| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I’m a little surprised to have not seen them in LOAG, especially after some appeared in one of the 2e adventure paths. I have players who love them, and I’m curious to see what the new edition’s take on them will look like!
Do you think the Drow will be an independent Ancestry or a Heritage from elves?
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
I assumed the Cave Elf Heritage were basically Drow.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You could probably make a heritage that gives darkvision, light blindness, and immunity to sleep. Then an ancestry feat limited to drow that gives +1 status to all saves vs. mental, then a level 5 feat to get the full set of status bonuses to saves. The feats are very powerful, but require a light blindness heritage.
And say drow who grow more accustomed to the surface are represented by a subset cavern elves.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We haven't had Lineages for core races yet. Drow as a Lineage of the Cave Elf heritage could make sense.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I suspect they'll be added in some kind of Darklands-oriented book alongside the likes of duergar, and probably implemented akin to how half-orcs and half-elves work as human heritages.
(Cavern Elf isn't quite a drow as it doesn't grant you the drow trait... Not that it matters for too many mechanical interactions currently.)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I assumed the Cave Elf Heritage were basically Drow.
Cavern elves are not drow. Drow are not cavern elves. "Cavern elf" is an ancestry for PCs who want to be elves who live underground but are not drow. If we intended cavern elves to be drow, we would have called that out specifically in the entry for the cavern elf heritage and in the drow entry in the Bestiary.
When we do drow as a PC ancestry it'll be its own thing... either its own ancestry or (more likely) a set of elf heritages.
No reason you can’t use them like that, but officially they are not the same.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I assumed the Cave Elf Heritage were basically Drow.No reason you can’t use them like that, but officially they are not the same.Cavern elves are not drow. Drow are not cavern elves. "Cavern elf" is an ancestry for PCs who want to be elves who live underground but are not drow. If we intended cavern elves to be drow, we would have called that out specifically in the entry for the cavern elf heritage and in the drow entry in the Bestiary.
When we do drow as a PC ancestry it'll be its own thing... either its own ancestry or (more likely) a set of elf heritages.
Fine by me. I guess James would know best :D
But it is a bit hard to tell which parts of the CRB could contain lore-specific stuff and which don't.
Oh sure. And I for the record, I don't mean to imply than anyone that does use Cavern Elves in the meantime are playing it wrong. I only mean to say that Paizo doesn't consider cavern elves to be drow, and that we will probably get something that is official eventually (how soon I am not prepared to guess).
I would be extremely pleased if the first '22 rulebook turns out to be Occult/Darklands focused, for example.
I doubt Paizo will risk their respectable image by encouraging it, much less creating a playable ancestry.
If anything, they seem to be distancing themselves as much as possible from that particular topic matter. A wise move given the current political atmosphere these days.
Don't hold your breath.
IIRC Paizo drows have indigo blue to lavender skin, just saying.
It wasn't always that way. As I said, distancing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not surprised that Drow wasn't in the Ancestry Guide, as that was reserved for non-Core ancestries.
I would expect Drow to just be an elven Heritage, with the drow feats having "Drow Heritage" as a pre-req. I also think that it wouldn't show up until a Darklands centric book, be it Lost Omens or in an AP.
I feel exactly the same.
I would expect Drow to just be an elven Heritage, with the drow feats having "Drow Heritage" as a pre-req
If it ever comes around, I'm kinda' hoping Paizo takes this route as well.
The Haritage system really lends itself to the whole "sub-race" thing that D&D has going. Sun elf, Moon elf, Aquatic elf, wood elf, drow, etc. Its also really easy way to have regional differences without rewriting the whole ancestry.
Creative Director
|
| 25 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'd love to do a big book about the Darklands, which would be a logical place to include ancestries for drow, duergar, svirfneblin, munavri, and more. Not every human-shaped creature down there needs to be a PC option though, and I'd prefer not to do ancestries for morlocks, deros, serpentfolk, urdefhans, etc. Not because I want them to be forever evil, but because I want them to remain mysterious to players to a certain extent. Maybe in a decade that'll change, once the stories we want to tell about these creatures have been told and they've moved thematic categories.
