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I want ancestry feats to add breadth, without being combat power enhancers.
My worry is that as soon as you make an Elven ancestry feat that enhances your archery, suddenly 90% of archer builds become elves.
Ancestry feats that enhance saving throws sound good, or that give you fun new abilities. But please no power enhancers, that is bound to become min-max bait. Rather, things that enhance the breadth of abilities without increasing the strength of combat abilities are better.
Ancestry is such a core component of a character's fiber that I don't want to see the choice to be heavily influenced by mechanics. Some mechanical considerations are inevitable, but I don't want anyone to feel kneecapped in combat because they just really envisioned their character as a human, so chose human even though dwarf was the optimal choice for that build.
Most of all, I don't want to see a sudden surge in oddball races as more books come out because their ancestry feats are unbalanced.
Stuff like Gnome Magic is great. I had a PC completely surprise me last session by speaking to a mule, and it was awesome. That sort of fun ability that gives a unique twist to a character, rather than enhancing their combat prowess, is what I'd love to see in ancestry feats.
I want ancestry feats to add breadth, without being combat power enhancers.
My worry is that as soon as you make an Elven ancestry feat that enhances your archery, suddenly 90% of archer builds become elves.
I agree. Indeed, I don't like being shoehorned. If it's going to increase combat power, then Ancestries should hopefully have options. I don't want to be limited to being an archer as an Elf. Why can't my inhuman grace and speed work just as well for unarmed combat, or deft swordplay?
Stuff like Gnome Magic is great. I had a PC completely surprise me last session by speaking to a mule, and it was awesome. That sort of fun ability that gives a unique twist to a character, rather than enhancing their combat prowess, is what I'd love to see in ancestry feats.
Yes! More of this! One of the abilities I love in The One Ring is "The Speakers," which allow the Wood-elves to speak to almost anything: animals, plants, rocks, rivers, etc. That sort of stuff is flavorful, can be useful without being a combat ability, and really adds to the fantasy of the game.
It would be nice to see nature themed ancestor/race options for elves.
I would love for Oreads to gain immunity to petrification.
Gaining spell powers, psychic abilities, and supernatural powers based ancestry would be interesting.
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One of my concerns is that if Ancestries are super crunchy in terms of a bunch of meaty options to take for ancestry feats, it's going to be difficult to reproduce all of PF1s races. Certainly we were never in danger of getting the "Blood of the Sea" races in the PF2 CRB, but it would be nice to have them sooner or later.
I mean, "Super Friendly Octopus Lady" is my jam.
I just hope that ther'll be a small section in the GM's side of the book on how to make your own Ancestries. Galorian specific Ancestries will be of little use to those of us who have campaigns set in Midgard, or the Lost Lands (just to name a few),
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I think I'm gonna call it "Heritage" in my games...
Anyway.
What I do want:
Variation, not just between species, but between cultures.
Options for culturally cosmopolitan upbringings.
What I don't want:
Ways to rip off biology- Let's say you're a human raised by Dwarves.... you might get a Con bonus for all those hours of work, but you shouldn;t have actual Darkvision.
Cultural lockouts.
Monocultures.
I just hope that ther'll be a small section in the GM's side of the book on how to make your own Ancestries. Galorian specific Ancestries will be of little use to those of us who have campaigns set in Midgard, or the Lost Lands (just to name a few),
Replace ancestries with races. Are you still sure of that?
I think I'm gonna call it "Heritage" in my games...
Anyway.
What I do want:
Variation, not just between species, but between cultures.
Options for culturally cosmopolitan upbringings.What I don't want:
Ways to rip off biology- Let's say you're a human raised by Dwarves.... you might get a Con bonus for all those hours of work, but you shouldn;t have actual Darkvision.
Cultural lockouts.
Monocultures.
They already use Heritage for sub-ancestries, as it were.
Well, Monday's blog is all about Goblins, so maybe we'll learn more about ancestries then. (Since they haven't done a general ancestries blog idk what to expect from a Goblin blog.)
Oh wait where did they say that?
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Well, Monday's blog is all about Goblins, so maybe we'll learn more about ancestries then. (Since they haven't done a general ancestries blog idk what to expect from a Goblin blog.)Oh wait where did they say that?
Jason mentioned it in this Friday evening presentation.
Personally i think it would be cool if we dropped stat penalties related to race.
Personally i think it would be cool if we dropped stat penalties related to race.
I kind of like them. They're currently the only way to be below average at something in Starfinder without going out of your way to do so.
That said, I understand that my opinion there is a bit odd. I could babble about it lending weight to choices or some other b!@*!@&!, but I just like mucking about with a quite Shirren operative.GOOD NIGHT, FRIENDS!
I would really hope that ancestry is used as an opportunity for races to get varying ability scores arrangemnents like the planetouched and dhampirs presently do in P1e. Having a stat line tied to life experiences/upbringing/personal training is a more realistic and much stronger way to build a character narratively and tie it together mechanically as well. That way, we could have base stats for an elf usually having low con but high dex and int, but maybe there is a group of elves out there that are more physically powerful and thus get a bonus to con or strength.
