I thought drow were getting replaced by "cavern elves". What happened to that?
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SilvercatMoonpaw wrote: I thought drow were getting replaced by "cavern elves". What happened to that? The actual replacement for drow is the sekmin serpent-people, at least as far as "evil subterranean threat" goes.
Cavern elves are just regular subterranean-adapted elves, not a drow-replacement. Not especially evil, purple, caste-structured, flesh-warping, spider-appreciating, or any other drow signature.
In Starfinder, which already had a much more distinct take on drow, we are getting void elves.
Though I suppose we'll see. The biggest indicator will be what they do with House Azrinar, a former drow house in Pathfinder which is now canonized to be the origin of the Azrinaran elves, which are now Starfinder's drow. They did announce the upcoming Darklands adventure path will go in detail on the Ayindillar, so I don't think we'll know the final call on the drow until then. Ultimately, seeing what House Azrinar is in current Pathfinder canon will be our biggest indicator.
One thing to note, though. Is that both Ayindilar and Azrinaran elves are functionally the same. As in, if you borrowed the Azrinaran elf heritage from Starfinder, then it'd give you no more than what cave elf already gives you, mechanically.
So essentially, legally distinct drow are no longer innately evil. But their Azrinaran spinoff do have a predominantly evil society, based on an existing, likely still evil Ayindilar house. But I'm sure the adventure path will confirm or deny it.
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For the sake of the devs' sanity, Pathfinder and Starfinder are 2 different settings that are not bound to the former being the past of the latter.
Consistency is thus not required.
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I mean, sure, they don't have to be consistent, but the point is not that they are not consistent. If anything, Paizo actually is consistent for the majority of Pathfinder 2E and Starfinder 2E matters. I've read both core books side to side, and aside from a few pain points that are surprisingly few and far between, you'd be surprised how consistent they already are. I've also read all of the SF1E core books, and you'd be surprised how consistent Starfinder's lore is with Pathfinder. Everything still follows the same rules, despite different systems, and society is simply more advanced. A testament to the devs for making these two systems that could be different, so consistent when they never had to, even when they have the safety net of not having to be consistent all the time. Which I'm thankful for. And in this case, Paizo is explicitly being VERY consistent. Lack of consistency is the opposite of the problem here.
The point is, people are asking for drow, saying that cave elves are not sufficient. Drow actually did come out Starfinder side, and turned out to just be cave elves by another name. Therefore, cave elf is sufficient, in Pathfinder, to make a drow. I was letting people use cave elves to make drow way before Starfinder, and it worked. When drow were confirmed in Starfinder 2E to make a comeback, I waited to see if drow got any special abilities. But they did not. They were just cave elves. They get no more than cave elves do.
A = B and B = C, so A = C.
And you know what that means? It's freeing, it means people can play a drow any time, because now we know to just play an evil cave elf if we want to be a drow. There's no longer a need to bide your time for a new entry, because it turns out the GMs who were letting players use cave elves to make drow were correct all along. Borrow Azrinaran Elf from Starfinder 2E, or just use Cave Elf in Pathfinder 2E, you'll get the same result no matter which you pick.
Mechanically, we're set. The only thing we need to know, is if there is still canonical space for drow-like Ayindillar without having to inject home lore. And that's where the upcoming Darklands Adventure Path can hopefully illuminate things. All we do know, is drow as we know them were taken out as a default society. Starfinder-side, a known drow house was cited as the origin of the drow, being House Azrinar, which is contemporary to Pathfinder. What we don't know, is what House Azrinar is like post Remaster, because their last appearance was in Legacy. They were a drow house, but they cannot be a drow house anymore. But their appearance in Remastered Starfinder content does imply the clan itself was not completely retconned, but was merely changed in some way. And lastly, House Azrinar is a name that isn't mentioned in any core Starfinder 1E books, so unless it's mentioned in an Adventure Path, it's a 2E loredrop, which means it was placed strategically around the Remaster's retcons. So their Remastered status would be an important missing link to what it culturally means to bring in a drow in Pathfinder, beyond mechanical.
I think the reason why people ask for drows is due to the "other" abilities, such as poison use, arachnid affinity, agile/finesse weapon proficiencies and magical talents, not just for "living in caves"...
