*I have several threads for all of my thoughts, but they are also collected--with a statement of the aims of my analysis--here in this Google Doc.*
Races:
- That they are “races” and not species.
Addressed! The races are now ancestries. The proliferation of humans as the dominant species means that half-humans are humans first (which better syncs with the fluff of the genetic flexibility of humans) and "others" as ancestry feats. Ancestry feats are a little weird--there’s not a lot of good in-game justification for a feature of your species “coming online” only when you hit level 5--but even this is addressed by some ancestry feats being “heritage” feats.
- Some are just plain better than others (e.g.: Dwarven stonecunning).
Not addressed! Multiple ancestries have feats like Stonecunning that are circumstantial and highly limited, right alongside feats like Nimble, that are useful to any character class in almost any situation. Meanwhile, darkvision and low-light vision are still somehow both included, despite the headache-y tracking involved, and despite the crippling of characters with normal vision. (This is a reason most play groups just ignore the vision rules, handwave them, or otherwise work around them.)
- Standard races are boring.
Partially addressed! Goblins. We got goblins. This is the same problem seen in the choice of classes: they did one thing that is, indeed, very very Paizo. Then they didn’t do a damn thing else. Anything more would have been great, and they already compressed the list by losing half-elves and half-orcs, so they sure had room. Dhampir, grippli, ratfolk, tengu--where are they? Ratfolk would have even overlapped nicely with Starfinder!
- Gnomes, despite Paizo’s best efforts at writing compelling fluff for them, are not meaningfully distinguished from halflings.
Addressed! They have different ability boosts and really quite different ancestry feats. Gnomes are more familiar with glaives and kukri, for no good bloody reason (“blades with curved and unusual shapes”? What? Has anyone at Paizo seen a glaive? Or a starknife? Which has the more “unusual” shape?).
- Small races do not feel properly balanced (being small is a minor hindrance and almost no benefit, unless you’re a caster, where it’s no hindrance at all and a solid--if not overwhelming--benefit).
Not addressed! -2 STR has never been anything like a good mechanical representation of what it’s like to have half the mass and a quarter of the leverage of a “normal” human. Paizo has made a choice to put player convenience first, but that is not something they’ve done in very many of the dozens of other choices they’ve made here, so even that is inconsistent and irking.
Races:
- That they are “races” and not species.
Addressed! The races are now ancestries. The proliferation of humans as the dominant species means that half-humans are humans first (which better syncs with the fluff of the genetic flexibility of humans) and "others" as ancestry feats. Ancestry feats are a little weird--there’s not a lot of good in-game justification for a feature of your species “coming online” only when you hit level 5--but even this is addressed by some ancestry feats being “heritage” feats.
I'm not sure I understand what the problem was, but it's apparently gone, so I guess I don't disagree?
- Some are just plain better than others (e.g.: Dwarven stonecunning).
Not addressed! Multiple ancestries have feats like Stonecunning that are circumstantial and highly limited, right alongside feats like Nimble, that are useful to any character class in almost any situation. Meanwhile, darkvision and low-light vision are still somehow both included, despite the headache-y tracking involved, and despite the crippling of characters with normal vision. (This is a reason most play groups just ignore the vision rules, handwave them, or otherwise work around them.)
At least partially addressed. Some of the worst imbalances have been removed, in particular humans being the best in the vast majority of classes. Another example: Halfling Luck is gone. It may be that some of the ancestry feats are unappealing in the same way they were in PF1, however.
- Standard races are boring.
Partially addressed! Goblins. We got goblins. This is the same problem seen in the choice of classes: they did one thing that is, indeed, very very Paizo. Then they didn’t do a damn thing else. Anything more would have been great, and they already compressed the list by losing half-elves and half-orcs, so they sure had room. Dhampir, grippli, ratfolk, tengu--where are they? Ratfolk would have even overlapped nicely with Starfinder!
Boring is in the eye of the beholder. The old standard races were fine for RP purposes, at least. I disagree that the devs could have added many more ancestries to the playtest. The playtest is a subset of the full rules, so that it can give usable results. Add several more ancestries and it would have been bloated from that perspective. If space allows, I would have no objection to adding more to the final book.
Addressed! They have different ability boosts and really quite different ancestry feats. Gnomes are more familiar with glaives and kukri, for no good bloody reason (“blades with curved and unusual shapes”? What? Has anyone at Paizo seen a glaive? Or a starknife? Which has the more “unusual” shape?).
Agree.
Regarding weapons: Gnomes don't have clearly identified favorite weapons in lore, so the devs could pretty much give them anything convenient.
- Small races do not feel properly balanced (being small is a minor hindrance and almost no benefit, unless you’re a caster, where it’s no hindrance at all and a solid--if not overwhelming--benefit).
Not addressed! -2 STR has never been anything like a good mechanical representation of what it’s like to have half the mass and a quarter of the leverage of a “normal” human. Paizo has made a choice to put player convenience first, but that is not something they’ve done in very many of the dozens of other choices they’ve made here, so even that is inconsistent and irking.
I disagree, this is at least partially addressed by the fact Medium and Small weapons now have the same damage dice, and size bonuses to attack rolls and AC are gone. You might disagree that it's "properly" balanced, though. IMO, it's balanced, at the expense of differentiation between creature sizes: No sizeism! It's a simplification. Maybe it's too bad. But I don't think it's possible to have both a realistic representation of the combat impact of vastly different sizes and weights, and a system with balance between different sized creatures.
- Some are just plain better than others (e.g.: Dwarven stonecunning).
Not addressed! Multiple ancestries have feats like Stonecunning that are circumstantial and highly limited, right alongside feats like Nimble, that are useful to any character class in almost any situation. Meanwhile, darkvision and low-light vision are still somehow both included, despite the headache-y tracking involved, and despite the crippling of characters with normal vision. (This is a reason most play groups just ignore the vision rules, handwave them, or otherwise work around them.)At least partially addressed. Some of the worst imbalances have been removed, in particular humans being the best in the vast majority of classes. Another example: Halfling Luck is gone. It may be that some of the ancestry feats are unappealing in the same way they were in PF1, however.
You raise a really good point. They brought everything much closer in line. I'm sore that they didn't do a better job, but I concede you are right that they did a better job than I initially gave them credit for.
The sizeism point, the choice of options point, also interesting perspectives where, I think, reasonable people may look at the same evidence and still disagree.