I've introduced some substantial houserules into my conversion document for an Eberron setting notes. So I thought it might be more appropriate to put them in this forum.
You can find a PDF document here with my notes so far. You can also find a word version of the document here if anyone wants to modify it for their own group.
It obviously has a long way to go. What it covers so far:
Introduction that explicitly says this document is for tables with a fair bit of experience with Pathfinder 2e. I personally (with the exception for the Warforged ancestry) will not be using it myself until next year at the earliest.
Ancestries: I have split up ancestries into race (which represents the physical elements of the ancestry) and culture (which represents the non-physical elements of an ancestry). This is very incomplete at this stage. I have only done warforged, kalashtar (human heritage), elves, dwarves, the mror holds and the tairnadal so far.
Backgrounds: Specifically a background for all of the 12 dragonmarked houses.
Faiths & Philosophies: This has domains and favoured weapons for the main religions (and some minor ones) in Eberron. I have pulled content from 3.5, 4e and 5e to help choose the domains I chose. When Paizo produces more domains it might be worthwhile revisiting the ones I've listed and tweaking them as necessary.
Archetypes: Ghallanda Host and Jorasco Healer are two archetypes I've made so far. I would love suggestions on feats that don't rely on the dragonmark for either of these archetypes.
The document is deliberately light on lore and instead focuses primarily on mechanics (there are a few exceptions). It isn't intended to replace the 3.5-5e books WotC has produced and it contains a link to where you can find them if you do want more lore information.
I am open to feedback and suggestions on anything in the document :)
I'm doing something similar with the ancestries in the CRB.
I'm just not satisfied with ancestries when compared to the old races.
I also feel species and culture aren't siloed well enough.
My focus is on bringing back as many of the alternate racial trates as possible.
Mostly it's because I want my group to be able to continue playing their characters without complaints about, "why can't I do x, y, z any more?"
But similarly, I have a 100% separation of physical attributes and cultural features.
Heredity vs heritage if you will.
Before 2e dropped, I fully expected Ancestry and Heritage to be the species and culture aspect of each race. Turns out it's just the 5e race and subrace mechanics under a different name. Was a bit disappointed about that, but right now it looks like all ancestries and heritages are biological (or at least innately psychological), while the cultural stuff is relegated to backgrounds and feats.
I fully understand why they're doing this, since half elves and half orcs are under the human heritage. They're probably going to make things like planar scions and half-vampire/lycanthrope/dragon/fey races into heritages, which honestly would've been more consistent than how they handled it in 1e. Planar scions, dhampyrs and skinwalkers are full races, while dragon and fey descent were just alternate racial traits.
Yeah. I'm not a fan of how it has worked out so far. If I get a copy of the Lost Omens Character Guide I might revamp it according to that. Paizo has made some headway into creating cultural specific ancestry feats. But they're still limited by race and I don't see them trying to fix that to be honest. Which just doesn't work for how I see Eberron working based on the 3.5e and 4e setting books + what Keith Baker has said on his own blog.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah. I'm not a fan of how it has worked out so far. If I get a copy of the Lost Omens Character Guide I might revamp it according to that. Paizo has made some headway into creating cultural specific ancestry feats. But they're still limited by race and I don't see them trying to fix that to be honest. Which just doesn't work for how I see Eberron working based on the 3.5e and 4e setting books + what Keith Baker has said on his own blog.
Keith Baker actually said that cultures don't correspond to subrace mechanics at all, when someone asked him about the distribution of elf, dwarf, halfling and gnome subraces across Eberron. There are wood elves and high elves among the Five Nations, Valenar, and Aerenal, for example. He seems subraces as genetic diversity among a race, kind of like how humans can have all sorts of different ability boosts without belonging to different ethnic groups.
PF2e's heritages are sort of like that too. Some heritages are especially common or even unique among some cultures, but most of the time heritage isn't culture-specific.
Ancestry feats can be obtained by other races if you're adopted, so they actually aren't limited by ancestry. The only ones you can't take cross-ancestry are feats that depend on biological traits, eg an elf's extremely long lifespan.
