Wait, aren't Ancestry Feats, Hitpoints, Speed.etc Bio-Essentialist too? Doesn't it all have to go? (LONG!)

[Animakuro]

Let me preface this with a couple of things.

1.I'm a white guy. My opinions on these matters are obviously going to be influenced by my own experiences (or lack thereof) with racism, bio-essentialism and the like.

2.I am strongly and passionately a Leftist. BLM, ACAB, Trans Rights and similar beliefs make up the core of my foundational values. People inherently deserve respect until they attack others and bigots should be made to feel unwelcome.

3.I'm Autistic and probably ADHD. Apologies if this comes across as rambling and me repeating the same points several times. In an attempt to make sure I am understood, this is just what I do.

The New Ability Boosts

Overall, I think the new Alternate Ability Boosts rule is fine. It's good, even.
I think as it stands a lot of the negative reaction to the Alternate Ability Boosts rule is complete hyperbole. At the moment, the old fixed Ability Boosts are still there and given the difference between the two options (Two fixed boosts, one free boost, one flaw VS two free boosts) depending on your build and what attributes you need, there's an reason to use either option. I think this is good game design - if there's a choice between two options, there should be a genuine reason to use both.
I felt differently when 5E did a similar thing - in my opinion, 5E Species are so flat and uninteresting that in most cases, the attribute increases were the only things differentiating them.

PF2 Ancestries are different - most notably there's an entire system of Ancestry feats that let you customize how their Ancestry affects them and what it means to them. Of lesser note is stuff like Ancestry deciding your hit points, size, speed, languages, senses and perhaps even some other things I'm missing.

By almost all PF2 fans, I think the increased customizability of the game is argued as it a strength over 5E. In fact, this is a counter-argument I'm seeing to people complaining about this new rule. Someone will complain along the lines of "this removes any uniqueness from ancestries and makes them all the same" and the counter-argument is something like "We still have hitpoints, speed and Ancestry Feats to differentiate them." and in terms of game design, I think the counter argument is 100% correct.

But this is my point. Aren't all of these game elements also bio-essentialist by virtue of being locked in by your choice of ancestry, or having to make sacrifices to change them? Don't many of them just reinforce aspects of an Ancestry we've decided its wrong to lock in due to bio-essentialism?

Ancestry Statistics

We've decided that we shouldn't determine how Dexterous someone is be completely tied to Ancestry. But isn't movement speed also an expression of someone's agility and grace? Yet we are keeping it that RAW all Elves will move faster than other ancestries and all Dwarves will move slower.

Paizo has decided that we shouldn't definitely state someone is tougher and hardier because of their Ancestry. Yet Hitpoints are also a measurement of this and despite no longer explicitly locking someone's Constitution score to their Ancestry, we're still going forward with the mechanics that all Elves and Goblins will have less HP and all Dwarves will have more.

By gaining more languages with a positive Intelligence Modifier, we've linked knowing more languages to greater intelligence. And more so than the physical attributes, linking Intelligence to Ancrestry is a BIG no-no. Yet we still have discrepancies between Ancestries in how many languages they start the game knowing.
Some of these factors can be changed. For example, Unbreakable Goblins have as many Hitpoints as Dwarves. But changing these values is a luxury afforded only to some Ancestries that have arbitrarily been decided can have more HP if they want, and at the opportunity cost of another benefit.

Ancestry Feats

All this is nothing in comparison to what Ancestry feats say about Ancestries and what they can and can't achieve.

Many of the feats are described in ways that can be seen as cultural and not inherently tied to biology, but there are still many which are pretty obviously linked to an Ancestry's physiology. Just a few include:

Elf - Any feat relating to their longevity
Goblin - Bouncy goblin, extra squishy, fang sharpener (ONLY Goblins can sharpen their fangs, apparently)
Gnome - Any feat related to their fey nature.

On that, let's talk about Adopted Ancestry.

Of course, the Adopted Ancestry feat exists and allows you to choose feats from an Ancestry of your choice, which is an argument against what the Ancestry Feats system overall being bio-essentialist. But, Adopted Ancestry takes up a general feat slot for the privilege of being able to do so.

