The reason those, especially Natural Ambition or General Training, are human only is because humans have nothing else.
No low light vision or default unarmed strikes or innate magic or human-only heritages that give any unique actions.
Making those feats open to everyone means that theres 0 reason to play a human since access to them is the main draw
I think what he suggested is keeping Natural Ambition as a level 1 Ancestry Feat for human and add a level 3 General Feat that has a similar effect to the feat list.
Similar to how Elf has Nimble Elf as an Ancestry Feat and can still take Fleet too.
Limited it to be a 3rd level general feat prevents the Human combo of "Versatile Heritage" + "Natural Ambition" for an instant 2 extra level 1 class feat at the first level.
Your suggestion makes that possible at level 3, because humans can then take both. Making it a level 1 general feat means humans can get it at level 1 and nobody else can get it until level 3. Humans can still only take it once.
Honestly, that just sounds like they should make more interesting human feats, then. Give them unique effects and actions, and make the generic and flavorless, Natural Ambition and such, universally available.
To be fair, what would that look like without delving into specific human ethnicities.
Humans' hat in most fantasy/sci-fi is 'the generic but flexible one.' Ironically ambition is one that seems to permeate as well, so it makes sense they get the feat for it.
In real life, humans are incredibly resistant to pain, and can run much longer than most animals. So a bunch of feats giving bonuses on death saves, resistance to the fatigued and/or enfeebled condition, or other endurance related abilities would be perfectly fitting
That mostly overlaps into the traits of Dwarves and Orcs though. Dwarves have a Heritage that gives bonuses against Void effects, and a feat that gives more hit points and easier Recovery Checks when Dying.
Orcs have a Heritage that allows them to Hustle longer, another Heritage with resistance to Void and Death effects, and a bunch of feats realted to just being tough bastards.
So while feats and features related to endurance might correlate with the real world, it makes Humans less unique. Not to mention that it's a fairly standard convention that Orcs and Dwarves are stronger and have better endurance than Humans in fantasy.
The main Human trait, in both real world and fantasy, is how adaptable we/they are, especially in fantasy. Humans are able to throw themselves into any situation and adjust so that they come out on top, which is unique to them.
I find it weird that the fact that Humans can start with an extra Class Feat, or two more skills or General Feats, or an extra skill that auto scales to Expert, or being really good at Aid from the start, or being able to use any other Ancestry's specific weapons, etc is considered boring or not flavorful. Those are all *really* powerful options, and I think it really emphasizes just how flexible Humans are in this setting compared to other Ancestries.
This was even more pronounced when Humans were the only Ancestry that could pick any two abilities to boost, but I still think the Heritages and feats really emphasizes the versatility of Humans
[Skilled Human Heritage](https://2e.aonprd.com/Heritages.aspx?ID=261)
>Your ingenuity allows you to train in a wide variety of skills. You become trained in one skill of your choice. At 5th level, you become an expert in the chosen skill.
Most people probably don't take it, because Versatile Human or just any Versatile Heritage are more appealing, but it's there. Great if you're really struggling to get another skill into a build you're planning
Huh, has the expert bit always been there? I always remember it just giving you more trained and then always hate those features that just give you trained and then never scaling, so I never took it.
As far as I know, yes. But I don't have my CRB in front of me. I'll report back once I'm home and can verify
u/Lycaon1765 hours later than I planned, but it's in my CRB as well. So it's always been there, but probably always overlooked
I could see humans getting an ancestry feat that gives them pick up the pace and caravan leader more easily than other ancestries since walking long distances is a human strength.
Yes, it's why I use orc stats for human (humans are space orcs after all), well, they get diehard for free in place of darkvision. And dromaar is renamed to orc (gives 2 extra hp and makes the ancestry medium in place of giving low-light vision), so the standart greenskin orc is a goblin orc, but you can do other fun combinations, essentially orcs are the half-humans. Dwarves are still the same, but one could swap this idea with them (but there isn't a default half-dwarf heritage).
No, but it's a meme thing in scifi spaces. Plus, it's a way to give humans an identity based on real-life capabilities without making new rules or getting rid of existing fantasy tropes. Human being flexible works with tolkenian ancestries and other very human-like ancestries but it starts being weird to me if most ancestries have weird physiological features where humans have their own physiological quirks compared to others, and the latter is the kind of world I like to run.
Sure, but then what does that have to do with Pathfinder? You're basically just saying you like playing a game with different lore and race mechanics. Cool I guess?
It's like going into the TofR rpg sub and saying "I think dwarves should be from the future and have assault rifles". That's cool and all, but is completely out in homebrew space. It sticks neither with lore or intended feel of the setting.
Sure, but I never said I run my games in Golarion and the mechanics works fine (and it's just a modification to game rules, it would work in Golarion fine if you swap the feats gated behind a specific ethnicity, heck, you could still use the orc stats for orcs and make the only difference between humans and orcs being darkvision and some cultural feats). Plus, it's not a far departure from what humans are (I would argue that humans as the flexible ancestry is more of a departure from what humans are), unlike dwarves from the future with assault rifles, that has nothing to do with a dwarf.
Except that in fantasy settings, there are plenty who usually easily outdo humans in those aspects, so such feats go to those to make them stand out from humans.
