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Okay, now that I've gotten the intentionally provocative title out of the way to draw attention to this thread, it's time to talk about Heritage from whichever update that was.
Historically speaking, one of the greatest issues with ancestry/race is that culture was part of it. The AD&D assumption was that non-humans were insular, so you could count on them all coming from a similar culture. Thus, OD&D even had races as classes. We've mostly moved past that point, although it still shows up in a few places. For one, humans have all sorts of languages even just within the Inner Sea Region, but elves from Kyonin and Jinin apparently speak the exact same Elven language. All the core races in 1e have Racial Weapon Familiarity. And dwarves are particularly bad offenders, where half their racial abilities are things like "+1 vs orcs, because you were raised to hate them" or "+2 to Appraise, because you're greedy". (I have a grudge against dwarves)
Heritage was actually a huge step in the right direction. It seems like the intention is to make Heritage more about particular quirks in your physiology, while Ancestry is more about the cultural aspects. Personally, I think the names should be swapped, especially since being an aasimar will probably wind up as a Heritage and Ancestry sounding more like an aasimar's celestial ancestry is my biggest issue with the word, but I digress.
There are still issues with this on both sides of the split. On the Heritage side, some of the heritages are clearly biological. For example, twilight halflings get low-light vision, desert dwarves are more resistant to heat, and, of course, whatever's going on with humans mating with elves and orcs. (Seriously. What does it mean biologically that humans can have viable and fertile offspring with elves and orcs, but elves and orcs can't with each other?) But at the same time, apparently only halflings can be nomads and be experts at learning new languages as a result.
On the other side, by removing the Heritage feats from Playtest version 1.0, the vast majority of Ancestry feats now feel properly cultural, which meshes well with the Adopted feat. But this also has unfortunate implications. For one, it still makes the assumption that all dwarves are raised in a culture that they know to hate orcs and the assumption that anyone adopted by a dwarf would also be raised in such a culture. And second, if Paizo decides to add Tien cultural feats in the equivalent of the Dragon Empires Gazetteer, Ancestry feats would seem like the obvious place to put them (so they can be taken with Adopted), and suddenly that would imply that being Tien is a culture like unto being a Dwarf, which is exactly the sort of implications they're seeking to avoid by not calling Dwarf a race. And finally, it's implicitly still somewhat biological, since the entire benefit of being a half-elf is that you can also take Elf ancestry feats.
Long story short, especially if they focus on Heritage, I'm willing to accept the name change to Ancestry. (Just come up with a better solution to half-elves and half-orcs than "Can take elf/orc feats") But if Ancestry feats are really going to be about culture, then that use specifically of "ancestry" needs a better name, or else we'll be right back to the days of culture-as-biology, which the name change away from "race" was meant to avoid.
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I'm going to disagree with you, partly based on the clickbait title alone, but mostly because heritage is cultural, full stop.
When someone talks about their 'Irish' (or whatever) heritage, they're talking about culture.
I'm not sure what the problem is with hatred of orcs (or whatever) being cultural. A taught prejudice is indeed entirely cultural.
The Adopted Ancestry feat is entirely a problem and straight up doesn't work in any coherent fashion. For the simple reason that you can't start with it, and any ancestry feat you take with it isn't going to be available until level 5, long after the character has grown up and left the adopted culture.
Similarly a lot of ancestry feats involve the same problems; whether you're mutating new eye powers or learning basic cultural tricks long after you've left home. It's a cute feat silo at level one, but narratively incoherent afterwards
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Personally I think the bigger problem with ancestry at this point is that its a min/max problem with zero narrative weight. Pick whatever powers and stat-ups are advantageous to your build. There isn't any other baggage attached to it, culture and biology don't matter, it's just a separate line of special powers to accumulate.
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Voss wrote: mostly because heritage is cultural, full stop I completely agree with you there. Ancestry and Heritage are backwards, as they're currently being used.
Quote: I'm not sure what the problem is with hatred of orcs (or whatever) being cultural. A taught prejudice is indeed entirely cultural. That's the thing. I want it to just be cultural. The problem is that the current location for cultural things like that seems to be ancestry feats. For one, like we've both acknowledged, heritage feats would be a better name, while ancestry is a better name for what's currently called heritage. But additionally, the moment they decide to add Tien cultural feats, which I strongly suspect they'll do, it will imply that being Tien (so basically, being Asian) is comparable to being a Dwarf, which is exactly the sort of implication they changed from Race to Ancestry to avoid.
If ancestry feats are to be the location for cultural things, they A) need a different name, and B) need to be devoid of biological connections, like having Elf or Dwarf as requirements or having half-elves get special access to Elf feats.
RazarTuk wrote: Voss wrote: mostly because heritage is cultural, full stop I completely agree with you there. Ancestry and Heritage are backwards, as they're currently being used. Kind of? They're more interchangeable than backwards as they're being used, which is largely fine until level 5 when someone can suddenly sprout new eyeballs or retroactively always knew how to do something extra gobliny, despite never having any more contact with other goblins.
'Paizo uses words incorrectly' is annoying, but nothing new. But in general I like the pick 1 of 4 heritages, and then dealing with the feat pool. I just don't like the feat pool at later levels. You either come out of childhood with biological traits and cultural fixations or you never have them.
Beyond transformational magic, brainwashing or whatever, but I generally don't assume that as part of the normal leveling process.
Good example: Forlorn. This isn't something that just happens to elves one day. This is social status and maybe an emotional problem from not growing up with other elves around. It isn't something you just pick at level 5 because the DM likes using fear effects. But the latter is more in line with how the playtest presents it.