Because you have to use up a feat slot that could give you more immediate power just for the privilege of taking feats from another Ancestry, the mechanics of the game make it explicit that someone who wants to specialize in something not associated with their birth Ancestry is slightly weaker than someone who doesn't.
This is the same problem we already had with ability scores that we apparently had to eliminate. Even with an ability flaw, it was possible to get any Ancestry to have any ability score as an 18 at Level 1, but it was much more difficult to do and required a lot of sacrifice.

Back to Adopted Ancestry, let's not forget in most cases you have to wait to Level 3 to take your first General feat and take this feat. What does this say about these characters? You can't just do something associated with your adopted ancestry, you have to put in a huge amount and be exceptional - a 3rd level character - to do so?

And let's not forget the feat states:

"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."

It puts the onus on the GM to draw the line, but the game's text unequivocally supports the idea that there are some things you just cannot do because of your Ancestry, no matter how hard you try or how much you're integrated into another culture.

There is an argument against this, and one I'm a fan of myself. The fact that you have options to choose from in PF2 means that all members of an Ancestry are not a monolith - because of feat choices, an Elf is going to be different from a Dwarf, but they're also going to be different from other Elves. I think one element of 5E that makes it struggle with bio-essentialism is that it's design is to be simple and not have too many choices - this makes a monolith out of all it's species by default, lacking options as they do.

But still, there's an argument that locking the Dwarves out of the possibilities allowed to the Elf is harmful worldbuilding and the existence of that argument is the problem. But back to that soon.

Percentages of Bio-Essentialism

Now, I think expressing how bio-essentialist a game is numerical values is arbitrary and a bit silly, but for the sake of what I'm trying to express here it's a useful tool.

The commonly presented logic is Removing preset attribute bonuses tied to Species/Ancestry from a game makes it less bio-essentialist and this is good.
But here's the thing. If 5E is 20% bio-essentialist with attribute bonuses and only 10% bio-essentialist without, the game is STILL bio-essentialist due to subraces, proficiencies, languages, unique features and so on.

Following this discussion on online spaces, a statement I've seen more and more is that it almost impossible to tie any mechanics to race/species/ancestry without being bio-essentialist, if not actually impossible. And honestly, I cannot fault the logic of this.

One point of contention I saw a lot was the Orc's "Adrenaline Rush" feature. D&D supposedly isn't locking Orcs into being big, strong and dumb anymore but the idea that every Orc is able to tap into a reserve of adrenaline is bio-essentialism at it's finest. Combining this with Relentless Endurance trait meant that even with locked attribute bonuses gone, the species is still being presented as a frontline fighter option first and foremost. All of their power budget goes into this, nothing supports the idea of an Orc wizard. And we see still see this with Ancestry Feats. While you get to choose which stereotypes are true for you, these still line up with common fantasy stereotypes. None of the Orc feats are going to benefit an Orc Wizard as much as they would a Fighter or Barbarian.

I think this community prides Paizo on doing their best to be an ethical company and fighting for representation before it was cool to do so, without ever being asked. But under the simplified logic of "More preset racial differences = more bio-essentialism" than Pathfinder 2E is almost certainly a less ethical and more racist game than D&D5E. And with so many features tied to Ancestry, if PF2 is 40% bio-essentialist with fixed ability boosts and 30% without, it is still much more bio-essentialist than 5E because it still has so much more mechanics dependent on Ancestry than 5E does on species. For PF2 to become less bio-essentialist and more ethical, surely it must give up a huge part of what separates it from 5E in the first place?

The Potential of Harm

Now, you may think all of these points and arguments thus far are complete b$+!+@$#. That's entirely fair.

But there's another problem. And I'm not going to say everyone is arguing in favour of this, but I've seen a good number of people come to the conclusion is that it doesn't matter if these things are actually racist or not (Such as subjective anyway), it's the potential of harm they cause for people and the potential to be used to empower ignorant, bigoted beliefs. If these mechanics have that potential, they must be removed from the game.

I think the fact these game elements have the potential to be harmful - that someone could be hurt by them or use them to hurt others - is undeniable. Where does that leave us?

If we keep any of these elements in the game, aren't we deciding we're okay with having a little bit of racism in our game as a treat, because we think Ancestry Feats and the like are too good to give up? Even if you individually don't see these things as harmful, inevitably someone will or someone will use them to back up hateful talking points.

