I couldn't find a thread regarding a possible interaction of the commonality system and the ancestries, but here's a thought:
How about the Goblin Ancestry is marked uncommon in the Core Rulebook, when it is included?
It would not fit perfectly, as Goblins as monsters are quite common, but as a player ancestry, it would make it easier for GM's to adjucate, while still making it possible for others to include as option.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As written this would prevent you from playing say, a half-orc raised by goblins.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Goblin join! Goblin play!
Goblin can and goblin may!
Goblin players, all together,
make big party, slay forever!
(to longshanks: nah, goblins are fun, lemme! to gobbos: keep up the song!)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Goblin join! Goblin play!
Goblin can and goblin may!
Goblin players, all together,
make big party, slay forever!(to longshanks: nah, goblins are fun, lemme! to gobbos: keep up the song!)
Goblins as core are easily one of the worst things in PF2e, and this song and the thought of having to hear people sing it at tables where I play is exhibit A for my argument.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am actually interested to see what the story arc is that turns goblins from widely loathed to widely accepted. Don't get me wrong, my group played those goblin modules and loved them. But the goblins and culture described there are not really a good match for the parties we've made for the various APs.
It's gonna have to be one heck of a story - given that goblin paladins will be more prevalent than dwarf paladins in PFS soon, if their stat distribution is any indication.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Uncommon" is almost completely meaningless when it comes to a class or an ancestry, I figure.
Rarity is only useful as a measure of "how hard it is to find a thing in the world" (or at least where you are currently) not a measure of how many Goblins, Astomoi, Cecaelias, Yaddithians, and Changelings there are. Nothing you choose at first level (save for equipment which is not inherent to identity) should have rarity. It has always been possible for the GM to point out "hey that particular character is singularly inappropriate for this campaign" so anybody who wants to prohibit goblins (or elves, or clerics, or whatever) from their home games is free to do so.
I mean, Goblins are not especially uncommon. Among those people in the diagesis who dislike them they are much closer to "vermin."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
But when you remove a class or ancestry from consideration for a game, there's no sense in which "Rarity" is the limiting factor, but "thematic appropriateness." So when I say "no Paladins in this horror game" it's not because Paladins are hard to find, but that a class which is literally immune to fear will clash with appropriate themes.
If the concept of the game is "elves are weird aliens and you do not understand their ways" then you're not going to be allowed to play an Elf, no matter how common those are.
So I can't see a sense in which rarity for ancestries does anything since the options I've seen most often prohibited are the common ones.
"Uncommon" is almost completely meaningless when it comes to a class or an ancestry, I figure.
Rarity is only useful as a measure of "how hard it is to find a thing in the world" (or at least where you are currently) not a measure of how many Goblins, Astomoi, Cecaelias, Yaddithians, and Changelings there are. Nothing you choose at first level (save for equipment which is not inherent to identity) should have rarity. It has always been possible for the GM to point out "hey that particular character is singularly inappropriate for this campaign" so anybody who wants to prohibit goblins (or elves, or clerics, or whatever) from their home games is free to do so.
Not quite...
Although I agree it's not relevant to choosing a PC ancestry, which isn't mechanical issue, that is exact reason why there is no problem for appropriate 'Core PC races' to have non-Common status, as it isn't impediment to using them. The other relevance of Commonality, which is conceptually consistent with previous editions, is determining Knowledge difficulty. To be clear, even Barghests are Common (albeit Knowledge DC is higher from Level), VERY few Humanoids are considered Uncommon. I just searched the Playtest Bestiary and the ONLY Humanoids who came up as Uncommon were Doppleganger, Oni, and Serpentfolk... The latter being pretty reasonable example of Uncommon PC Ancestry at least conceptually (or for similarly obscure but lower HD race, who may even be "Good alignment tendency"). Uncommon PC race is not problematic, but that category is SO exclusive it is not plausible for current Core PC races or likely APG ones... Although it's plausible to say (in Inner Sea) Tien ethnicities are Uncommon or even Rare for most oscure Tien ethnicities/species, and other future Uncommon PC Ancestries is certainly plausible.This is the current state of Commonality rules applying to Knowledge Checks (which makes it far from 'meaningless'):
"The monster’s commonality sets the difficulty: low for common monsters, high for uncommon, and severe for rare or unique.
Most monsters’ level should be the level of the DC, but you could reduce the level drastically for really famous monsters."