As to how we'd do these, particularly things like drow, duergar, and svirfneblin, and whether theyd be heritages or their own thing... way too soon to start noodling over that in public for us, but I do welcome more discourse on the subject from folks so that we can use that feedback as part of our decision if/when the time comes to make it.
|
Creative Director
|
| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think I mentioned it before, but I'm definitely interested in 2e darklands books :3 because besides last darklands book being 3.5, would be nice to get expansion of what Darklands is under every continent all over golarion
The tricky part about doing a Darklands book is that it, more than most other regions, is more of a place meant as a GM resource than a Player resource. The Darklands are traditionally a place to go adventure, not a place to come from. That said, I've wanted to do an Adventure Path where the entire party is composed of Darkland ancestries for a decade or so... so if we can figure out a way to do a book that has both GM information AND Player options in a way that can:
a) not skimp on the GM content if it needs the room, and
b) do so in a way that doesn't make customers frustrated about "spoilers", and
c) get to a point where we're ready to do lots of Darklands stuff in the first place, then
I'll be delighted! :-)
AND: From the office of expectation management, I'd love to have a section in a bigger Darklands book that talks about the regions below all the other parts of the world, but I'm wary about developing too much about that content before the top side is more set in stone, and wary about not supporting the core part of the setting the most in the book in the first place.
Ironically, the longer it takes for us to get around to a Darklands book, the more other parts of the world we'll be able to explore and the less of an issue that will be.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not every human-shaped creature down there needs to be a PC option though, and I'd prefer not to do ancestries for morlocks, deros, serpentfolk, urdefhans, etc.
I'd love to see serpentfolk in a Darklands book. Actually, what I'd really like is something like the old Yuan-Ti purebloods but we don't have those anymore. ;)
|
Creative Director
|
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not every human-shaped creature down there needs to be a PC option though, and I'd prefer not to do ancestries for morlocks, deros, serpentfolk, urdefhans, etc.I'd love to see serpentfolk in a Darklands book. Actually, what I'd really like is something like the old Yuan-Ti purebloods but we don't have those anymore. ;)
We've had some "do someday" plans for a big serpentfolk adventure for a while now; something that does some different stuff than we did a decade ago with "Serpent's Skull," but it's taking a bit to get this moving forward. It's not something that works well with the idea of a PC serpentfolk at all, though. And furthermore, it's valuable to the setting to have some of the more monstrous societies remain mostly malevolent, mysterious, and monstrous. There's a LOT of room for PCs who aren't exactly human looking (see the recent and excellent Ancestry Guide for 128 pages of awesome examples!), but that's different than cultivating a game where everything is potentially a PC option.
I know that's a somewhat controversial stance, but it's pretty important to retain some tools for GMs and storytellers, I feel.
All of which is to say that if we did do a Darklands book, there'd be PLENTY of serpentfolk content in there. They'd be tools for the GM though.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
(I’m chiming in for my obligatory “I hear all that, but I still want playable Serpentfolk someway, because of how they look” post ✨)
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I doubt Paizo will risk their respectable image by encouraging it, much less creating a playable ancestry.
If anything, they seem to be distancing themselves as much as possible from that particular topic matter. A wise move given the current political atmosphere these days.
Don't hold your breath.
Given that you spend an entire 2e AP volume in a Drow city, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
|
Creative Director
|
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, we haven't written drow out of the game. They're in the first Bestiary, after all, and have shown up (and will continue to show up) in our adventures.
What we HAVE abandoned is their black skin (they now have shades of lavender skin) and the fact that they're always evil (most of them are, but they don't have to be, like any other creature).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I understand the desire for certain things to remain GM options, especially since most things like that would be barred from society play. But I don't see why you couldn't down play the evil aspects and draw more from the xenophobic angle. Like the aztecs, maybe ritual sacrifice is an honored tradition, they could be prone to catching slow working fatal diseases from humanoids that aren't sterilized (making all their covert operations into potential suicide missions), perhaps they are seen as evil by others just because they are genocidal to all other species, there could even be a biological reason they can't coexist with others instead of "because they are evil".
For serpentfolk I think having a biological reason why they can't get along well with others, like a predator and prey sort of relationship, might work better then presuming the only reason you need to kill these creatures or people is because their society and the things they value are too different as that sort of makes it seem a political or ideological issue. If their main food source has been mammals and especially humanoids since before all those creatures developed intelligence and thus they are biologically designed to eat said beings, they would be hard pressed to view most of the other species on the planet as anything other than food, even if they wanted. Maybe they are all psychopathic, as a species they never developed empathy, they are all willing to do what ever it takes to succeed at a task and have no remorse.
