Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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For any villains knowledgeable enough to know how races (and their own spells) work, this sounds like a case of invalidated tactics.
Seems like. While GMing, I've seen at least one NPC sorcerer cast dominate person on an aasimar PC. I've also had a few intelligent outsiders with charming/dominating spell-like abilities make the simple Knowledge (planes) check to identify that its foe is an outsider and would be immune to those spells. Cue vampiric touch!
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I wish Spider had had vampiric touch.
That said, my dwarf paladin has been dominated by succubi 3 times(it's probably his fetish or something) so I can't fault folks for picking races based on their immunities. It's funny, the reason I've foregone the clear spindle + wayfinder combo which could have solved this each time is that my stonelord is immune to just about anything but compulsions as it is and it'd make gm'ing for him even more boring.
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For any villains knowledgeable enough to know how races (and their own spells) work, this sounds like a case of invalidated tactics.Seems like. While GMing, I've seen at least one NPC sorcerer cast dominate person on an aasimar PC. I've also had a few intelligent outsiders with charming/dominating spell-like abilities make the simple Knowledge (planes) check to identify that its foe is an outsider and would be immune to those spells. Cue vampiric touch!
I got one, the NPC wizard casting sleep on a group of half-elves. That's alright the elves had to deal with an elf hating (favored enemy ranger) bugbear with elf bane arrows.
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At the start of Season 8 (effective August 4th, on the first day of Gen Con) we're adding four character races to the "always available" list: ifrit, oread, sylph, and undine. We are subtracting none from the list; there's neither a compelling in-game nor out-of-game reason to remove those options.
As of yet, we have not revealed what any of the boon race options are for Season 8.
So I have an elemental dialente boon (the one that if you have a boon for all 4 races you can build a Suli), which has 3 of the 4 applied to it (just missing Ifrit).
Since these are now always available, can I fill that lost slot with an ifrit since they are always available, or am I just out on those 3 boons?
EDIT:
** spoiler omitted **
Partizanski - I have an Ifrit boon I'm not going to use, given that Ifrits will be legal soon. If you want it to complete your Suli, send me a PM.
Humans are humanoids, so how are they immune to humanoid-only spells?Because they can ignore spells that do not target the animal creature type as well. :)
That's pretty cool! Thanks!
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But then how would he dictate how other people enjoy the game?Then just play Core.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but last I heard "Don't be a jerk" was one of those important rules here in PFS. Majuba has the right to offer up his opinion without being attacked or torn down just because you disagree with it. If memory serves, many different people of varying opinions being able to all have a voice is one of those things that truly makes our community great. Even more since Majuba's opinion is one that I know many other people share, that many would have preferred a rotation as opposed to simply adding more in. I know this because it is an opinion that I shared with him up until recently, I was convinced that this was the way to go. Just because you disagree with Majuba's opinion absolutely does not give you (or thorin001 and Morphling, for that matter) the right to take jabs at him and drag him down.
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I'd actually rather see the races swapped out, or at least the Kitsune which just really irk me for whatever reason. But, one thing thats bugged me is the idea that the Kitsune, Nagaji, and Wayang where introduced as player options was because the fit well with being introduced into the setting lore and Pathfinder Society.
I know where the Nagaji and Wayang Scenarios "introduce" the two races, but seems a stretch to say they rushed to join the ranks of the Society, or that there was some sort of story reason involved. The Kitsune, though, I have no idea? Its possible I missed something though in regards to all three.
However, I do know that both the Ratfolk and the Grippli have had multiparty arcs that do make for so much better story reason for them to join the Pathfinder Society, and it really doesn't follow that, barring a few squeaky wheels complaining, that either Aasimar or Tieflings would simply stop being interested after the events relating to the Worldwound. Heck, you would think they would become even more common, and it makes even more sense.
Did I miss something?
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DM Beckett, hast thou forgotten so quickly the kitsune adventure I GMed for you?
:)
That said, I agree with you about gripplis, ratfolk, aasimars and tieflings. At least there are GM boons floating around for all of them.
Hmm
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Contributor
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I'd actually rather see the races swapped out, or at least the Kitsune which just really irk me for whatever reason. But, one thing thats bugged me is the idea that the Kitsune, Nagaji, and Wayang where introduced as player options was because the fit well with being introduced into the setting lore and Pathfinder Society.
I know where the Nagaji and Wayang Scenarios "introduce" the two races, but seems a stretch to say they rushed to join the ranks of the Society, or that there was some sort of story reason involved. The Kitsune, though, I have no idea? Its possible I missed something though in regards to all three.
