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Arguably Drizzt is why rangers got dual-wielding in AD&D2e. 1e rangers were more based on Aragorn. Rangers were one of the classes that got a major rework from 1e to 2e and it was actually a huge power step down. I actually had friends refer to all 2e rangers disdainfully as "Drizzt clones" because it seems like the class was redone for the specific purpose to make it easier to play Drizzt. Of course, 1e rangers were a little OP - use all armor and weapons, 2d8 hp at level 1, add level to damage against a bunch of common enemies, druid and magic-user spells at higher levels.

Midnight Anarch |
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Ok, let's change the subject. I notice that the goalposts have been shifted from "playing clones" to "playing a 'last of' concept." So let's shift right along with them.
There's no staple "last of/only one of" approach with goblins in the Drizzt Do'Urden fashion, but they will come with the repeated, groaning cringe of players who watch the branding of Paizo's 1E goblins evaporate as the new edition officiates them into an all too routine and bothersome model that no one really asked for.

MMCJawa |

I am not sure I think playable drow/drizzt clones are a good analogy for goblins.
One...there is no singular iconic Pathfinder goblin with a huge fanbase to build the same character around. People will be much more likely to come up with different takes.
Two...Drizz't clones tend to be angsty emo style rebels from decadence, anti drow as it were. I don't see people really playing goblins that way.
My guess is that the people who gravitate towards goblins are the people who like zany characters. There going to be playing pretty typical goblins, sans the eating people. Granted, if played wrong that could be annoying, but probably no more annoying than the hyper-manic gnome or the drunk Scottish dwarf.

Malachandra |

You say this forum is all about protecting the identity of goblins and they're ability to play the "singular member" staple, but it keeps coming back to how people don't like Drizzt characters. I am unconvinced that this topic is not "No goblins please because then people will play Drizzt and I don't want them to".
I don't believe that will be a problem. But if it is, I firmly believe people should be allowed to play their character. There are exceptions to this, of course, but having too many people at the table excited about the same concept isn't one of them.

Gip |

Wheldrake wrote:I doubt that the PF goblin phenomenon will come even close. And I'm sure we'll be seeing some clever "reasons" put forward very, very soon, for the gobbos to become "all that they can be."Debatible. Though with the popularity of "We be Goblins" being a point of arguments by those on the, ugh, pro goblins side(bloody hell there's a term I didn't think I'd have to write, same with anti goblin), I do question how many players old and new will straight up continue to play them as if it was a goblin module/campaign.
Gip do that all the time. Only complaint in three years? Gip burned captain's journal and map. Less complaining when Gip take baby ship and work hard to get it hatch and grow. Then Gip go exploring with longshank friends one day. Come back and find monkeys had attacked. Monkey's killed Gip's baby.
No monkeys in Core!

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You say this forum is all about protecting the identity of goblins and they're ability to play the "singular member" staple, but it keeps coming back to how people don't like Drizzt characters. I am unconvinced that this topic is not "No goblins please because then people will play Drizzt and I don't want them to".
I don't believe that will be a problem. But if it is, I firmly believe people should be allowed to play their character. There are exceptions to this, of course, but having too many people at the table excited about the same concept isn't one of them.
I must admit, now I kind of want to make a CG goblin ranger who dual wields scimitars and has a pet cat. Possibly named Durzt or something.

MerlinCross |
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MerlinCross wrote:Wheldrake wrote:I doubt that the PF goblin phenomenon will come even close. And I'm sure we'll be seeing some clever "reasons" put forward very, very soon, for the gobbos to become "all that they can be."Debatible. Though with the popularity of "We be Goblins" being a point of arguments by those on the, ugh, pro goblins side(bloody hell there's a term I didn't think I'd have to write, same with anti goblin), I do question how many players old and new will straight up continue to play them as if it was a goblin module/campaign.Gip do that all the time. Only complaint in three years? Gip burned captain's journal and map. Less complaining when Gip take baby ship and work hard to get it hatch and grow. Then Gip go exploring with longshank friends one day. Come back and find monkeys had attacked. Monkey's killed Gip's baby.
No monkeys in Core!
Baby ship?
Side note, going to find all the goblin talk in game now kinda annoying. Much like this one Elf player that always goes Shakespear on us or the 40k guy that won't drop the Ork accent when playing.