Firstly, if you want poison use, become a rogue or an alchemist. Otherwise, any class can become a poisoner. Also, poison use as an ancestry feature is no longer a thing in 2E. Mostly because the stakes of exposure are lower. There is no longer a 5% failure rate like in PF1E per dosage, and you only risk accidental exposure on a critical failure when crafting poison (which if you have a free allotment of poisons, being a rogue, an alchemist, or a poisoner, you are almost never required to roll to even attempt to critical fail). For example, Vishkanya, an ancestry with a much stronger tradition of poison use, lacks the Poison Use ancestry feature as a result, which indicates that it is no longer a thing in 2E. So drow would not have it either. And since drow have no natural ability to make poison, there is no reason for them to have an innate feat that interacts with it.
Secondly, arachnid affinity was never a thing. Neither Pathfinder 1E, nor Starfinder 1E, imparted any abilities that had anything to do with spiders.
Thirdly, drow are, by the nature of being elves, already entitled to the Elven Weapon Proficiency feat. PF1E drow only had training in crossbows, rapiers, and shortswords. All ancestries have training in crossbow, because they are simple weapons. While a shortsword is a martial weapon that a drow needs a martial class for (If they are a rogue, they are already proficient), this feat does grant them access to rapiers, alongside bows. So they already have most of what you'd want.
Fourthly, they don't need a special feat for magic, because the base elf Otherworldly magic feat can let them learn Light. Then they can take Otherworldly Acumen to learn their choice of Darkness or Revealing Light.
In short, most everything you're demanding out of the drow is already in the base elf, or no longer applies in the 2E system at all.
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Personally I think the much more obvious reason people are clamoring for drow is because of the narrative elements. Its been a long minute since drow having a suite of special abilities above and beyond what any other ancestry had was a realistic possibility.
Now, I can take or leave the drow, but it seems like theres just a number of cool factors to them aside from mechanics, including being sexy scary elves from underground which you can play as evil or can play as edgy anti-hero turning away from the evil of your culture. All the appeal of playing an elf plus all the appeal of playing a dangerous baddie all in one package.
If people are rejecting the cave elf, it could just be pure brand recognition (it doesnt say drow on the tin and its not a fully bespoke drow ancestry even if the contents are the same great taste) but its probably also has to do with missing out on the official lore backing for underground evil elf civilization of demon worshipping badasses and not being satisfied with the drow they already had at home now that cave elves are not technically called drow anymore.
Weirder hang-ups have happened.
Yeah, to me, it's mostly brand recognition. The problem is, all of the cave elf's lore is two to three small paragraphs.
Mechanically, everything we need is there and as balanced as it could possibly be. There is not that much that can be added within the Ancestry system. Your 1st, 5th, and 9th level feats are already filled out. So if they are to get anything bespoke, it would probably fall at levels 13 and 17.
What the Ayindillar need is a proper chapter on lore to sell them as a concept. Customers just know that they exist, but don't know why they are cool. And a proper article on their culture is what's needed for that.
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What moosher said. Also, my (possibly flawed) understanding is that reference to drow was removed from PF2E because of the OGL/ORC thing. I infer that the term "drow" is IP which does *not* belong to Paizo. So I wonder how they get away with using it in SF. <shrug>
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I don't think they do use the term "Drow" in SF, at least not in 2e. "Void Elf" has been thrown around, and "Azrinaran" seems to be the in-world ethnonym. SF is a bit more attached to the aesthetic of Drow, on account of they were actually incorporated into the broader setting -- the whole reason they were totally retconned in PF instead of renamed and reflavored the way Hryngars were is because there really hadn't been a strong effort to incorporate them into the world -- but even SF has retconned the source of that aesthetic. The blue skin, for example, is stated in Galaxy Guide to be a ubiquitous body mod to display self-control, not a natural feature.
Moosher's right, even premaster, "Cavern Elf" was just the stated way to play Drow. PF2e tries not to be overly prescriptive with heritages -- for example the "Umbral Gnome" heritage is clearly meant to be a way to play svirfneblin/drathnelar, but evokes other possibilities as well, in case you want to reflavor Gnomes for your homebrew setting.
@Ed Reppert: Yes, drow is IP, and they do not use the term drow anymore. The new terms are Ayindillar (Cave Elf), and Azrinaran (Void Elf). I'm just using the term drow out of convenience for people asking for drow.
Anyway, SF drow (Azrinarans/Void Elves) are fine because they are legally distinct enough. A name change and a few minor touchups, plus the fact that Starfinder granted them a very seperate setting and very modified cultural identity, had Paizo lawyers feeling confident they could port them in with minimal problems.
