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It feels like "if you want to be a Drow PC for non-power-gamey reasons" then Cavern Elf + Backstory should be sufficient.
It's somewhat insulting to conflate "caring about statistical function" and "power gaming".
It would significantly disrupt my immersion, and (in my opinion) significantly disrupt verisimilitude, to play a character that looks like one thing and functions like another. It's like saying "well, just play a dwarf and call it a halfling" or "instead of playing a wizard, play an archer and pretend your arrows are magic missiles". The game functions are important for more reasons than just "powergaming".
Beyond that, drow are hardly a power boost in Pathfinder. Spell resistance is an extremely double-edged sword, their spell-like abilities are situational at best. Meanwhile, elves get the extremely potent elven magic racial trait (and a wide variety of options for nonspellcasters to replace it with). Ability modifiers are marginally better for certain specific classes at best and a useless downgrade for many characters.
As for PF2 drow, while we haven't seen anything on them yet, the ancestries we've seen so far show no sign that they'll really be a factor in terms of power. In fact, before this latest patch (which I haven't seen yet), elves have some of the best ancestry feats around. So, if anything, I'd probably be downgrading by playing the actual ancestry I want to play.
In short: please let me play drow, Design Team. And also, I guess, don't insult me for wanting to play the actual thing I want to play.
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It feels like "if you want to be a Drow PC for non-power-gamey reasons" then Cavern Elf + Backstory should be sufficient.It's somewhat insulting to conflate "caring about statistical function" and "power gaming".
It would significantly disrupt my immersion, and (in my opinion) significantly disrupt verisimilitude, to play a character that looks like one thing and functions like another. It's like saying "well, just play a dwarf and call it a halfling" or "instead of playing a wizard, play an archer and pretend your arrows are magic missiles". The game functions are important for more reasons than just "powergaming".
Beyond that, drow are hardly a power boost in Pathfinder. Spell resistance is an extremely double-edged sword, their spell-like abilities are situational at best. Meanwhile, elves get the extremely potent elven magic racial trait (and a wide variety of options for nonspellcasters to replace it with). Ability modifiers are marginally better for certain specific classes at best and a useless downgrade for many characters.
As for PF2 drow, while we haven't seen anything on them yet, the ancestries we've seen so far show no sign that they'll really be a factor in terms of power. In fact, before this latest patch (which I haven't seen yet), elves have some of the best ancestry feats around. So, if anything, I'd probably be downgrading by playing the actual ancestry I want to play.
In short: please let me play drow, Design Team. And also, I guess, don't insult me for wanting to play the actual thing I want to play.
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I could as well, but Kalindlara nailed it: I want to play as a Drow, not a Cave Elf.
I specifically asked my DM about this and his answer was: well, Cave Elves are just regular elves whith darkvision because they have lived underground, they are not Drow and they don't have their physical or magical features.
In short, no, I am not allowed to play as a Drow. :/
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So I guess the thing is that per 1.4 a Gnome who selects "Deep Gnome" literally is a Svirfneblin, but they don't get features even close to what made those a 24 RP race in PF1. But I don't think you are any less of a Svirfneblin if you start with 2 SLAs instead of 5 and you don't have spell resistance.
So why should PF2 Drow be fundamentally different? I mean, by all means print some elf ancestry feats about poison use or how growing up in a chaotic evil culture changes you or whatever, but I feel that if a Deep Gnome can be a Svirf then a Cave Elf can be a Drow.
Like I see no reason Duergar shouldn't be a Dwarf Heritage, honestly.
Those "monstrous" heritages will be an excellent addition to the Bestiary.
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So I guess the thing is that per 1.4 a Gnome who selects "Deep Gnome" literally is a Svirfneblin, but they don't get features even close to what made those a 24 RP race in PF1. But I don't think you are any less of a Svirfneblin if you start with 2 SLAs instead of 5 and you don't have spell resistance.
