Advanced Players Guide Character options up on the OP forum

[Zapp]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I figure pretty much all ancestries (that aren't in the core book) are going to be at least uncommon (some will be rare). If an ancestry were common, you could find that sort of person pretty much everywhere reasonably populated. This is true of humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. but how many other ancestries are this way in the setting?

This.

Again folks, denoting something as "uncommon" is meant to help GMs.

They don't have to actively say no, they just don't have to actively say yes. A big difference.

Especially when you consider the pushy PF1 player mentality of entitlement: the "I purchased this book, therefore I have the right to play all its options" crap.

All this means is that any GM whose world does not contain kobold heroes (or whatever) doesn't have to enter in a fruitless discussion about why he or she doesn't allow that option. The GM can simply point to the Rules as Written, and say they're not making an exception this time.

This is a big help since players can no longer sit at home assuming they're free to use everything in their character build, and then become outraged when - at the table - the GM tells them they can't do that. Now they need to ask for permission beforehand. In other words, the rule becomes "Talk to your GM", as is proper and right! :-)

Another way of saying this is:

Your GM will likely allow it unless he or she has a good reason not to. So there's nothing to complain about. You trust your GM, right?

[Deadmanwalking]

Donald wrote:

Which was the only book with playable races until 2012. After which three non core races were available.

We have two books with non core races for 2nd ed and only one is free to play, putting us “behind” 1st ed.

This is not true. There were a number of playable Races in the Bestiary in PF1, and you could play zero of them (at least, not without specific boons) for several years there. These included Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Kobolds, among others.

[Cyrad]

I would be fine with Uncommon legacy races if not for the fact that goblins are common. Goblins have been portrayed as bad guys for over a decade, and places where goblins are commonly seen tend to be remote settlements that consider them as monsters. I understand that narrative is changing, but it also begs the question why a race like kobolds remain uncommon despite them being more commonplace around settlements. Many kobold tribes live under or near major cities.

Goblins as common? That's fine.
Non-classic races as uncommon? That's fine, too.
But having both these things be true feels like a weird double standard that I'm trying my hardest to shake off from the back of my mind. It sends a mixed message.

[AnimatedPaper]

Cyrad wrote:

I would be fine with Uncommon legacy races if not for the fact that goblins are common. Goblins have been portrayed as bad guys for over a decade, and places where goblins are commonly seen tend to be remote settlements that consider them as monsters. I understand that narrative is changing, but it also begs the question why a race like kobolds remain uncommon despite them being more commonplace around settlements. Many kobold tribes live under or near major cities.

Goblins as common? That's fine.
Non-classic races as uncommon? That's fine, too.
But having both these things be true feels like a weird double standard that I'm trying my hardest to shake off from the back of my mind. It sends a mixed message.

Kobolds are unrestricted for PFS play, making them effectively a common option.

[Grankless]

GOblins are *everywhere. And they haven't even been "always evil" in Golarion since as far back in Council of Thieves, where there's even a neutral Hellknight goblin. Admittedly, a lot of development was in PFS scenarios, which are out of focus for a lot of players.

[MaxAstro]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Donald wrote:

Which was the only book with playable races until 2012. After which three non core races were available.

We have two books with non core races for 2nd ed and only one is free to play, putting us “behind” 1st ed.

This is not true. There were a number of playable Races in the Bestiary in PF1, and you could play zero of them (at least, not without specific boons) for several years there. These included Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Kobolds, among others.

Thanks, I came here to say the same thing, but I couldn't remember off the top of my head which races were in B1.

Can I say, on that note, that I'm super glad PF2e has moved to not having player options in the Bestiaries?

[Staffan Johansson]

MaxAstro wrote:

Can I say, on that note, that I'm super glad PF2e has moved to not having player options in the Bestiaries?

My guess is that that's less of an active choice than a natural consequence of ancestries being a lot more involved now.

I mean, in PF1, the mechanical stuff that covers a race takes up about 1/3 of a page in the CRB, or 1/4 or less in the Bestiary. That's a pretty easy thing to include, particularly since most of it is already designed for the monster version. But in PF2, the mechanics of the CRB ancestries take up about 2 1/2 pages for each ancestry. At that point, you need to ask yourself "Should I include PC stats for orcs here, including a bunch of feats that probably need a fair amount of review*, or 2-3 more monsters?"