TheFinish |
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Gip wrote:MerlinCross wrote:Wheldrake wrote:I doubt that the PF goblin phenomenon will come even close. And I'm sure we'll be seeing some clever "reasons" put forward very, very soon, for the gobbos to become "all that they can be."Debatible. Though with the popularity of "We be Goblins" being a point of arguments by those on the, ugh, pro goblins side(bloody hell there's a term I didn't think I'd have to write, same with anti goblin), I do question how many players old and new will straight up continue to play them as if it was a goblin module/campaign.Gip do that all the time. Only complaint in three years? Gip burned captain's journal and map. Less complaining when Gip take baby ship and work hard to get it hatch and grow. Then Gip go exploring with longshank friends one day. Come back and find monkeys had attacked. Monkey's killed Gip's baby.
No monkeys in Core!
Baby ship?
Side note, going to find all the goblin talk in game now kinda annoying. Much like this one Elf player that always goes Shakespear on us or the 40k guy that won't drop the Ork accent when playing.
Man, I feel you on that last one. Especially because most people can't do it well to begin with. Much easier to do in writing.

PossibleCabbage |
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What if "Goblins who are trying to make good" aren't particularly rare?
Like if many Golarion Metropolises have developed an underclass of goblins that do the dirty jobs cheaper than anybody else has been willing to do them, and they keep their mischief contained so as to not endanger anything that anybody important cares about, and the odd goblin here or there is driven to pursue something greater in life. Same impulse that makes certain goblins become leaders in goblin tribes, but channeled in a more socially acceptable direction.
I don't think that the books Paizo has printed have really done a lot to talk about the underclasses in various cities, but invariably they exist (somebody has to clear out the midden pile). So if there's a bunch of goblins there and have been for a while, I don't think we would have had to have hear about it.

graystone |
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You say this forum is all about protecting the identity of goblins and they're ability to play the "singular member" staple, but it keeps coming back to how people don't like Drizzt characters.
Was this to me? If so, Drizzt is just the poster child IMO. I actually like the goblin concept much better.
I am unconvinced that this topic is not "No goblins please because then people will play Drizzt and I don't want them to".
I don't think it's even possible to play a Drizzt as a goblin [he's missing a few feet in height] ;) Seriously though, it's more about the type of trend that any actual build. IMO some of the charm of playing a goblin is in their being unusual as a PC. This is the link back to Drizzt as the fun of playing a drow was the same [being a cool outsider bucking the system]. So for me, it was never about any particular build, just the race and it's rareness/uniqueness that gets lost when they become common.
I don't believe that will be a problem. But if it is, I firmly believe people should be allowed to play their character. There are exceptions to this, of course, but having too many people at the table excited about the same concept isn't one of them.
For me, when you remove the niche of [rare/unique], it leaves goblins in a tight situation. How do you portray them? If it's a shift in the entire race, what's the new normal now? Goblins clearly aren't like they used to be so what do you keep and what do you toss? What plausible reason can you have for the change?
PS: And I don't think "too many people" built at one table would be an issue if made together. A tribe, family, cult, ect of odd goblins doing their own thing is an easy solution to wanting to be unique. I was more thinking of the random bar, street, market encounter where you keep meeting that "same concept".
PPS: I play online and often see the 'you meet in a bar' or something close encounter to meet a group of people that have independently make characters. So it's a bit different than the home group that sits down and makes a group together: a group of good goblins that have history together makes a WHOLE lot more sense than a bunch randomly picking the same bar to drink in. ;)

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Baby ship?.
He found a ship in a bottle on a wreck and took it back, planning to grow his ship and get everyone off the island. He knew most things that lived in water laid eggs, and those eggs were see-through, so it made sense to him that ship eggs were see-through.
Despite my preference for having Gip talk like that(even in the case with this ship, where he had an Intelligence of 18 but no actual education) I assure you not all of the Gip's I have played talk like that. The Wizard Gip(named Gringoire Ibon Partell Harpell to hide it) is quite eloquent.