I've updated the document. I've been able to rename the races to ancestries. I've done this by reproducing the rules I'm using for all of the core ancestries. I've also removed half-elves and half-orcs away from being human heritages and instead made them their own ancestry (although they don't get a heritage of their own). Other than disallowing certain heritages and certain ancestry feats there are no changes to the core rules in how ancestries work.
I've added this wording under the ancestry feats heading for each ancestry: "A <ancestry> may choose any of the following feats when they gain an ancestry feat. A <ancestry> may also choose 1 culture from which they can select ancestry feats as well."
Let's say someone wants to play a tengu or a lizardfolk, they could. The GM wouldn't even need to houserule anything. They just wouldn't get a free culture to select ancestry feats from. Players can either:
a) Use the core rules as written in the CRB; or
b) Accept the far more restrictive ancestry feats listed under each ancestry and gain access to a free culture instead.
I've got a sidebar that says the same thing.
Keith Baker actually said that cultures don't correspond to subrace mechanics at all, when someone asked him about the distribution of elf, dwarf, halfling and gnome subraces across Eberron. There are wood elves and high elves among the Five Nations, Valenar, and Aerenal, for example. He seems subraces as genetic diversity among a race, kind of like how humans can have all sorts of different ability boosts without belonging to different ethnic groups.
PF2e's heritages are sort of like that too. Some heritages are especially common or even unique among some cultures, but most of the time heritage isn't culture-specific.
Yeah. With a few exceptions I'm pretty much allowing all of the heritages in the CRB and players are free to select whichever ones they want. I've not listed the "arctic" heritages for elves and goblins because it seems strange to me that those two ancestries would be the only ones that get those sorts of heritages (Keith Baker's argument against subraces even covers that precise example :P). I've also restricted gnomes so much more because I'm thinking of reusing them for planetouched heritage (people affected by a manifest zone which I see in the other thread is what your also thinking of doing with tieflings and aasimar).
Ancestry feats can be obtained by other races if you're adopted, so they actually aren't limited by ancestry. The only ones you can't take cross-ancestry are feats that depend on biological traits, eg an elf's extremely long lifespan.
Right. But there's a feat tax for that. For example:
Let's say people from Thrane prefer longbows as a cultural choice. Elves from Thrane get the perfect weapon feat for that (Elven Weapon Familiarity) so that is a perfect blend of mechanics and flavour. But a Thranish dwarf? They have to take adopted ancestry for that. Now why are we making dwarves pay a feat tax just to get training in their culture's primary weapon and not make elves pay the same feat tax?
Now if I'm playing a Thranish dwarf I might be really committed to the flavour of being from Thrane and decide to pay the feat tax. But I'm more likely to go "screw it. I'll just use a stupid battleaxe" and suddenly dwarves all look exactly the same no matter which culture they're from. So we lose the cultural identity and go back to the default D&D monoculture for each race. Which is fine if that's the setting your playing. But I don't think Eberron's setting really supports that and I think it helps in grain the national pride to not have mono-cultures for all of the non-humans.
So that's why I'm restricting the ancestry feats you get from your ancestry to just the physical ones and giving everyone a free cultural feat.
That said, I have no intent of using these rules for my next game (which might be starting in a couple of weeks if I'm lucky). Ideally I'm going to run a 3 month campaign with the Pathfinder 2e rules as written before I start testing out these houserules (with perhaps the only exception being Warforged because everyone loves playing a Warforged).
I actually think that culture feats should be its own category regardless of ancestry, while ancestry feats are as is.
So at each ancestry level, you can pick between an ancestry feat, and a cultural feat.
I actually think that culture feats should be its own category regardless of ancestry, while ancestry feats are as is.
So at each ancestry level, you can pick between an ancestry feat, and a cultural feat.
So you think elves should have training with longbows regardless of whether they're from Thrane, Breland, Q'barra or Karrnath? And yet dwarves should only get training in longbows if they're from Thrane?
If that's what your saying, can you explain why you think that makes sense in the context of the Eberron setting?
I actually think that culture feats should be its own category regardless of ancestry, while ancestry feats are as is.
So at each ancestry level, you can pick between an ancestry feat, and a cultural feat.
