I would like to focus on something that will certainly go against the majority of the opinions.
I know that we are talking about fantasy worlds and that different races are one of the most appreciated topic, but I always found that "too much is not always too good".
There's a wonderful idea, already developed and played, that is called Starfinder, so I was thinking: why can't we have the same thing in the medieval ages ? Instead of filling the basic setting of Golarion with tens or hundreds of different playable races (which often are not even sufficiently described, and even less coherently played) wouldn't be better to think about secondary settings, on different planets (just like in Starfinder, but always in medieval ages) in which to insert the various "minor races"?
For example, I see many people talking about Catfolks and Ratfolks, why not to create a planet with only anthropomorphic animal races!? And this is just one of the many ideas it could be could think on.
The only race they added was the goblin, afaik.
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I feel like all the things that canonically exist on Golarion are going to be back, just because "all the ratfolk left the planet" is a much bigger setting change than "leaving it as it was."
So we're going to get Nagaji, Cecaelias, Changelings, Dhampirs, Kitsune, Samsarans, etc. because Golarion has those things.
I mean, it'd be weird to me if the game has 10,000 different kinds of things you can fight, but only a dozen things you can be.
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Golarion is way too much of a "everything and the kitchen sink" setting for this to ever happen.havinf lots of options is the biggest defining feature of Pathfinder.
that sort of already exists, since races that are abundant in certain parts of the setting are not considered as common in other parts. Starfinder might races that exist on other planets, but travel between planets is as easy as travel between nations in a science fiction game, so they deal with other races/ancestries in an equivalent way.
This discussion is interesting
It is very easy to not allow races into your setting. It is very difficult to create a race that a player wants if it's misisng.
Aside from the core races, all other races are only options at the GM's discretion. If you don't want that many, don't use them.
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It is very easy to not allow races into your setting. It is very difficult to create a race that a player wants if it's misisng.
Aside from the core races, all other races are only options at the GM's discretion. If you don't want that many, don't use them.
And even those that are core races, depending on the story the GM wants to tell, might not always be playable. I can certainly see not allowing Goblin characters for reasons just like I would not allow Elves if I ever GM Second Darkness
Hopefully, with the cumbersome new approach to Ancestries in PF2 we'll see the number of playable creature-types strongly reined in.
My expectation is the system as is was created to make it easier to introduce MORE playables, because the ancestral feats can be very samey and trivial, so they don't upset the balance and can be varied just by changing the selection pool slightly.
For any ancestry:
Attributes: +X, +Y, + free, -Z (or 2 free), HP +N, Speed= 20 or 30, languages, vision, generate a pool of 10 feats, repeat and regurgitate.
The ancestries won't be interesting, but you can freely spam a lot of them, and a lot of feats can be done by mixing and matching (from existing races) or changing affected skills, resistances or bonuses/rerolls around.
They've already established a lot of the following:
'if save vs <effect type>, save = crit save,'
'lower DC on <this> flat check,'
resist <energy> = 1/2 level
'+2 circumstance bonus to X when using Y action' and so on.
Plus obvious things like weapon familiarity and the like. Future ancestry feats are just short 'Mad Libs' puzzles now.
It's pretty terrible and uninspiring to be honest with you. My consistent experience with the playtest was ancestry was a meaningless cosmetic past level 5. Stats evened out to the ones that were class necessary, and ancestry feats rarely came up or were barely remembered, unless they boot-strapped some other ability to better than average. (Or could get a character up to a passable movement speed)