However, I do know that both the Ratfolk and the Grippli have had multiparty arcs that do make for so much better story reason for them to join the Pathfinder Society, and it really doesn't follow that, barring a few squeaky wheels complaining, that either Aasimar or Tieflings would simply stop being interested after the events relating to the Worldwound. Heck, you would think they would become even more common, and it makes even more sense.
Did I miss something?
It has nothing to do with Red Harvest or Haunting of Hinojai and everything to do with the Lantern Lodge.
At the end of Season 4, the Lantern Lodge faction completed its primary faction objective, which was to establish a pervasive Pathfinder Society Presence in Tian Xia. The addition of kitsune, nagaji, and wayangs into the society at large are a result of the Lantern Lodge's continued efforts to promote the Society in Tian Xia.
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Now correct me if I'm wrong, but last I heard "Don't be a jerk" was one of those important rules here in PFS. Majuba has the right to offer up his opinion without being attacked or torn down just because you disagree with it. If memory serves, many different people of varying opinions being able to all have a voice is one of those things that truly makes our community great. Even more since Majuba's opinion is one that I know many other people share, that many would have preferred a rotation as opposed to simply adding more in. I know this because it is an opinion that I shared with him up until recently, I was convinced that this was the way to go. Just because you disagree with Majuba's opinion absolutely does not give you (or thorin001 and Morphling, for that matter) the right to take jabs at him and drag him down.But then how would he dictate how other people enjoy the game?Then just play Core.
And I would counter that wanting to restrict everyone else's options is the jerk move. I don't particularly like the occult classes, but you don't hear me saying that nobody else should be allowed to play them.
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DM Beckett, hast thou forgotten so quickly the kitsune adventure I GMed for you?
** spoiler omitted **
:)
That said, I agree with you about gripplis, ratfolk, aasimars and tieflings. At least there are GM boons floating around for all of them.
Hmm
Oh not at all hun. I simply meant in the sense that introduced the race to the Pathfinder society and prompted many to join. PS: I sorry.
It has nothing to do with Red Harvest or Haunting of Hinojai and everything to do with the Lantern Lodge.
OK. Good to know.
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Personally, I'm against other players and GMs trying to make calls that could affect what other people at the table can and cannot play. Its more fun to have choice then to not have choice, and if you don't like a character that someone brings to the table, don't play or run with them.
But just because you don't like that character for its race / class / whatever doesn't mean that it'll ever be time for that race / class / whatever to be removed if it isn't actively breaking the game. So I pretty much agree with the OP on all fronts.
From an in-game roleplaying perspective, it doesn't look particularly good for the society if interest in membership constantly cycles around. It would be a good example of a campaign mechanic that removes choice from players without a good in-world reason and without actually being fun.
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Agreed. I'm all for bringing Aasimar's back, too.
:P
I'm not really wanting to ruin other player's fun as much as I do think those three, (and Tengu) have had their time. Kitsune do irk me, which does NOT mean I think no one else should play/enjoy them. I just don't like them myself.
The issue is that there are only a few possibilities if we want to NOT dictate what others get to enjoy. Make everything that opens up prior legal, rotate races out so others get a chance to play their preferred races, or remove everything outside of CRB without a Boon.
Keeping those three past their time while also opening up a pretty recent DM Boon to everyone just does not seem like the way to go. And unless your implying you want all prior legal races permanently opened, the ONLY option is to make calls that will affect other players.
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Contributor
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Agreed. I'm all for bringing Aasimar's back, too.
:P
They're sort of a different problem. The subrace mechanic, combined with the fact that they have two +2 bonuses to their ability scores, often made them better choices than humans for some builds. In my eyes, both of those native outsider races are great examples of, "Removing stuff from players sucks, but this is too strong to ignore."
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Personally, I'm against other players and GMs trying to make calls that could affect what other people at the table can and cannot play. Its more fun to have choice then to not have choice, and if you don't like a character that someone brings to the table, don't play or run with them.
But just because you don't like that character for its race / class / whatever doesn't mean that it'll ever be time for that race / class / whatever to be removed if it isn't actively breaking the game. So I pretty much agree with the OP on all fronts.
This.
Also the fact that whilst someone who has played for several years might feel that <insert race> has been done to death, telling new players "everyone can have a <race> except you because you haven't been playing long enough" might come across badly.