Do we any right to ignore the concerns of someone who still thinks the game is racist/bio-essentialist because we think these elements are too important to the game and "not worth giving up because of someone's feelings"? If the minority of people who believe this is small enough, do we just get to ignore them because the majority like the game the way it is?

I'm not here to whine about the new Alternate Ability Boosts rule. As stated, I actually feel this new addition is good. But am I the only one who feels like the logical conclusion / endgoal of this design philosophy is that all factors differentiating Ancestries HAVE to go? Would you be happy with this version of the game?

I'm sorry this took so many words to express. But I think this topic is complicated and requires as much to discuss.

[Martialmasters]

I kinda agree?

Dwarves having slower speed is bioessentialism obviously

25ft speed please

No don't give me the they are always slow argument. If we want to go Tolkien I find his orcs are not represented well their either.

[SuperBidi]

I don't think that the point of the change is to make all ancestries equal. The point of the change is to make every combination of Ancestry and Class equally viable.

In the old system, Paizo had to go through the optional voluntary flaws rule to allow an 18 Strength Halfling Barbarian. Now, you no more have to jump through hoops to build your Barbarian. It doesn't mean that Halflings and Dwarves are the same, but that being a Halfling doesn't force you to be a Rogue and discourage you to be a Barbarian.

So I understand why they did that, and I think it's quite nice actually.

[Animakuro]

SuperBidi wrote:

I don't think that the point of the change is to make all ancestries equal. The point of the change is to make every combination of Ancestry and Class equally viable.

In the old system, Paizo had to go through the optional voluntary flaws rule to allow an 18 Strength Halfling Barbarian. Now, you no more have to jump through hoops to build your Barbarian. It doesn't mean that Halflings and Dwarves are the same, but that being a Halfling doesn't force you to be a Rogue and discourage you to be a Barbarian.

So I understand why they did that, and I think it's quite nice actually.

Like I said, I actually like this change. I absolutely think every Ancestry/Class combination should be at least viable.

But depending on how literal you mean "every combination of Ancestry and Class equally viable." and where the difference between being viable and being optimal is for you, they haven't achieved this. Initial Hitpoints from Ancestry matter at early levels and will affect how viable an ancestry is in roles meant to take hits. As does speed for classes meant to get into melee.

The vast majority of Ancestry Feats are designed to play into and benefit stereotypical Ancestry/Class combinations. I'm sure you can find one Ancestry feat for your Orc Wizard, but it probably won't work as well as it would for other classes - and you may only have one viable option, where other Ancestries would have multiple.

For a game design perspective I think this is fine, but from a narrative/worldbuilding standpoint we've still got a situation where some Ancestries are just better than others at certain roles.
But this is probably a flaw in my thinking being too literal and absolutist when discussing this issue.

[SuperBidi]

Animakuro wrote:

Like I said, I actually like this change. I absolutely think every Ancestry/Class combination should be at least viable.

But depending on how literal you mean "every combination of Ancestry and Class equally viable." and where the difference between being viable and being optimal is for you, they haven't achieved this. Initial Hitpoints from Ancestry matter at early levels and will affect how viable an ancestry is in roles meant to take hits. As does speed for classes meant to get into melee.

The vast majority of Ancestry Feats are designed to play into and benefit stereotypical Ancestry/Class combinations. I'm sure you can find one Ancestry feat for your Orc Wizard, but it probably won't work as well as it would for other classes - and you may only have one viable option, where other Ancestries would have multiple.

I agree and disagree.

Sure, the feats will help orcs in some domains more easily than in others, but feats are optional.
A penalty in an attribute is not optional. And nothing says "no Wizard" more than a penalty in Intelligence.

[Malk_Content]

From a game mechanics and adaptability point of view, elvish movement speed is more bio essential than their con flaw.

The con flaw in comparison to con bonus to dwarves is only really stating "if you guessed the dwarf was tougher than the Elf you'd be right 66% of the time." Whereas for speed the answer to "are elves faster than dwarves" is 100% of the time.