The problem was PF drow (Ayindillar/Cave Elves) fantasy to science fantasy was easy to make distinct. Fantasy to Fantasy is a bit harder, coupled with the fact that drow are just too iconic (notice that duergar to hryngar and Svirfneblins to drathnelar was almost immediate, I would think because they are less iconic, but also because hryngars have a very well-developed culture beyond D&D's duergar. I can't say much for drathnelar, as I know little about them past their existence). To make a legally distinct Pathfinder drow would require a greater overhaul of the culture. Currently that looks like softening the culture as a whole is the path they're taking. But running drow as they are iconically known is a legal no go. The Ayindillar as a whole will never be allowed to be the full package of demon-worshipping, spider rearing, male enslaving, non-drow enslaving, tyrants. But, they can probably keep a few aspects, or sequester some of these aspects to smaller sub groups. But the point is they are only allowed to be inspired by the drow, they are not allowed to be the drow, which means they must diverge in a handful of notable ways to be allowed without risk of lawsuit.
@TheTownsend: I completely forgot about that corporate fashion blurb, that's a fun little way to justify it. I'm now imagining an Azrinaran exec turning red like Disney's Hades when they get ripped off.
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One assumes the upcoming Darklands AP is going to give us quite a bit more on the Ayindillar, though I doubt it will ever be an ancestry of its own (just an Elf heritage with a collection of feats, most likely.)
The PF Drows retcon also had another cause : the popularity of DnD's Drows.
The PF Drows were introduced in the second Paizo AP as extremely similar to the DnD Drows so that people who liked DnD would feel familiar with this new setting. And Drows were iconic, recognizable and popular.
But, for the same reason, because they were in fact DnD's creation, they did not get much interest from the Paizo creators.
And when the OGL debacle happened, it was simpler to just divorce the quasi-DnD Drows from Golarion.
And in this way, Paizo can find success from its very own creations rather than those borrowed from DnD.
JiCi wrote: I think the reason why people ask for drows is due to the "other" abilities, such as poison use, arachnid affinity, agile/finesse weapon proficiencies and magical talents, not just for "living in caves"... For me it's the look. I like obsidian to some shade of purple/lavender type elves with white/silvery hair and red or silver eyes. It's the aesthetic. The culture is cool too, but I just like how the Drow look like.
The Raven Black wrote: The PF Drows retcon also had another cause : the popularity of DnD's Drows.
The PF Drows were introduced in the second Paizo AP as extremely similar to the DnD Drows so that people who liked DnD would feel familiar with this new setting. And Drows were iconic, recognizable and popular.
Second Darkness was the 3rd AP ... and was by most accounts a disaster.
The Raven Black wrote: And when the OGL debacle happened, it was simpler to just divorce the quasi-DnD Drows from Golarion. The Dark Elves were the least of those casualties.
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Lord Fyre wrote: The Raven Black wrote: The PF Drows retcon also had another cause : the popularity of DnD's Drows.
The PF Drows were introduced in the second Paizo AP as extremely similar to the DnD Drows so that people who liked DnD would feel familiar with this new setting. And Drows were iconic, recognizable and popular.
Second Darkness was the 3rd AP ... and was by most accounts a disaster.
The Raven Black wrote: And when the OGL debacle happened, it was simpler to just divorce the quasi-DnD Drows from Golarion. The Dark Elves were the least of those casualties. You are right about it being #3. I believe it was still a 3.5 AP though.
And Drows are without doubt the casualty about which people have been the most vocal.
The Raven Black wrote: Lord Fyre wrote: The Raven Black wrote: The PF Drows retcon also had another cause : the popularity of DnD's Drows.
The PF Drows were introduced in the second Paizo AP as extremely similar to the DnD Drows so that people who liked DnD would feel familiar with this new setting. And Drows were iconic, recognizable and popular.
Second Darkness was the 3rd AP ... and was by most accounts a disaster.
The Raven Black wrote: And when the OGL debacle happened, it was simpler to just divorce the quasi-DnD Drows from Golarion. The Dark Elves were the least of those casualties. You are right about it being #3. I believe it was still a 3.5 AP though. That is correct. But, unlike RotRL or CotCT, I don't expect an update.
The Raven Black wrote: And Drows are without doubt the casualty about which people have been the most vocal. But to use Dark Elves now, Paizo would need to go back to the original legends. What player's are used to is largely a creation of the AD&D Fiend Folio.
Given Hasbro's legal department, Paizo is understandably risk averse.
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The Raven Black wrote: You are right about it being #3. I believe it was still a 3.5 AP though.
And Drows are without doubt the casualty about which people have been the most vocal.
Yes, Second Darkness was a 3.5 AP.
I feel chromatic and metallic dragons were definitely a contender for vocal outcry, but it has thankfully died down now that most of them got relatively easy conversions. Though I still run into people who complain about the metallics, as their conversions are a bit less obvious without comparing draconic personalities.