* I'm assuming that things like ancestries in general get more careful design/development than monsters, because a monster is generally only in play for a few rounds while PC material is potentially around for a whole campaign.

[Michael Sayre]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Isn't the Boon for Uncommon Ancestries pretty affordable in PF2?

As in, play a single character of a Common Ancestry for 20 sessions (or GM 10 sessions) and you probably have enough Achievement Points for it? And you could just keep doing that with every other character from then on, effectively only ever playing a single Common Ancestry and then going infinite?

That...really doesn't seem particularly onerous, as requirements go. That's 'you can't do this on your first character unless you GM a lot', not a major restriction in the long term.

I always got the impression it was a lot harder to get weird races in PF1 PFS than that.

You could also play or GM an AP like Age of Ashes using whatever character options you want, report it for credit, and have nearly enough for a new ancestry right there; then play the tengu iconic or a kobold for a few sessions for the rest of what you need. So there are pathways in PFS by which you can never play a CRB ancestry at all.

Cyrad wrote:

I would be fine with Uncommon legacy races if not for the fact that goblins are common. Goblins have been portrayed as bad guys for over a decade, and places where goblins are commonly seen tend to be remote settlements that consider them as monsters. I understand that narrative is changing, but it also begs the question why a race like kobolds remain uncommon despite them being more commonplace around settlements. Many kobold tribes live under or near major cities.

Goblins as common? That's fine.
Non-classic races as uncommon? That's fine, too.
But having both these things be true feels like a weird double standard that I'm trying my hardest to shake off from the back of my mind. It sends a mixed message.

Non-evil goblins have existed in almost every region of Golarion since before the Pathfinder rules-set was even a thing. Krebble-Jeggle the chaotic-neutral goblin ran a gambling hall in Katapesh when Dark Markets was printed. The first AP ever written for the Pathfinder rules had Jinkoo, the LN goblin "hell knight". Magnimar has always had a huge population of goblins living beneath its streets. The Frostfur goblins have been wards of the Society for over 7 years. They're one of the only reasons anyone from Lastwall made it out alive when the Whispering Tyrant attacked, because they're living creatures with a penchant for fire and practically anathema to undead. They now have a thriving population in the Puddles of Absalom.

And they breed faster than anything else in the setting. Over the course of 5 years you might end up with a handful of elves, a few dwarves, and literally hundreds of goblins already working on the next generation. They've always been common, certainly much moreso than any of the uncommon ancestries, they just haven't always been well-integrated into wider society.

[Donald]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

This is not true. There were a number of playable Races in the Bestiary in PF1, and you could play zero of them (at least, not without specific boons) for several years there. These included Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Kobolds, among others.

I don't think you can compare half a dozen paragraphs plus some stat information in the Bestiary verses pages of race information in the Core book. Most of the monster race information would be homebrewed by the GM, and that not being allowed in PFS play makes sense.

We're also trying to compare a rules system in it's early days vs the second edition of that rule system with over ten years experience behind it.

[MaxAstro]

Donald wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

This is not true. There were a number of playable Races in the Bestiary in PF1, and you could play zero of them (at least, not without specific boons) for several years there. These included Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Kobolds, among others.

I don't think you can compare half a dozen paragraphs plus some stat information in the Bestiary verses pages of race information in the Core book. Most of the monster race information would be homebrewed by the GM, and that not being allowed in PFS play makes sense.

We're also trying to compare a rules system in it's early days vs the second edition of that rule system with over ten years experience behind it.

"You corrected me, so I'm going to say your example doesn't count" isn't a great look.

Your second paragraph is spot on, though.

[Donald]

MaxAstro wrote:

"You corrected me, so I'm going to say your example doesn't count" isn't a great look.

Your second paragraph is spot on, though.

I wasn't being corrected, I was the one asking.

You can't compare a loose set of guidelines against a firm ruleset for characters.

[Deadmanwalking]

Donald wrote:

I don't think you can compare half a dozen paragraphs plus some stat information in the Bestiary verses pages of race information in the Core book. Most of the monster race information would be homebrewed by the GM, and that not being allowed in PFS play makes sense.