[Unicore]

You choose feats for your character. You can even choose feats from other ancestries with a feat or GM permission. Feats are definitely not “bio-essential”

Heritage is a little weird and can represent a lot of different things:biology, culture, individual development. At first I wanted more clarity with what heritage was, but I am seeing more and more the benefits of not having tied it to one specific thing.

The issue with attribute arrays is not how similar characters of x ancestry seem to be. The issue is the portrayal of limits based on attributes and the propensity to pile up stereotypes on certain kinds of limits that players tend to build around minimizing for mechanical benefit.

There is probably a bigger issue in attributes themselves with things like how difficult and harmful it can be to define things like charisma and intelligence, especially mechanically in ways those two attributes tend to get referred to as “dump stats” largely because so few players actually want to think about what it means to have an 8 in those attributes instead of a 10.

[Grimmerling]

Correct me if I‘m wrong, but is bioessentialism not the idea that intellectual, psychological, behavioural, and other non-physical qualities are determined by biology?

So any differences in physical characteristics can, by definition, not be bioessentialist, i.e. Str, Dex, Con, HP, speed, senses.

That leaves Int, Wis, Cha in theability department, where ancestral flaws and boosts are problematic, to say the least,

and maybe some heritages and ancestry feats.

Now, non-biological ancestry feats only require a one feat adoption tax; not much of a problem, to me at least.

Edit: All that presupposes, of course, that all player ancestries are similar enough in their intellectual properties to be considered of the same species for the sake of this discussion.

[Temperans]

Ancestry ability scores are not bioessentialism, its literally just looking at the average of what a species does.

The whole "oh this makes character more viable" is dumb because they didn't have to change ancestries to do that. All that was needed was making the game slightly easier so that people can use a 16 score as well as an 18. Trying to fix a game balance issue by claiming its to fix "bioessentialism" reads as virtue signaling while ignoring the actual issue.

Ancestry abilities are not bioessentialism just like saying a fish can swim or a bird can fly is not bioessentialism. This idea that all species are equally capable of everything needs to die because its factually not true. It's a game stop trying to make a game into some commentary on real life using BS logic and buzz words.

This whole debate about bioessentialism is the modern equivalent of the satanic panic of the 70s. Instead of calling people devil worshipers its indirectly calling people as racist/speciest/transphobic for supporting biological difference regardless of what the person actually believes.

[Themetricsystem]

Before this is locked because of the REACTIONS to it- For folks claiming this is a troll or bait, let me just say this: You are living in a cultural bubble and have deluded yourself into thinking that folks with differing opinions and viewpoints HAVE to be satirical or attempts to upset you, please grow up.

You should either engage with the discussion in earnest or ignore the discussion and move on, calling OP a troll for coming forward with their opinion (which if you were being honest with yourself you would realize isn't even very inflammatory at all, it's simply that the topic is touchy) is simply you lashing out to insult them because you happen to disagree.

I don't even really agree with OP on this either, but from the nature, content, and tone of the writing I can tell they are being genuine and just want to talk about this stuff, if you can't see that then... I'm really very sorry for you because you're seeing enemies in the shadows where none exist.

[Animakuro]

Everyone seems to think this is a troll but I assure you I'm not baiting so much as apparently having an apocalyptically bad take.

I think the logic holds up – if one element of the game attached to Ancestry can be considered bio-essentialist and needs to be changed, I certainly think there’s an argument to be made that the rest have to follow suit.

But I can see that – at least here – that opinion is unpopular and I’m not above taking the L on this one.

[Kobold Catgirl]

So, I feel like people sort of take the fact that bio-essentialism was listed as a reason for the change and run with it to an extent that maybe isn't totally good faith.

"Bio-essentialism" isn't a problem if all you're doing is pointing out that an ancestry tends to be shorter and slower as a result of being physically shorter and stockier on average. It's okay to acknowledge differences between different groups, and I certainly hope Pathfinder continues to acknowledge those differences, as the diversity of options is what makes Pathfinder cool and what makes for a living, breathing world.

The reason why fixed ability score boosts and flaws created a problematic level of bio-essentialism was that it directly limited the classes an ancestry could pick, which is a much more drastic limitation. There is a difference between saying that gnolls tend to have very sharp teeth compared to elves and saying that gnolls can't be good druids because they're too naturally brutish and violent. It reminds me of older editions where dwarves literally weren't allowed to be paladins because it was implied that their biology made it impossible.