So why should PF2 Drow be fundamentally different? I mean, by all means print some elf ancestry feats about poison use or how growing up in a chaotic evil culture changes you or whatever, but I feel that if a Deep Gnome can be a Svirf then a Cave Elf can be a Drow.
Like I see no reason Duergar shouldn't be a Dwarf Heritage, honestly.
The point others and I are trying to make is the following:
Deep Gnomes are explicitly called out to be svirfneblin.On the other hand, Cave Elves are just that: elves who dwell in caves.
They are not Drow and are not called out as such.
They could be Jinin but nothing says they may be Drow and have their distinctive physical features, for example.
You keep making this an argument about how powerful the race is, for some reason.
You seem to believe that we all want Drows to return so we can have an uber powerful ancestry to play with.
Let me tell you: give me an heritage feat for elves that says "You are a Drow, your people has dwelled underground for millenia as part of the group of elves that fled the surface as the Earthfall approached. You have distinctive dark skin, white hair and red eyes." and I'm going to take it in a heartbeat.
Even if it doesn't give me anything mechanically.
I would take it even if it meant I gained nothing from my heritage other than fluff.
I don't care about Drow being a powerful ancestry, I care about being able to roleplay an actual Drow without having to pretend it's actually a regular Elf in disguise.
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I mean I would rather we had drow as an option instead of cave elf.
Mmm... Upon thinking I'd prefer Drow its own race rather than an Elf heritage. Specifically to avoid overpowered potential.
I still find Elf Ancestry feats to be some of the best. As a GM I kinda don't want 2x40 speed plus Drow to deal with. Reserve that for Elves and give Drow their own Ancestry.
Mmm... Upon thinking I'd prefer Drow its own race rather than an Elf heritage. Specifically to avoid overpowered potential.
I still find Elf Ancestry feats to be some of the best. As a GM I kinda don't want 2x40 speed plus Drow to deal with. Reserve that for Elves and give Drow their own Ancestry.
I feel chances are higher for Drow PCs to end up overpowered if they are made into a separate ancestry rather than a regular elven heritage.
Drow would probably have darkvision built-in, for instance. Right now, you need to pay the "heritage feat-tax" to acquire darkvision, and so you're passing on anything else.
But if Drow becomes a regular ancestry with built-in darkvision, then PCs will have that feature and anything else they get from their heritage feat.
In addition, you assume Drow ancestry feats would be toned down and they would not have such speed options that are available to elves.
You may be right on that account but I think ancestry feats have a potential to offer way more power than boosted speed and there's nothing that says Drow ancestry feats would not turn out to be even stronger. :o
Think from the counterside though. If the things that lore-wise make Drow, Drow become available to all elves as Ancestry feats you open it to essentially cherry picking the best of both worlds. You can build in addition flaws to a Drow base chassis like their signature Sunlight Sensitivity.
I would rather as a GM deal with a potentially overpowered race with flaws then cherry picked flavours of the same thing. I know a lot of people don't like the Drow, it's also easier to say "I'm not allowing this Ancestry" than "I'm not allowing this particular Heritage/Feat/Etc."
Competitive Pokémon refers to the idea as avoiding complex bans. It's easier to understand "You cannot use Blaziken in this teir" than "Blaziken with Speed Boost cannot be used in this teir because it is too powerful, but Blaze is fine".
I guess there's an argument for both options, honestly.
In the end, I just want Drow to make it into the game as soon as possible.
If it's an heritage feat, I'll deal with it, if it's an ancestry, no problem either. ;)
Drow as a heritage would be easy to do. You get a bonus to Charisma instead of Intelligence, upgrade lowlight vision to Darkvision, and give Daylight Sensitivity plus the Drow trait. There's your Drow. Leave access to most Elven feats. With an exception of a few, the Elven feats make sense for the Drow which is an Elven subtype to possess anyway. On top of that you can obviously add Drow exclusive ancestry feats. I can already easily think of some that would work fine.