So you think elves should have training with longbows regardless of whether they're from Thrane, Breland, Q'barra or Karrnath? And yet dwarves should only get training in longbows if they're from Thrane?
If that's what your saying, can you explain why you think that makes sense in the context of the Eberron setting?
Keep in mind that the weapon familiarity ancestry feats give you several weapons, not just a single one. Thranes are trained in longbows, but they'd have no clue how to use elven curve blades.
Elves don't have that training by DEFAULT. To be trained in it, they need to take it as a feat, which makes it's a conscious choice to go out there and learn it. The elven diaspora in Khorvaire are not cut off from their ancestral culture, and they do have their own communities interspersed in the Five Nations. This goes for other non-human ancestries too; Sharn has cultural quarters for each of the core ancestries, and the Dragonmarked Houses all have ties to their racial homelands. So on average, elves are more likely than non-elves to read elvish literature about elven warrior traditions, and to know someone that fights with elven weapons. This in turn makes learning elven weapons more accessible.
An elf cut off from elven traditions just won't pick up any ancestry feats that deal with their culture, and can select a regional weapon group instead. But while the Five Nations are melting pots where people identify closer to their nationality than their ancestry, they aren't usually alienated from their ancestral cultures either. People bring culture with them when they immigrate, after all. If I'm running a Golarion game, I would allow a Tian character from Kalsgard to gain familiarity with Tian weapons too, because there's a Tian quarter in that city.
Now for the dwarf, I do think that a good idea here is to modify the Adopted feat so that it gives you a first-level ancestry feat in addition to opening up cultural feats from other ancestries. If this dwarf grew up in Valenar or Aerenal, he can pick up elven weapons through regional familiarity. If he simply didn't have significant contact with elven culture at all, I don't think he should have as easy a time as an elf when learning elven battle traditions. But again it't not barred for him; that's what the weapon proficiency feat and fighter multiclassing is for.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I respectfully disagree. I'm Australian, I have two great grandparent who were English. I have little to no connection with that culture. I have the Australian culture. My wife is half-Indonesian and grew up in Indonesia for half her life. She has much more connection to the culture of her heritage than I do. Our great grandchildren will quite possibly have little to no relation to the Indonesian culture. They sure as hell aren't going to have any meaningful connection with English culture.
I've grown up in very multicultural communities. And I've seen this consistently play out. First generation children of immigrants have closer ties to their parent's cultures then fifth or tenth generation immigrants.
I don't accept that all dwarves are going to have an innate reverence or affiliation with dwarven weapons. One whose ancestors have lived in Sharn for generations upon generations is much more likely to have an affiliation with Brelish weapons, than dwarven weapons. Except if you leave the Dwarven Ancestry with only easy access to Dwarven Weapon Familiarity, then your going to get a lot more dwarves with dwarven weapons then you otherwise should. And sure, someone doesn't have to take that feat. But if it works for their build (and given how crap ancestry feats generally can be there's a short list of feats that do work with a particular build) they won't hesitate for a second to take it. And if you raise the barrier of "they get it at the cost of a general feat" then your just making it slightly less likely they'll take the easy feat.
Sharn is a melting pot. Which means it has immigrants and first generation Brelish people from all sorts of cultures. It remains a melting pot because it keeps getting that influx of new immigrants.
Now sure, you might have a dwarf whose travelled to the Mror Holds and gotten in touch with their heritage. That's what the "Adopted Culture" feat is for. But as a standard default assumption I think it's wrong to assume dwarf = dwarven culture.
Your of course free to disagree.
By the by, not that this should have any influence on how someone plays their own game, but this is what Keith Baker has to say about the issue:
As the Undying Court rose to power, there were always elves who opposed it and chose to leave Aerenal to explore other opportunities. There was a greater wave of migration [of elves] following the eradication of the Line of Vol. The Vol bloodline was the only one that was exterminated; her allies had to choose exile or to swear oaths to the Court, and many chose exile. While others, like the Phiarlans, were disturbed by the conflict and left of their own accord. That was 2,600 years ago. So there are places like House Phiarlan and the Bloodsail Principality where elves maintain a unique culture, but many of these immigrants fully integrated into their nations. A typical Brelish elf is Brelish first, elf second. Elves in Thrane are likely to be devoted to the Silver Flame; it’s just that an elf elder devoted to the Flame might have personally known Tira Miron. But the short form is that elves in Khorvaire could trace their roots back to followers of Vol or immigrants driven by curiosity, but for most those roots are long buried and they have assimilated into the local culture.