A good example of bioessentialism in the real world is how some people believe that being born with certain body parts makes you naturally predisposed to certain behaviors. It's at the core of misogyny and transphobia. Nobody's denying that people with lower testosterone and higher estrogen are likely to have lower upper body strength than people with high testosterone and low estrogen, for instance, but insisting on limiting what someone can pursue or who someone can be, or insisting that you know the inner workings of their mind because you think you know their biology? That's where it becomes a real problem.

The stats for ancestries in Pathfinder are clearly a combination of simple physical differences and cultural tendencies, although the latter are mostly reserved for feats. It's fine. In my opinion, most of the ability arrays are fine too, but they're drastic enough that an alternative option was necessary. I'm really glad we have one.

[Temperans]

Which is fine, as long as you ignore that Gnolls would make perfectly valid Druids if only the game was not balanced around having minmaxed scores in the first place.

People decided [insert ancestry here] does not work because the game punishes you for not having an 18 at level 1. Not because the ancestry is actually bad, its ability flaw, or it being able to be said class. Give all PC a +1 (or make all enemies weaker be 1) and now suddenly combinations that were unplayable become entirely doable.

[Kobold Catgirl]

A sixteen is fine, but having to spend for an 18 only to get a 16 is highly discouraging. To me, the fun of taking a 16 is that I will have more points to spend elsewhere. If that's not the case, I just end up weaker and also less versatile, which feels yucky.

The idea that every single gnoll is inherently, biologically low Wisdom is also really weird and sketchy. It does kind of make more sense with especially magical ancestries like leshies and gnomes, but as a general rule, having a way out is a really good call.

Also, yes, a lot of people prefer to be able to optimize. That's not them playing the game wrong. It's something Pathfinder encourages, and that's a good thing, because it means that your choices matter! Every +1 matters. Optimizing is part of roleplay, and forcing someone to choose a weaker build just because they want to play a lizardfolk wizard and lizardfolk are inherently biologically dumber for some reason just feels gross.

And then you get into how many of these ancestries are coded towards real world groups, like lizardfolk having historically been used to represent Native Americans or native groups in general, and it gets a bit grosser. Seriously, the ability to opt out of that is nothing but a positive for the game.

[Temperans]

You see it as an "inherently weaker build" I see it as a build focusing on a different style of play. The issue is not that there is an ability flaw, its that PF2 doesn't support characters leaving the pre-selected path well. Which you can see a lot with literally any wizard trying to make any sort of weapon user.

You think its weird for a certain species to be slightly more impulsive but smarter than another. I see it as normal that certain species will be better at somethings than other things. Its just the way species and niches work. Its the reason why Wizards are bad at most stuff but reallt good at some very specific things, while Bards are generally good overall but bad at a few very specific things, they have a different niche. Having a niche is not in itself bad, so why are people complaining about a +1 from ancestry but allow some classes to be straight up inferior "because that's just uow it works"?

The idea that "oh this ancestry has a cultured inspired by an IRL group must mean that the ancestry represent that group" is bizarre to me. We are humans and all the cultures we have IRL the in game humans have as well. So why are you assuming that some random creature is meant to represent a specific group of people beyond "oh hey these people live similarly to those people isn't that interesting"? It reads to me like trying to find fault were there is none.

[Kobold Catgirl]

I think trying to assert that lizardfolk haven't been coded as indigenous groups is incredibly... well, it just kind of gives the vibe like you haven't seen a lot of content featuring lizardfolk. I have to assume that because the alternative is to assume you're not acting in good faith here, so I don't think there's any point in debating this.

Anyways, if you agree that Pathfinder makes it too difficult to play a suboptimal build, then you must agree that the new swap mechanic is a good change, since it would at least mitigate the problems with playing a suboptimal ancestry/class combo.

[Temperans]

I think they should had just fixed the game instead of attaching a lose bandage while cutting open a new wound.

[Kobold Catgirl]

What open wound? Almost everyone seems to agree that this is a fun option that opens up a lot of options while taking away nothing from people who don't want to use the rule. Where is the wound?

