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Okay, I know that the playtest has not even been out for an hour, but I need to get this off my chest; I dislike the new way they have done races.
Races are now exceedingly bland, all racial abilities, besides Low-light and Dark-Vision (and that dwarven encumberance ability), are more or less bought with "Ancestry Feats", of which you gain one at first level an then 1 more every four levels (5,9,13,17).
This means, that every person in Golarion is now slowly evolving into their race, instead of starting out as one.
Now, I get that weapon familiarity and other things like that might be more connected to cultural background could be taken as feats, that seems more than fine to me, but having to choose between being trained with dwarven weaponry OR being resistant to poisons just seems a bit off to me.
I get that they have tried to make races less powerful and all that, but it just seems wrong to me, that dwarfs aren´t poison resistent unless they use "Speicies Points" to get it over all the other racial traits that they usually had.
Or that Elves aren´t naturally immune to sleep spells, they have to evolve that ability through adventuring.
Thing is, if you want a character to have the starting racial abilities from 1st Edition, you need to be level 17 to do it. And some races would still not be fully fleshed out.
Now, what I do like about the system; race means something for starting HP and some of the Ancestry Feats are cool and flavorful, I can see quite a potential in the way it is made, I just disagree with the choice to make the races bare-boned and then having to choose between illusion-sense or obsessive for my gnome characters. I´d rather have to choose between starting with a familiar or weapon-training or an expanded spell list based on my race, for example.
Anywho, I´m going back to reading.
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I think giving all races 3 racial feats at level one would make them feel a lot better and less bland.
Something like that, yes, that would make it far more fitting.
I'm working on getting my download now, but can anyone post the Half-Orc feat that humans take. I want to see what the options are. Thanks.
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I agree. I found it very strange that the common traits associated with the races needed to be gained. It doesn't make sense for a, let's say, Dwarf to not be Hardy or not have stone cunning for most of his life before adventuring and then all of a sudden be like "Hey I can shake off toxins and did you ever notice that stone wall over there has a trap in it? Weird..."
It would make more sense for most of those traits to be included in the race and have the feats enhance them or change them in certain ways.
The half-orc options are training in Intimidation, low-light vision, Orcish language, and +2 hit points.
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I think it might be appropriate to go with two ancestry feats instead of one for all characters, and I would justify it by saying that nearly everyone has two parents, and both of them matter.
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Yeah, I think 2 ancestry feats at first level would make the ancestries feel more fleshed out. Right now, the ancestries all feel pretty generic and not fantastic (in the Fantasy fiction/genre sense) at all.
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I'm guessing that ALL feats that are "genetic" to a race should be included by default and traits that are culturally trained can be picked one.
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I'm guessing that ALL feats that are "genetic" to a race should be included by default and traits that are culturally trained can be picked one.
This is more or less what I am going for, I do not feel that it is right, that leveling is what enables you to evolve into a dwarf, from being a tough, but slow human being.
I Love the Ancestry system, I'm imagining a world where subraces are just rolled into ancestry feat. But ya, maybe a 2nd ancestry at first level would be nice.
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Also -- Was it intentional not to grant any general feat at 1st level? As things stand now, only humans can get a general feat then by spending their ancestry feat to do so.
In addition, there exist 1st level half-elf and/or half-orc ancestry feats, even though there is no way for a half-elf or half-orc to access them at that level (as they already spent their 1st level ancestry feat to become a half-elf or half-orc).
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I'm guessing that ALL feats that are "genetic" to a race should be included by default and traits that are culturally trained can be picked one.This is more or less what I am going for, I do not feel that it is right, that leveling is what enables you to evolve into a dwarf, from being a tough, but slow human being.
also racial feats should be improvement of your racial abilities:
I.E. elven Weapon elegance is a nice racial feat as it works on elven general proficiency in swords and bows.
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I agree. More "genetic" elements should be natural traits. And give way to more interisting ancentry feats. Right now some feats are just ok in level 1 and trivial at level 5. Besides it feels "video gamey" as some things suddenly grow into you.
For a GM Describing societies becomes harder as you don't know anymore the general characteristics of them and they end up being the same as humans and the special flavor that could make a Dwarven town be next to a poisonus river possible but harsh now is just not feasible.
I dislike also that small characters are just about the same as medium characters. No bonuses, no penalties. It makes size pointless when it used to be an interisting element. Less Damage VS better AC and some skill bonuses.
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The races certainly don't seem balanced at low levels at all. Races get pretty much NOTHING except their 1 ancestry feat, and most of them are really weak anyways thay they might as well be for free like PF1. The Human feats are way better than most of the Ancestry feats (except the amazing Gnome feats).
Since there is a huge opportunity cost to most ancestry abilities, this is gonna lead to cherry picking really hard and some abilities will never be seen. Don't expect to see an Elf EVER get Sleep Immunity until like lv17 despite it being one of their more iconics abilities since forever with strong impact on Elven culture.
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This is a rant. You've been warned.
More ancestry feats at lvl 1 is great and all, but what do humans get? Three? Four? We don't get extra skill points anymore, and you are capped to one extra language regardless of having 12 or 18 int (really? F+@$ you). Humans are ridiculously weak in this edition, whereas in 1ed they had their strenght being generalists (Or using focused study. Or learning two languages per point spent in linguistics). Oh hey, you want to know more lanugages? Pay up A F%$!ING FEAT. No f+#%ing way am I wasting a feat to know more languages. Gods, why did Paizo make everything into feats in this edition? I know I write angry words, because this actually makes me agitated. And I just noticed the size thing, mentioned above, it pointless!
I want to play 2ed, because I like some of the changes they did alchemists (my fav class), like giving us access to other elemental type damages via formulas like acid and bottled lightning, but I hate what they have done with mutagens, bomb damage, and so much more. It sucks. And this annoys me, because I'm desperate for a high level adventure. I never got to use stronger mutagens in 1ed because we never got to lvl 12 (where you can get greater mutagen) and then you can upgrade four levels later (16) to Grand Mutagen. I want to see the return of the old mutagen, when it was easily understood, without any onset time, and just have fun throwing bombs all over the place like I'm frigging Megumin or some other explosion based character, and make rainbow explosions (one of every single type of bomb, anybody?). Maybe spend my downtime being a doctor, helping the sick and poor for very little personal gain, just because I can.
I liked the Linguistics skill. I never had a character who couldn't afford a couple skill points to pick up some languages.
Maybe each rank of TEML in Society could give a language known. Then if you want more beyond that use a feat.