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Greetings all!
I'm planning on rolling a leshy character as soon as I get enough Achievement Points to acquire the ancestry. I was thinking about Fungus Leshy, specifically. I love everything about them - and leshies in general - except the fact that they apparently have to be small. Is there a mechanical or in-game balance-related reason for that?
I don't want my character to be cute or cuddly or gimmicky. I want him to be imposing and for people to take him at least somewhat seriously. I plan on him / her / it being one of the emissaries from the Elemental Plane of Earth, in a way, a cool, calm and collected monk-like personality, and it being barely a meter tall isn't necessarily conducive to that flavor.
Perhaps your mileage may vary, and I've never played a leshy character thus far, but I feel that it will be hard enough avoiding leshy character being a comic relief to an extent as it is, and that much harder if it is a three feet tall pipsqueak. No offence to three feet tall pipsqueaks out there. :)
I know, I can roleplay it as a stoic and gruff individual in any case, but is there actually a good reason a spirit of nature can't inhabit a body that's 1.80 m tall (around 5'9'' I guess)? Do you think my GM might let me roll a leshy that's an M creature instead of S?
Thanks in advance!
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Just make him look like a trypophobia-inducing fanged creep with sickly yellow spores that ooze a stinking liquid. Nobody will call you "cuddly" or "funny". You don't need to be big to be intimidating and anything but a comic relief.
Something like this, with a rasping voice that sounds like metal ran against stone.
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Joe Pesci made a career as a small intimidating guy.
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Yup; that's part of what makes them a leshy. Same reason that goblins are small, elves are medium, and trolls are large.
Feel free to change as you want in your game, but for PC ancestries that are medium plants, we've got the ghorans already.
How would you feel about something like General Ancestry Feats that could be taken only at Level 1, by any Ancestry, to represent genetics or other conditions that make you 1 size larger or smaller?
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Joe Pesci made a career as a small intimidating guy.
I always thought of him as the small guy that was trying to be intimidating but came off as funny instead.
From a mechanics standpoint, there's not much difference IIRC. Your GM might be fine with letting you be an M.
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How would you feel about something like General Ancestry Feats that could be taken only at Level 1, by any Ancestry, to represent genetics or other conditions that make you 1 size larger or smaller?Yup; that's part of what makes them a leshy. Same reason that goblins are small, elves are medium, and trolls are large.
Feel free to change as you want in your game, but for PC ancestries that are medium plants, we've got the ghorans already.
I think perhaps a Versatile Heritage would be the way to go here, that way it makes more sense in regard to making a level 0 Character who doesn't suddenly shrink or grow once they reach level 1 and it more properly suits the nature of your genetic heritage versus some optional training or societal component that Ancestry Feats represent.
Creative Director
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How would you feel about something like General Ancestry Feats that could be taken only at Level 1, by any Ancestry, to represent genetics or other conditions that make you 1 size larger or smaller?Yup; that's part of what makes them a leshy. Same reason that goblins are small, elves are medium, and trolls are large.
Feel free to change as you want in your game, but for PC ancestries that are medium plants, we've got the ghorans already.
Uncomfortable. I'd be 100% fine with something like that for humans being 1 size smaller, but that's about it.
Again, feel free to change things as you wish in your game, but part of my job as creative director is to maintain baselines for the setting, and that includes maintaining the aspects about the non-human ancestries that make them what they are. A bette solution for me for folks who want to play different size ancestries is to make different size ancestries.
If every ancestry eventually has enough options so that they can be anything at all, that erodes the whole point of having separate ancestries in the first place.
That might be where the game is headed a few editions down the road, but it's not 2nd edition Pathfinder.
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Whoa, guys!
Wow! Thanks for the amazing feedback and the ideas! :)
And James, thanks for introducing me to ghorans, I wasn't even aware that they existed.
Gorbacz, it's true, nobody in their right mind would ever think this particular shroom is cute or cuddly. :)
I was thinking about something along these lines.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/loJa5
I do still want my character to be admitted to most inns and taverns and lodges. :) Although it will be interesting to explore the prejudices and the superstitions that would arise from meeting a highly unconventional Pathfinder in the communities used to more standard humanoids.