Source (emphasis mine).
I interpret the above to say that elves in general are going to have their culture be defined not by their race but by the country they were born into.
And just to make it clear: I would definitely let a 1st generation immigrant (whether it be an elf, dwarf, Cyran human or whatever) choose between the culture of their parents and the culture they were born into. I included the Tairnadal for two reasons (1) they're the elfiest of elves on Khorvaire and (2) it demonstrates that culture isn't defined by the geography is born in. Valenar (as I interpret it) is a land of two cultures: Cyrans and the Tairnadal. You could easily have an elf born into Valenar and be of the Cyran culture.
[EDIT]: I'm also not forcing any race to give up all of their racial identity. All races get their racial language as well as whatever religion they so wish to practice.
Kalashtar will also notably have the Kalashtar Culture (I need to look up the name). Now Kalashtar have lived in Breland or Thrane or wherever for generations. But just like the jewish people have held onto their culture despite living among other cultures for generations upon generations, so have the Kalashtar. I think that's one of the things that makes them notable.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I already said that I would rule away Adopted as a feat tax. In my own home game I allow the Adopted feat to grant you a 1st-level ancestry feat from your adopted ancestry, IN ADDITION to opening up the other ancestry to you. I completely agree with you on this specific point.
I don't want to bring in a big discussion about real life cultural migration, but I'd like to point out that as a Canadian from Quebec, I speak English and French. That's cultural heritage from England and France, similar to why Australians speak English. Speaking English and French allows me to read literature written by people of British and French nationalities, even though I don't remotely identify as either. But it does give me very easy access to their culture if I want to. This is more similar to the ancestry languages, I suppose.
Also, fantasy ancestries are not the same thing as human ethnic groups; there are innate biological differences that goes beyond aesthetic, and psychological differences to boot. Elves and dwarves live far longer than humans, halflings and gnomes are the size of human children, and orcs have tusks. Furthermore, the only non-humans capable of interbreeding are humans with elves or orcs, and even then, there's a bit of a difference between being a half-elf, compared to say, being half English and half African-American. The half-elf has biological differences from both parents (eg. lifespan significantly longer than the human and shorter than the elf); the real life person will only have aesthetic distinctions form their parents and experience a merge of culture, but biologically they're all pretty much the same.
So if dwarf marries an elf, their children would have to be adopted (if they want any at all), because they can't genetically mix with each other. Half-elves in Eberron formed their own cultural group (called Khoravar) because they have innate differences from both humans and elves, and often identify with neither, which shows that just being part of a national culture isn't enough for them. All this point to the fact that even in Eberron, which is more mixed than other settings, you DO have people identifying to each other by ancestry, even if they're multi-generational immigrants, because they're far more likely to exist in families and bloodlines composed entirely of their own ancestry. Ancestry to the average citizen of the Five Nations is less important than nationality, but it's not entirely unimportant. An elf from Breland is Brelish first, an elf second. But an American of English descent in real life often doesn't consider himself English at all. So in the end I consider the assimilation to be a lack of racial loyalties and fully embracing local values. But I don't see it as a necessity to have every Brelish elf be culturally indistinguishable from a Brelish human.
So in the end while I fully agree that ancestries don't need a strong tie to their ancestral cultures (including weapons), but that's also why cultural ancestry feats are entirely optional. You can either be a dwarf that cares somewhat about dwarven traditions, or you can be a 10th-generation immigrant who gave up everything dwarven, or anywhere in between. It's really up to the player. If everyone picks the ancestral feats instead, then maybe it's because some rules elements are more powerful than others, which really sounds like a balance issue completely aside from this discussion.
So your saying you would allow BOTH a CRB elf's feat AS WELL as Thrane feats? You could certainly go that way. I think it's stealing the thunder of half-elves a bit and is also allowing a much broader base for which feats you can choose from then the core game assumes. But if your comfortable with those choices then you could definitely go that way.
