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The Racial Heritage feat from Pg. 168 of the Advanced Players Guide states "Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered botha human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on."
My question is this: What exactly is meant by the term "traits"? I have a player that is convinced he can now take the racial traits as listed with the race in question (For example, his human can have Darkvision of 120 feet if he has Drow as his chosen Racial Heritage. See page 103 of the Advanced Race Guide to understand his logic.)
I told him that when they were referring to racial traits, they were referring to the traits as listed on page 331 of the Advanced Players Guide.
Is there an official clarification of this somewhere that I can reference so I can put this to rest? It has the danger of being a seriously broken interpretation of the rules.
Thanks!
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This is a common misconception, and a quick search of the Rules Forum will show that this question comes up often. You only ever have the option of "taking traits" when it comes to picking your two character traits. By the time you've had the chance to take the Racial Heritage feat, you're already Human, and your "Racial Traits" are already decided.
Really, the problem stems from using the word "Trait" to define different character options, but in this case there is only one answer.
ADDENDUM: "Race Traits" are the ones defined in the APG. "Racial Traits" are the characteristics of each race, as defined in their write up.
The definition of the feat is the official ruling. Yes, you'll have people whining that it needs to be interpreted differently. But they're wrong.
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The definition of the feat is the official ruling. Yes, you'll have people whining that it needs to be interpreted differently. But they're wrong.
Unfortunately, the way it is phrased leaves a small amount of ambiguity... that's why I was hoping that it might've been clarified by one of the authors somewhere...
Is there a data base somewhere in which they have clarified rulings and you can look up a given feat and see all of the clarifications? That would be totally cool... just saying...
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Order of operations. When you create a character, you start with stats, then race, then feats. Your player would already have been Human in order to choose the Racial Heritage feat (prerequisite: Human), by which time he's already chosen his Human Racial Traits. The only "traits" left for him to choose are the character traits outlined in the back of the APG.
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Well, what does the feat say:
Benefit: Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race.
Where else have we seen that language? Well, something very like it is in the standard half-orc description:
Orc Blood: Half-orcs count as both humans and orcs for any effect related to race.
It is implausible that that standard haf-orc feature would enable you to pick from a shopping list of human and orc racial features. But that is the argument being used for Racial Heritage, which uses identical wording.
Also, see the corresponding mythic feat. These are super-powered versions of the normal feats for mythic characters, but this one only lets you pick one racial feature of the chosen race. The interpretation being suggested above for the normal Racial Heritage feat would render the mythic version pointless and massively underpowered.
The definition of the feat is the official ruling. Yes, you'll have people whining that it needs to be interpreted differently. But they're wrong.Unfortunately, the way it is phrased leaves a small amount of ambiguity... that's why I was hoping that it might've been clarified by one of the authors somewhere...
Maybe it's a side effect of my logic and programming classes, but I honestly don't see any ambiguity.
To choose the feat, you must be Human. If you are Human, your racial traits have been selected already. You cannot possibly retroactively change your racial traits as a result of the feat; they have been chosen for you, and you never "take" racial traits.
Now yes, one can argue that the feat gives you racial traits, but only by ignoring what the feat requires, and by changing around the meaning of words. In other words, by being wrong.
And I know wrong.
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that's why I was hoping that it might've been clarified by one of the authors somewhere...
This one might help, where SRM clarifies that 'racial traits' are not 'traits'.
