I am loving the switch to ancestry and the blog posts we've seen hint at a very robust and flexible system that I am excited to play test.
They raised some questions that seem like they should start to be considered as early as possible.
1. Introducing new ancestries in to the game is going to involve sinking a lot of pages into giving these ancestries enough optional feats for characters to choose as they level up, or else they are going to feel incredibly under supported. How set is it that the bestiary is the place for introducing new ancestries? I am nervous about this being the case, because we already have 6 books of monsters to catch up on and everybody wants new monsters because new monsters are cool and we don't want to have to wait for everything that exists to get transferred before we get new stuff. My personal suggestion is for sentient playable creatures to occupy a different book than the bestiary, and then we can have bestiaries focus on the more monstrous creatures. Ancestry books could be thematically separated or jammed into one book, but should probably include a lot of NPC builds that can be quickly used to represent low, medium and high level variations of these characters that might be encountered.
2. Like many people, I am not quite sure what will fit into the background category and what will fit in the ancestry category, but I am curious about whether Adventure Paths will have specially thematically linked ancestry feats instead of campaign traits or if that would more likely fit backgrounds? I am kind of hoping it would be ancestry feats, because I think it would be really cool for APs to offer higher level versions of these feats as the campaign advances. This has been loosely done in a number of APs, but it would be awesome for this new ancestry mechanic to be woven into the way campaigns in Golarion are designed. Would it be possible for the Game Master's guide to talk about how to do this in their own campaigns?
3. Would story feats be the kind of thing that now fits more closely into ancestry feats? Will ancestry feats give static bonuses mostly? or will they, like some of the class and general feats discussed (like power attack) improve or change on their own as the character advances in level?
I probably have more, but that is already way more than three questions pretending to be three questions.
I suspect that story feats (aka campaign traits) may be background feats.
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I suspect that story feats (aka campaign traits) may be background feats.
I'm pretty sure a dev said somewhere that the Backgrounds were supposed to be a better codified and better form of Campaign traits, like every AP come with regional and story traits, but now they'll come with backgrounds related to the AP, like "Friendly regular customer at the Rusty Dragon" would be a RotR campaign Background.
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1. Where did you hear new ancestries are coming in bestiaries? I cant see that happening since monsters now have their own rules.
2. I hope APs have both new background and ancestry feats that cleave to the heart of the story.
3. I hope so. I prefer systems that change, improve, evolve as you level instead of set and forget of the past.
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Reposting this tidbit from elsewhere, since it seems relevant:
FWIW, Jason and Stephen discuss PF2 Backgrounds in this presentation, starting at 43:00. It's a good overview. Some highlights.
Building your characters is following your ABCs: Pick your Ancestry, your Background, and your Class ... You pick your Ancestry, that's where you came from, that's how you were born; you pick your Background, which is how you grew up; and then you pick your Class, which is what you've trained to be.Stephen describes Backgrounds as a more-robust system that serves about the same function as PF1 traits. "We wanted something a little more robust and mostly, that Adventure Path people could play with." The Core Rulebook will present generic Backgrounds (e.g., old barkeep, ex-slave, "all sorts of stuff") but the goal is to allow AP writers to create Backgrounds that really fit into the world of the AP (much like the AP traits from PF1).
Stephen: The Background system "affects the skills that you're good at and it also your ability scores to a certain degree."
Jason adds that your Background gives you one Lore for free, which is a highly specific Knowledge skill. He gives as examples Lore (Alcohol) and Lore (Warfare) (which Valeros has).
There is an obvious way to create feats that are available beyond 1st level but limited to characters who are physically members of a given race -- just make these feats have an appropriate Heritage feat as a prerequisite. If they do that, I hope that there is a logical connection between the feat and its Heritage feat prerequisite.
I do not think that I will enjoy these backgrounds, but I will try really hard to keep an open mind.
The ancestry stuff looks awesome, though. A little harder to homebrew with, but whatever.
Did you dislike traits?
Nope, traits are cool. Small, bite sized, little flavory things. Enough of them are generic enough that they can't feel restrictive on character concepts.
Backgrounds, on the other hand, are sounding like they'll be relatively monolithic in comparison. Big chunks of character definition. Don't get me wrong, Paizo's pretty cool. There's a good chance that they'll make something flexible and downright amazing.
But at the same time, Themeless happened. So I'll enjoy the strange feeling of optimistic pessimism, because the only thing that I know is that the glass seems to contain water. I think...
1. Where did you hear new ancestries are coming in bestiaries? I cant see that happening since monsters now have their own rules.
I suspect that a single page would be enough to provide enough ancestry feats for each race to have like 15-20. Do we know how many you will get over your career? I think it seems like 10, so 20 should be enough. So each entry that will be playable can have like 2/3rds of a page dedicated to monster stats, the last third with their base attribute bonuses, speed and other abilities, with another page for ancestry feats. Shouldn’t be too big a deal to use the bestiary and still have enough room for a good monster selection.