I like my way more and although it might sound like it's much more different to the CRB rules, I think it will actually allow a much tighter range of ancestry feats to choose from and actually be in more in line with the CRB. But both options are definitely valid :) And I do include a sidebar in the guide saying "if someone would prefer to play an elf with the elven ancestry feats from the CRB then they can, they just don't get free access to a culture's pool of feats". So I definitely think there's room for both approaches.
That's exactly what I'm saying: all ancestries can choose from feats of their ancestry, AND feats from their culture as ancestry feats. I just think it's too much effort to examine each and every ancestry and try to decide what's culture and what's biology, because as I said before, biology can inform culture. I don't see Inspire Imitation as a biological trait of half-elves, for example. There's nothing biologically inspiring about them, they're just good at being a people-person because they have to bridge between two cultures; but most half-elves being conventionally attractive to both humans and elves certainly help. So going down this route there's going to be disagreements like that all over the place. I know the Adopted feat can do that already, but at least you're leaving it up to individual DMs to decide on a case by case basis, rather than making the choice for them.
Half-elves and half-orcs are also going to get their OWN cultural feats on top of stealing from their parent ancestries, like their racial Dragonmarks, so I don't see it as stealing their thunder.
And as you said, some ancestries, like Kalashtar, keep their traditions no matter how many generations they've lived among other cultures, so again this would add another layer of complexity when deciding what ancestry is purely determined by region, and what ancestry has its own feats regardless of region. Allowing ancestry or culture as equal choices for feats is just way, WAY easier to handle going forward. It lets people be whatever they want, and you can handle things like cultural assimilation narratively.
If being a dwarfy dwarf and being a Brelish dwarf with no dwarf ties are both fully valid options for characters, why bother messing dwarf ancestry traits? A broader selection is going to come out for everyone as PF2e releases more stuff anyway. Lost Omens Character Guide drops in 2 months. Just like in 1e, Core options are very quickly going to become a minority among the sea of options very soon.
I just think it's too much effort to examine each and every ancestry and try to decide what's culture and what's biology
Fair enough. The CRB feat Adopted Ancestry assumes a GM is going to be willing to make those calls. But if you're not then there's nothing wrong with that.
If being a dwarfy dwarf and being a Brelish dwarf with no dwarf ties are both fully valid options for characters, why bother messing dwarf ancestry traits?
Because it's there as a hack for people who aren't willing to mess about with the cultural stuff. It's why I also have the "Marked by Prophecy" background. Because 4e made the racial restrictions optional and that is how some people see Eberron so I didn't want to create a conversion document that told those people "your wrong".
For my home game there is no way in hell I'd have "Marked by Prophecy" as an allowable background. I'd also talk to my players, get buy in for restricting ancestry feats and having cultural feats and then remove the bit that says "you can use a CRB race if you really want to" because at that point my players have told me they're willing to not have it :)
A broader selection is going to come out for everyone as PF2e releases more stuff anyway. Lost Omens Character Guide drops in 2 months. Just like in 1e, Core options are very quickly going to become a minority among the sea of options very soon.
We'll see how it pans out. The document can always be revised at a later date. I personally do like mechanics that are based on the story and "dwarves are naturally linked with warhammers just because they're dwarves" does not mesh for me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Fair enough. The CRB feat Adopted Ancestry assumes a GM is going to be willing to make those calls. But if you're not then there's nothing wrong with that.
I'm saying that I don't think a conversion document should be making those calls for other GMs who're going to pick it up and use it. The call is made at the table level, not at the rules level.
Because it's there as a hack for people who aren't willing to mess about with the cultural stuff. It's why I also have the "Marked by Prophecy" background. Because 4e made the racial restrictions optional and that is how some people see Eberron so I didn't want to create a conversion document that told those people "your wrong".
For my home game there is no way in hell I'd have "Marked by Prophecy" as an allowable background. I'd also talk to my players, get buy in for restricting ancestry feats and having cultural feats and then remove the bit that says "you can use a CRB race if you really want to" because at that point my players have told me they're willing to not have it :)
Marked by Prophecy is completely valid as an optional rule because it's Rare and hence completely up to the GM.
