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


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Animakuro wrote:
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.

Classes sure

Builds? The loss of voluntary flaws system hurt that


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Temperans wrote:
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.

All of those options seem more complicated than what Paizo actually did, and more likely to have trickle down impacts.

They also wouldn't change the fact that some ancestries are just objectively worse at some classes than others, which is becoming more and more of a problem as Paizo releases MAD classes like the Inventor and Thaumaturge. If your premise is correct that they wanted to address balance between characters, than the best way to fix is by shifting... Balance between characters.

There are better levers to pull for making the game easier, like just publishing less challenging adventure paths.(Which on the whole they seem to be doing.)


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They are making it messy if anything

Now, some ancestries have +2+2+2-2 array

Some have +2+2 array

This is already annoying to me personally be I let it go

Then you take away a tool to further customize your character (voluntary flaw)

You introduce a new way of doing the +2+2 where you can apply them anywhere. Issue is this completely invalidated the ancestries who already operated on a more limited version of this, the ones with +2 fixed and +2 free

Why have the exist when having both free is just the same but better?

Because the legacy ancestries that include a flaw

If they were trying to deal with bioessentialism, why not remove these classes stat array and replace EVERYONE'S with the new ruling?

The mere fact it's taking me this many words to unpack all this tells me things have gotten lost

Going forward I'll be taking the idea from another poster where every single ancestry gets three +2 free ability boosts and 1 free -2 ability flaw. They will be able to apply one of the boosts to the flaw essentially making it as this new ruling.

I'll also be keeping voluntary flaws system as I think the removal is completely needles.


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Martialmasters wrote:


You introduce a new way of doing the +2+2 where you can apply them anywhere. Issue is this completely invalidated the ancestries who already operated on a more limited version of this, the ones with +2 fixed and +2 free

Why have the exist when having both free is just the same but better?

They addressed this in the text itself: "The ability boosts and flaws listed in each ancestry represent general trends or help guide players to create the kinds of characters from that ancestry most likely to pursue the life of an adventurer."

Quote:
If they were trying to deal with bioessentialism, why not remove these classes stat array and replace EVERYONE'S with the new ruling?

They did? Everyone now has the option to replace it. (Assuming you meant Ancestry and not Class.) If you meant why not eliminate stat set arrays, that would require errata of every book with ancestries in it. And they do serve a purpose still, even if no one is beholden to them.

Quote:
The mere fact it's taking me this many words to unpack all this tells me things have gotten lost

That feels like more of an indictment of your own communication, because the rules and their impact are extremely simple. Unless you mean the argument of the OP, which frankly I didn't read. (Not because I think they are trolling, just because it was super long.)

Quote:

Going forward I'll be taking the idea from another poster where every single ancestry gets three +2 free ability boosts and 1 free -2 ability flaw. They will be able to apply one of the boosts to the flaw essentially making it as this new ruling.

I'll also be keeping voluntary flaws system as I think the removal is completely needles.

These seem like fine choices, but they are also separate from the issue of the 2 free boost alternative. All that does is open up more build possibilities, so it is weird that you spent most of your post railing against it.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The 2 free boost alternative does open up build possibilities (yay!) but if all they produce (as indicated) from now on is +2/free ancestries then we aren't really getting any more new stat variety ever. New ancestries being +2,+2,-2,free in combination with the "can always take +2/+2" would continue to increase build and stat variety whilst still allowing all class/ancestry combinations.


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Malk_Content wrote:
The 2 free boost alternative does open up build possibilities (yay!) but if all they produce (as indicated) from now on is +2/free ancestries then we aren't really getting any more new stat variety ever. New ancestries being +2,+2,-2,free in combination with the "can always take +2/+2" would continue to increase build and stat variety whilst still allowing all class/ancestry combinations.

