So we've got a lot of internet chatter about how the gnome flickmace is the best weapon eva!!111ononeoneoneone. Which anyone can access via the Adopted Ancestry feat. So what if we just removed the feat tax and made all ancestry feats available to everyone who is from a particular culture?
Here's what I'm envisioning (yes, it does remove the ABC that everyone loves).
SPECIES (a.k.a. PF1e RACE)
Your species determines your physiological properties. Typically members of one species cannot breed with a member of another species, although humans and elves as well as humans and orcs are notable exceptions.
Elf
You gain all of the elf mechanics and an elven heritage. In addition you gain access to the following elven ancestry feats: Ancestral Longevity, Forlorn, Ageless Patience, Expert Longevity and Universal Longevity.
You may select an elven feat in place of an ancestry feat so long as you meet the prerequisites.
ANCESTRY
Your ancestry represents the culture of your parents.
Forest Kingdom (e.g. Kyonin, Eldeen Reaches)
You are a member of a culture that lives close to nature and forgo the trapping of advanced technology. Druids are most likely common among your people.
When you gain an ancestry feat you may select one of the following feats: Elven Lore, Elven Weapon Familiarity, Nimble Elf, Outworldly Magic, Elven Weapon Elegance, Elf Step, Elven Weapon Expertise, Animal Accomplice, Burrow Elocutionist and Animal Elocutionist.
GENERAL FEATS
General feats work as normal.
Immigrant (GENERAL 1)
You are either an immigrant or your parents are immigrants. So long as you've spent more than a few years among people of the new culture you can select ancestry feats from that culture. This feat can only apply to one culture (giving you access to a total of 2 culture's ancestry feats).
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Obviously in an ideal world you would rename everything from "Elven" to "Kyonin" but other than that all of the above feats would be available to anyone whose ancestry is that of the Kyonin kingdom.
So what's the point of the above? The advantages are:
* Allow players to better match the mechanics and the character concept. To me it's absurd that <insert large percentage of characters> are all adopted from <insert ancestry here> because they want that one feat that helps their character work. It's much more palatable for me to say that <insert large percentage of characters> are immigrants from <insert country here> because it reinforces the flavour of the PC rather than concentrating solely on the mechanics of the PC.
* It makes it easier to get the mechanics you want without a feat tax.
* It better represents racially diverse cultures.
* It removes GM fiat by the GM up front saying "these ancestral feats are physiological and are not available via the Adopted Ancestry feat".
* You could OPTIONALLY require certain archetypes be from certain cultures (e.g. Aldori Swordlord). So either they take the Brevoy ancestry or the immigrant feat.
So how do people think this will work mechanically? I don't think there's a balance issue due to the fact that Adopted Ancestry effectively means any single ancestry feat is available to any other ancestry. But I thought I'd check in case there are some unexpected issues I'm overlooking.
I've been running with a homebrew thing sort of like this for a while, albeit slightly different and with a short list of other changes to ancestries and ancestry feats.
Change 1. I replaced Ancestry feats with "Origin" feats, which you get from 2-3 sources, as listed below.
Source a) Ancestry. This is mostly for physiologically-based feats, such as an elf's ability to be really fast. Sometimes it's for cultural tendencies heavily impacted by the ancestry (e.g. humans are fairly social so I left them with the option that boosts attempts to aid), or for behaviours that would be picked up due to the usual experiences of that ancestry regardless of upbringing.
Source b) Plane of origin. My game is set in an interplanar metropolis which links to a lot of places with very different cultures and environments. This is the culture option so to speak and usually includes things like skills training or weapons proficiency.
Source c) Heritage. A lot of the heritage options I've set grant some origin feats, which generally work like a mixture of the first two sources, depending on the kind of heritage.
Change 2. I made Origin feats into a subset of General feats, and replaced Ancestry feat progression with General feat progression. This one is probably fairly controversial but I'm happy with how it's playing out. Adopted ancestry, ancestral paragon etc. will of course need modifying as a result.
Change 3. Free boon. I gave each ancestry a free boon, on the level of an Ancestry feat, as part of their basic stuff. E.g. I removed mystic mien as a feat and attached it to the elf, as my elves have some weird brain stuff going on that makes them hard to mentally effect. Instead of granting low-light vision the half-X heritages grant the ancestral boon instead.
Change 4. Languages. For languages I took a middle ground, with some being made available by ancestry and some being made available from plane of origin, the latter generally having more options. People have 2 + int mod languages from their available list.
you would still imo have to limit the feats that are based on physiological features.
If you wanted to go that route, i think that if you gave access to everyone in an ancestry feat that said:
"regional familiarity: You get access to all the feats of the region you hail from. Pick a Region from the list below, you gain access to all the feats of this region. You also gain a level 1 feat from the list you chose"
would be cleaner, and it would still give you enough control to limit the physiological based feats, and it would be easier to do with "A,B,C"
Take note though, that by giving them a "free level 1 general feat (adopted)" you are powercreeping them, so probably encounters would need to be a tad harder.
I do have physiological feats restricted. See the elf entry for an example of that.
Can you also explain how this results in power creep. I don’t see it, but I was concerned by it.
If you are an elf and you take the elf country your not actually ahead any feats. You get zero benefit from this proposal.
If you wanted 99% dwarf feats and then 1 elf feat, you still have to pay the feat tax.
If you wanted to take a Dwarf heritage, a single 1st level dwarf feat and then nothing but Elf feats then you are definitely ahead by 1 general feat.
Isnt giving up all your dwarf feat options a high enough price to get access to another race's feats?
There's obviously a blurry line as to what is physioligical and what isnt. But that problem exists under the current rule system anyway under the adopted ancestry feat. I personally dont consider elf step physiological but to instead simply be the result of expertise and familiarity with their environment. You obviously would rule differently.
But to take the dwarf feats. I think 3 or 4 count as physiological whereas the rest (such as hatred) would be cultural. So they either have to be from Dwarf lands to keep their hatred or give it up and be from elf lands (or spend the fear for 2 cultures).
And yes. Humans specifically I have been debating which feats should be accessible by other races and I think I've concluded most of them are the result of the inherent flexibility of humans (which goes all the way back to AD&D if not earlier) and keep their best feats locked away from other races.