Second Darkness was my first exposure to Pathfinder. I would never call it a disaster. What was the problem?
Lord Fyre wrote: The Raven Black wrote: Lord Fyre wrote: The Raven Black wrote: The PF Drows retcon also had another cause : the popularity of DnD's Drows.
The PF Drows were introduced in the second Paizo AP as extremely similar to the DnD Drows so that people who liked DnD would feel familiar with this new setting. And Drows were iconic, recognizable and popular.
Second Darkness was the 3rd AP ... and was by most accounts a disaster.
The Raven Black wrote: And when the OGL debacle happened, it was simpler to just divorce the quasi-DnD Drows from Golarion. The Dark Elves were the least of those casualties. You are right about it being #3. I believe it was still a 3.5 AP though. That is correct. But, unlike RotRL or CotCT, I don't expect an update.
The Raven Black wrote: And Drows are without doubt the casualty about which people have been the most vocal. But to use Dark Elves now, Paizo would need to go back to the original legends. I'll just leave this here. Also, they were in the previous edition, too.
Maybe they'll get a look in with Feybound, or if not then, hopefully we visit the Netherworld and learn more about them.
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Dargoth876 wrote: Second Darkness was my first exposure to Pathfinder. I would never call it a disaster. What was the problem? Enough things, I'm sure, that it could be taken to its own thread if we wanted to continue the topic in depth. In short though, the one that stands out to me is the incredibly off-character depiction of surface elves as racist and xenophobic--oh and the idea that an evil enough elf could spontaneously race change, that's also a bit of a yikes.
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Trixleby wrote: JiCi wrote: I think the reason why people ask for drows is due to the "other" abilities, such as poison use, arachnid affinity, agile/finesse weapon proficiencies and magical talents, not just for "living in caves"... For me it's the look. I like obsidian to some shade of purple/lavender type elves with white/silvery hair and red or silver eyes. It's the aesthetic. The culture is cool too, but I just like how the Drow look like. Then have you considered making an Elf/Duskwalker?
Ancestry Guide wrote: Physically, duskwalkers tend toward the monochromatic, as their skin, hair, and eyes trend towards white, gray, black, or desaturated blue shades. Some duskwalkers have more unusual features, such as patches of scales or feathers, based on the their previous incarnation’s nature and actions.
...
Duskwalker elves are often difficult to distinguish from mundane elves, although silver-gray hair is common. Some duskwalker elves are born with a faint spiderweb pattern on their skin, and spiders are unduly fond of them.
Silver hair, silver eyes, and obsidian skin tone (possibly with that spiderweb pattern) all make sense for a Duskwalker and also fit the Drow aesthetic. And the Duskwalker Heritage even grants you the darkvision you would get from the Cavern Elf Heritage.
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Trixleby wrote: JiCi wrote: I think the reason why people ask for drows is due to the "other" abilities, such as poison use, arachnid affinity, agile/finesse weapon proficiencies and magical talents, not just for "living in caves"... For me it's the look. I like obsidian to some shade of purple/lavender type elves with white/silvery hair and red or silver eyes. It's the aesthetic. The culture is cool too, but I just like how the Drow look like. I mean, you can kinda just… declare that's the case? The other game's leaning harder and harder as the years go by into rainbow-colored elves, why not your home campaign? Even if you're playing Society, I doubt a whole lot of GMs would object to the bit if you said you were a weird elf with purple skin. Hell, if you really need to justify it, just say you got Argeria from your many years in the mines!
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You can have a purple skinned human with green hair and gold eyes if you want. There are no rules for aesthetics.
Adding onto this, we don't really have art of cavern elves as far as I'm aware. At the very least, I am having a hard time finding such art. Until we get more art specifically of cavern elves, nothing is really saying you can't just design them like drow looked in the meantime.
People just imagine Pathfinder creatures certain ways. I know people who imagine goblins as D&D goblins, and people who imagine kobolds as D&D kobolds. If you ever try to remind them that's not how they look, they usually just say to F off. So, frankly, you can just do that with cavern elves. If you cannot stop someone from imagining goblins with noses and less wrinkly skin, you cannot stop them from imagining cavern elves as, well, drow, at least aesthetically.
In the end it's all theater of the mind, and no two players will have the exact same mental imagery of what their game looks like.