I assume Paizo will probably factor that into future publishing choices.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
The 2 free boost alternative does open up build possibilities (yay!) but if all they produce (as indicated) from now on is +2/free ancestries then we aren't really getting any more new stat variety ever. New ancestries being +2,+2,-2,free in combination with the "can always take +2/+2" would continue to increase build and stat variety whilst still allowing all class/ancestry combinations.
I assume Paizo will probably factor that into future publishing choices.

I wouldn't. This errata must have been i the work for a while and all the latest Ancestry releases have been the now bland versions.


Malk_Content wrote:

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.

That's a very good point. I wonder if it will effect implementation.


Captain Morgan wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
The 2 free boost alternative does open up build possibilities (yay!) but if all they produce (as indicated) from now on is +2/free ancestries then we aren't really getting any more new stat variety ever. New ancestries being +2,+2,-2,free in combination with the "can always take +2/+2" would continue to increase build and stat variety whilst still allowing all class/ancestry combinations.
I assume Paizo will probably factor that into future publishing choices.

They could save space by completely removing the+2/free if this is the way they want to go. Is my point.

I'm for it, but not with the current limitations they are imposing to get it.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Martialmasters wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
The 2 free boost alternative does open up build possibilities (yay!) but if all they produce (as indicated) from now on is +2/free ancestries then we aren't really getting any more new stat variety ever. New ancestries being +2,+2,-2,free in combination with the "can always take +2/+2" would continue to increase build and stat variety whilst still allowing all class/ancestry combinations.
I assume Paizo will probably factor that into future publishing choices.

They could save space by completely removing the+2/free if this is the way they want to go. Is my point.

I'm for it, but not with the current limitations they are imposing to get it.

I mean, it is entirely possible they will stop bothering, but if they want to keep fixed ability scores for things like dwarves, they need to keep a space for ability scores on the standard format. And seeing a default stat boost still informs your picture of the ancestry even if you aren't beholden to it.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
Martialmasters wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
The 2 free boost alternative does open up build possibilities (yay!) but if all they produce (as indicated) from now on is +2/free ancestries then we aren't really getting any more new stat variety ever. New ancestries being +2,+2,-2,free in combination with the "can always take +2/+2" would continue to increase build and stat variety whilst still allowing all class/ancestry combinations.
I assume Paizo will probably factor that into future publishing choices.

They could save space by completely removing the+2/free if this is the way they want to go. Is my point.

I'm for it, but not with the current limitations they are imposing to get it.

I mean, it is entirely possible they will stop bothering, but if they want to keep fixed ability scores for things like dwarves, they need to keep a space for ability scores on the standard format. And seeing a default stat boost still informs your picture of the ancestry even if you aren't beholden to it.

I'd qualify that under very much an opinion m one I don't necessarily share.


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Martialmasters wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Martialmasters wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
The 2 free boost alternative does open up build possibilities (yay!) but if all they produce (as indicated) from now on is +2/free ancestries then we aren't really getting any more new stat variety ever. New ancestries being +2,+2,-2,free in combination with the "can always take +2/+2" would continue to increase build and stat variety whilst still allowing all class/ancestry combinations.
I assume Paizo will probably factor that into future publishing choices.

They could save space by completely removing the+2/free if this is the way they want to go. Is my point.

I'm for it, but not with the current limitations they are imposing to get it.

I mean, it is entirely possible they will stop bothering, but if they want to keep fixed ability scores for things like dwarves, they need to keep a space for ability scores on the standard format. And seeing a default stat boost still informs your picture of the ancestry even if you aren't beholden to it.
I'd qualify that under very much an opinion m one I don't necessarily share.

I mean... No? The formatting thing is true, and the default stat boosts do convey information. You can disagree with those bring valuable adds but what what I wrote was just facts.


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It doesn't relay anything if it doesn't matter in the first place. Wich the double free boost makes it not matter.


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Martialmasters wrote:
It doesn't relay anything if it doesn't matter in the first place. Wich the double free boost makes it not matter.

