Quote from: Zelen on May 29, 2021, 01:04:59 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on May 29, 2021, 12:30:53 AM
Yeah, but that's something you address in Session Zero. Lay it out for the players and explain why.

I've had some fun with the oddball PC in my group (an aarakocra). On at least one occasion an NPC has tried to pluck feathers from her (because of an old wives' tale about feathers of the bird-people being a panacea against some misfortune).

Yup. I understand the oddball races can be fun, and I'm perfectly okay with playing in games that are freakshows if that's set out as the premise. One campaign I remember fondly was a bunch of PCs that were literally monsters escaped from a zoo. Everyone played something crazy like a Minotaur, Sphinx, etc.

I'm currently playing a Leshy in PF2 campaign. Because it's Pathfinder, in which races are more like the Star Trek assumption of "Humans with forehead ridges" than actual alien mindsets, I'm not trying to play up the mentality differences. That being said, even just having a different physiology & diet creates some interesting nuances to roleplaying that is fun to explore.

I have to admit, I was going back through the PF2 book and...  they haven't jettisoned modifiers. Okay, the ancestry/heritage stuff seems silly, but it fills the same slots as race/background. And the increased racial flexibility means you don't get elves/humans/dwarves/etc that are all the same.

Quote from: sureshot on May 28, 2021, 10:15:17 PM
With all due respect your shtick is trying to push people buttons to get a reaction. Claiming it was a "joke" after it gets a negative response is BS imo. It's still a weird response to give as a rebuttal.

Maybe go get checked for autism...

In retrospect it's kind of surprising that Paizo of all people didn't purposefully remove racial attribute modifiers. They're politically motivated enough to try to purposefully manipulate the language of gamers by removing the word "race", but somehow they couldn't justify removing the math itself.*

This shows an interesting tension in PF2 since I am confident the core demographic of Pathfinder prefers a crunch-heavy system where flavor/roleplaying choices are reflected in a mathematical system. I also believe that Paizo itself doesn't really want to create a crunch-heavy system.



* Caveat: While all the races in Pathfinder 2 have modifiers, I think in general there's enough stat bonuses given out that the stat differences in races basically don't matter. It's not 3rd edition where you get a mathematically significant race distinction to start with, and very few chances to change that.

In Pathfinder 2 you start with basically +2 boost to 2 stats from Race, but you also get +2 boost to 4 stats from Level at 1st/5th/10th/etc. Additionally, once you hit 18 in any attribute a boost goes from being a +2 to a +1 value.

Basically the long and short of it is, the quantity of boosts, and their diminishing returns, guarantees that all races of characters are within a certain bonus range (at best a difference of 1 on a d20), unless you purposefully sabotage your character. It's not terrible because over time your character does get race-based feats that provide distinguishing characteristics, but I do think that it's more or less a trick to give out so many boosts that characters end up being the same anyway.

At a guess because Paizo is on such tenuous ground that they are afraid to change too much for fear of losing more of their dwindling customer base.

Quote from: Brad on May 29, 2021, 11:34:36 AM

Quote from: sureshot on May 28, 2021, 10:15:17 PM
With all due respect your shtick is trying to push people buttons to get a reaction. Claiming it was a "joke" after it gets a negative response is BS imo. It's still a weird response to give as a rebuttal.

Maybe go get checked for autism...

Says the poster child for Autism himself. If you can't handle pushback go fuck yourself then. I'm done wasting time you.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on May 29, 2021, 12:30:53 AM

Quote from: Zelen on May 29, 2021, 12:18:55 AM
Personally while I understand why many players want to play weird, non-human races, I generally prefer not to have non-humans in my games.

Yeah, but that's something you address in Session Zero. Lay it out for the players and explain why.

I've had some fun with the oddball PC in my group (an aarakocra). On at least one occasion an NPC has tried to pluck feathers from her (because of an old wives' tale about feathers of the bird-people being a panacea against some misfortune).

I would agree that this seems like something to handle non-mechanically in Session Zero. If I as GM don't want non-humans for flavor reasons, then I'd just disallow non-humans or talk to my players about why I'd prefer mostly human characters and negotiate it.

I think just having mechanical incentives is the wrong way to approach it. i.e. If I give extra power boosts to human characters, then the min-maxing players all take humans and kick even more ass -- while non-min-maxing players take non-humans and are even more outclassed by the min-maxers.

Quote from: sureshot on May 29, 2021, 01:30:35 PM

Quote from: Brad on May 29, 2021, 11:34:36 AM

Quote from: sureshot on May 28, 2021, 10:15:17 PM
With all due respect your shtick is trying to push people buttons to get a reaction. Claiming it was a "joke" after it gets a negative response is BS imo. It's still a weird response to give as a rebuttal.

Maybe go get checked for autism...

Says the poster child for Autism himself. If you can't handle pushback go fuck yourself then. I'm done wasting time you.

Handle pushback for what? You're taking this shit waaaaaay too seriously. Sad!

Quote from: SHARK on May 27, 2021, 05:01:25 AM
Greetings!