And lastly, you can just justify it as body modification. Even if, for whatever reasons, purple skin was not a natural form of a cavern elf, you can still justify it as a graft or a tattoo. This is an example that's easy to explain Starfinder side. You can make characters outside of conventional body limitations due to cosmetic surgery. If a vesk player wanted a more "conventionally feminine" vesk, the technology is there. Biology fans can argue for days whether a creature should have certain features, but it's moot in the face of cosmetic surgery. And Pathfinder does at least have grafts. Grafts don't necessarily have to serve a function beyond a mild cosmetic enhancement, such as an atypical skin color. And this could even be a free boon at character creation. The same way I allow my players to say they are allowed to have a Serum of Sex Shift, for free, before character creation, to justify any gender expression they may want to have in a character.
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PossibleCabbage wrote: You can have a purple skinned human with green hair and gold eyes if you want. There are no rules for aesthetics. I'm running a game of Shadow of the Weird Wizard for my group on Sundays. That game is very explicit about how unusual people can look in a world full of magic, and that people with goat eyes or purple skin may be both entirely human, and go unremarked upon.
Humorously, one of my players is a blue-skinned elf who is taking advantage of that fact to "slum it" among humanity and not be found out as a fey, claiming to be "totally 100% human and just not liking iron, OK?" One of the other PCs has figured it out so now the elf is trying to gaslight them super hard into doubting themselves.
It's rather tough to do while they are in a fey realm where people seem to know the elf, tho.
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Council of Thieves, the fifth Adventure Path, was the first to use the Pathfinder First Edition rules.
Sibelius Eos Owm wrote: Dargoth876 wrote: Second Darkness was my first exposure to Pathfinder. I would never call it a disaster. What was the problem? Enough things, I'm sure, that it could be taken to its own thread if we wanted to continue the topic in depth. In short though, the one that stands out to me is the incredibly off-character depiction of surface elves as racist and xenophobic--oh and the idea that an evil enough elf could spontaneously race change, that's also a bit of a yikes. There was also the bait and switch of the plot between what was in the player's guide and the actual AP.
The Raven Black wrote: Sibelius Eos Owm wrote: Dargoth876 wrote: Second Darkness was my first exposure to Pathfinder. I would never call it a disaster. What was the problem? Enough things, I'm sure, that it could be taken to its own thread if we wanted to continue the topic in depth. In short though, the one that stands out to me is the incredibly off-character depiction of surface elves as racist and xenophobic--oh and the idea that an evil enough elf could spontaneously race change, that's also a bit of a yikes. There was also the bait and switch of the plot between what was in the player's guide and the actual AP. True, a party of Half-Orc Pirates and Tiefling Thieves - who fit right into Riddleport - won't be well received by the Elves of Crying Leaf.
Such characters are also highly likely to go back home to Riddleport at the end of book 3.
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So, Tome of Dungeons is now on Barnes & Noble's site
Quote:
Dare to Delve!
From haunted tombs to labyrinthine halls of magic, dungeons are a mainstay in any fantasy campaign. Pathfinder Tome of Dungeons explores the wide variety possible in these adventuring locales, with robust tools for creating your very own, examples of rooms and hazards that can be used anywhere, and a bestiary of creeping denizens. Embody the spirit of the dungeon with four new, weird ancestries and two new classes–the fearless daredevil and the relentless slayer. Survive any depths with exciting archetypes, skill feats, and companions. This extensive tome is the treasure you’ve been searching for, but can you escape with it alive?
I don't think we'd had the exact number of ancestries before - honestly, four is lower than I was expecting but hopefully it means the four have plenty of page space and feats. We know two, of course, so the other two are up in the air. I was personally hoping to see a Medusa in there, but with only 2 open slots I doubt that'll happen.
So... I think I saw guesses that Skeletons and Fleshwarps would be remastered here, and that doesn't seem terribly unlikely. Then there'd be two remastered ancestries and two all new ones, and skeletons and fleshwarps are both very classic monsters for a dungeon dive.
(Also, it looks like the person who wrote the disappointing Battlezoo version of gargoyles, Jessica Catalan, is credited on ToD as well.
... hopefully she's either not working on that section, or she's gotten some better and more original ideas since April 2024.)
I think medusa is a higher chance than we think. Though not as a medusa, directly. The Sthenos are an existing race in lore that has yet to get made (except in Roll for Combat).
Fleshwarps I don't think would be in Vaultlines for one reason. If a book is in development, existing books tend to reference those books. Vaultlines references Fleshwarps as still being in Ancestry Guide, so there is a good chance it was passed over and is not yet allocated to an in-production book.
Skeletons are also just frankly a tossup. Possible, but I wouldn't say guaranteed either. Honestly, those last two are anyone's guess. I wouldn't write out Sthenos (as a Medusa stand in) yet.
moosher12 wrote: I think medusa is a higher chance than we think. Though not as a medusa, directly. The Sthenos are an existing race in lore that has yet to get made (except in Roll for Combat). As long as they have snakey hair and can turn people to stone by looking at them, I'd be happy.