I think there's ways to learn more about things, flesh out the details some and still keep them mysterious. Dragons make plans that can take hundreds of years to resolve, Eldar in 40k can see into the future to know what domino effects the things they do have, both of these are super mysterious to me as you can never predict them or really know what they are thinking, no matter how much you know about them.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think I mentioned it before, but I'm definitely interested in 2e darklands books :3 because besides last darklands book being 3.5, would be nice to get expansion of what Darklands is under every continent all over golarionThe tricky part about doing a Darklands book is that it, more than most other regions, is more of a place meant as a GM resource than a Player resource. The Darklands are traditionally a place to go adventure, not a place to come from. That said, I've wanted to do an Adventure Path where the entire party is composed of Darkland ancestries for a decade or so... so if we can figure out a way to do a book that has both GM information AND Player options in a way that can:
a) not skimp on the GM content if it needs the room, and
b) do so in a way that doesn't make customers frustrated about "spoilers", and
c) get to a point where we're ready to do lots of Darklands stuff in the first place, thenI'll be delighted! :-)
AND: From the office of expectation management, I'd love to have a section in a bigger Darklands book that talks about the regions below all the other parts of the world, but I'm wary about developing too much about that content before the top side is more set in stone, and wary about not supporting the core part of the setting the most in the book in the first place.
Ironically, the longer it takes for us to get around to a Darklands book, the more other parts of the world we'll be able to explore and the less of an issue that will be.
I'd love to see the Pathfinder equivalent of Lamentations of the Flame Princess' - Veins of the Earth. I'd really like more information and mechanics involving exploration of travel and survival in the area in addition to monsters/ancestries/locations. The environment of the Darklands should be deadly and terrifying in and of itself.
|
Creative Director
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I understand the desire for certain things to remain GM options, especially since most things like that would be barred from society play. But I don't see why you couldn't down play the evil aspects and draw more from the xenophobic angle.
We absolutely can, and we have done this with many ancestries that, before 2nd edition, were very much in the xenophobic always evil mode: goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, kobolds, strix, and fleshwarps all represent some of the big ones that come to mind off the top of my head.
And serpentfolk are certainly not an "Always Evil" ancestry; like all other ancestries, they have free will and, especially if they escape aspects of their society that prohibit it, can be whatever they want to be. That doesn't automatically make them go to the front of the line on the list of ancestries to provide player rules for. We can't do all of them at once, and it makes sense to prioritize our efforts on the ones we want to do, while likewise NOT rushing to do rules for others. It's a time-management thing, to a certain extent, as much as it is a content and theme management thing.
I think I mentioned it before, but I'm definitely interested in 2e darklands books :3 because besides last darklands book being 3.5, would be nice to get expansion of what Darklands is under every continent all over golarion
I super agree! I've totally been expecting a Darklands book with ancestries and lore and maybe NPCs and enemies and hazards and aoksdoaskdoa yeah. I'm a little surprised tbh that it's not been written already!
The tricky part about doing a Darklands book is that it, more than most other regions, is more of a place meant as a GM resource than a Player resource(...)
(...)
a) not skimp on the GM content if it needs the room, and
b) do so in a way that doesn't make customers frustrated about "spoilers", and
c) get to a point where we're ready to do lots of Darklands stuff in the first place, then
Hmmm, well, I mean... Not to downplay your concerns or anything — I have absolutely zero experience with this sort of industry, but like... That, uhm, doesn't sound that big of a problem to me? Except point c), of course.
I mean alright, let's say that Paizo releases uh Darklands: The Reckoning, or something. I'm bad with names. 2/6 is for players options, the other 2/6 for lore, and the last 2/6 for GM stuff like the aforementioned NPCs and hazards and specific hooks and yeah.
I mean okay, a player can skim through GM stuff, but... Would people really be bothered by this, what, potentiality?
I've wanted to do an Adventure Path where the entire party is composed of Darkland ancestries for a decade or so...
Uhm, yes please. I personally love these specific adventures that tend to provide a scope for player options, similarly to the Slithering — and especially if they exist for potential lore reasons. And any story focused on the Darklands would be great by themselves tbh.
|
Yeah, we haven't written drow out of the game. They're in the first Bestiary, after all, and have shown up (and will continue to show up) in our adventures.
What we HAVE abandoned is their black skin (they now have shades of lavender skin) and the fact that they're always evil (most of them are, but they don't have to be, like any other creature).