[Jonathan Morgantini]

Good morning everyone. Obviously this is a...heated, complex issue that cannot be distilled down to a few bullet points. Please keep ALL forum policy in mind while having the discussion, but the decision for now is to let the conversation continue. If anyone has any private concerns that they don't want to be public on, email [e-mail] and let me know.

[Kobold Catgirl]

I do think it's funny how these debates seem to make new allies and opponents for the tiniest subsets of the issue at hand. I'll be on someone's side one day and arguing with them the next based on just a small shift in what we're talking about with regards to this errata. But what's important in the end is that we're arguing about a game and none of these changes are that big a deal--even the ones I don't like so much like the voluntary flaw thing! x3

Basically every change here is involving optional mechanics and variant rules. It's incredibly easy to homebrew and incredibly low-impact.

[aobst128]

There's gonna be differences. It's unavoidable given the nature of the game. Besides, bioessentialism probably isn't the only reason they had to make the change. It doesn't have to be this grand ideology they stick to and as others have pointed out, the current differences you see between ancestries are irrelevant to the negative implications of bioessentialism.

[Animakuro]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

I do think it's funny how these debates seem to make new allies and opponents for the tiniest subsets of the issue at hand. I'll be on someone's side one day and arguing with them the next based on just a small shift in what we're talking about with regards to this errata. But what's important in the end is that we're arguing about a game and none of these changes are that big a deal--even the ones I don't like so much like the voluntary flaw thing! x3

Basically every change here is involving optional mechanics and variant rules. It's incredibly easy to homebrew and incredibly low-impact.

100% this. Because I bothered to write out so much I get how it's easy to imagine I think this is a massive, game-breaking deal for me... when it really isn't. I just personally found the topic interesting and worth some discussion.

When someone comes to my table, I'm generally very happy to work with them and bend some RAW to get their character concept to shine how they want.

[siegfriedliner]

In terms of the attribute boosts I think the new answer is fine, it was annoying that some heritages attribute boost made the less than ideal for some classes and now that isn't a problem. I can make a mean halfling maul fighter now without it being suboptimal.

As for biological essentialism I don't care about those sorts of debates your large bear companion is probably only as strong as your halfling fighter does it make sense no does it matter no

[Kobold Catgirl]

I'm not sure if it's bait or not, but I think since the OP has acted pretty respectful since the original post, it's worth taking them in good faith. It's a valid question. I believe DNDone is making the move towards "species" having minimal impact on character creation, and I think the perspective that ancestries should be more window dressing/aesthetic is valid.

Valid. I don't agree with it, but I can understand why someone would feel that way and I don't think it's an inherently wrong way to play the game.

[Temperans]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Temperans wrote:

The whole "oh this makes character more viable" is dumb because they didn't have to change ancestries to do that. All that was needed was making the game slightly easier so that people can use a 16 score as well as an 18.

So you're suggesting it would be easier to retroactively overhaul the fundamental math of the game, either asking player's to rethink their understanding of their own bonuses or change every number in every bestiary, module, and adventure? Three years into the game's life cycle?

And you think that would be easier than just... letting people pick their own ability boosts? Even though optimizers would still refuse to play with 16s?

Man, I don't get why Paizo hasn't hired you yet.

A simple "proficiency is one plus your level" solves the issue without affecting anything else in the game outside of making things easier overall (which is good).

Or changing when you get apex items and increasing the bonus you get from them.

Or adding an item that is just +1 and stacks with apex items.

Or not removing the ability flaw option.

Or adding an option to get a boost for a flaw, thus going all out on diversity and not just a token effort.

Or giving everyone an extra free boost.

Or making it so going to 19 doesn't cost a boost.

Or making it so classes grant 2 boosts that can stack.

All of these options only affect PC characters since NPCs and monsters follow seperate math.

[Cthulhusquatch]

This... totally this.

Martialmasters wrote:

I kinda agree?

Dwarves having slower speed is bioessentialism obviously

25ft speed please

No don't give me the they are always slow argument. If we want to go Tolkien I find his orcs are not represented well their either.

[Raiztt]

I don't think paizo is required to have internally consistent logic in their decisions so the OP's, (who I do not think is a troll or baiting), final question about the logical conclusion is moot.