Just because some people are left handed doesn't mean most aren't right handed my dude. All this does is let you play one of the lefties.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
Martialmasters wrote:
It doesn't relay anything if it doesn't matter in the first place. Wich the double free boost makes it not matter.
Just because some people are left handed doesn't mean most aren't right handed my dude. All this does is let you play one of the lefties.

I am starting to feel like you are intentionally being obtuse. I'll leave it alone for now.

Silver Crusade

I'm confused, when did stat numbers become flavor?


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Rysky wrote:
I'm confused, when did stat numbers become flavor?

It always was up until this edition where you cannot play a good Halfling Barbarian cause Str penalty due to how tight the system is.

(Halfling Barbarian used to be a fun build due to TWF Risky Striker Barbarian going BRRRRR)


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The only thing that needs to change is the blog statement regarding biological essentialism. It should be removed in its entirety. It was kind of a stupid, baity thing to have written in the first place.

There are plenty of other good reasons for the change, and stoking that particular fire is only going to result in people getting burned and the house burning down in the resulting conflagration.

I recently heard that WotC be cracking down hard on the OGL. Do you think this is, at least in part, Paizo trying to protect itself from accusations of bigotry and such from WotC?

WotC's New OGL wrote:
[The new OGL explicitly states that] the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.”

Could this mean beginning of the end for Paizo? God I hope not. I hope Paizo kicks WotC's ass in the courts.


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Ravingdork wrote:

The only thing that needs to change is the blog statement regarding biological essentialism. It should be removed in its entirety. It was kind of a stupid, baity thing to have written in the first place.

There are plenty of other good reasons for the change, and stoking that particular fire is only going to result in people getting burned and the house burning down in the resulting conflagration.

I recently heard that WotC be cracking down hard on the OGL. Do you think this is, at least in part, Paizo trying to protect itself from accusations of bigotry and such from WotC?

WotC's New OGL wrote:
[The new OGL explicitly states that] the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.”
Could this mean beginning of the end for Paizo? God I hope not. I hope Paizo kicks WotC's ass in the courts.

I don't even know how it applies because when I look up bioessentialism it seems to mean "necessary for life."

What seems to be being discussed is simulating genetic variation between species in fantasy games and whether or not ability scores are necessary for doing so.


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Rysky wrote:
I'm confused, when did stat numbers become flavor?

They were always a mechanical narrative link. Maybe one you didn't like or ignored but it's weird to think reading a line like "Goblins can live 50 years or more, but without anyone to protect them from each other or themselves, few live past 20 years of age." And then seeing they had a wisdom penalty wasn't a way to link an ancestrys narrative with its mechanics (like how the variety in heritage represents goblins natural mutative tendencies as well as various feats like Very Bouncy.)


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Animakuro wrote:
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?

Nearly anything (including doing nothing) is going to have some potential to cause some hurt to some one some where.

If you view things as a sliding scale and take (level of hurt)X (likelyhood of hurt)X (number of people hurt) vs (level of help)X (likelyhood of help)X (number of people helped) you get a much more usable (albeit incredibly subjective) judgement system. Otherwise you get just don't do anything every time.


Ravingdork wrote:

The only thing that needs to change is the blog statement regarding biological essentialism. It should be removed in its entirety. It was kind of a stupid, baity thing to have written in the first place.

There are plenty of other good reasons for the change, and stoking that particular fire is only going to result in people getting burned and the house burning down in the resulting conflagration.

I recently heard that WotC be cracking down hard on the OGL. Do you think this is, at least in part, Paizo trying to protect itself from accusations of bigotry and such from WotC?

WotC's New OGL wrote:
[The new OGL explicitly states that] the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.”
Could this mean beginning of the end for Paizo? God I hope not. I hope Paizo kicks WotC's ass in the courts.

The new OGL is definitely aimed at Paizo, among others, but more for the "[The original OGL] wasn’t intended to subsidize major competitors" bit.

But that's a different topic.


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Guntermench wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:

The only thing that needs to change is the blog statement regarding biological essentialism. It should be removed in its entirety. It was kind of a stupid, baity thing to have written in the first place.