You gave me a lot to think about. I'm gonna have to have a talk with my GM. I could pull off this fungus leshy as being small as well I guess, but if medium height wouldn't be stretching (pun somewhat intended) the rules too far, and if my GM agrees, I might go for a medium creature.
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Uncomfortable. I'd be 100% fine with something like that for humans being 1 size smaller, but that's about it.Again, feel free to change things as you wish in your game, but part of my job as creative director is to maintain baselines for the setting, and that includes maintaining the aspects about the non-human ancestries that make them what they are. A better solution for me for folks who want to play different size ancestries is to make different size ancestries.
If every ancestry eventually has enough options so that they can be anything at all, that erodes the whole point of having separate ancestries in the first place.
That might be where the game is headed a few editions down the road, but it's not 2nd edition Pathfinder.
I totally get that. And thank you for your perspective, it's not every day that you hear from the creative director of one of your favorite games. :)
It's true that leshies have plenty of other strengths to offset their smaller size, if you even look at small size as a disadvantage. I don't, it has to be said, I just look at it from a "cosmetic" point of view.
I'll try to think of ways to work around the small size flavor, perhaps just enlarging the character occasionally via spell or something to try and respect the original vision of your team as much as possible.
I wanted to make something akin to an earth elementalist, so I'll probably go with an elemental bloodline sorcerer, and then my fungus leshy will soon be able to enhance its frame in many ways in any case. :)
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Joe Pesci made a career as a small intimidating guy.I always thought of him as the small guy that was trying to be intimidating but came off as funny instead.
Funny how? You mean like a clown?
You could look in to the Giant Barbarian. Will let you at least enlarge while you're raging eventually.
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Funny how? You mean like a clown?Joe Pesci made a career as a small intimidating guy.I always thought of him as the small guy that was trying to be intimidating but came off as funny instead.
Yes, he amuses me.
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Is this for society play? There is much less wiggle room there.
Yeah, for Society.
If it was any other ancestry, I wouldn't even think of bending the size rules, but it somehow made sense - at least to me - for an entity that is essentially a plant or a saprophyte vessel for a spirit of nature to be a bit flexible when it comes to size. Plants are all about growth and form change, after all. There's even a grasping reach leshy feat that lets them elongate their arms. I never thought their form was really a firmly fixed category.I was looking at the leshy art long before I actually got to read the rules, so that's probably where my initial misconception sprouted from. :) Nothing in the art really suggested that they were small. Gourd leshy in particular seemed tall and lanky, and that was the image that stuck in my mind.
I could already envision dozens of players rolling some variation on the pumpkin gourd leshy / scarecrow / Jack O'Lantern theme, a slender and gangly creature that - preferably - fights with a scythe. :)
And an idea of a stoic mushroom warrior or an intrepid sorcerer took form in my mind, and I never thought for a minute that such a character would view the world from the height of three feet. But I should've perception checked myself before I wrecked myself. :D
Yup; that's part of what makes them a leshy. Same reason that goblins are small, elves are medium, and trolls are large.
You guys printed a Medium goblin as a PC and monster option in First Edition as I recall (and I don't mean hobgoblins or bugbears, but goblin goblins).
Edit: Found it. Monster Codex.
A few goblins attain a much larger size than their kin. No one is exactly sure why they grow to be giants among their kind, but it’s probably due to a combination of luck, diet, and constant access to food. These goblins are monsters among their own kind, not just in height, but also in girth and in strength. If not cast out for eating all of the tribe’s food, over-sized goblins often become the bosses of their tribes, and the most powerful of them become chiefs. Over-sized goblins are Medium size, and grow to 4 to 5 feet tall. They tend to be particularly obese, weighing between 225 and 275 pounds. Instead of the normal racial ability score modifiers for goblins, over-sized goblins gain a +2 bonus to Strength, a +2 bonus to Dexterity, and a –2 penalty to Charisma.
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That's an exception, not the standard.
I'm totally fine with my character being an exception as well, in the vein of what @Ravingdork was talking about. If that's possible and allowable.