It looks to me like the only feats you've moved to culture for most ancestries is weapon familiarity. Which is something I'm also working on myself, because Eberron has different ancestral weapons than CRB anyway. Goblins have flails and spiked chains instead of the silly dogslicers and horsechoppers, so on and so forth. So in the end I'm going to move weapon familiarity entirely into cultural feats as well, I just haven't really gotten deep into it (waiting on LOCG and APG playtest). For everything else I'll keep it within ancestry.
I guess I'm not disagreeing with the idea of separating culture and biology, as much as not seeing it as being worth the potential disagreements. Some traits are clearly cultural (weapon familiarity), some are clearly biological (longevity, darkvision), so those are the easy ones. The difficult traits to decide are the psychological traits, like halfling luck. Halflings are good at seeing opportunities missed by others, undaunted by failure, and can push themselves beyond perceived limitations. Is the halfling's positive psychology a result of their biological nature, or their cultural practices? That doesn't really have a definitive answer, especially since some heritages also appear to be psychological traits and physical conditioning, rather than pure biology (woodland elf, gutsy halfling, for example). Overall I don't think the rules we've been given is all that big on distinguishing between a character's nature and nurture to begin with.
I'm saying that I don't think a conversion document should be making those calls for other GMs who're going to pick it up and use it. The call is made at the table level, not at the rules level.
I'm also setting this up so I can copy paste into a campaign guide. It's also why this is in homebrew and not in conversions. I'm acknowledging I'm going beyond straight conversions.
It's also why I'm making the word document available. If someone likes part of it but dislikes other parts they can grab what they want and delete the rest :)
And if something as critical as which feats a player can take is ambiguous (such as nature vs nurture) then it definitely behooves a GM to set expectations up front rather than rely on making judgement calls halfway through a campaign.
I guess I'm not disagreeing with the idea of separating culture and biology, as much as not seeing it as being worth the potential disagreements.
I still disagree.
THAT SAID I do agree that splitting them up in this document is simply not worthwhile. I'm going to let PCs gain all of their ancestry feats AND some make some of those feats available to any ancestry that chooses the appropriate culture (so if you have a dwarf that chooses the Tairnadal culture because you came up with a really cool backstory and your GM accepted it, then you get to choose both dwarven weapons and elven weapons). This is a direct increase in how much variety PCs can have compared with the CRB. But you are right in that the Lost Omens Character Guide is going to do the same thing regardless as will future supplements.
I guess I'm not disagreeing with the idea of separating culture and biology, as much as not seeing it as being worth the potential disagreements.I still disagree.
THAT SAID I do agree that splitting them up in this document is simply not worthwhile. I'm going to let PCs gain all of their ancestry feats AND some make some of those feats available to any ancestry that chooses the appropriate culture (so if you have a dwarf that chooses the Tairnadal culture because you came up with a really cool backstory and your GM accepted it, then you get to choose both dwarven weapons and elven weapons). This is a direct increase in how much variety PCs can have compared with the CRB. But you are right in that the Lost Omens Character Guide is going to do the same thing regardless as will future supplements.
That's...precisely what I'm suggesting. I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with at all. I did say that after taking a deeper look into cultural combat styles in Eberron, I too want to make weapon familiarity cultural feats separate from ancestry, after all, since Eberron's racial weapons are different from Golarion's and it's really the same amount of effort taken.
As for not worth the disagreements, what I mean is that a lot of ancestry feats are psychological traits and it's hard to definitely judge whether it's culture or biology. If you want put them in one category or another for your home game, that's totally fine because it's a table-level decision, just like the Adopted feat. But since you're also preparing your homebrew for general use, I foresee enough changes other GMs will make to your changes that you might as well let them modify CRB rules from scratch.
That's...precisely what I'm suggesting.
And I'm saying I agree with you all on the whole. The only part I'm disagreeing with is the part I quoted. Because Paizo tells us we should care enough about discussing and "disagreeing" over what's biological vs cultural because we have to if any PC takes the Adopted Ancestry feat.
I wouldn't have mentioned that if you simply want to divide them up for your own home game, after all.