There are plenty of other good reasons for the change, and stoking that particular fire is only going to result in people getting burned and the house burning down in the resulting conflagration.

I recently heard that WotC be cracking down hard on the OGL. Do you think this is, at least in part, Paizo trying to protect itself from accusations of bigotry and such from WotC?

WotC's New OGL wrote:
[The new OGL explicitly states that] the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.”
Could this mean beginning of the end for Paizo? God I hope not. I hope Paizo kicks WotC's ass in the courts.

The new OGL is definitely aimed at Paizo, among others, but more for the "[The original OGL] wasn’t intended to subsidize major competitors" bit.

But that's a different topic.

The funny thing is Paizo is only a competitor and not a collaborater precisely because they tried to pull something similair with 4e. Makes you wonder how more competitors this round of shenanigans Will make for them.

Scarab Sages

Martialmasters wrote:

Classes sure

Builds? The loss of voluntary flaws system hurt that

Which builds?


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insert Donald Glover with a pizza box gif

What seems to be the problem I can tell is that... Paizo seems to have gotten accidental foot-in-mouth with their blog post, with people accusing them of "pandering" in some way or another, much like an incident from last year involving something getting off-screened. We've all been more or less doubled baited in the past by topics like this, so we should in theory know how to handle ourselves at this point, no?

As a mechanical vantage point of "now all classes are viable for every race ancestry" is cool, but it does seem odd to yeet into the mix 3 years into the lifespan of the system, and does feel like a watering down of some of the more interesting nuances of character creation, but I don't explicitly hate it, just find it dull (glad it's optional!)

The blog post itself, and why they said they felt the need to do this did seem a little dubious and PRy, but I can chalk that up to a very averse to inflammation writing staff trying to preemptively quell the pitchfork and torch crowd (that were not quelled at all, it seems.) I think if they gave a different reasoning to why, it'd be a little less... contentious than it is now, but hopefully everyone can learn from this: paizo learning their fanbase is passionate and eager to jump at things that concern them, and the fanbase learning to not jump at the first sight of something nebulously inane like "hey, everyone should have fun doing The Thing, so math gets bonked to make The Thing more betterer."


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nick1wasd wrote:

insert Donald Glover with a pizza box gif

As a mechanical vantage point of "now all classes are viable for every race ancestry" is cool, but it does seem odd to yeet into the mix 3 years into the lifespan of the system,

It is, until you consider that newer classes are increasingly MAD: Investigator, Swashbuckler, some Oracle mysteries, Inventor, Thaumaturge, and Magus all fit the bill. (Before we really just had alchemist and war priest.) They generally need one stat for accuracy and the other for their damage buff. With only one free boost, you basically needed to pick an ancestry who already got boosts to one of those two scores to make a viable build. To say nothing of trying to build past a flaw.

So this problem has gotten worse and worse with every new class and ancestry Paizo publishes. By fixing it now, they will likely expand the design space for future classes. Or at least expand the number of concepts those classes support, which in turn will likely bolster interest and purchasing of the books.


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I'm tired of the term already. Bioessentialism.

Because it was pretty much a bad word to bring up to use as even a part of a reason for the change.

It's not even bad faith arguments at this juncture to point out the following

Humans not having dark vision is bioessentialism

Dwarves being slower than everyone is bioessentialism

Lizardfolk having controlled breathing is bioessentialism

If you have an issue with bioessentialism in your ttrpg (and you be clear, I'm for the free/free addition, maybe just not the reason and the removal of other things), you have to look at all these things. Literally all of them.

Silver Crusade

Malk_Content wrote:
Rysky wrote:
I'm confused, when did stat numbers become flavor?
They were always a mechanical narrative link.

”My character is really strong” is flavor.

“My character has a 17 Strength instead of just 16” is not.