Perhaps he's not the first vessel for that particular nature spirit that's "building" this new body for it to inhabit. Perhaps the spirit's experiences and memories and knowledge are becoming almost too much and too powerful to put into a smaller frame. Or some of the past experiences the spirit went through actually pushed it into experimenting with a bit larger vessel. Or it tapped into one of those myconid mega-organisms, a single fungal colony that's several miles across, and what came out from the process was tad larger than usual.
It can be a combination of factors, like in the goblin example. The character can certainly be somewhat of an aberration even among its own kind. After all, there are freakishly large humans as well.
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Creative Director
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Yup; that's part of what makes them a leshy. Same reason that goblins are small, elves are medium, and trolls are large.You guys printed a Medium goblin as a PC and monster option in First Edition as I recall (and I don't mean hobgoblins or bugbears, but goblin goblins).
Edit: Found it. Monster Codex.
** spoiler omitted **
There's been a tradition of mutant Medium goblins in the game from the very first Burnt Offerings. That's a specific choice, but you still don't see us offering up lots of medium goblin options in the game. That's the hobgoblin's role, really.
And an exception for one creature doesn't mean that exception is logical or even wanted by us for others. Just because a cat has a tail doesn't mean all animals have to have tails.
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Creative Director
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Yeah, for PFS, your options for unusual and GM-requried-exceptions are minimal to non-extant. I'd suggest saving the "Medium leshy" character idea for a home game and to work with your GM to make it happen. I don't see us making this an option for PC leshies anytime soon (if ever).
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Yeah, for PFS, your options for unusual and GM-required-exceptions are minimal to non-extant. I'd suggest saving the "Medium leshy" character idea for a home game and to work with your GM to make it happen. I don't see us making this an option for PC leshies anytime soon (if ever).
Roger that. Smol it is. :) There are no significant size-related mechanical differences between small and medium in any case, and no penalties to being small as far as I can see, so a few feet of size aren't really all that important.
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Size matters for combat maneuver target limitations, but that's all I'm really aware of.
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Roger that. Smol it is. :) There are no significant size-related mechanical differences between small and medium in any case, and no penalties to being small as far as I can see, so a few feet of size aren't really all that important.
It could be fun to wear bulky shoes and a big helmet or have horn-like branches on your shoulders and head, giving the illusion of being taller, and affect a 'big guy' attitude (because you are in fact so much taller than the average small leshy, if still actually small, by human standards).
Sure, he's only four feet tall, but he's packed six feet worth of attitude into that four feet!
PF1 had Ghorans as a size Medium plant race, but unless Paizo massively changes their lore, they will almost certainly be a rare race whenever they get added to PF2.
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PF1 had Ghorans as a size Medium plant race, but unless Paizo massively changes their lore, they will almost certainly be a rare race whenever they get added to PF2.
Ghorans do look cool, but I'm some five sessions away from a leshy ancestry. :) Plus, leshies are even more out there and more nature-based then their M-sized plant-like brethren, and that makes them even more interesting in my book. Ghorans are usually portrayed as wood-masked / wood-faced green elves or humans, but leshies truly have their physical freak on. :)
Set and Mrspaghetti, thanks for the suggestions! :) Stilts actually sound dangerously close to almost eschewing the size rule, but I'd be lying if I said that I don't love the idea. :)
As far as the illusion of being taller is concerned, fungus leshies do usually have caps, as mushrooms normally do, so I could probably get away with a lot if I go for a large cap on its head. Sort of like a gnome with a humonguos top hat. :) Only inverted. :)
I'll play around with your ideas a bit. I'll definitely have that S in the character sheet, but what will actually walk the streets and go on adventures might end up being a bit... over the top in some ways. :)
S in the sheet, M in the street, one might almost say. :D
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Would be a hell of an introduction if a fungus leshy casually pulled his cap off and bowed in greeting, revealing a slimy, wrinkly underlayer somewhat reminiscent of a brain.
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Would be a hell of an introduction if a fungus leshy casually pulled his cap off and bowed in greeting, revealing a slimy, wrinkly underlayer somewhat reminiscent of a brain.
God DAYUM!! :)
Don't give me any more ideas. :D :DI'll be banned from Society events if this continues. :)
Yes they have to be small, and in some cases must be tiny, and fit in a pot.
For everything else, there's Wyrwood and Ghoran.