Yeah, the whole "+2 and +1" to whatever racial stats you want, rearrange as desired, is just total BS and I think when you draw back and really think about different, distinctive *races*--that doing such a policy is just fucking bland and weak. WTF? I can understand to a point saying, "All Gnomes have whatever stats, rearrange as you desire" can be attractive, but when you then apply the same precise attributes to every race, it just seems to make them all so bland and colourless to my way of thinking. Halflings are just as strong as Half Ogres? Half Ogres are just as swift and agile as Halflings? Same thing goes for Elves, and a dozen other races. The entire rationale and motivation behind such a rule as presented by WOTC is so much nonsense.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Could you post a link? I haven't bought or played any 5e in many years, so I'm not up to date on this stuff any more.

However, if those are the new rules, then it sounds.......boring. Is the intention to make the game more politically correct? Whatever they're trying to do, it sounds like everyone is now just a human in a different skinsuit. In which case, why bother?

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on May 30, 2021, 12:39:25 AM

Quote from: SHARK on May 27, 2021, 05:01:25 AM
Greetings!

Yeah, the whole "+2 and +1" to whatever racial stats you want, rearrange as desired, is just total BS and I think when you draw back and really think about different, distinctive *races*--that doing such a policy is just fucking bland and weak. WTF? I can understand to a point saying, "All Gnomes have whatever stats, rearrange as you desire" can be attractive, but when you then apply the same precise attributes to every race, it just seems to make them all so bland and colourless to my way of thinking. Halflings are just as strong as Half Ogres? Half Ogres are just as swift and agile as Halflings? Same thing goes for Elves, and a dozen other races. The entire rationale and motivation behind such a rule as presented by WOTC is so much nonsense.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Could you post a link? I haven't bought or played any 5e in many years, so I'm not up to date on this stuff any more.

However, if those are the new rules, then it sounds.......boring. Is the intention to make the game more politically correct? Whatever they're trying to do, it sounds like everyone is now just a human in a different skinsuit. In which case, why bother?

Greetings!

Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't have any links. Between Pundits several videos on the topic, as well as others covering Tashas, or the Cauldron, or whatever, they discussed the new rules contained within. I recall hearing several sources describe the same thing.

Indeed, such a change seems pathetic and terrible to me. Apparently, some people like not having racial attributes, but I'm definitely not one of them. Some also like the player choice thing, and while I also see some merit in that--I mentioned for a few subraces for example, where the particular attributes *within* a race may not be terribly different, such customization has merit. Likewise for Humans and Half Elves. However, for *ALL* races, I think such a policy is wrong-headed. But, each DM can make that call for themselves of course.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on May 30, 2021, 12:39:25 AM
Could you post a link? I haven't bought or played any 5e in many years, so I'm not up to date on this stuff any more.

However, if those are the new rules, then it sounds.......boring. Is the intention to make the game more politically correct? Whatever they're trying to do, it sounds like everyone is now just a human in a different skinsuit. In which case, why bother?

He's referring to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.  The "Customizing Your Origin" rules in chapter one allow you to disregard the published racial archetypes.  The hand waving is the ASIs are not bio-essentialism but tendencies in the adventuring population of the races.

While this is supposed to be an optional rule, we are seeing new races introduced after Tasha's simply using put the +1 and +2 where you want approach.  They are no longer defining the typical profile for the adjustment.

I'm not exactly sure where the kobold's negative strength modifier from Volo's was redacted officially.

It was giving orcs and kobolds negatives that kicked off this SJW outcry because its somehow racist and bad and wrong and we MUST "fix" it!!!!!!!

It would have started earlier if the PHB had presented halflings or gnomes or anything with negative stats.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111219074734/http://the-qlc.com/loserz/go/209

https://www.rpgcrossing.com/showthread.php?t=118403

Quote from: Omega on May 31, 2021, 07:39:06 AM
It was giving orcs and kobolds negatives that kicked off this SJW outcry because its somehow racist and bad and wrong and we MUST "fix" it!!!!!!!

It would have started earlier if the PHB had presented halflings or gnomes or anything with negative stats.

Well, it's sort of curious why halflings and gnomes stopped having negative stats. Here's the edition progression, focusing in on halfling.

0e: no ability adjustments

1e: human no adjustment, halfling -1 Str/+1 Dex

BX: no ability adjustments

2e: human no adjustment, halfling -1 Str/+1 Dex

3e: human no adjustment, halfling -2 Str/+2 Dex

4e: human +2 to any one stat, halfling +2 Dex/+2 Cha

5e: human +1 to every stat, halfling +2 Dex

I feel like particularly with the human adjustments in 4e and 5e, it seems like shifting back and forth -- dealing particularly with the min/max problem, that any stat bonus to core ability is not at all balanced by a penalty to a low stat.

I wondered about the removal of negative mods too. From playtesting phase we got the impression it was a bit of "housecleaning" as it were and removal of a bit of bookkeeping which seemed a big goal early on and well into the late phase.

The very first 2012 playtest packs had no stat mods at all. There were just class+race combos.
A month or two later and races were now somewhat like they are in the final product. BUT. All non-human races had just ONE stat mod dependant on sub-race. example a Hill Dwarf was +1 CON and a Mountain Dwarf was +1 WIS. Lightfoot Halfling was +1 DEX and Stout was +1 CHA. Humans on the other hand got +2 to one stat of their choice and +1 to the rest.
A year later and things were changed to pretty much what you got in the final product. Positive stat mods of +2 to one and +1 to another and humans get +1 to all. But no negatives for any entry.

Why are stat boosts reduced to +1? I thought the reason why they were +2 in 3e was because that was equivalent to a +1 ability bonus (since ability scores and ability bonuses scale 1:2).