[aobst128]

Yeah. It's a good question. I was thinking something similar but my conclusion was just to shrug.

[pixierose]

So Imo Ancestry Feats are far from being bioesstentialist as a whole. Most are based on culture,magic(which we can go into a large discussion if magical abilities are a biological facet, or some other metaphysical aspect of the self. But i think people are gonna have different takes on that) and some biological stuff. That being said since each feat is a choice no one feat can be said to apply to all dwarves or whatever. In addition the adopted ancestry feat, allows access to ancestry feats from other ancestries. Its not biological essentialism to say a culture that is strongly connected to seafairing may lead to a lot of people who know how to sail or swim. In addition since ancestry feats are an opyion no 1 feat based in biology can be true for all dwarves, these are common traitd that can appear in them but arent concrete or hardwired.

Next up langauages. While langugaes are increased by intelligence they are also increased by taken the multilingual feat, which doesnt require a high intelligence, just the need to be trained in society.

Stuff like HP and speed may have a stronger argument, and here I'm going to be honest I dont think i have a strong argument one eay or the other. I think at this level it com+es to down to prefrences and how people feel about things.

With HP it can be hard yo get everyone to agree with what it actually is in the first place, with how certain mechanics work with hp(including ancestral hp) it is clearly partially about how many hits your body can take. However there is agood chunk of people who argue only thr 1last bit of hp is really getting hit everything up to that point is endurance, luck, and skill at dodging.
Speed is more clearly and precisely is what it says it is.

I think the reason talks about bioessentialism or sterotypes when it comes to ability scores as oppossed to hp and speed is the structured and heiarchial nature of ability scores and indvidual ability scores are more directly competing with each other in the system as opposed to hp and speed are less so.

The game asks us to think of strength and intelligence in the context of each other than hp and speed(and if you want to include language here lets do so). There isnt any point in the game where the game mandatorially asks you to pick between hp and speed directly( you are asked to pick between them as a package, and you have an option to increase those when you have a general feat but there are a wide group of options.

Strength intelligence and other ability scores exist almost exlcusively in the context of each other when you are deciding those stats. I think this allows for concerns about sterotypes, racaliszed, and/or eugenics way of thinking to come into play. I'm going to talking about sterotypes often seen in American Culture and history.(although other places do often share a lot of these or have their own biases and concepts)

I think especially the idea of the "brute" who is stronger more adapt as physical labor, who can endure more pain but is less intelligent an easily tricked is an unfortnanate sterotype put across multiple races but especially black people. Im gonna try and avoid specific comprisoms going forward, not because I dont think they are there but because even if they didnt, the strong smiliarities to eugenics style of thinking is there. I dont think everyone who likes set ability scores is a eugencist or even subconsciously condoning it, I am simply saying the language can appear simillar to it. I think that is why we have more discussions and there are more concerns about Ability Scores than any other stat in the game.

[NECR0G1ANT]

I think the OP brought up good points. I myself like that ancestries can have two free boosts if they want, but I would have kept the Voluntary Flaws rule in place.

Regarding the OP's question - if bioessentialism is bad, then why is it OK for elves to have 6 HP and 30-ft speed and not a DEX boost and CON flaw?

My guess is that it's becausen before the new errata, an ancestry's flaw was more important than its boosts. Elves with their INT boost made good wizards, but so did every other ancestry - unless they had an INT flaw, like leshies. You could use Voluntary Flaws to start a leshy with +4 INT, but you had to take 2 more flaws. So elves aren't necessarily better wizards, which I think is good, but leshies are always suboptimal wizards.

However, gnomes, halflings and dwarves made better wizards than elves, IMHO, because wizards needed CON (elf's flaw) more than wizards need STR (gnome & halfling flaw) or CHA (dwarf flaw). Personally, I never liked that this was true from a mechanics perspective.

To summarize, the changes are happening because the devs think an ancestry shouldn't be defined by it's ability score flaws, but it OK for its strengths to makebit stand out. Despite what Logan Bonner said, biological essentialism in TTRPGs isn't the issue.