Quote: Fleshwarps I don't think would be in Vaultlines for one reason. If a book is in development, existing books tend to reference those books. Vaultlines references Fleshwarps as still being in Ancestry Guide, so there is a good chance it was passed over and is not yet allocated to an in-production book. Did you mean, you don't think it would be in Tome of Dungeons? Vaultlines will be out most of a year before this book, so I'm not sure the AP would mention Tome of Dungeons even if they're in ToD.
Quote: Skeletons are also just frankly a tossup. Possible, but I wouldn't say guaranteed either. Honestly, those last two are anyone's guess. I wouldn't write out Sthenos (as a Medusa stand in) yet. Well, fingers crossed!
ornathopter wrote: Did you mean, you don't think it would be in Tome of Dungeons? Vaultlines will be out most of a year before this book, so I'm not sure the AP would mention Tome of Dungeons even if they're in ToD. It will inevitably come out (I hope), but we've seen entries from Monster Core 2 and Tech Core be referenced as being in those books over a year before release in prior books. Granted, it could still appear in Tome of Dungeons, but because it's referenced in Vaultlines as still being in Ancestry Guide. And since Tome of Dungeons is only a year off, there is enough precedent that if fleshwarps were only a year away, Vaultlines would have cited them to be in Tome of Dungeons instead of Ancestry Guide. (Granted, an editor could have wanted to keep this secret for a reveal, and could have had it suppressed.)
Point being, current trends support there is a reasonable chance that Fleshwarped would not be in Tome of Dungeons if it is already not being cited as being in it in one of the most recent books.
Also, if you want a mild hopeful thought, if Fleshwarp did become a versatile heritage instead of an ancestry, that technically would not count as an ancestry slot.
In short, really everything is a tossup. The best I can do is try to make predictions based on what was seen before. But even those are not 100%
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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
I reckon ToD would be a good spot for some sort of shapechanger ancestry. Whether they call them doppelgangers, divoynik, or something else entirely, definitely fits the bill of new and weird folk you might find in a dungeon. That being said Skeletons and Fleshwarp remaster are more likely imo, even with Vaultlines references.
Something I'm interested in thinking about as well is looking at what ancestries and versatile heritages need to be remastered and considering what may be bundled with them in a product, similar to how the remaster of strix and kayal also gave bugbears, or feybound gave us nymph, gremlin, and fadrim along the sprite (yet not gathlain for some crazy reason. Holding out hope for LO: Broken Lands).
The classical geniekin for instance I think will pop back up in a LO: Golden Road, which would be a good place to reintroduce shabti and those ever elusive wyvaran for example.
I don't want to go back and look through all the store blurbs - ToD's there says 'new, weird ancestries.' Have any of the other books' blurbs said 'new ancestries' when some of the ancestries were remastered, or is that only used when they really all are brand new?
I think when feybound got leaked on B&N, it revealed off all of the ancestries specifically. Leaks of other books also had a lot of information way before official Paizo release. But ToD's is obviously intentionally vague, so they probably learned form the B&N leakes (which have happened for quite awhile) and are now avoiding disclosing information they want to reveal in curated previews from now on.
Back during the B&N Feybound leak, what was revealed was this: "Play fey ancestries—fauns, gremlins, nymphs, and sprites—"
Problematically, "new" is not a great indicator of guarantee for or against skeletons and fleshwarps. I'd have no trouble finding a host of people arguing that an entry is new if it's a legacy entry to remaster, as well as a host of people arguing that an entry is new only if it's entirely new. It's a semantic that can go either way, so it's not a reliable indicator.
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Yeah, I thought it'd probably be semantics and nothing else, but I wasn't sure. I do hope there only being 4 means the entries will be on the meatier side, especially with a gencon release page count.
It could be a good fit to remaster the Beastfolk versatile heritage. Werecreatures are a pretty classic thing to find in a dungeon.
Aside from skeleton and fleshwarp - I'm not sure what unremastered ancestries are left that'd fit the theme. Vanara, Kitsune, Anadi, Shisk, Goloma, Conrasu, Nagaji, Vishkanya, Kashrishi, Azarketi, Shisk - None of them are especially dungeon-y. Androids and poppets could fit, or Ghorans, I suppose, in a plant-y nature dungeon.
(As an aside, it's nice to look at the list and see that, we're kinda close to being caught up, especially if Mwangi Expanse or Impossible Lands get reprints instead of writing new Lost Omens books about those regions. And if that happened then future books about those areas could add even more new options...)