The Objective Society DC table DOES list "obscure realm, insular, secretive, dangerous" as DC increasing modifiers.
So strictly speaking, since Society DOES govern Knowledge about Humanoids, it is more than reasonable to say that, in fact,
both Elves and Goblins are more difficult to know about on the basis of being "obscure, insular" and "dangerous", respectively.
Neither Elves nor Goblins are now classed as Uncommon, unsurprising as almost nothing is by current state of the rules, although IMHO the bar seems set SO high to qualify for Uncommon that it make that mechanic irrelevant for most Humanoids... And I feel like it's reasonable for some Humanoid races that may be playable as PCs to be "Uncommon" and present that clearly, and not solely depend on vague factors like judgement of insularity to determine Knowledge DCs and the like. Alternatively, it seems reasonable to codify how these species interact with the mechanic governing them like Society Knowledge checks, and just specify "+X harder to know things about due to XYZ" (while technically being Common, or even on top of Uncommon) which will be more useful for GMs needing a DC to use on the fly. (the "due to XYZ" stuff should also be generic modifiers for Society DC table, but Ancestry/Statblock entries can summarize this for convience)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not a fan of Goblin inclusion in core...especially not in Golarion...but I don't think rarity should be attached to ancestry.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But when you remove a class or ancestry from consideration for a game, there's no sense in which "Rarity" is the limiting factor, but "thematic appropriateness." So when I say "no Paladins in this horror game" it's not because Paladins are hard to find, but that a class which is literally immune to fear will clash with appropriate themes.
If the concept of the game is "elves are weird aliens and you do not understand their ways" then you're not going to be allowed to play an Elf, no matter how common those are.
So I can't see a sense in which rarity for ancestries does anything since the options I've seen most often prohibited are the common ones.
It makes as much sense as having katana's rarer than a shortsword. If you want a character that is a goblin or uses a katana, you need to find a way to do so, like ask the DM. This moves them off 'assumed to be available' list to 'ask your dm' list. As such, I'd be all for it. Add to that if they put variations of rarity in races, a DM could allow uncommon but not rare races for instance. It closely mirrors the ARG's core, featured and uncommon listings and I've seen them used for allowed races.
As written this would prevent you from playing say, a half-orc raised by goblins.How is this the case?
It has always been possible for the GM to point out "hey that particular character is singularly inappropriate for this campaign" so anybody who wants to prohibit goblins (or elves, or clerics, or whatever) from their home games is free to do so.And having rarity on classes/ancestries/backgrounds/etc would give them a mechanical way of representing this that blends seamlessly with the rules for everything else. It would just have to be clarified that an uncommon rarity on a character option means that option is uncommon [italics]as a character option[/italics] not necessarily just uncommon in the world. So the Goblin ancestry being uncommon would mean that Goblins aren't often adventurers, but the Goblin monster is still common telling you that there are lots of Goblins in the world.
Adopted ancestry, to get any of its benefits, explicitly calls out Common ancestries.
I'm not actually objecting to making being adopted a thing anybody can do from the start, and I'm in favour of it. But unless they tweak it as is, unless the GM calls out Goblin as Common (not just allowed) for people, you're banned from nabbing adopted ancestry (goblin).
As written this would prevent you from playing say, a half-orc raised by goblins.How is this the case?
It has always been possible for the GM to point out "hey that particular character is singularly inappropriate for this campaign" so anybody who wants to prohibit goblins (or elves, or clerics, or whatever) from their home games is free to do so.And having rarity on classes/ancestries/backgrounds/etc would give them a mechanical way of representing this that blends seamlessly with the rules for everything else. It would just have to be clarified that an uncommon rarity on a character option means that option is uncommon [italics]as a character option[/italics] not necessarily just uncommon in the world. So the Goblin ancestry being uncommon would mean that Goblins aren't often adventurers, but the Goblin monster is still common telling you that there are lots of Goblins in the world.Adopted ancestry, to get any of its benefits, explicitly calls out Common ancestries.
I'm not actually objecting to making being adopted a thing anybody can do from the start, and I'm in favour of it. But unless they tweak it as is, unless the GM calls out Goblin as Common (not just allowed) for people, you're banned from nabbing adopted ancestry (goblin).
For Golarion, as represented in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting (current edition, not playtest or 2nd edition...) that actually seems to work pretty well.