WhiteMagus2000 |

Temporarily locking this so we can get a handle on the flags
Flags? Plural? Is it common these days to flag people who offend you (disagree with you)? I've never flagged anyone, maybe I'm missing out. JK
I guess hero copying has always been a part of PF, from dual weilding rangers to vigilantes that copy Batman, Spiderman, the hulk, hawkman, and even sailor friggin moon (my wife laughed at that one). It'll probably be alright, I just don't want swarms of goblins in my towns.

Steve Geddes |
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Sara Marie wrote:Temporarily locking this so we can get a handle on the flagsFlags? Plural? Is it common these days to flag people who offend you (disagree with you)?
I’ve been flagging posts on both sides of the goblin debate. It doesn’t have anything to do with disagreement, nor offence.
I like hearing people’s thoughts on why they like the inclusion or are opposed to it. There’s no place for them to aggressively “analyse” posts from the other side though (especially when that analysis descends into inferring someone else’s motive).

graystone |
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WhiteMagus2000 wrote:I’ve been flagging posts on both sides of the goblin debate. It doesn’t have anything to do with disagreement, nor offence.Sara Marie wrote:Temporarily locking this so we can get a handle on the flagsFlags? Plural? Is it common these days to flag people who offend you (disagree with you)?
It's quite rare for me, but i too have flagged a few in the last couple of days. For me, it was not a matter of disagreement but one of people, being what seemed to me, intentionally insulting. I let a lot slide as it's always hard to read tone and easy to misinterpret someone else online but some have been constantly questionable so I flag them. Since they had to close EVERY goblin thread is seems like I wasn't the only one that felt that way.

ENHenry |
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PF2's goblins are the newest incarnation of Drizzt Do'Urdens at the table. You know what I'm talking about here.
It's not so much that goblins-as-core may give license to gray-area players, which is a minor but real consideration. It's that Paizo is ruining the lore and core appeal that made Pathfinder goblins attractive to players in the first place. And just like stupid drow, they did it to tap into some "mass marketing" appeal of them as a playable race.
Seems like a bad idea that Paizo, for some reason, positively adores.
My horrible realization is that Goblins might split the community more than the subjects of a totally different action economy, BAB/skill progression, and Resonance COMBINED. ;-)

MerlinCross |
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MerlinCross wrote:Indeed! Thus making Goblins a perfect core race for adventurers. I for one welcome anyone with such great adventuring potential.ENHenry wrote:Fun fact, a group of PCs is also referred to as a Murder — for good reason. :-)The perferred term is Murderhobos.
If by "adventure potential" you mean the risk of losing any NPC that crosses the group's path then by all means.
I will admit, murderhobo does whatever they want regardless of race played. Though in my experience it's the same handful picked again and again.

PossibleCabbage |
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Goblins already were a playable race in PF 1. With GM permission. Now in PF 2 they are forced on us. It's a play style that can be fun for a one-off, or at some tables, but should not become the standard. Goblin players do not suit all GMs, so it should remain optional, not mandatory.
Gnomes were a core race in PF1. Didn't stop anybody from banning them (outside of a setting where the GM does not set the rules.)
It would be a mistake to assume "it's going to be a problem" before it becomes a problem, since the problem is inherently fixable.

Diego Valdez Customer Service Representative |
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If you have issues with the moderation of the thread you will want to send an email to community@paizo.com.

Murderhobo-in-chief |

Murderhobo-in-chief wrote:MerlinCross wrote:Indeed! Thus making Goblins a perfect core race for adventurers. I for one welcome anyone with such great adventuring potential.ENHenry wrote:Fun fact, a group of PCs is also referred to as a Murder — for good reason. :-)The perferred term is Murderhobos.If by "adventure potential" you mean the risk of losing any NPC that crosses the group's path then by all means.
I will admit, murderhobo does whatever they want regardless of race played. Though in my experience it's the same handful picked again and again.
By "adventurer potential", I mean the willingness to be pointed in a direction and make the contractually obligated corpses. The courage to loot everything that's not nailed down and then pry out the nails and take the rest! And the determination to light everything that cannot be looted on fire. You know adventurer stuff. Luckily, Goblins seem like tailor made adventurers.

