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I really like the Ancestry Feat concept. Being able to flesh out your Ancestry benefits over time is a cool mechanic.
However, I also see a fatal flaw related to that.
At level 1, all Ancestries feel extremely bland to me - you are essentially just a package of HP, movement speed, and vision type, lacking things that, according to setting lore, all members of an Ancestry should have (e.g. sleep immunity for Elves). The idea of building up on your Ancestry with Feats ultimately falls flat in my opinion if you build up on a blank slate instead of something that is interesting from the get-go.
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I agree. I dont understand why half orcs have to wait to get to 5th level before they can get darkvision. Would being able to add 2 ancestor feats at 1st level help?
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I think ancestry should be a beefy level 1 package and that is it. Let background be something that evolves with the character. Either way, right now it feels like ancestry is just a trait.
I think a middleground could be fun. Imagine if you started out as, say, more or less PF1e elf, but, over time, got to build up on that basis to become even elfier. You could maybe get even new fancy ways to use a longbow (after all, elves are famed archers), or open up some unique magic-related feats or even elf-exclusive spells. That would make ancestry a much more exciting part of the game.
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I think ancestry should be a beefy level 1 package and that is it. Let background be something that evolves with the character. Either way, right now it feels like ancestry is just a trait.I think a middleground could be fun. Imagine if you started out as, say, more or less PF1e elf, but, over time, got to build up on that basis to become even elfier. You could maybe get even new fancy ways to use a longbow (after all, elves are famed archers), or open up some unique magic-related feats or even elf-exclusive spells. That would make ancestry a much more exciting part of the game.
Sadly enough, that was what the dev said the Ancestry feats would be, which made me at least a little bit excited for PF2. Turns out, they weren't right
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The "Ancestry" system (I kinda hate the word, dunno if it is me being a grognard and prefering Races, but hell that´s a whole other bugbear to shave.) is really an gem in the rough.
While they have taken the various races and made them into bland, uninteresting choices of wheather you want a +5 movement speed or +2 health on top of a static stat increase and small penalty, you get to evolve into an actual elf... over the next 17 levels.
If they had just started us out with an actual dwarf, gnome or elf to begin with, and then given us interesting cultural and/or special racial abilities (Expanded spell-lists, special combat stances, super-humanly good sigth/hearing/smelling) then I would have been clapping my hands and praising the "Heritage Feat" system to the heavens, and then left for some other thing to nit-pick over or tear apart for being non-sensical.
As I said, a gem in the rough, with some actual great potential for customizing your characters heritage and implementing things like gnomish tieflings and goblin aasimars down the road. If they cut the gem right.
Agreed with everything here. There's already a lot of amazing Race-only feats in PF1. Those should be the Ancestry Feats and the base abilities should remain being base.
Hell, some PF1 races are kinda bloated with optional racials anyways. Put some of those as Heritage feats, at least the ones that are situational (Elf Spell Penetration for example). But the generic, sacred cow abilities gotta stay mandatory for now.
I think it would be interested if we tried dissecting a PF1 Race to show how they would ideally be in PF2 (Which abilities are auto, which are feats). Maybe I'll make a thread on that or something.
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The "Ancestry" system (I kinda hate the word, dunno if it is me being a grognard and prefering Races, but hell that´s a whole other bugbear to shave.) is really an gem in the rough.
While they have taken the various races and made them into bland, uninteresting choices of wheather you want a +5 movement speed or +2 health on top of a static stat increase and small penalty, you get to evolve into an actual elf... over the next 17 levels.If they had just started us out with an actual dwarf, gnome or elf to begin with, and then given us interesting cultural and/or special racial abilities (Expanded spell-lists, special combat stances, super-humanly good sigth/hearing/smelling) then I would have been clapping my hands and praising the "Heritage Feat" system to the heavens, and then left for some other thing to nit-pick over or tear apart for being non-sensical.
As I said, a gem in the rough, with some actual great potential for customizing your characters heritage and implementing things like gnomish tieflings and goblin aasimars down the road. If they cut the gem right.
I wholeheartedly second this. Reading through it today I definitely felt like many of the ancestries were too watered-down at 1st level and that the feats often did little to excite me. But it's early on, so there's still plenty of time to test out thing and tweak them.
I'm almost wondering if either granting more ancestry feats at 1st level would be a good idea or if baking-in more racial traits would be more straight-forward. I'm toying with the idea of 1st level having 2 Ancestry feats, 1 Class feat, and 1 "Anything" feat.
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Ancestries were a disappointment to me. Before realising how it actually worked, I thought we were getting the same amount of stuff we did at level 1 in 1ed + various ancestry options as we level up. I thought the idea was to give out abilities like the great racial feats of 1ed for free, like Orc Hewer, Mage of the Wilds, Effortless Trickery etc. instead of having to pick them from your regular feat selection, I was stoked.