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An idea that I have heard in answer to this is to remove all races except core, and then make the race boons a file that you can download from the paizo site once per season. This way the community isn't flooded with too many odd races, and new players have the option to grab that cool race they are excited about trying. The My Downloads page already lists the date listed for when you download files so there is a mechanic that could probably be tweaked to monitor the once per season restriction. Mind you I'm not necessarily pro or con on this idea its just something I've heard talked about that answers several of the concerns I'm hearing in this thread.
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Also the fact that whilst someone who has played for several years might feel that <insert race> has been done to death, telling new players "everyone can have a <race> except you because you haven't been playing long enough" might come across badly.
It does. (Speaking from experience.)
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Also the fact that whilst someone who has played for several years might feel that <insert race> has been done to death, telling new players "everyone can have a <race> except you because you haven't been playing long enough" might come across badly.It does. (Speaking from experience.)
Anything that rewards play longevity and play dedication is going to put off Newbs and casual players. Unfortunately, not rewarding them is going to put off loyal and dedicated players. You have to do a balancing act to give both sides as much as you can as often as you can. And sometimes that means one side or the other gets left out.
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I had the opportunity for many years to play in a campaign that didn't cycle races but the 'templates' that a character could play (different system, so 'class' isn't quite the term, but Archetype in Pathfinder is 'alternate class).
And invariably there'd be grumbling, confusion, frustration, and declining membership as someone who had gotten a character in one of the first years (but hadn't played all that much) whipped out a template that no one starting in current play had.
Painful to handle PR for, because trying to explain to someone 'Well, you weren't here for insert-template-season-here, you don't get to have one.'
Such a thing rapidly becomes exclusive rather than inclusive,and lends itself to a perception of elitism.
When everyone is fighting for a share of the RPG market, it's what is 'new' but 'reasonably balanced' that draws in some new faces.
Tengu drew me in to PFS play.
I'm sure others with nagajii, kitsune, wayang, or aasimar/tiefling races could say the same thing.
Excluding 'game-breaking' races (or putting them in 'boon' status) keeps the proportions decent enough.
When a race is said to be reasonably common 'in-canon', then they should be reasonably common for Society play, imo, barring story elements dictating yay or nay.
'Choice-shock' is not as much of a thing as one might expect after a scenario or two, and having a requirement of needing the source material does provide an incentive to acquire said source material as well as put a bit of a damper on too much of a given race.
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Anything that rewards play longevity and play dedication is going to put off Newbs and casual players. Unfortunately, not rewarding them is going to put off loyal and dedicated players. You have to do a balancing act to give both sides as much as you can as often as you can. And sometimes that means one side or the other gets left out.Also the fact that whilst someone who has played for several years might feel that <insert race> has been done to death, telling new players "everyone can have a <race> except you because you haven't been playing long enough" might come across badly.It does. (Speaking from experience.)
... and then there are cases where you spend several hours explaining a system and it's associated world to some folks, get them excited about their characters, plan a PFS game, but then real life happens (in a medical manner if I recall correctly) and you have to put it off. When said folks later bring it up after the RL issues have subsided you get to say "oh, so sorry, the Worldwound is feeling better too! - you can't play that character any more" and then it's wtf'ery all about and everyone decides that continuing the war on our livers is a far more productive use of time than trying to do PFS.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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At first I was thinking that race-cycling is a good thing. I was thinking along the lines of a discussion about Magic, where they argued that "restrictions breed creativity". By cycling cards in and out they shake up the meta and remove and enable deck options.
But more and more I'm starting to doubt that's really a good fit for PF. A character is a long-term commitment for most people, not something you play for a season and then trade in for something else.
I've gone through the dance of "get so many tieflings grandfathered" before, and it was a bit of a drag to actually do. You're playing something not because you want to play it at that time, but just to preserve the option for later.
I think the current situation works better; the available races are all pretty well-balanced against each other. I'll gladly accept that I don't get that "creativity goad" but instead can take my leisure in planning a new PC.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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I just assumed that they either know each other well or DM Beckett has spent a bit too much time at Waffle House...Oh not at all hun.Your phone's auto-correct is a bit, um, old fashioned? At least, I hope it was your phone's auto-correct...
Hmm reads, laughs and falls out of her chair.
It's okay, everyone! Autocorrect or not, I'm not offended. First off, I know enough southerners that I'm not bothered when one slips up and calls me "hun". Secondly, Beckett's my buddy, from the very first PbP I GMed on these forums.
We're cool.
Hmm
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I was intentionally being familiar. I just find it amusing that folks seem to be making so much of it. :P
Although, my deployment phone's ancient and annoying autocorrect is often irksome.