Anyways, while Medusas are what I want, I won't assume they're an obvious pick for the dungeon book to the folks at Paizo. Dragons and goblin family ancestries are all pretty well locked down now - maybe a new sort of undead ancestry?
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Fleshwarps and skeletons could probably be versatile heritages relatively easily, yeah? Since they're not born, they're made.
I think versatile heritages are my favorite addition to second edition. Good job, whoever put that forward and to those that worked it out and added to it!
You want other undead playable, huh? Like a zombie, revenant, wight, mummy, ghoul, lich, dullahan, etc? A flesh golem or Frankenstein's creature? A fantasy cyborg equivalent brought back from the dead using wood, rune-engraved metal, fleshwarp pieces harvested or donated, other ancestries' parts? A corporeal or incorporeal avenging spirit?
Circling back for a moment to the initial topic, I think it'd be cool to have ancestries that have chemistry built into them beyond lore. As in, you've got to agree ahead of time to work with another player because these don't work - or at least aren't optimal - unless you work together. Mutualism or parasitism sort of thing.
Or possibly less insane and bring in Dvati and/or Kalashtar equivalents.
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Personally I don't especially want an undead, I just think that if you're picking classic dungeon crawl monsters to go with 'statue comes to life to beat you up' and 'ooze', 'zombie' seemed like a good guess. And while they aren't my cup of tea, I know they are for quite a few people.
If it was just what I personally wanted it'd be a medusa and some sort of non-evil barghest-alike (magic dog that can turn into a humanoid with magic/cursed bites and claws and such. Maybe mix in teleporting blink dog stuff as well) and a GenCon announcement of lost omens Arcadia with a Syrinx ancestry.
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OttoMasheen wrote: Fleshwarps and skeletons could probably be versatile heritages relatively easily, yeah? Since they're not born, they're made. Both are considered ancestries because of how profoundly different the creature is after they've gone through the fleshwarping process, or of dying, losing all of their fleshy bits, and being brought back again. Skeletons have some ability to take from their old ancestry's feats with the feat "As in Life, so in Death," as it happens, though a follow up feat to grant a higher-level ancestry feat would be neat.
I also wouldn't be opposed to a Fleshwarped versatile heritage, but I suspect they're going to at minimum be an ancestry first, and heritage second, when they show up again.
Otto Masheen wrote: You want other undead playable, huh? Like a zombie, revenant, wight, mummy, ghoul, lich, dullahan, etc? A flesh golem or Frankenstein's creature? A fantasy cyborg equivalent brought back from the dead using wood, rune-engraved metal, fleshwarp pieces harvested or donated, other ancestries' parts? A corporeal or incorporeal avenging spirit? In case you weren't aware, Book of the Dead gave us some archetypes to play some of these options: the ghost, ghoul, lich, mummy, vampire, and zombie. They're perdy neat.
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In Starfinder, the Android spun into a versatile heritage with the Xenometric Android.
Would it be so hard to make the exact same thing with the Skeleton, Fleshwarp, Zombie and such?
JiCi wrote: In Starfinder, the Android spun into a versatile heritage with the Xenometric Android.
Would it be so hard to make the exact same thing with the Skeleton, Fleshwarp, Zombie and such?
Zombie is an Archetype, not an Ancestry. Already available to PCs of any Ancestry.
The Raven Black wrote: Zombie is an Archetype, not an Ancestry. Already available to PCs of any Ancestry. I think they mean to make zombie an ancestry to go alongside Skeleton. JiCi can correct me if I'm wrong. Though, through Starfinder we do have corpsefolk, which fill the role of zombie quite well.
JiCi wrote: In Starfinder, the Android spun into a versatile heritage with the Xenometric Android.
Would it be so hard to make the exact same thing with the Skeleton, Fleshwarp, Zombie and such?
As for Jici, I like the spirit of the idea, but I'm not sure if Paizo would do it for that reason. Androids have a unique reason for the xenometric android. It's because the basic android by default is very humanoid in its original drafting, and xenometric was intended to diversify it beyond human. The issue with fleshwarp and skeleton, unfortunately, is they are already designed to be generalist while the android was not. I REALLY want skeleton and fleshwarp as heritage over ancestry, but sadly android does not provide sufficient precedent.
As for would it be hard, I don't think it'd be hard at all. The only challenge as far as they are concerned is finding a book that fits the theme and has the spare pages.
The Zombie archetype feels like someone who dabbled a bit too deep into juju magic, thus becoming a walking corpse.
