Hi all, thank you in advance for your thoughts.
NOTE: This question is for PFS Organized Play so I am hoping for replies to mostly be a consensus as opposed to the answer being mostly subject to table variance.
QUESTION: Could a Dragon Instinct Barbarian Dragon Disciple with Adopted Ancestry Kobold take the Kobold Breath and Dragon's Breath feats?
DISCUSSION:
Adopted Ancestry states that, "You can select ancestry feats from the ancestry you chose, in addition to your character’s own ancestry, as long as the ancestry feats don’t require any physiological feature that you lack, as determined by the GM."
Dragon Instinct grants access to the Dragon's Rage Breath Feat and the Dragon Disciple Archetype grants access to the Breath of the Dragon Feat.
Is a character with access to the Dragon's Rage Breath and Breath of the Dragon Feats not lacking the required physiological feature for the Kobold feats? Please note that the Kobold Breath and Dragon's Breath Feats do not require a specific Kobold Heritage.
While that would be very thematic and cool, I'm going to have to say no. Your barbarian dragon type is distinct from a kobold's draconic exemplar. Kobold Breath requires the colorful magic scales.
RAW you can't do Adopted Ancestry: Kobold. It's an uncommon ancestry, and Adopted Ancestry specifically says to choose a common ancestry.
Thanks! I missed that.
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PFS gives automatic access to the Kobold Ancestry, so its Uncommon nature should raise no issues. There are more my thought train crashed into though.
The Kobold breath weapon feats could be considered too physiological for a non-Kobold to acquire via hobnobbing. And that was my first interpretation until I thought about whether the feats were more magical in nature, and they are:
"You channel your draconic exemplar's power into a gout of energy..." and the ability has the Arcane & Evocation traits, so it doesn't seem physiological. So that's cool, it might not be physiological and therefore not subject to that rule. Sure enough, it's not even the PC's power/body/Kobold-ness being tapped into, but an outside source.
Except the latter fact leads to an unexpected hurdle: Adopted Ancestry doesn't give you Draconic Exemplar! Nor does Kobold Breath. And Draconic Exemplar isn't fluff, it's a listed mechanic under Kobold Mechanics. Technically, taking Kobold Breath would give your PC nothing as there's no choosing going on w/ the feat; it'd link to a null answer.
Sorry, but a random PFS GM would be in the right in denying you access to those feats since your PC would lack the mechanic referenced by the feat. It seems like a prerequisite that simply didn't need listing because Kobold's automatically have one to qualify.
(It does make me wonder if the "Draconic Exemplar" language is used elsewhere in PF2, thereby getting you a (likely even more circuitous) route for this to work.)
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PFS gives automatic access to the Kobold Ancestry, so its Uncommon nature should raise no issues.
While Kobold is given access to all players, it is still an uncommon ancestry, and thus does not meet the specification of Adopted Ancestry to select a common one.
PFS gives automatic access to the Kobold Ancestry, so its Uncommon nature should raise no issues.While Kobold is given access to all players, it is still an uncommon ancestry, and thus does not meet the specification of Adopted Ancestry to select a common one.
Depends on how one interprets "access". There are examples of Uncommon being a fleeting condition, i.e. Tian weapons where Uncommon disappears with travel to Tian. Those weapons are considered Common there (and to Tian PFS PCs too).
I do not know whether that type of situation applies to Kobolds in PFS though. Kobolds certainly aren't an Uncommon species, they're only Uncommon as PCs. They're tagged Uncommon for GMing boundaries & sensibilities, not rarity.The PFS notation doesn't clarify, likely because who'd be thinking ahead to Adopted Ancestry's phrasing?
Which is to say while access gained during play due to special events wouldn't make an Uncommon thing Common, blanket access for all of PFS seems like it would, much like a decision for a specific campaign, which I'd say PFS is.
Adopted Ancestry doesn't care about access though. It straight up says "Choose a common ancestry." Kobold does not qualify.
In a particular campaign, the GM can adjust the rarity of certain ancestries for the locale. Gnomes are uncommon in the Mwangi expanse for instance (and good riddance :P).
It is a reasonable question to ask if the PFS campaign makes an ancestry you have unlimited access to common or not. The adopted ancestry boons for otherwise uncommon ancestries open up the option without resolving the question one way or the other for kobolds.
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Adopted Ancestry doesn't care about access though. It straight up says "Choose a common ancestry." Kobold does not qualify.In a particular campaign, the GM can adjust the rarity of certain ancestries for the locale. Gnomes are uncommon in the Mwangi expanse for instance (and good riddance :P).
It is a reasonable question to ask if the PFS campaign makes an ancestry you have unlimited access to common or not. The adopted ancestry boons for otherwise uncommon ancestries open up the option without resolving the question one way or the other for kobolds.
That is a very reasonable question.
Until it is actually answered, though, the answer is unclear and hence subject to table variation.
Which makes it a poorish choice for a character unless you're willing to play at a table where some of your character is just not allowed. Its not actually a HUGE hit in this case and so that may be an option. Create the character in the full knowledge that he won't be able to use some of his abilities at some tables.
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This is a known issue in PFS. The Ancestral Adoption I boon, available for 20 ACP, allows you to "Choose leshy, lizardfolk, or hobgoblin when taking the Adopted Ancestry feat." This does not include Kobolds for some reason, who came out in the same book.
So the answer is: No, you can not do that in PFS at this point.
Also, even if you could pick Kobold, you would not be able to use a Kobold breath weapon as you do not have the necessary Kobold anatomy.
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I, for one, question the sanity of the PFS leadership allowing the Adapted Ancestry feat in the first place, let alone creating a whole boon that supports it given how it is almost ALWAYS going to have to be personally vetted by every GM that oversees a given adopted PC, and historically speaking over the last two-three generations of d20 games it was almost exclusively used to build munchkin nonsense that a given character could never qualify for without stammering "... uh, uh, I was um... I was raised by ninja wizard kitsune foster parents on the moon, that's why I have an extra +2 to every spell DC."