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I mean, the basic framing of "these people are all stupid because of what kind of people they are" is troubling because it reflects actual harmful ideas that have propagated in the real world to hurt actual people (like the NFL only recently decided to stop race-normalizing cognitive tests.) So it's good not to repeat this kind of stuff, as the goal for anybody who makes an entertainment product is to "let your audience have a good time" which involves "preventing your audience from having a bad time." TTRPGs have a problematic history with the whole notion of "who you are is determined by who your parents are" and it's not wrong to confront that (remember Gygax was in *favor* of slaughtering the helpless goblin children and cited an actual historical racist as justification of his point.)

So we want to balance "stereotypes suck" and "there are sometimes actual physical differences that are relevant to certain activities." If you have long arms that's great in swimming and in combat sports. If are short that might be a problem in basketball or volleyabll. If you have a low center of gravity that's useful in grappling sports like wrestling and Judo. There are short people who are good at basketball, but Shaq had certain natural advantages over those people.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that "Michael Phelps has ideal proportions for a swimmer" or "Shaq is enormous" are statements about individuals, not about "People from Baltimore" or "People from New Jersey born in the 1970s"- we know who these people are because they were singular.

Which is to say that player characters are individuals, so things that are true about your individual character like "I can see in the dark because I'm a Dwarf" or "I'm fast because I'm an elf" are generally fine. What is genuinely irksome is "I have an intelligence penalty to overcome because I'm an Iruxi" or "I have a charisma Penalty to overcome because I'm a Dwarf" which is why the Free/Free change is great.


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Martialmasters wrote:

I'm tired of the term already. Bioessentialism.

Because it was pretty much a bad word to bring up to use as even a part of a reason for the change.

It's not even bad faith arguments at this juncture to point out the following

Humans not having dark vision is bioessentialism

Dwarves being slower than everyone is bioessentialism

Lizardfolk having controlled breathing is bioessentialism

If you have an issue with bioessentialism in your ttrpg (and you be clear, I'm for the free/free addition, maybe just not the reason and the removal of other things), you have to look at all these things. Literally all of them.

I'm not sure it tracks that we need to care about all of those example equally as a point of general philosophy. But as a practical point of game design, this ability boost change is a lot easier than removing all those other things.

Even if we assume the industry is moving towards completely ditching genetic mechanics and treating your species as a flavor choice (which 5e seems to have done in Tasha's Couldron) than a partial move is still better than none, and this change is also good from a balance perspective. Both considerations can apply without contradicting each other.

Silver Crusade

Captain Morgan wrote:
Martialmasters wrote:

I'm tired of the term already. Bioessentialism.

Because it was pretty much a bad word to bring up to use as even a part of a reason for the change.

It's not even bad faith arguments at this juncture to point out the following

Humans not having dark vision is bioessentialism

Dwarves being slower than everyone is bioessentialism

Lizardfolk having controlled breathing is bioessentialism

If you have an issue with bioessentialism in your ttrpg (and you be clear, I'm for the free/free addition, maybe just not the reason and the removal of other things), you have to look at all these things. Literally all of them.

I'm not sure it tracks that we need to care about all of those example equally as a point of general philosophy. But as a practical point of game design, this ability boost change is a lot easier than removing all those other things.

Even if we assume the industry is moving towards completely ditching genetic mechanics and treating your species as a flavor choice (which 5e seems to have done in Tasha's Couldron) than a partial move is still better than none, and this change is also good from a balance perspective. Both considerations can apply without contradicting each other.

also those examples don’t affect class choice/are negligible.


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Rysky wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
Rysky wrote:
I'm confused, when did stat numbers become flavor?
They were always a mechanical narrative link.

”My character is really strong” is flavor.

“My character has a 17 Strength instead of just 16” is not.

"My character is really strong!"

OH whats their strength?

"8"

Mechanics interact with and reinforce flavour.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
I mean, the basic framing of "these people are all stupid because of what kind of people they are" is troubling because it reflects actual harmful ideas that have propagated in the real world to hurt actual people

It also happens to be complete BS in the real world with regards to intelligence, and on nearly anything else is too small to be picked up in a system as granular as d20. I mean.. what do i get, a +.oo1 to my survival score for being able to photosynthesize my own Vitamin D ?