A Zombie versatile heritage would be "what if your character arose as a corpse", exactly how we have Corpsefolks in Starfinder... and due to that, I don't think we even need a Zombie heritage :P
Skeletons and Fleshwarps became "what if you get a non-descript version of an existing monster", where both used to be in all shapes and sizes.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
I wouldn't mind fleshwarps and skeletons being ancestries as much except that the mixed ancestry rules don't stretch too far. We are given dromaar and aiuvarin (which I still always need to check the spelling and pronunciation of), and just kinda told to make anything else you need. Works fine when an ancestries main built in feature is darkvision and the base ancestry doesn't have darkvision but it gets messy otherwise. It's not hard to homebrew them and we have a decent number of other versatile heritages to balance against but we shouldn't need to you know? Hypothetical 2.5 or 3e I'd like to see mixed ancestry rules integrated into each ancestry, wouldn't take a tonne of page space assuming you aren't also writing lore for each one.
I never really liked the mixed ancestry rule on darkvision. Mostly because many versatile heritages upgrade your vision by one step. Normal to low light and low light to darkvision. Kind of wish that was a default for mixed heritages when the default heritage has darkvision.
I honestly don't think you even need bespoke mixed ancestry rules per ancestry to achieve this. As darkvision is the main thing that feels inconsistent with the rest of the heritage system. A robust description of how to handle mixed ancestry saves any of that work (and page space).
Though, for adopted ancestries, I kind of wish ancestry feats could have an Adoptive trait to tell if they are teachable to people that don't have blood. GM side, the line of teachable and not can get quite blurry. Something I quickly realized when I was faced with the question of, "Can the gnome ability to talk to animals be taught?" (Let's not actually debate this, the point is it was a question that had me go, "Hm" and I can see some GM's going one way and some going another). The point is, I do think a tag to indicate what is teachable in adopted ancestry streamlines things and better standardizes how GMs interact with adopted ancestry.
Also, a weird fact about mixed ancestry is it was made too late. Aiuvarin and dromaar exist, but through mixed ancestry, ironically it's usually more effective to add human heritage to elf and orc ancestry, which is something that we kind of just, willfully overlook. I count myself lucky none of my players have yet to ask me about applying the human heritage to elves and dwarves. As it's somewhat soft-banned in the sense that I feel it's not intentional and I don't bring it up as an option, but at the same time I don't feel it's particularly overpowered so I don't think I'd bring myself to say no if asked.
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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
A heritage is a small price to pay for natural ambition...
But yeah if someone came to my table asking to play a VH human they'd get the hammer. Meanwhile stuff like versatile heritage on an Awakened Animal to get thematic feats from animal folk feels almost essential to me? I'm playing an awakened cat at the moment and not having access to catfolk feats would be awful. Might just be me though.
I agree there. Honestly for Awakened Animal, mainly due to the diverse nature of the ancestry and the limited scope of page space, I try to offer my players that if a feat is thematic to an animal, it can be added to the awakened animal without taking a heritage. One example was when I was reading athamaru, it had a smell-based ability. And my first thought was, Okay, if someone picked a skunk, that could fit without needing a heritage, but there are not a lot of feats that meet that criteria to become acceptable. It is an odd line of which feats are actually thematic.
That's kind of a problem with generalist ancestries in general like Awakened Animal, Skeleton, and Fleshwarp. There will never be enough page space for fringe cases.
I think GMs porting a healthy, but not too lenient selection of relevant feats from other ancestries is fine as long as it is extremely thematic to the specific form of the ancestry you're taking. I, for example of your case, can see certain amurruni feats like Cat Nap or Cat's Luck fitting, while I might deny Catfolk Lore or Weapon Familiarity as they are more culturally charged. Basically asking, what can an awakened cat do, and what can an amurruni do, and picture the venn diagram of where they share traits and where they don't.
Basically, at the line that taking a heritage starts to feel arbitrary and largely unrelated rather than helps support the character thematically, and the request is coming from a place of difficulty making a thematic character work, and not from the place of a selfish power grab, I start to exercise a small degree of leniency where some ancestry feats can be ported at no heritage cost.
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I had not before now even considered the idea of letting an Awakened Animal access feats normally belonging to a 'this animal if it were humanoid' ancestries, but now that this thread has conveyed it into my brain, it fits naturally as if it had always been there. Like, of course any given animal-people ancestry is going to have a bit more room for playing out the thematically appropriate tropes we associate with that animal.
Obviously, you wouldn't just let them have everything, but expanding the feat options to better suit a specific animal using thematically similar ancestries seems only natural to me.
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