And for GM's changing the setting's base assumptions, it is an easy and robust knob to adjust.
I just don't know if Golarion in the future (2nd Edition or whatever it will be called) does change the base assumption so far that Goblins will be a common player character race.
I think making the character option, and thus the Goblin ancestry entry in the future core rulebook read 'Uncommon' is a way of transition from the current Golarion setting assumptions to the new, future Golarion setting assumptions.
A GM can always tweak the rules to fit the need of the groups game, but the Core Rulebook has to set a baseline.
I guess we'll have to wait and look how Golarion changes with the comming edition.
"Uncommon" is almost completely meaningless when it comes to a class or an ancestry, I figure.
Rarity is only useful as a measure of "how hard it is to find a thing in the world" (or at least where you are currently) not a measure of how many Goblins, Astomoi, Cecaelias, Yaddithians, and Changelings there are. Nothing you choose at first level (save for equipment which is not inherent to identity) should have rarity. It has always been possible for the GM to point out "hey that particular character is singularly inappropriate for this campaign" so anybody who wants to prohibit goblins (or elves, or clerics, or whatever) from their home games is free to do so.
I mean, Goblins are not especially uncommon. Among those people in the diagesis who dislike them they are much closer to "vermin."
I could see the final rules saying something like, "Your character may select any single uncommon option during character creation, in addition to any uncommon options unlocked by common features selected during this process." Then, if goblins are labeled "uncommon", you would be barred from picking up an uncommon class, feat, or piece of equipment (although you would be able to pick up a goblin weapon if you have the appropriate ancestry feat).
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the biggest problem is that labeling goblins as "uncommon" in character creation would make them harder to identify for no apparent reason, and nobody should have trouble telling what a goblin is.
It's not a good idea to have "uncommon" mean one thing in the rulebook and a different thing in the bestiary.
I think the biggest problem is that labeling goblins as "uncommon" in character creation would make them harder to identify for no apparent reason, and nobody should have trouble telling what a goblin is.
It's not a good idea to have "uncommon" mean one thing in the rulebook and a different thing in the bestiary.
Things in the bestiary already play by their own rules and don't follow the same rules so it doesn't see to me that it would cause the slightest issue to have player goblins have a different rarity than monster ones: it makes as much sense as how some monsters can pick up a mundane weapon and deal multiple dice of base damage with it while PC's need a magic weapon to do the same.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Goblins as core are easily one of the worst things in PF2e, and this song and the thought of having to hear people sing it at tables where I play is exhibit A for my argument.
The existence of tables where it's a bad thing that the PCs are so invested in their characters that they wrote songs for them is Exhibit A in why I don't play PFS.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeahh if that were to happen i would rather simply not have gobbos on the core... And since i love gobbos i say:
"join! Goblin play!
Goblin can and goblin may!
Goblin players, all together,
make big party, slay forever!"
If the DM wants he is free to take them away after in homebrew campaigns.
While I don't see Uncommon rarity as being appropriate for Goblins in particular (they're not really uncommon creatures in most settings), I do see value in allowing races to have rarity for future use of the system. Especially since it'd provide an easy language for the GM to say "In this part of my setting, race X is rarity Y. Ask about non-common options if you want to play one and know that NPCs will react."
That said, I wonder if racial traits could be expanded in order to allow for some kind of regional/setting traits like "discriminated" or "monstrous" to provide an easy key for a) how PCs of this race are likely to be viewed/treated by the average NPC, and b) types of similar races that a GM might want to restrict/remove in a campaign (orcs+goblins are traditionally seen as monstrous, GM wants to have a campaign where they only appear as enemies).
|
While I don't see Uncommon rarity as being appropriate for Goblins in particular (they're not really uncommon creatures in most settings), I do see value in allowing races to have rarity for future use of the system. Especially since it'd provide an easy language for the GM to say "In this part of my setting, race X is rarity Y. Ask about non-common options if you want to play one and know that NPCs will react."
That said, I wonder if racial traits could be expanded in order to allow for some kind of regional/setting traits like "discriminated" or "monstrous" to provide an easy key for a) how PCs of this race are likely to be viewed/treated by the average NPC, and b) types of similar races that a GM might want to restrict/remove in a campaign (orcs+goblins are traditionally seen as monstrous, GM wants to have a campaign where they only appear as enemies).
I don't see that as necessary to codify in the rules, a GM can make that call for their own table in tandem with player desires.