I have a problem with coming up with character ideas and then having trouble figuring out how to get them to be properly represented by the rules.
Most recently, I came back around to wanting to make a fairy character. At first my plan was to make a sprite from the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide, but by the time I got around to this, my idea was less "Tiny (potentially) winged fairy" and more "Small wingless fairy". Now, that's absolutely possible. I just have to pick the Pixie heritage (and the wings are optional feats anyway).
It just feels like a waste to use my Heritage choice on having a more normal size rather than an actually interesting feature (especially when Versatile Heritages are out there).
So I looked around a bit and realized that Pathfinder's gnomes are actually really close to what I wanted right from the Core, they even have some Heritages and Feats that really fit the direction I wanted to go in.
I was almost ready to just play a gnome, but call it a sprite/fairy and change the Traits from Gnome and Humanoid to Fey and Sprite. But then I realized that there actually is already an avenue for this as well. The Fey-Touched gnome Heritage makes you truly a fey and grants you the Fey trait.
Problem solved, right?
Unfortunately, I really, really liked the sound of Chameleon gnome, which is of course mutually exclusive with Fey-Touched gnome.
In the end it's a pretty small thing. I'm sure a lot of tables out there would let me reflavor these things. One time, though, I got called a min-maxer for just wanting to make sure that my character wouldn't be doing something I imagined them to do that technically is a feat somewhere but not one I'd have access to.
Does this ever happen to anyone else?
Does this ever happen to anyone else?
Yes.
I believe that the rules for PF2 were written with the intent to provide solid boundaries so that the game balance is easier to be kept in check.
The core proficiencies of each character provide minimum bonus values, and the prevention of stacking bonuses and the lack of feats giving numerical bonus boosts limit maximum bonus values. Which means that challenges can be written with the expectation of the characters bonus values falling into a fairly narrow range.
Similar idea with feats and actions and traits. There are boundaries built in to the core system to prevent a lot of interactions. Flourish trait to prevent really powerful actions from being stacked into one super powerful turn. Subordinate Actions and not being able to replace parts of a composite action to prevent unbounded action chaining.
Multiclass Archetypes not giving all of the class features of their base class - which allows base classes to put a bunch of class features and abilities given up front at level 1 without worrying about multiclass character abuse grabbing powerful abilities from several different classes with one level dips.
Another result of all of this restrictive design is that the system will prevent things that would be fine and probably should be allowed. One that a group I was in ran into was with Gunslinger and Way of the Drifter. Drifter's Juke isn't compatible with Reloading Strike. The Subordinate Actions rule prevents the melee strike in Drifter's Juke from being replaced with Reloading Strike.
So our GM got to feel like an ally of the party by granting an exception and allowing the replacement. And I think that is a good and healthy thing for a gaming group to have - these opportunities for all of the people at the table to realize that they are in fact all on the same side even though one of them has to play all of the bad guy characters.
So you want to play a Sprite character such as Luminous Sprite or Draxie, or even a Dhampir Sprite - but you want it to be small size instead of tiny. But the rules don't allow for that. But you know what - it doesn't seem out of bounds to me. I'd allow it. I can even justify it a bit with the Many Ancestries rule note. (Which is a page I have been linking to a lot recently for some reason)
Does this ever happen to anyone else?Yes.
I believe that the rules for PF2 were written with the intent to provide solid boundaries so that the game balance is easier to be kept in check.
The core proficiencies of each character provide minimum bonus values, and the prevention of stacking bonuses and the lack of feats giving numerical bonus boosts limit maximum bonus values. Which means that challenges can be written with the expectation of the characters bonus values falling into a fairly narrow range.
Similar idea with feats and actions and traits. There are boundaries built in to the core system to prevent a lot of interactions. Flourish trait to prevent really powerful actions from being stacked into one super powerful turn. Subordinate Actions and not being able to replace parts of a composite action to prevent unbounded action chaining.
Multiclass Archetypes not giving all of the class features of their base class - which allows base classes to put a bunch of class features and abilities given up front at level 1 without worrying about multiclass character abuse grabbing powerful abilities from several different classes with one level dips.
Another result of all of this restrictive design is that the system will prevent things that would be fine and probably should be allowed. One that a group I was in ran into was with Gunslinger and Way of the Drifter. Drifter's Juke isn't compatible with Reloading Strike. The Subordinate Actions rule prevents the melee strike in Drifter's Juke from being replaced with Reloading Strike.
So our GM got to feel like an ally of the party by granting an exception and allowing the replacement. And I think that is a good and healthy thing for a gaming group to have - these opportunities for all of the people at the table to realize that they are in fact all on the same side even though one of them has to play all of the...
Thanks breithauptclan - this both explains a couple of things AND reinforced my feeing that I do want to run/play PF2e more and more, and that yes, there are definitely things I will be changing, allowing, eliding and removing.
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Thanks, there's some good advice here.
For the Poppet, well, I don't have Grand Bazaar or Impossible Lands so I didn't know about those things (and I only recently found out about the Archives). Poppet isn't really what I'm looking for (though it's a fascinating character concept), but that feat chain is interesting.
Right now I guess I'm not too worried about it if I'm going to have to tweak one or two things anyway.
As it is, one of the Sprite benefits is attacks counting as magical, but since I was thinking of playing Magus, that feature is largely redundant so I don't think I should worry too much about taking advantage of too many benefits.