But no, you get minimal physiological traits from your ancestry and then ONE ancestry feat at 1st level. The idea of getting ancestry-related abilities for free as we level up and not just at 1st level is great, however it becomes completely void if we don't get the normal racial abilities we got at 1st level in 1ed.
I mean, elves don't get their most iconic feature, Keen Senses.
"What do your elf-eyes see, Legolas?"
Absolutely nothing.
What they do get is not passive and its just about hearing.
On top of that, this system destroys the late great Racial Points system from Advanced Race Guide, where you could add a ton of little quirky and flavourful options at 1st level. I wonder if they want to evolve Pathfinder, which has become its own game and not just another D&D clone, why are they throwing original Pathfinder innovations like this out the window?
Designers keep blaring about design space, and even though they have expanded it by, let's say, three steps with getting Ancestry Feats during your adventuring career, they have also sent it six steps backwards with how little we get at 1st level.
I'm quite sure this is another decision to make the game more streamlined for new players by giving them fewer options to begin with, giving them more options in a slower pace with time, and also to set back power creep.
Well, if those are really the reasons... I don't really care about these two aspects, not to be selfish, but is no great help putting in place mechanics like this in order to bring new players in if they also don't appeal to veterans.
This is not the game that appealed to me in the past, I like a lot of options from the get-go, I like how powerful, and grand, and heroic, and full of tiny quirks Pathfinder characters are.
I think that the Ancestries need some work, as well.
What I am unsure of, though, is whether the bare-bones nature is a deliberate choice of the playtest (to reduce the variation from a starting character's "race"). If the ancestries are something that will be expanded (such as by giving more than a single Ancestry feat at 1st level and additional, higher-level Ancestry feats) before the actual PF2 release, there does seem to be a lot of potential here.
That might be something for a more targeted playtest, though.
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Crumbs to this whole thread. I love the idea of using the cool racial feats or alternate race traits from PF1e as the Ancestral feats. I love the idea of starting out as "any elf" and becoming a Paragon of Elvishness during your adventuring career.
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Crumbs to this whole thread. I love the idea of using the cool racial feats or alternate race traits from PF1e as the Ancestral feats. I love the idea of starting out as "any elf" and becoming a Paragon of Elvishness during your adventuring career.
Please don't misunderstand. We all love the idea of Heritage feats and being the "elfiest" elf you can be. The issue is execution.
Your entire race is locked behind feats. Many of which you wouldn't take because they're either useless or don't do the one thing you want them to do.
Long-term the races need to have minor, nebulas abilities that open the door to one or more feats that make your character, their style, and so forth more unique.
So far, that's my take. Races need more qualities that define them as a separate race and then heritage feats that really pop. I mean, you get one at 1st and not another until 5th. If these feats are the baseline we can expect for future designs, then we already have a big problem.
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To tell the truth I wish they'd use the Half-Elf/Orc as a starting point for all of the Ancestries. The core concept that they used there is a good starting point. Say something like this.
Hill Dwarf- One of the more common Dwarven cultures for non dwarves to meet. At level One you have the choice of any three of the fallowing Ancestry feats: Ancestral Hatred, Ancient's Blood, Hardy, Mountain Roots, Stone Cutting, or Weapon Familiarity (Dwarf)
Other Dwarven sub-types would start with a different flavor text, and options for Ancestry feats. If an Ancestry justifies a strong feat, then an additional Flaw, or drawback could be added. This is only an example. But I think it may be more interesting, and appealing, then what's currently written.
For me I think they need to have either two to start with, more frequent acquisition of the feats, or the ability to trade others for heritage feats. Also I want more robust heritage feat trees to reward going deeper.
My Gawd this. It looks like they went too far making races modular. I'd love to see racial heritage feats and background feats merge into something that really lets me make a character that feels like their from somewhere and have done/seen some stuff. Stuff that matters and affects later abilities.
One way is to make abilities that you'd "rank" up.
So an elf feat could give a reduced penalty to shoot unseen targets. Basically blindfight, but for bows. You take a 5th level upgrade to that feat and it improves this ability until you can shoot at invisible targets without penalty.
Dwarves could have a "stone sense" that gives them a bonus to perception while underground. They could take a 5th level feat that makes your spells involving stone be better in some minor way, or a feat that lets you fight better underground. Basically something that branches off itself in separate ways.
So far the system seems fine, it's the content that looks flawed. Hopefully playtesting can change much of this.