This is pretty clearly incorrect. The races in question have every bit of the rules required to play them, including literally everything the races in the core rulebook had. They were debatably not well balanced (and the Bestiary had a warning to that effect), but that's different from being homebrew or incomplete.

None were changed from their Bestiary versions in the least for later publication in the ARG, the only difference was the addition of Alternate Racial Traits, something completely unnecessary to actually play them, and not found in the core rulebook for the standard PC races either.

Donald wrote:

We're also trying to compare a rules system in it's early days vs the second edition of that rule system with over ten years experience behind it.

Certainly. And my point is that it's currently much easier to play an Uncommon Ancestry than it was to play a Race from anywhere but the corebook for about 3 years after PF1 came out. Given it's been less than a year, that's significant progress.

Donald wrote:

I wasn't being corrected, I was the one asking.

You can't compare a loose set of guidelines against a firm ruleset for characters.

The rules in the PF1 Bestiary for Drow, Orcs, Kobolds, Hobgoblins, Goblins, Aasimar, Tieflings, and probably several other Races (those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head), are every bit as complete as those in the PF1 core rulebook for Elves, Dwarves, or Halflings.

[TheRabidOgre]

This is one of the reasons I made a couple of points about the core ancestry selection back during the Playtest.

Frankly, I think the "traditional core race" selection is outdated and the entire thing should be rethought.

Elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes don't just come from a specific origin of fantasy races, they come from a very different cultural context, often closer to their original mythological origins. Mythologically speaking, across the world, good things tend to be roughly in the image of humans, and anything that's not is usually bad, or at least tricky and unknowable.

Nowadays, what can be considered sympathetic, or identified with enough to want to play, has expanded massively. I don't think there's anything that you can't find a significant fandom in the modern day.

The idea of having a small set of core ancestries still makes sense (I'll get into that a bit later), but it seems very narrow by modern standards. Adding goblins was a step in the right direction, but it almost calls more attention to how outdated the rest of the concept is. At the very least, a "beast ancestry" should also be core, and I'm convinced that more of the classics should be removed.

Now, I get that setting really matters. It's hard to tell a compelling story when literally anything goes. Not every campaign is going to be able to reasonably accept any ancestry, and they shouldn't be expected to. That said, core ancestries aren't necessarily exempt from this (like if you want to do one of those "through the eyes of monsters" campaigns).

That's part of the problem though. The core setting should also evolve based on these changing expectations.

In the end, people are going to want to play what they want, as obvious as that sounds. Asking someone to play a character they don't want to play, just to unlock a character they do, is silly, no matter how theoretically quickly they can do so (and 20 sessions sounds like a lot when I've barely gotten more than 3 or 4 sessions in of any tabletop game ever).

There's no entitlement there. No player is under any obligation to play a game to begin with. If they can't play what they want, then they have no reason to join the campaign to begin with.

I just think that a related issue is the tradition of the core ancestries to begin with. It hasn't been brought up to modern standards and modern archetypes. When was the last time you saw a halfling outside of a tabletop game? A gnome? In comparison, when was the last time you saw a heroic orc? A cat person? Which of them is going to be more likely to be someone's touchstone when they're getting into the game?

[Midnightoker]

TheRabidOgre wrote:

Now, I get that setting really matters. It's hard to tell a compelling story when literally anything goes. Not every campaign is going to be able to reasonably accept any ancestry, and they shouldn't be expected to. That said, core ancestries aren't necessarily exempt from this (like if you want to do one of those "through the eyes of monsters" campaigns)

I honestly would love it if regional/AP based Ancestry choice became a thing.

Basically open up all Ancestries but then limit the common ones based on the setting/AP. If the common ones are Orc, Goblin, Human, Dwarf, any Tiefling, etc. for that setting/AP, then all the other ones are considered Uncommon that would be a cool way to sculpt a regionally appropriate group.

I think that would also help people lean into the setting/AP more if they have to conceptualize the character concept around the Ancestry and now that pretty much any Class can be accomplished with any Ancestry it's not a super punitive system.

[Ascalaphus]

Midnightoker wrote:

TheRabidOgre wrote:

Now, I get that setting really matters. It's hard to tell a compelling story when literally anything goes. Not every campaign is going to be able to reasonably accept any ancestry, and they shouldn't be expected to. That said, core ancestries aren't necessarily exempt from this (like if you want to do one of those "through the eyes of monsters" campaigns)

I honestly would love it if regional/AP based Ancestry choice became a thing.