MerlinCross |

MerlinCross wrote:By "adventurer potential", I mean the willingness to be pointed in a direction and make the contractually obligated corpses. The courage to loot everything that's not nailed down and then pry out the nails and take the rest! And the determination to light everything that cannot be looted on fire. You know adventurer stuff. Luckily, Goblins seem like tailor made adventurers.Murderhobo-in-chief wrote:MerlinCross wrote:Indeed! Thus making Goblins a perfect core race for adventurers. I for one welcome anyone with such great adventuring potential.ENHenry wrote:Fun fact, a group of PCs is also referred to as a Murder — for good reason. :-)The perferred term is Murderhobos.If by "adventure potential" you mean the risk of losing any NPC that crosses the group's path then by all means.
I will admit, murderhobo does whatever they want regardless of race played. Though in my experience it's the same handful picked again and again.
I'll admit there's nothing wrong with that play style if that's actually what you want. But my own players gained an ally, extra loot, not cursed, and haven't been ambushed due to not charging ahead.
Counter point will be "Goblins can also do that" and we've just spun our wheels here.

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I've never read a Drizzt book, or read a Drizzt comic. Everything I know about him I picked up through osmosis. From what I gather "he's a good aligned drow who is an angsty loner who is a ranger that dual-wields scimitars and he wins all the time because he is the protagonist in a series of fantasy novels."
Does that pretty much sum it up? None of that really seems more objectionable than "par for the course".
That does sum it up.
The first drow books about him growing up were actually pretty good. The problem with Drizzt for me was how against the rules he was designed. With his lowly stats any 2nd edition D&D fighter of a comparable level would wipe the floor with him. Therefore they had to create " the Drizzt rules" such as he crits when he hits a target by five or more against the AC value. He is dual classed fighter/ranger even though that is impossible for non-humans in the core rules and impossible for humans in the core rules because you could not dual class a class with another member of that sub class. So no fighter/paladins, rogue/bards, cleric/druids, etc. Plus he got WAAAY to emo over time

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In the later books he was statted out as Fighter 10/Barbarian 1/Ranger 4. He had Ambidexterity as a feat so it was still 3.0.
If you were going by the books though he'd need at least one level of wizard since he did learn spells while in Menzoberranzan. This is ignoring the ritual he performed to summon a balor too...

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PossibleCabbage wrote:I've never read a Drizzt book, or read a Drizzt comic. Everything I know about him I picked up through osmosis. From what I gather "he's a good aligned drow who is an angsty loner who is a ranger that dual-wields scimitars and he wins all the time because he is the protagonist in a series of fantasy novels."
Does that pretty much sum it up? None of that really seems more objectionable than "par for the course".
That does sum it up.
The first drow books about him growing up were actually pretty good. The problem with Drizzt for me was how against the rules he was designed. With his lowly stats any 2nd edition D&D fighter of a comparable level would wipe the floor with him. Therefore they had to create " the Drizzt rules" such as he crits when he hits a target by five or more against the AC value. He is dual classed fighter/ranger even though that is impossible for non-humans in the core rules and impossible for humans in the core rules because you could not dual class a class with another member of that sub class. So no fighter/paladins, rogue/bards, cleric/druids, etc. Plus he got WAAAY to emo over time
There's always been an issue with gameplay and story not quite following the same rules when reading books based on a game system. Even going back to the original Dragonlance trilogy there were things in the story that didn't make mechanical sense when you tried to apply 1e AD&D rules to it. (spoiler for Dragons of Spring Dawning)
It's just always been true that an author isn't going to let the game rules get in the way of the story they want to tell.

Sam Phelan Customer Service Representative |
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Removed some posts and replies to those posts. Dismantling a person's argument by attacking their character or intelligence is unacceptable. The aggressive tone of some responses is also not acceptable. If a debate is going down this path, please steer it away and don't perpetuate it. Otherwise, please keep the good humor and enjoy engaging with the community.