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Right now, Humans have the most useful ancestry feats. Half-Orc and Half-Elf give you a lot even before they open your PC to more feats, and General Training/Natural Ambition seem like great choices to customize a 1st-level PC.
Ancestry feats should act like the Drow racial feats were in PF1. At the end of the day you're still a Drow - but you're a Drow with MR, SLAs, etc.
To tell the truth I wish they'd use the Half-Elf/Orc as a starting point for all of the Ancestries. The core concept that they used there is a good starting point. Say something like this.
Hill Dwarf- One of the more common Dwarven cultures for non dwarves to meet. At level One you have the choice of any three of the fallowing Ancestry feats: Ancestral Hatred, Ancient's Blood, Hardy, Mountain Roots, Stone Cutting, or Weapon Familiarity (Dwarf)
Other Dwarven sub-types would start with a different flavor text, and options for Ancestry feats. If an Ancestry justifies a strong feat, then an additional Flaw, or drawback could be added. This is only an example. But I think it may be more interesting, and appealing, then what's currently written.
I would be very excited for something like this. If it cant be fit into the CRB, I be surprised if something like this didn't come with a later sourcebook.
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I think ancestry should be a beefy level 1 package and that is it. Let background be something that evolves with the character. Either way, right now it feels like ancestry is just a trait.
I agree! I actually think there is too many feats and choices. Make ancestry like PF1 and cut back on feats.
Plus some of it makes no sense. A half orc gets dark vision at 9th level?
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I really like the Ancestry Feat concept. Being able to flesh out your Ancestry benefits over time is a cool mechanic.
However, I also see a fatal flaw related to that.
At level 1, all Ancestries feel extremely bland to me - you are essentially just a package of HP, movement speed, and vision type, lacking things that, according to setting lore, all members of an Ancestry should have (e.g. sleep immunity for Elves). The idea of building up on your Ancestry with Feats ultimately falls flat in my opinion if you build up on a blank slate instead of something that is interesting from the get-go.
Agreed.
I love the ability to customize my ancestry, but currently most races feel very similar at first level because you only get one ancestry feat (and many of those are super weak at the moment).
This seems easy to fix, however.
1.) Make the ancestry feats stronger, preferably in interesting ways and not just higher numerical numbers.
2.) Give players at least 2 ancestry feats at level 1, maybe 3.
This will make characters more fun and powerful and unique at level 1, but shouldn't disrupt game balance in the long run.
Hm. "numerical numbers" implies that non-numerical numbers exist. So what, exactly, is a non-numerical number? :-)
My main objection to ancestry feats is that you have to wait for some feats that logically seem like they would be inherent in whatever the ancestry is. I suppose the counter argument is that if you get all those feats at first level there's not much to pick from at higher levels.
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Hm. "numerical numbers" implies that non-numerical numbers exist. So what, exactly, is a non-numerical number? :-)
My main objection to ancestry feats is that you have to wait for some feats that logically seem like they would be inherent in whatever the ancestry is. I suppose the counter argument is that if you get all those feats at first level there's not much to pick from at higher levels.
That's what happens when you post late at night =P
If they roll back races into front-loaded packages, I think most races will need additional traits of racial-feat level power, to keep up with dwarves, who lost the most number of 0th level traits in the PF1 to Playtest transition; Greed gone, Ancient's Blood split from Hardy, 5 other features scattered as feats. I sincerely have little to no idea how come they ended up this powerful without consequences (but a hunch that this had to their in-lore not-so admirable looks; lookism galore...).
This means that all races will have to start with features worth around 7 feats (not counting ones wiped out for lore-matching, like gnomes).
Hm. "numerical numbers" implies that non-numerical numbers exist. So what, exactly, is a non-numerical number? :-)
Roman Numerals? It uses letters [non-numerical] to express numbers. ;)
Numerals and numbers are too different things. :-)
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I think Paizo should really take a hard look at all races/ancestries. Keep them recognizable, but make them their own. Elves can still be intelligent, nimble and arrogant, but they can also have features that only Golarion have. Use this change to actually balance the races if they really think all races weren't created equal.
Stripping down races and making them bland is the worst way of going bout things. Dwarves have too much stuff? Gnomes and other small races are weaker? COMPENSATE this. Give us a reason to play each one, improve the least played and tone down the crazy s%## the stronger races have, but don't strip down and pretend that buying back your race's features is a good system to have in a RPG.
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That's my main issue with it. They all feel the same (except speed is either non-functional, average or you get a slight bonus, because elves). But after that point, you're stuck slowly buying back basic features that would have made you distinct at first level but don't matter at all when you're picking your third one at 9th level.
Getting something interesting out of your biology (or culture, that's still quite muddled, despite the shift to 'ancestry) just isn't in the cards at all.