Do half-orcs still have to grow into having darkvision? It bugged me a lot that half-orcs were suddenly a low-light ancestry in the playtest, it reeked of the race getting nerfed because of a perception that giving humans darkvision for cheap was too strong.
Do half-orcs still have to grow into having darkvision? It bugged me a lot that half-orcs were suddenly a low-light ancestry in the playtest, it reeked of the race getting nerfed because of a perception that giving humans darkvision for cheap was too strong.
It costs them their first-level ancestry feat, but it’s not something that can kick in later.
I am actually more interested in finding out what low-light vision does.
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Do half-orcs still have to grow into having darkvision?
No. Darkvision is still a Feat, but they've said it's just about the only one that requires you to be 1st level to take it. A boon for verisimilitude if not Half Orcs all having Darkvision.
It bugged me a lot that half-orcs were suddenly a low-light ancestry in the playtest, it reeked of the race getting nerfed because of a perception that giving humans darkvision for cheap was too strong.
I think it has more to do with balancing Half Elf and Half Orc. As Heritages, both give Low Light Vision and little else. If one gave Darkvision instead, it would be clearly objectively superior, which is problematic.
EDIT: Ninja'd. Ah, well.
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I think I prefer Tieflings and Aasimar type stuff to be "tacked on" over having to print individual Heritage options for every single race that could have an outsider bloodline manifest through it. Seems like a waste of space with a lot of repeated material and a good chance to miss out on it being an option for some Ancestries.
I rather it be like how PF1 handled it and you had a Planar Scion and you could have them be from any race (both blood of _ books had Aasimar and Tiefling Halflings for example) but aside from size none of the Humanoid lineage factored into stats.
By having each lineage be it's own thing (not only for the Scions but for Dhampir and SKinwalkers too) it was also a material and character option goldmine.
Hopefully this current path will be useful though with plenty of design room and freedom, with say Human > Ancestry Feat: Tiefling > Heritage Feat: Demon Spawn > Later Heritage Feats involving specific demons like Succubi or Glabrezu.
(I probably got the names/designations for the feats wrong but you know what I mean)
Just like PF1 had to have "this class, but with gun!" printed for every single bloomin class (what a waste of page space) whereas PF2 can just make the "add gun to any class!" archetype instead.
This I'm in complete agreement with.
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Hopefully this current path will be useful though with plenty of design room and freedom, with say Human > Ancestry Feat: Tiefling > Heritage Feat: Demon Spawn > Later Heritage Feats involving specific demons like Succubi or Glabrezu.
I feel like allowing General Feats to fully flex into the role of a true General Feat would allow for a lot more richness in Ancestries.
The above is really cool, but we're talking 4 attributes of Demon like behavior over 5 feats.
Now at level 14, maybe selecting a feat that makes you a true Half-Fiend is just too much value to pass up, which makes furthering your investments in those territories considerably more valuable than continuing through Elf/Dwarf for instance (parity is key).
Now I think it's almost a certainty/requirement that Ancestry Archetypes become a thing if the above becomes possible, since there needs to be isolation and locks for selecting a certain Ancestry Feat or Heritage associated with it.
Then you can attach the following to the archetype:
- Once you gain X Feats in this Ancestry, you become a Half-(Ancestry)
You've now opened up Half Dragons, Half Demons, Half Angels, Half Ifrits, etc.
But then, you need to offer something similar on the ancestry side for the base races (otherwise we're all going to be running around as "half-X" on most things).
It's a fine line. Humans, funny enough, are the most boring longevity wise (unless something akin to a Dunedain were to come into existence).
If General's could flex into Ancestry space, it would certainly give players the opportunity to progress this other silo a little more effectively but it might not be needed. If the new skill feats are bumped in power, I'd put them about even in terms of value (so more of a player decision).
Certainly would be cool to have Tieflings that could eventually progress to Succubus Half-fiends, but it's an interesting dilemma.
Perhaps all these "touched" races should just be Ancestry Archetypes.
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Perhaps all these "touched" races should just be Ancestry Archetypes.
I love the idea of Ancestry Archetypes. I just don't know if we have enough feats for that, unless they take Class Feats. Then, they would need to be pretty beefy to take priority over core class features.
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I love the idea of Ancestry Archetypes. I just don't know if we have enough feats for that, unless they take Class Feats. Then, they would need to be pretty beefy to take priority over core class features.Perhaps all these "touched" races should just be Ancestry Archetypes.
I totally agree, which is why I'd like to either see Ancestry Feats scale better or General Feats to be the truly pick what you want Feat.
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So my question about doing planetouched as a heritage for existing ancestries, how, then, do we handle all the various kinds of aasimar? Like would my heritage feat be "Aasimar" and my Ancestry feat be "Musetouched"? Would we have 6 different Aasimar heritages?
What about people who are part human, but that race in PF1 involved an attribute penalty humans do not normally have? Do we drop "tieflings have lower cha" or "changelings have lower con" or do we let heritages change the stat bonuses an ancestry grants?
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So my question about doing planetouched as a heritage for existing ancestries, how, then, do we handle all the various kinds of aasimar? Like would my heritage feat be "Aasimar" and my Ancestry feat be "Musetouched"? Would we have 6 different Aasimar heritages?
What about people who are part human, but that race in PF1 involved an attribute penalty humans do not normally have? Do we drop "tieflings have lower cha" or "changelings have lower con" or do we let heritages change the stat bonuses an ancestry grants?
personally, on the "touched" races, the ability scores aren't really the focal point, so letting the base race define those IMO is the way to go.
That said you could always specify the floating bonus that the base comes with to be limited (two choices like background or just a flat has to be STR for some or CHA for others).
Then a Muse Touched Aasimar would just be an Ancestry feat that only Aasimar can pick (either as their first Ancestry Feat or later).
Most of the time I found my tables hunting for a specific type of Aasimar/Tiefling merely for optimization purposes as opposed to thematic ones, so if the initial Heritage selection is wide enough that you can encompass the "feel" of Muse Touched without providing some of the more pronounced ones that you can develop with other Ancestry Feats.
You could also just as easily make the Free Bonus of the parent Race dictate the "type" as well, so a CHA bonus on a Human means you're a Musetouched Aasimar, so the spell you gain is Glitterdust.
I think there's space for it to work it just depends on what you choose to hinge the themes on.