[Malk_Content]

Wait hold on, what ethnocultural group are lizardfolk meant to be coded to? Paizo have done a great job at representing multiple groups for almost all ancestries. Like I'm not sure how Lizardfolk are meant to be bad portrayals of any group when they have shown to have cultures analogous mayan, various subsaharan African groups, Egyptian, Arabian, Indian and Indonesian (off the top of my head.)

[Kobold Catgirl]

Recent content has improved a lot on how lizardfolk and many ancestries have been handled! On the other hand, you could look at older content with the lizardfolk in Encounter at Blackwall Keep, or in Q'barra. They have very, very often been portrayed as hostile tribal natives. Note that I didn't say they're specifically coded to a specific culture--unfortunately, bigotry against indigenous cultures across the worlds is rarely discerning enough to even understand a difference beyond "why are the mean men with spears being mean to us :(".

[Malk_Content]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Recent content has improved a lot on how lizardfolk and many ancestries have been handled!

Which is my point. It's really hard to take "this ancestry is obviously a real world ethnicity analog" as a legitimate reason when almost none of the ancestries are presented as a monolith.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Edited my post to clarify! I'm not interested in arguing this further, so agree to disagree.

[Raiztt]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Encounter at Blackwall Keep

I remember that module! Age of Warms, right?? Instead of whatever we were supposed to do, my group and my min-maxed falcata-wielding superstitious barbarian just took the war party head on. We made a lot of orphans that day :')

[Coridan]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

I think trying to assert that lizardfolk haven't been coded as indigenous groups is incredibly... well, it just kind of gives the vibe like you haven't seen a lot of content featuring lizardfolk. I have to assume that because the alternative is to assume you're not acting in good faith here, so I don't think there's any point in debating this.

Anyways, if you agree that Pathfinder makes it too difficult to play a suboptimal build, then you must agree that the new swap mechanic is a good change, since it would at least mitigate the problems with playing a suboptimal ancestry/class combo.

I think across the various settings and games, every race has been used as stand-ins for one culture or another. It's really hard inventing a culture from scratch and when world building it's a nice shortcut to say "These people are similar to Aztecs/Italians/Persians/British culturally".

Regarding the change, I won't be implementing it at my tables because I think some of the most fun builds come from trying to adapt around those penalties. My favourite wizard of all time was a Gnoll transmuter in 1e who just buffed himself up and went in swinging. He didn't need an 18 INT, and if someone wants to be a Pixie barbarian I want that to be unusual, that's the fun of playing those builds.

I think the morality argument though is just absurd. Elves, Dwarves, Gnolls, Lizardfolk are different species. Cats can do some things better than dogs. Neanderthals would have had a different stat array to humans.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Raiztt wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Encounter at Blackwall Keep

I remember that module! Age of Warms, right?? Instead of whatever we were supposed to do, my group and my min-maxed falcata-wielding superstitious barbarian just took the war party head on. We made a lot of orphans that day :')

AoW Spoilers:

The adventure honestly does expect a lot of massacreing before you meet the shaman who's like, "Okay, so you did kill a quarter of my clan, but seriously, this new chieftain is the worst."

In my game, I'm playing up the strings-pulling of Mahuudril and Ilthane. Mahuudril will be manipulating the human world, and Ilthane the lizardfolk world. It's like a proxy war. The humans will be more in the wrong, though, having actually poisoned the swamp with worms on Mahuudril's advice, and and there will be way fewer anti-lizardfolk encounters.

[thaX]

Think on this for a moment.

PF1 had races that had all the features from level one where PF2 turned those features into modular additions to the baseline ancestry skeleton. (Which are call (Ancestry) Feats.

This was something that confused me when this new edition came out, other than having everything now being "Feats" in the game.

These options, expanded beyond the beginning features of the original races, are mostly keyed into the culture and background of the Ancestries, pulling from the materials made for PF1 as well as telling a new iteration of these classic (and newer) race ancestries.

The new stat option is a nice compromise to the ongoing discussion in RPG circles about sensitivities that have not been a problem in past editions or in practical play overall.

The Ancestry Feats, as well as the Class Feats, Skill Feats and the very few General Feats out there, really improve our choices and are fine as they are.

Of Course, we could always go back to getting the set features from the beginning instead like in PF1. I really don't want to go to everyone just playing reskinned humans. I avoid playing Fortnite for this very reason.