f found me nothing. I read through the GM's section, and figured that it must mean things you get access to via Section U on the Chronicle sheet. By this point, I was already getting irritated that there wasn't a spelled out way to get access to stuff that's restricted but apparently sort-of legal, in the sense of a fairly normal fantasy race that, as near as I could tell would only be of concern if Rogue Stealth had become a gamebreaker.
Then I do searches, and here I am. "Nope, core plus four forever, especially the one you've got a backstory you like for." I know that the rules committee or whatever isn't specifically targeting the latter, but it seems so arbitrary to me when the wayang, for example, are permitted, and it's just a continuing frustration coming to a head. The fact that it isn't spelled out that "No, actually, you're really not ever going to get access to the majority of these characters, don't even bother looking," feels worse, like the conditions are being deliberately hidden.
I can kind of understand, especially since it seems like there's an economy in them, that there'd be concern over player anger over giving new access to rare PC types. To me, though, as a new player, it really discourages my interaction to know that I can't even work towards this as a goal. That functionally, the idea of privileging it to create an economy like this in the first place was a poor decision, and the obscurity of it when transitioning from Pathfinder as a rules system to Pathfinder as organized play really makes it burn worse.
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Greetings IsawaBrian, and welcome to the PFS Forums!
First of all, thank you for taking the time to read the Guide to Organized Play. I know it's a daunting read at first for new players. That's probably why you missed the section at the beginning outlining what races are legal for play.
There's some backstory to this. The PFS campaign has been around for quite some time. Originally, only the Core races were allowed. It made sense that, for a new campaign, you'd only allow what the Core Rulebook had to offer.
That made Race Boons, which were/are handed out at Conventions, all that more special. You could open up Dhampir, Tiefling, Aasimar, Kitsune, and a whole host of other races just by winning a boon at a Convention. It was pretty neat!
Then 3 new races got added to the Core list as "always available": Tengu, Tiefling, and Aasimar. Story-wise, they were the most prevalent of the non-Core races, and the most likely to be recruited by the Society. For two years now we've had completely open access to them.
And, in the ever-evolving PFS campaign, something new and exciting happened this summer: 3 more races got added to the list. Now you can create a Wayang, a Nagaji, and the ever-popular Kitsune. It may seem like a downer that Aasimar and Tiefling are no longer part of the Core assumption, but they're still available via a Race Boon, just like the other dozen or so non-core races that are out there.
You've just happened to stumble across PFS after it's been around for 6 years, so you've missed the growing excitement that has already taken place. I can understand why it may seem like a downer that not all options are open from the get-go, or that you just happened to miss out on a couple options. My suggestion would be to jump in with what you're allowed. Surely you have more character ideas than just a Goblin Cavalier, right? If you give it some time, who knows what new races will be opened up!
Speaking as someone who has 20 characters at the moment, and ideas for more, your possibilities are really limitless.
Nefreet wrote: Greetings IsawaBrian, and welcome to the PFS Forums!
First of all, thank you for taking the time to read the Guide to Organized Play. I know it's a daunting read at first for new players. That's probably why you missed the section at the beginning outlining what races are legal for play.
There's some backstory to this. The PFS campaign has been around for quite some time. Originally, only the Core races were allowed. It made sense that, for a new campaign, you'd only allow what the Core Rulebook had to offer.
That made Race Boons, which were/are handed out at Conventions, all that more special. You could open up Dhampir, Tiefling, Aasimar, Kitsune, and a whole host of other races just by winning a boon at a Convention. It was pretty neat!
Then 3 new races got added to the Core list as "always available": Tengu, Tiefling, and Aasimar. Story-wise, they were the most prevalent of the non-Core races, and the most likely to be recruited by the Society. For two years now we've had completely open access to them.
And, in the ever-evolving PFS campaign, something new and exciting happened this summer: 3 more races got added to the list. Now you can create a Wayang, a Nagaji, and the ever-popular Kitsune. It may seem like a downer that Aasimar and Tiefling are no longer part of the Core assumption, but they're still available via a Race Boon, just like the other dozen or so non-core races that are out there.
You've just happened to stumble across PFS after it's been around for 6 years, so you've missed the growing excitement that has already taken place. I can understand why it may seem like a downer that not all options are open from the get-go, or that you just happened to miss out on a couple options. My suggestion would be to jump in with what you're allowed. Surely you have more character ideas than just a Goblin Cavalier, right? If you give it some time, who knows what new races will be opened up!
Speaking as someone who has 20 characters at the moment, and ideas for more, your...
Heh. Well, barring the creations of playing when I was 4 and got the red box and the 1st edition AD&D books at the same time, and played a character where my 6 year old GM let me talk my way into beating a Solar and taking his wings (they had only two at the time, like the onions in our belts, it being the style) and absorbing his powers... ;) I've gotten quite a few since then that actually _involved the rules_ and not looking at the spells per level tables and saying, "Oh, that means how many new ones I get at each level, right? Wow, I get lots of these fast!"
But that's not the point, I suppose. I can understand that they're opening them up, but it seems rather doofus to say "These are well known creatures in our world, we're calling them Featured, but, uh... can't play that." I understand that Goblins don't integrate -easy-, but I'd've expected nearly the same about a nagaji or a wayang from the fluff. In short-- especially with the Racial Points thing, why not simply say "The budget for your RP must be under this much. You may achieve a higher budget by doing y. Z characters fit the world but are inappropriate for play because they're all possessed by the go'ald..." and then list ways to get exceptions. If I knew I had something I could work for, I'd be more enthusiastic about trying after hitting two crashes and burns.
Plus I'm really attached to Sir Bru of the Fehz*. I looked at the online games here and most seemed to already be called or midstream; I looked on Roll20 and it was about the same way, with looong gaps between recruitment posts, and I'm already running a game for my wife (plus GMPCs... probably not a good idea outside of F&F roleplaying). I was hoping PFS would work, but I'm feeling a bit gunshy.
*Name comes from looking at the Orders, realizing Sword won't work because Cha 5, Dragon is neat, especially with the options for the mount, hmm, this guide says OoD is "Your Bro" Order, I don't like bro culture, but hey, there was that BroFace comic strip...
http://threepanelsoul.com/2011/05/15/on-male-cats/
Sir BroFace was christened, or whatever it is Sarenites do.
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In an organized play game like PFS, there are going to be some sacrifices that the players have to make in order to be able to play their characters at any official event under any GM. If this isn't something that works for you, you should probably avoid PFS, because restricted race options are just the tip of the iceberg. PFS isn't for everyone, a lot of people really don't enjoy loosing the freedom that you get in a dedicated home game.
Victor Zajic wrote: In an organized play game like PFS, there are going to be some sacrifices that the players have to make in order to be able to play their characters at any official event under any GM. If this isn't something that works for you, you should probably avoid PFS, because restricted race options are just the tip of the iceberg. PFS isn't for everyone, a lot of people really don't enjoy loosing the freedom that you get in a dedicated home game. While I mostly agree, your wording about restricted races being "just the tip of the iceberg" seems to imply that there are a lot of bigger things that aren't allowed elsewhere. I disagree.
Race restrictions are the biggest area where things aren't allowed in PFS. Other than that, there are a few class archetypes, feats, spells, items, etc that aren't allowed here and there, but things are mostly pretty open. Races are the only area where a large chunk of primary content is forbidden.
Six of one, half dozen of another. I conside race choice beyond the core a fairly minor restriction.
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