I'm just not going to allow the Adopted Ancestry feat (replace it with Adopted Culture) and avoid the issue altogether. Although I think your holding my conversion document to a different standard then the one I'll be using in developing it.
And I'm saying I agree with you all on the whole. The only part I'm disagreeing with is the part I quoted. Because Paizo tells us we should care enough about discussing and "disagreeing" over what's biological vs cultural because we have to if any PC takes the Adopted Ancestry feat.
I feel like we're talking in circles here. Paizo wants individual GMs to make up their own mind on the matter, while remaining rather agnostic on their end. If they personally have an opinion, they haven't put it to the rules to show us which trait is cultural and which one is biological.
I'm just not going to allow the Adopted Ancestry feat (replace it with Adopted Culture) and avoid the issue altogether. Although I think your holding my conversion document to a different standard then the one I'll be using in developing it.
Adopted Culture seems like the most reasonable solution in that case.
I'm not holding your conversion to any standard. Maybe I wasn't completely clear before. I think that it's unnecessary work to solidify rulings that are meant to be a case-by-case basis (even potentially at your own table) into a rules document. The solution you arrived at in the end is probably the most elegant. I don't think there's any disagreement left.
I feel like we're talking in circles here. Paizo wants individual GMs to make up their own mind on the matter
I see myself as an individual GM. Perhaps you don’t, but that is the context in which I’m working on this.
I think that it's unnecessary work to solidify rulings that are meant to be a case-by-case basis (even potentially at your own table) into a rules document.
I disagree. I do not see this as a case by case basis. I see this as the GM is going to have a clear opinion on the issue. If players disagree the discussion should be had up front, not at 13th level where the players build completely unravels because you don’t see eye to eye on what’s biological or cultural.
A case by case basis would be “can I jump up onto that ledge” where the GM makes a ruling at the table. Can I take this common feat/archetype/spell should under normal circumstances not be on a case by case basis.
I guess we'll chalk it up to different experiences as individual GMs on this disagreement. I currently run Eberron in Pathfinder 1e, and I've had to make case-by-case decisions pretty much every time the player characters level up. A player wanted to take Hermean Potential, which I allowed under the setting-neutral name of Bestow Fortune at the table, a decision I could by no means have foreseen when I started the game. Another player wanted to take skinwalker feats for their shifter, which really depends on what shifter and what feat, since shifter breeds don't correspond to skinwalker heritages on a one-to-one basis. I also had to coach a summoner player on what possible eidolons could come from what plane, since Eberron's cosmology is so different from Pathfinder.
Overall, it's default for me to look at anything and see it as "if it makes sense for this PC, then it works" without assuming it's universal. Case by case is my assumption when running any system in a setting that isn't inherently supported by the system.
Fair enough. I prefer a more consistent approach. With you as a GM I could probably talk my way into getting absolutely anything I want, just by finding the right angle to justify it. I find that can sometimes lead to resentment between players as some are better at “gaming the GM” then others.
Different strokes for different folks.
Fair enough. I prefer a more consistent approach. With you as a GM I could probably talk my way into getting absolutely anything I want, just by finding the right angle to justify it. I find that can sometimes lead to resentment between players as some are better at “gaming the GM” then others.
Different strokes for different folks.
Nah, some options are never justifiable. No way in the Nine Hells would I ever allow Sacred Geometry anywhere near my table.
It's just that I'm very willing to hear out a player's narrative reasoning behind picking up options that might not be "conventional". If it's within a reasonable power level, adds to the story and lets them have fun, why not?
I just see opening up more options as a good reward for good storytelling on the player's part. So trying to "game" me as a GM is equivalent to telling me a compelling character backstory....which is exactly what I want anyway.
Fair enough. I have definitely seen that lead to resentment, especially if some players are better b%@~$+&@ters (I mean storytellers) then others. But I’m glad it works for you :)
For what it's worth, in my document I am placing psychological ancestry feats in culture.
I see it as "goes without saying" that anyone that used my materials can adjust, modify, and rework any part they disagree with.
Though this conversation has prompted me to include a disclaimer like that often stated by the pathfinder designers to the above effect.