But that's with humans. One species. It's entirely possible that a different species is smarter on average, especially one that's had 100 years to soak up facts, learn, think, and live before setting out on an adventure.

And even then, in world it would be BS to judge an individual based on their species stats. With a -2 int penalty every 100? orc is going to be as smart as an average human and every 1000th one will be smarter than 99% of humans.

And even THEN you have to equate being better (at something) with being better (morally/ just superior in general) which doesn't track.

and THEN you need to argue we're better than them so its ok to treat them (whoever them is this century) like )(@##. Which.. just does not follow at all.

So I'm seeing a LOT of distance in between the thing doing the implying and the harm. I don't see the existence of a stat difference itself as harmful without some BS, and would rather point out the BS than have every species just be the same.


You know, in the context of 2E mechanics, an 8 strength character can be very "strong" given how absurd bonuses get as you level up compared to the average commoner. If you have 8 strength but still have a +20 in athletics, are you strong or weak? Obviously not as strong as your max strength barbarian but it can still be exceptional from a flavor perspective at least if you invest in the things that make you "strong".


Hell, your 8 strength wizard could out muscle your 20 strength fighter if said fighter hasn't invested in athletics. Wouldn't recommend that but it goes to show that experience and talent is more important than raw ability.


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aobst128 wrote:
You know, in the context of 2E mechanics, an 8 strength character can be very "strong" given how absurd bonuses get as you level up compared to the average commoner. If you have 8 strength but still have a +20 in athletics, are you strong or weak? Obviously not as strong as your max strength barbarian but it can still be exceptional from a flavor perspective at least if you invest in the things that make you "strong".

Not really. They aren't strong at all. They are skilled at manipulating their own and others bodies but they can't carry anything and if they punched you it possibly wouldn't even hurt.


Malk_Content wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
You know, in the context of 2E mechanics, an 8 strength character can be very "strong" given how absurd bonuses get as you level up compared to the average commoner. If you have 8 strength but still have a +20 in athletics, are you strong or weak? Obviously not as strong as your max strength barbarian but it can still be exceptional from a flavor perspective at least if you invest in the things that make you "strong".
Not really. They aren't strong at all. They are skilled at manipulating their own and others bodies but they can't carry anything and if they punched you it possibly wouldn't even hurt.

That's one way athletics can be used, but it also covers feats of strength like busting down doors or muscling obstacles. When a level 20 wizard is knocking over boulders twice his size, onlookers are probably gonna conclude they're strong. That goes for just about anything a PC might do at high level though. They're exceptional in almost every way. I wouldn't want to fistfight a level 20 wizard. They'd still kick my ass with their bare fists.


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You are literally equating "all humans fall along a bell curve" to "all species should have the same bell curve as humans" which is even more problematic.

You are effectively saying that differences between species are nonexistent and a wolf is as smart as a snail and as smart as a plankton, and as smart as dolphin. All because you think it feels bad that different creatures are different.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Okay fine all high level characters are wild in almost every aspect of capability. Therefore an 8 str character is as narratively strong as an 18 and ability scores do not and never had any contribution to flavour. Also my all mighty spellcaster is a lvl 20 fighter with trick magic items and a wand because he can cast fireball better than the first level wizard.


I feel like the "low strength character with high athletics" is like Beowulf when he fights the dragon after ruling as king for 50 years, he was still the man who swam shoulder to shoulder with Breca in the open sea in full armor, he's just an old man now.


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By that logic just get rid of ability scores all together if you are going to use "has better technique" to say stats don't matter.

Which btw at the same level the 8 Str Wizard with Legendary Athletics has the same stats as the 22 Str Fighter with trained Athletics. So the Wizard is 100% weaker that he needs to be legendary just to compete with a Fighter having more strength.

* P.S. I never liked level to proficiency for exactly this reason.

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