Basically open up all Ancestries but then limit the common ones based on the setting/AP. If the common ones are Orc, Goblin, Human, Dwarf, any Tiefling, etc. for that setting/AP, then all the other ones are considered Uncommon that would be a cool way to sculpt a regionally appropriate group.

I think that would also help people lean into the setting/AP more if they have to conceptualize the character concept around the Ancestry and now that pretty much any Class can be accomplished with any Ancestry it's not a super punitive system.

Isn't this exactly the way things are right now? It's just that the camera is kinda centered on the Inner Sea so what's put as common in the books is what's common in the Inner Sea region.

If you ran a Tian Xia campaign, you'd probably make dwarves, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs uncommon options and make tengu (and kitsune, nagaji, wayangs etc.) common.

[Deadmanwalking]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Isn't this exactly the way things are right now? It's just that the camera is kinda centered on the Inner Sea so what's put as common in the books is what's common in the Inner Sea region.

If you ran a Tian Xia campaign, you'd probably make dwarves, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs uncommon options and make tengu (and kitsune, nagaji, wayangs etc.) common.

Yep. This is more or less exactly the way I'd expect a PF2 Tian Xia book to handle Rarity.

[Midnightoker]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Midnightoker wrote:

TheRabidOgre wrote:

Now, I get that setting really matters. It's hard to tell a compelling story when literally anything goes. Not every campaign is going to be able to reasonably accept any ancestry, and they shouldn't be expected to. That said, core ancestries aren't necessarily exempt from this (like if you want to do one of those "through the eyes of monsters" campaigns)

I honestly would love it if regional/AP based Ancestry choice became a thing.

Basically open up all Ancestries but then limit the common ones based on the setting/AP. If the common ones are Orc, Goblin, Human, Dwarf, any Tiefling, etc. for that setting/AP, then all the other ones are considered Uncommon that would be a cool way to sculpt a regionally appropriate group.

I think that would also help people lean into the setting/AP more if they have to conceptualize the character concept around the Ancestry and now that pretty much any Class can be accomplished with any Ancestry it's not a super punitive system.

Isn't this exactly the way things are right now? It's just that the camera is kinda centered on the Inner Sea so what's put as common in the books is what's common in the Inner Sea region.

If you ran a Tian Xia campaign, you'd probably make dwarves, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs uncommon options and make tengu (and kitsune, nagaji, wayangs etc.) common.

I guess it depends on if they change that for other regions.

It's one of those "schroedinger's ancestry pool" because we've only seen the one pool.

[swoosh]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Isn't this exactly the way things are right now? It's just that the camera is kinda centered on the Inner Sea so what's put as common in the books is what's common in the Inner Sea region.

If you ran a Tian Xia campaign, you'd probably make dwarves, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs uncommon options and make tengu (and kitsune, nagaji, wayangs etc.) common.

Yep. This is more or less exactly the way I'd expect a PF2 Tian Xia book to handle Rarity.

In theory, but PFS and PF in general so far have been very centered on a specific region of the world. So while the concept might be varying rarity of ancestries and other options based on region, if you only ever focus on one region, what we get in practice is a fairly static set of 'normal' people and then 'others', which is both frustrating for players who want to play other ancestries and has some unfortunate undertones to it.

[The Raven Black]

swoosh wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Isn't this exactly the way things are right now? It's just that the camera is kinda centered on the Inner Sea so what's put as common in the books is what's common in the Inner Sea region.

If you ran a Tian Xia campaign, you'd probably make dwarves, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs uncommon options and make tengu (and kitsune, nagaji, wayangs etc.) common.

Yep. This is more or less exactly the way I'd expect a PF2 Tian Xia book to handle Rarity.

In theory, but PFS and PF in general so far have been very centered on a specific region of the world. So while the concept might be varying rarity of ancestries and other options based on region, if you only ever focus on one region, what we get in practice is a fairly static set of 'normal' people and then 'others', which is both frustrating for players who want to play other ancestries and has some unfortunate undertones to it.

While that is true for PFS, in home games it is "talk with the GM" matter. Easily solved if your GM agrees.