Paizo recently announced a new book, the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide, and while all of the ancestries included seem interesting, something caught my attention in particular: the sprite.
As far as I know, they were confirmed to be tiny in size, which seems very intriguing!
If I understood the rules as they are now correctly, sprites would have zero base reach and need to enter their opponent's square to attack them. It seems like an interesting twist, but does this also mean that they can't flank? It would also mean that many creatures with Attack of Opportunity would get to strike them as they enter their square.
Tiny creatures also have severely diminished carrying capacity. This is partially offset by their ability to wear and wield tiny items, but stuff like coins are still going to weight them down.
I assume that resizing items would also have to be addressed, at least in the case of magic items. Maybe as a spell or an ability to shrink items when you invest them?
Do people think they are going to follow the standard rules for tiny creatures or are they going to include some changes? Giving tiny PCs the same 5 foot reach that others get would solve a lot of problems, but I think that's not a very interesting solution. Being 9 inches tall should completely change how you view and interact with the world!
I'm also not familiar with Pathfinder 1st Edition, did they have tiny ancestries there and if they did, how did they work there?
So, based on some quick searching I don't see evidence that would say sprites will be a player ancestry option.
Maybe like, an elf or a human descendant that had sprite ancestry.
Do you have anything that verifies sprites are an ancestry option?
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So, based on some quick searching I don't see evidence that would say sprites will be a player ancestry option.
Maybe like, an elf or a human descendant that had sprite ancestry.
Do you have anything that verifies sprites are an ancestry option?
It was specifically announced at PaizoCon Online as one of the options in the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide (coming in February) which has a Grig on the cover. This was noted here among other places.
So...yeah, this is happening.
The tricky thing about making a PC ancestry too large in size is that you increasingly cause problems with adventure design that assume a PC takes up 1 square instead of 4. It also starts to increasingly strain verisimilitude when you have weapons and wearable magic items interacting with bodies that could be twice as large or more as expected. The game certainly has SOME wiggle room in there, with Small and Medium gear being interchangeable without issue, but expanding that so that a halfling suit of armor or magic shoe would work for a halfling or a giant might be too much for some folks to take. We'll see though; we're continuing to experiment and explore various PC ancestries—there's a bunch coming soon in the Advanced Player's Guide and more coming in Lost Omens Ancestry Guide (which I believe starts to toy with Tiny sized PC ancestries, I think, so if we can do that then maybe we could eventually explore Large PC ancestries.)
They will NOT be goliaths though. Those are 100% owned by Wizards of the Coast; it's D&D intellectual property and not open content. Furthermore, we don't have any tradition of goliaths having any role in our setting, so introducing them randomly out of the blue is even more damaging to world verisimilitude than the size.
We DO have plenty of options for Large PC ancestries though. Ogrekin, ogres, minotaurs, and trox all quickly come to mind... although with the lore and flavor we have for ogres and ogrekin setting them up as TRULY monstrous, I don't think it's a good idea to open those two up to PC ancestries at all.
Honestly, the best option I can think of for a potential Large PC ancestry would be the nephilim. They're established in the game in a way that would make including them pretty elegant, and with 2nd edition's separation of PC/monster building rules, we don't need to worry as much about the fact that monster nephilim are higher level creatures with a LOT of racial Hit Dice.
Another, even MORE elegant solution would be to eventually introduce ancestry...
I believe the above post found in the Goliath thread, seems to confirm they are in deed touching on Tiny PC ancestry. Probably as an uncommon or rare option, making a guess. The statement doesn't seem to confirm that they know for sure it is a road they will continue to pursue or not, since it mentions toying with such options. I'm guessing they want feedback if the rules allow such ancestries to be fun for players, despite their otherwise breaking some likely assumptions for most characters in adventures.
If things go well, it sounds like they might consider large ancestries, although it sounds like they will have a number of things they will want to address before going down that road.
So, based on some quick searching I don't see evidence that would say sprites will be a player ancestry option.
Maybe like, an elf or a human descendant that had sprite ancestry.
Do you have anything that verifies sprites are an ancestry option?
It was specifically announced at PaizoCon Online as one of the options in the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide (coming in February) which has a Grig on the cover. This was noted here among other places.
So...yeah, this is happening.
Like I said, I just did a quick google search and didn't find anything. But I also (obviously) didn't already know about sources of information on it.
As for how it will work...we'll see I guess.
Being tiny size was a huge pain in PF1 unless you were a spell caster who could assume tiny size when you wanted and could return to normal size as well.
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If I'm going to play a tiny character, you can bet I'll arrange something so that another player "carry" my money. If I play a grig, you can bet one other player will end up being my "Pinocchio".
:P
And I agree, playing a tiny character MUST feel different.
And Luis Loza confirmed that they will print rule clarifications on playing a tiny PC with the ancestry.
Gencon brought us some new information regarding Tiny PCs.
There are going to be rules for riding your party members: Luis Loza stated that it's going to be some kind of a hybrid of the mounted combat and minion rules - You'll sync your initiative with your mount and pool your actions together, but you'll lose some of your actions.
The next part is speculation on my part, but this is how I think it will work, based on what was stated and the 'Different Types of Mounts' section on page 14 of the GMG:
- The rider will use the mount action as normal and the mounted player will skip their next turn, acting together with the rider on their next turn.
- You will share a pool of 4 actions that both of you can pull from, with the limit of one person being able to use a maximum of three actions.
- The rider will have to dedicate a hand to staying on.
- Other mounted combat rules will apply normally, including shared MAP.
Assuming this is all true, I think monks are going to be very effective mounts, since they are very mobile and can do a lot with just one or two actions. Riders are a bit more tricky, because the shared MAP means their most effective means of contribution are going to be non-attack spells. This is all well and good if your loyal steed is willing to attack from range, but riding on a close combatant is going to put you in harm's way. On further thought, champions have a lot of ways to support their mount already, so a champion with some access to spells could be very effective.
Obviously the developers have a tough balancing act to do between stopping player mounts from being too effective but still usable. I think the Master Blaster style is going to be a niche but fun way to play the game.