Heh. Sorry. I honestly thought it was a funny auto-correct. I've been reading your posts long enough to know you meant no offense. Sorry to stir things up. (-;
Heh. Sorry. I honestly thought it was a funny auto-correct. I've been reading your posts long enough to know you meant no offense. Sorry to stir things up. (-;I was intentionally being familiar. I just find it amusing that folks seem to be making so much of it. :P
Although, my deployment phone's ancient and annoying autocorrect is often irksome.
I don't get ir. How could it have been construed as offensive even by mistake?
Maybe it's because of the places I've been, but saw nothing about it even remotely offensive.
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Heh. Sorry. I honestly thought it was a funny auto-correct. I've been reading your posts long enough to know you meant no offense. Sorry to stir things up. (-;I was intentionally being familiar. I just find it amusing that folks seem to be making so much of it. :P
Although, my deployment phone's ancient and annoying autocorrect is often irksome.
Oh, not worries. Like I said, I find it amusing. Besides, I'm in the final stretch and just want to go home, so these sort of things keep me sane. Plus, I take being called old fashion a compliment.
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Heh. Sorry. I honestly thought it was a funny auto-correct. I've been reading your posts long enough to know you meant no offense. Sorry to stir things up. (-;I was intentionally being familiar. I just find it amusing that folks seem to be making so much of it. :P
Although, my deployment phone's ancient and annoying autocorrect is often irksome.
I don't get ir. How could it have been construed as offensive even by mistake?
Maybe it's because of the places I've been, but saw nothing about it even remotely offensive.
Its a combination of things. She goes by "Hmm" which could easily be autocorrected to "Hun, which could be short for "honey", (dear, darling, luv) or like I was calling Hmm a Hun, (possibly with the innuendo that she is a brute or as an insult to the Huns).
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I don't get it.
One thing I get to take away from this: Hmm will now be known in my mind as Hmm The Hun. (-:
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Contributor
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Tengu drew me in to PFS play.I'm sure others with nagajii, kitsune, wayang, or aasimar/tiefling races could say the same thing.
Excluding 'game-breaking' races (or putting them in 'boon' status) keeps the proportions decent enough.
I agree.
Ryan Costello famously got me to try PFS by giving me two of his vulpine-blooded boons from several previous GenCons that he had GMed at. About a month later (after I used my first boon on my first character) the addition of kitsune, Nagaji, and wayangs happened.
I was struggling with learning the differences between organized play and home games, and was feeling pretty frustrated with the difference. The race change was a large factor in my decision to keep playing PFS, and now it's the primary way I play Pathfinder.
In the long run, I think telling people that, "Yes, you can do the thing," is more attractive to new players then, "You need to play a while and have been around when they were giving this out." I know that Blizzard's constant need to make things exclusive for their raiding elite in World of Warcraft has been a similar source of frustration for men in that game.
'Choice-shock' is not as much of a thing as one might expect after a scenario or two, and having a requirement of needing the source material does provide an incentive to acquire said source material as well as put a bit of a damper on too much of a given race.
I agree here too. I think choice shock mostly happens to people who understand the nuances of all those choices. New players are going to choose the concept that sounds coolest to them (or looks coolest, in the case of Pregens.)
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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One thing I get to take away from this: Hmm will now be known in my mind as Hmm The Hun. (-:
Well, I certainly have invaded these forums, but I haven't conquered them yet. Maybe I need to amass more followers in my barbarian horde. Tea and cookies, anyone?
(What? My barbarian horde has standards to upkeep.)
I agree here too. I think choice shock mostly happens to people who understand the nuances of all those choices. New players are going to choose the concept that sounds coolest to them (or looks coolest, in the case of Pregens.)
Back to the subject of new races, I agree with this. New players want to play something that looks cool, or that hits their own personal image of cool. For me, kitsune was a HUGE draw. The only reason that I didn't play a kitsune in PFS as my -1 is that a Pathfinder home game started up near simultaneously, and I played a kitsune there.
I love kitsune in part because I love foxes from asian folklore. They were so tricksy!
What looks cool to new players can differ widely. Both my son and his friend Gavin liked half-orcs. When you're a small boy, being a big and sturdy half-orc can be very appealing. Plus, there's a bit of monster in half-orcs still, which makes them fun. I've seen other kids gravitate to elves and half-elves because of other fantasy novels or movies. Humans are always popular.
But having kitsune be available in PFS was a big draw for me!
Hmm