Quote: If ancestry feats are to be the location for cultural things, they A) need a different name, and B) need to be devoid of biological connections, like having Elf or Dwarf as requirements or having half-elves get special access to Elf feats. See, I'd rather not force culture on PCs, let alone give culture bonuses. That's...rather weird to me (and raises a couple flags, exactly like 'race' does). It's also derivative and reductive- there isn't any particular reason elves can't be axe/crossbow people rather than sword/bow people. I can get behind elves being innately faster or volcano elves being heat resistant, but I'd really like the different ancestries to be meaningful choices, and have traits that reflect it. Rather than just being a set of stats for maximum min/max.
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I'd just prefer a few default abilites, 1 'heritage' + 1 feat at level one and never hitting this feat pool again. Both ancestry and skill feats felt bad for me during the playtest. After 5th level or so, i didn't care at all about what I was being forced to pick. It was just a non-level appropriate annoyance, and more meaningless noise and junk scribbled on the character sheet.
Wait were are all these new psyiology Ancestry feats that are getting you upset Voss. They aren't in the playtest thats for sure.
For the cultural stuff there are two ways you can go about it (or three if you are involved in the culture soon.)
Option A: New experiences allow you to apply or re evalute cultural lessons of the past to a level of usefulness that makes it feat worthy. E.G All that stuff about how important the balance of a fine elven blade didn't really click until I got a lot of combat experience.
Option B: It makes as little sense as anything else you get to choose to level in PF/DnD where you want the option and can choose it regardless of anything that would have happened narratively. E.G I want Weapon Elegance now so I took it. Which is no different than, eh it seems like we are getting a kingdom now so all that experience fighting ogres I'm going to use and put 7 ranks into diplomacy.
Those options aren't even vaguely equivalent. Second involves training yourself, the other assumes something happened and magically became relevant.
As for the physiological feats, are you kidding?
Elves have several ways of mutating their legs, gnomes their nose, half orcs eyes, and goblins teeth and stomach.
I think heritage is plainly "what you inherit". One can't help but inherit the genes of their parents, but one can plausibly avoid inheriting their culture (say, because, say, they were lost at sea when you were young and you were raised by someone else.) I mean, even if your parents were never eaten by lions you don't necessarily pick up their culture, you pick up the culture of everybody around you.
Voss wrote: Those options aren't even vaguely equivalent. Second involves training yourself, the other assumes something happened and magically became relevant.
As for the physiological feats, are you kidding?
Elves have several ways of mutating their legs, gnomes their nose, half orcs eyes, and goblins teeth and stomach.
Well one allows you to use narrative with only a soft retcon. The second is what every rpg ever that doesn't require narrative justifications for spending xp has allowed forever.
Elves don't mutate their legs. Nimble can imply learning to use your body better. Gnomes is a Heritage and thus isn't something you learn later. Same for Half Orc and Goblins. So no that doesn't happen.
I can't say I have a problem with mutation. I mean, pulling out latent abilities that you where born with is the whole point of the sorcerer class. No reason a powerful dwarf couldn't learn to grow an iron beard.
I am against suddenly gaining unconnected culture abilities. Though, I could see them as rewards. So you can get Elven weapon training as a reward for saving the elven town. Probably with an "expected culture per level" chart for the DM.
So I'm fine with splitting biology (gained per level) and culture (gained as rewards).
As for terminology, I think "Race" is good for biology, and "Culture" for culture.
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I just don't see how gaining Elven Weapon Training as a feat at X level without a cultural justification is any different from picking up a skill with no justification, or multiclassing wizard despite spending no time hitting the books etc. Or if you put into "some stuff happens off screen" how you can't say "I've been practicing with the weapons of my people during camp" or even the aforementioned "the lessons of my childhood make sense to me now that I've had general combat experience [represented by the improvement To Hit I just got this level!] so I'm taking the feat." As for Voss saying that requires it to "Magically become releveant" have you never experienced personal growth that allows you to put something you learned or was involved with in the past into practice? I know I have a dozen times over. I most recently picked up the "Expert Lullaby Singer" using songs from my childhood.
Like as a GM I am against players getting unconnected abilities but that has been in the rules for over a decade and still exists in most other areas.
I feel like if you can't come up with an "oh, this happened to me offscreen" justification for taking something, and this bothers you, then "taking something else" should be a reasonable alternative.
I don't think "putting the onus on the player to explain it" is at all unreasonable. I mean, 13th Age is a similar game in this hobby that is chock full of "explain how this happens" as a prerequisite to using an ability- in practice it's just an improv prompt.
PossibleCabbage wrote: I feel like if you can't come up with an "oh, this happened to me offscreen" justification for taking something, and this bothers you, then "taking something else" should be a reasonable alternative. It isn't, however. Playtest feats fall very easily into good or trash categories, and the mutations are simply better than the other options. So not a reasonable alternative.
Malk_Content wrote: As for Voss saying that requires it to "Magically become releveant" have you never experienced personal growth that allows you to put something you learned or was involved with in the past into practice? Nope. Practice -now- allows personal growth. No amount of Spanish lessons in high school will let me magically understand Spanish. Spanish lessons for the next couple months will.
Voss wrote:
Malk_Content wrote: As for Voss saying that requires it to "Magically become releveant" have you never experienced personal growth that allows you to put something you learned or was involved with in the past into practice? Nope.
Ah man that makes me kinda sad to hear.
Recent threads in Ancestries & Backgrounds
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