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We have been playing since launch and we are finishing up the "Ironfang Invasion" (great AP) so we are talking about what is next. I am the GM and as we move on I just wondered about peoples thoughts on uncommon and rare ancestries. Are they balanced with common ancestries? Is it really just to allow the GM to say "Nah does not fit" or are there benefits beyond the common ancestries?
Everything I read....I cannot find much seems on ancestry rarity does not mention balanced issue but may not be theme appropriate. But wondering the community thoughts?
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It just comes down to theming - none of the uncommon ancestries really have this issue, they're literally just uncommon. Some of the rare ones have narrative things they can bring up (looking weird as a fleshwarp, being a robot as an automaton, etc) but they're all perfectly balanced with each other, more or less.
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It's mostly flavor, really. Galoma are a rare sight compared to elves and halflings. That's about it.
The only "balance concern" one might have is permanent flight which multiple uncommon ancestry/heritage options can provide at level 17 and some rare ancestries can provide it at 13. I personally feel both are fine at their level.
Other than that, I can't really think of anything that makes those options more powerful than the common options.
Gonna echo the above.
My games have had a mix of common and uncommon (no rare, yet) and there haven't been any issues. The ancestries seem to follow a pretty consistent template and that holds true for the less common ancestries, too.
EDIT: I'm a fool and forgot that I'm playing an anadi in our Strength of Thousands game. Still low level, but nothing overshadowing there.
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"Are common ancestries balanced with uncommon and rare ancestries?" Honestly, the uncommon and rare ones are weaker. Human is usually the strongest ancestry. Most of the rare and uncommon ones are short on options and weaker for it. Aasimar is the only one that really stands out as strong. Some rare and uncommon ancestries do open up additional options, like Sprite Summoner, but they're still weaker than human in most cases.
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In general I would say the core ancestries might actually be more powerful than other ancestries. Mainly the reason they are uncommon/rare is because they might not align thematically with the campaign.
I find that rare/uncommon ancestries really add more fun for players. It just opens up a lot of fun options.
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The big advantage of Kobold is giving access to Dragon Disciple without needing to be a specific Class.
Guaranteeing access to the Dragon Disciple archetype. You can also gain access to the archetype through GM agreement. The access entry is not the same as a prerequisite entry.
Common ancestries are actually kind of more powerful in terms of how there's so much more feat support, particularly at higher levels.
Making an ancestry uncommon is mostly to get people to ask the GM "hey, would it be okay if I played a [foo]?" (with "rare" underlining the GM to double check with "are you sure").
Some GMs might be okay with a game about a Goloma, a Shoony, a Poppet, and an Automaton adventuring through the Saga lands but other people might want to reign that in a bit or save that group for a different campaign.
In general I would say the core ancestries might actually be more powerful than other ancestries. Mainly the reason they are uncommon/rare is because they might not align thematically with the campaign.
I find that rare/uncommon ancestries really add more fun for players. It just opens up a lot of fun options.
Yep, the uncommon/rare options don't fit the Tolkien mold, the default that a GM might wish for their high fantasy. In Golarion though, I'd say the Uncommon have been somewhat common as PCs and NPCs, and this includes the planar ones (with PFS having a season where they ran rampant). There might be a few peculiarities (like flight mentioned above or Negative Healing for the Dhampir), but those could be discussed as needed. As for Rare, I'd double-check to make certain I understood what might make them Rare rather than Uncommon, whether it's a mechanical or narrative reason.
Plus, it'd be good to understand one's campaign, i.e. a Sprite's size + flight or a Kobold spamming energy breath might impact certain obstacles & monsters more than you'd wish.Yet, yeah, I agree the core are generally stronger, having more options that support a wide variety of builds (with the possible exception of the Goblin).
My only worry about rare and uncommon ancestries has been inventing backstories that fit the setting.
For example, when I began my Ironfang Invasion campaign, converted to PF2 rules, in October 2019, my players wanted to play two gnomes, a halfling, an elf, and a goblin. The first four I had no trouble with, though none of those were common ancestries in the starting village Phaendar (Population 398: 305 humans, 32 half-orcs, 21 dwarves, 17 half-elves, 28 other), but the village had been raided occassionally by goblins and hobgoblins from Molthune, so I did not see the place as friendly to goblins. Thus, I began the game with 10 goblin refugees (including the goblin PC) from the invaded village Ecru arriving in Phaendar.
That goblin dropped down to NPC status when the player moved away. Likewise, a new lizardfolk PC dropped out when the player fell sick. At 3rd level we gained another PC, a tailed goblin. Though the Tailed Goblin heritage is not marked as rare or uncommon, its lore ties the heritage to Mediogalti Island on the west coast of Garund. I worked out a backstory with the player that explained her weird heritage: quarter-Mediogalti granddaughter of civilized monkey goblins invited from Mediogalti Island to raise goblin babies orphaned in the Goblinblood War in Isger.
Sixth-level additions were a leshy and a catfolk. By then, the party was obviously unconventional, so uncfommon ancestries fit well. Humans would have been less appropriate. The leshy had been awakened locally by a Fangwood druid and the catfolk was a world traveler from Garund.
In my PF1 Iron Gods campaign, we had two humans, a dwarf, a half-elf, and a strix. The strix was a rare ancestry, with Devil's Perch in Cheliax too uisolated for a strix to travel to Numeria. But in a previous campaign, I had put a strix NPC in the Tusk Mountains in Belken. That strix gained an entire tribe in the Shudderwood in Ustalav to serve as the origin of these northern strix.
PF1 strix were controversial, because they could fly, unless the GM insisted on clipping their wings. Since the player wanted to play an exotic character, she could fly from day one. It gave her some combat strategies, such as Death from Above, not open to other PCs, but in a setting with laser guns and flying robots, this ancestral perk was far from overpowered. I am more bothered that PF2 strix PCs cannot fly at low levels, gaining a flying hop as a feat 5 and 10-minute flight once per day as a feat 9. In contrast, the Strix Kinmate creature 2 has Fly Speed 25 feet.
The ancestries are not perfectly balanced. For example, in some campaigns darkvision is valuable. Imagine a rogue trying to sneak in a dark cave while carrying a lit lantern. But the extra power is found as easily in common ancestries as in rare and uncommon ancestries.
The tree-climbing tailed goblin, sure-footed halfling, and vine leshy are all good at climbing due to their ancestry and they find ways to explit that. The goblin once climbed past a pit trap in Fort Nunder to fetch a key. The vine leshy in my Ironfang Invasion campaign has an advantage with Ritual Reversion in that she is a local vine. If she were an exotic foreign vine, reverting to vine form would not hide her as well. These little exploits are flavorful rather than unbalancing.