I remember art in 1E that had drow with dark blue or purple skin. Or was there a difference between how they were illustrated in art and how they were described in text?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd love to do a big book about the Darklands, which would be a logical place to include ancestries for drow, duergar, svirfneblin, munavri, and more.
That'd be pretty awesome.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
P2e won't have serpentfolk pcs the same way 5e won't have mind flayer pcs. It's perfectly reasonable for some aspects of the game to exist solely for the dm. I can't walk into a age of ashes campaign and demand that I play as Dahak. The serpentfolk can exist purely as part of the setting as opposed to part of the players agency. A good serpentfolk is a cool idea to explore.....but is just as easily accomplished with an NPC that the dm uses to help you get into the temple
|
I remember art in 1E that had drow with dark blue or purple skin. Or was there a difference between how they were illustrated in art and how they were described in text?Yeah, we haven't written drow out of the game. They're in the first Bestiary, after all, and have shown up (and will continue to show up) in our adventures.
What we HAVE abandoned is their black skin (they now have shades of lavender skin) and the fact that they're always evil (most of them are, but they don't have to be, like any other creature).
IIRC the change happened quite some time ago and was already there by the end of the 1E era.
While I would be excited for a darklands book, the Drow would probably be the part of that book I'd be looking forward to the least. So I would hope there's a good range of stuff in the book.
P2e won't have serpentfolk pcs the same way 5e won't have mind flayer pcs.
A good portion of the desire to "play a serpentfolk" can be satisfied by "playing a very snakey person who is distinct from a serpentfolk." IIRC a Nagaji redesign was on the table.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
All the darklands ancestries are cool, but let's be honest: when it comes to serpentine people's I want to see playable, I really want to see Vishkanya. With the HUGE Mwangi book coming out, a massive text on Vudra would also be amazing to see in the future, especially with the lovely lore dump we got in the AoE book. (plus its the one ancestry we don't have yet which a previous 1e pc was using in a campaign so I'm biased)
As an input/feedback/idea: a cool idea for a drow-focused campaign COULD BE a group of Drow who are the primary NPC faction in the AP who have rediscovered perhaps a lost elven goddess of their own, to replace the demon worship, and the story would be about their rise to power sort of as a 'Drow Ravounel'. Some kind of Drow-Focused deity who isn't a Lolth-analogue but maybe more in-tune with a dark, majestic, noble queen type figure?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One of the things that frustrated me about a lack of serpentfolk PC stats in 1e is that as a DM I found it considerably more difficult to build serpentfolk villains from the ground up without a base template "this is what a serpentfolk is with no training, no magic, no nothing, a blank slate of just 'this is the racial traits they possess' for me to slap class levels on. I just never really got the hang of customizing monsters all that well which is why my villains tended towards PC races I could just build as characters.
Now, I'm never going to play PF2E so I don't really have a dog in this particular fight. But I do think it's a silly hill to die on to say "we're not going to have serpentfolk pc stats because we want to keep them alien & mysterious" when in their other product line they included playable stats for Gray aliens & Reptoids, who're, within that setting, far more alien & mysterious than the serpentfolk are within Pathfinder, from what I can tell.
In other words, you don't need a baseline PC-style serpentfolk in order to make "leveled" ones, you just build them like any other monster.
He’s mentioned before that he has a difficult time doing that, so to a certain extent he does need that.
That said, I’ve found it easier to make a base level ancestry in PF2 than Starfinder or PF1. The feats take more work, but the base and heritages are easy.
In the Bestiary, Drow have the traits Drow, Elf, and Humanoid. Make of that what you will.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If elfs and drow can spontenaeously change into each other based on their actions, I have trouble seeing them as separate ancestries.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If elfs and drow can spontenaeously change into each other based on their actions, I have trouble seeing them as separate ancestries.Now that might have been retcon'd away.
I suspect that there are too many evil elves and just enough good drow to nix the idea of one transforming into the other just by their actions.
But given that Drow in the Bestiary do have the Elf trait, it does seem unlikely that they are a separate ancestry (unless, of course, one of the Drow racial features is having the Elf trait).
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If elfs and drow can spontenaeously change into each other based on their actions, I have trouble seeing them as separate ancestries.Now that might have been retcon'd away.
Drows have never been able to change into Elves, no matter their alignment. And an Elf changing into a Drow is an extraordinarily rare event that requires very specific circumstances.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If a Pixie and a Grig are both Sprites, or a cyborg and a mutant are both Fleshwarps, I don't see a problem with Drow being Elves just because they are different from other Elves.