I’d hope ancestries give opporunities for stripping race choice from optimal character creation, since that is probably one of the most annoying parts of P1e’s race system as of the moment.
I think they need to be careful with different types of ancestries having different stat adjustments. Sure you may open up some races to classes that were more restrictive in PF1, but now every dorf bard will be x type dorf because of the benefit.
Rather than never having a dwarf bard because the stat restriction is too punishing? I’d prefer the alternative.
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I like the suggestion Fuzzypaws had about flexible racial stats. Dwarfs can choose either -2 Cha or -2 Dex, for example.
That way you allow people the freedom to play a dwarf bard without being kneecapped, and also without forcing them to all say "I am a dwarf from the Fog's Peak clan, surely the best-loved and least-nimble dwarf tribe on Golarion!"
Rather than never having a dwarf bard because the stat restriction is too punishing? I’d prefer the alternative.
You can avoid this in other ways like eliminating gonzo ability stat increases.
I like the suggestion someone had about flexible racial stats. Dwarfs can choose either -2 Cha or -2 Dex, for example.
That way you allow people the freedom to play a dwarf bard without being kneecapped, and also without forcing them to all say "I am a dwarf from the Fog's Peak clan, surely the best-loved and least-nimble dwarf tribe on Golarion!"
Definitely like this idea.
You can avoid this in other ways like eliminating gonzo ability stat increases.
You might need to elaborate because I’m not sure what you mean.
"I am a dwarf from the Fog's Peak clan, surely the best-loved and least-nimble dwarf tribe on Golarion!"
...
I think that I may have to say that anyways. It entertains me.
It would be nice to see examples of what these feats can(and can't) grant you so we know what to ask for.
I think they need to be careful with different types of ancestries having different stat adjustments. Sure you may open up some races to classes that were more restrictive in PF1, but now every dorf bard will be x type dorf because of the benefit.
Didn't we have this in PF1 already with various flavors of aasimar, tieflings, and changelings overwhelmingly flocking to certain professions? A whole lot of Peri-Blooded became Arcanists, Qlippoth-Spawn are ironically well suited to the monastic life, and Waker Mays who don't want to end up like mom are encouraged to seek out Paladinhood.
I don't know if there's a problem with an in-universe explanation of "Dwarfs from [this place] have a strong and proud storytelling and artistic tradition. So most of the great dwarf bards come from there." Seems like that's an entirely plausible thing to happen.
I think they need to be careful with different types of ancestries having different stat adjustments. Sure you may open up some races to classes that were more restrictive in PF1, but now every dorf bard will be x type dorf because of the benefit.Didn't we have this in PF1 already with various flavors of aasimar, tieflings, and changelings overwhelmingly flocking to certain professions? A whole lot of Peri-Blooded became Arcanists, Qlippoth-Spawn are ironically well suited to the monastic life, and Waker Mays who don't want to end up like mom are encouraged to seek out Paladinhood.
I don't know if there's a problem with an in-universe explanation of "Dwarfs from [this place] have a strong and proud storytelling and artistic tradition. So most of the great dwarf bards come from there." Seems like that's an entirely plausible thing to happen.
From where im sitting its splitting hairs between dorfs cant be bards and only this type of dorf can be a bard. YMMV
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Relevant information from the Goblin Blog:
In addition to the story behind the goblin, its ancestry entry has a lot of other information as well to help you make a goblin player character. It includes the base goblin ability boosts (Dexterity and Charisma), ability flaw (Wisdom), bonus Hit Points (6), base speed (25 feet), and starting languages (Common and Goblin), as well as the rules for darkvision (an ability that lets goblins see in the dark just as well as they can see in normal light). Those are just the basics—the rules shared by all goblins. Beyond that, your goblin's unique ancestry allows you to choose one ability score other than Dexterity or Charisma to receive a boost. Perhaps you have some hobgoblin blood and have an additional boost to Constitution, or you descend from a long line of goblin alchemists and have a boost to Intelligence. You could even gain a boost in Wisdom to negate your flaw!
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I’m super excited about this. Mostly because A) I like more stats overall, and B) this comes pretty close to what I already hoped would happen. Options to enable more characters in different classes.
I’m not adverse to penalties in a system where ability score increases are significantly more abundant, that is for certain. This also gives me a LOT of hope for monks being far more playable compared to past editions.
I think I am ready to predict the ability score adjustments for the other small races.
I suspect that they will each get a bonus to a different mental score, which means a change for each of the two existing races. So I would suggest intelligence for gnomes and wisdom for halflings.
Each race will probably keep its physical bonuses.
Now we have the question of which ability score gets penalized.
If gnomes have bonuses to constitution and intelligence, then they are already far enough from goblins that they can share their penalty to wisdom.
But I cannot see halflings having penalties to any ability score other than strength -- but that is now a unique flaw for halflings rather than a common flaw for Small races. Certainly they should not have penalties to constitution or charisma. I could almost see a penalty to intelligence because they are not often associated with the classes that use that ability score, but that doesn't seem quite right to me.
So that would give us the following:
Goblin: + to Dex and Cha, - to Wis
Gnome: + to Con and Int, - to Wis
Halfling: + to Dex and Wis, - to Str