Half Races

[Patrick Klein]

I get that Pathfinder was created based on the D&D system but why pidgeon hole half elves and half orcs as "half human"? I love the ancestry feat idea for the half races, but I'd like to open it up to races besides human. I'm planning to run a game using those feats as available for any races, with the exception of half elf for elves, since the other half being human is already available. I much prefer the idea of other races commingling with each other over humans being the only versatile race. Elves should be able to breed with the younger races since they have the time to figure out how (or relations with a younger races ancestor), where as orcs could do it as a biological advantage for conquering the other races. Just an idea to open up role-play and development officer to players.

[ClanPsi]

I agree. I wish Half-Elf was part of Elf with Human feat options, and Half-Orc was part of Orc (made into a new playable race) with Human feat options. That would free up Humans to have Aasimar and Tiefling as choices.

I also really want to see Kobolds as a base playable race with Goblin stats and Goblins re-worked to make more logical sense (+2 Cha? What?!). It would be really unique because no game has ever done that before.

[The Once and Future Kai]

ClanPsi wrote:

I wish Half-Elf was part of Elf with Human feat options, and Half-Orc was part of Orc (made into a new playable race) with Human feat options. That would free up Humans to have Aasimar and Tiefling as choices.

I'm surmising, based on the quoted post below, that Paizo is planning to do the opposite. Aasimar, Tiefling, and other Planetouched will be open to all Ancestries but Half Elf and Half Orc will remain Half Human. I'd have preferred for all Half Ancestries to be open but this is a step towards more customization which is always a plus.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Rules Artificer wrote:

The Once and Future Kai wrote:

Indeed. The open surveys are where you can tell Paizo whatever you want. For instance, I repeated my incessant requests that Half Orc and Half Elf no longer be limited to Half Human (this wasn't a category in the other survey). I also asked for Half Gnome, Half Dwarf, Half Goblin, and so on... But not Half...half...ling...because that's weird?

While amusing, I very highly doubt that this will be included as an option. Pathfinder has always assumed the Golarion setting, and 2E has doubled down on that assumption.

And the existing races on Golarion are fairly set in stone after 10+ years of setting building.

Even if it's not "official," we can potentially try to build the half-ancestries in a way that they can be used like Kai wants. For instance, you could get those up and running with a minimum of tweaking and no deep game design necessary with the current version (and that means we could use the paradigm to do just that ourselves for ancestries that have traditionally spread beyond human in Golarion, like aasimar/tiefling/other planar scion).