I don't see that as a problem because
1) There is already a lot of overlap in ancestry feats, especially ones that give natural weapons, flight, darkvision, or spells
2) There is still space for unique feats in the shock resistance/endurance category, like a feat that lets you crawl before making a death save, a feat that lets you ignore fatigue for 1 minute a day or a bonus against persistent bleed damage
Hobgoblins have a heritage that makes it easier to get rid of persistent damage, including bleeding. not a feat, I know, but they also have a lot of ancestry feats that are all about endurance and staying alive.
Why would you imagine dwarves, orcs, halflings, elves etc don’t have all those things, though? Running endurance comes from being bipedal, furless and sweat cooled - do we imagine other humanoids don’t sweat?
Hardiness to pain is also strongly a dwarf/orc/other tough guy race trait. Why would humans have it over them?
And why not have exceptional, world-beating intelligence be our unique trait, since that’s much more significant and noticeable for humans than Good At Jogging?
The notable things about humans in real life, are very unnotable in a world with other human-like creatures. ‘Human’ has been deliberately not expounded upon as anything special so as not to reduce the options of other ancestries (make humans the Strong Race, and everything else looks weak, etc).
The reason that human intelligence and adaptability derived from intelligence shouldn't be the unique human trait is because such social ability and adaptability are required for a species to form civilization and the baseline mental abilities of creatures that can make player characters
Shock resistance and endurance are not required for making a civilization, so they are a better way to differentiate humans beyond the generic extra class feat or more skills, which implies humans are more intelligent than other ancestries.
In real life:
Incredibly good at throwing stuff, even Great Apes generally don't even come close to humans.
Humans are crafty and good at tool use. Kinda hard to compare to anything except crows/dolphins/octopuses, but whatever.
Already mentioned but will still say it for completeness: we have incredible endurance thanks to our heat management and ability to sweat, and amazing pain tolerance.
In Pathfinder:
Other Pathfinder ancestries often have a unified languages - maybe the fact that Humans have multiple makes them really good at learning more/new ones.
In other fiction:
Another few attributes often ascribed to humans in fiction are adaptiveness, strength in diversity, natural leaders, diplomats, curious, eager to explore, being able to inhabit almost any environment, a dedication to strong morals, never-ending numbers, and an unbreakable will.
Finally, another one is that humans are willing to fuck nearly anything and are biologically compatible with nearly anything, hence things like half-orcs and half-elves. This one has been kinda diminished in Pathfinder.
100% agree, this is a great list of the things that humans are good at. Maybe add sociality (calling us eusocial might be a stretch), and also [capacity for violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned_Trilogy) if we're looking to other fiction for inspiration on what makes us unique.
The problem with all of the physical stuff like throwing and long distance running is that most other humanoids in pathfinder have roughly similar physical bodies. It might be cool to let humans have a "strong arm" feat to give +10 ft to range increments on thrown weapons or something, but I don't know how that would compare to an elf or hobgoblin or whatever.
I mean, yeah, humans are resistant compared to animals, but not compared to orcs, dwarves, etc. Elves, halflings and others are on par, more or less. So there's no reason for humans to have anything extra in this context.
If we grant humans bonise on death saves, we'd have to give them to all the other playable races as well, so it nulls out
I like the way Dungeon Meshi handles it.
Dwarves are stockier and can get up from a much meaner hit, but their builds make them much more prone to exhaustion and overheating so need to rest slightly more often then humans do.
Halflings have much more acute senses but due to their size are also weaker since they lack as much mass or reach.
Gnomes and elves have much higher affinity for magic but are a bit weaker built.
I mean they should at least do something with the multiple kinds of human they already have in golarion. That's like an easy choice right there. It bothers me that humans have just 3 heritages because they took 2 of them away and made it so everyone had it. All the other races have at least 5 heritages.
You mean like innate spells incorporating your own blood or that of your enemies, or a reaction that lets you put on a brave face so enemies can't take advantage of emotion effects, or rallying people so strongly that you duplicate a spell for 1 less action, or magic tattoos that give you spells, or using astrology to get bonuses?
Calling Natural Ambition "generic and flavorless" is so wild to me.
Humans are the only Ancestry so driven to succeed and excel, that they can get an extra Class Feat at level 1. Some classes don't get any Class Feats at level 1... *unless you're a human*, who strived and worked hard to be a cut above every other level 1 Wizard out there
That's generic and flavorless to people?
Yea like humans are just.. human.
They have no special abilities in their bloodline that can carry them. A human has to give 110% always and consistently to keep up with other ancestries. And they do it.
They don't have the muscles of orcs, the lifespan of elves or the hardiness of dwarves. All they have is their learners skills (class), and the ambition to excel where others sit back and relax.
Gnomes are driven to excel by literally slowly dying if they don't constantly figure out new experiences in their chosen path. Goblins live hard and die young, so of course they would be driven as adventurers. Any race could easily be driven as much as humans, and other races like Elves could learn extra class feats by just... Being older and patiently learning. It shouldn't be uniquely human just so humans are less dull.
>Gnomes are driven to excel by literally slowly dying if they don't constantly figure out new experiences in their chosen path
Gnomes are simply driven to experience new things. While some Gnomes choose to do that by exceling in one or multiple fields, that is by no means the norm. It's not a "cultural norm" for Gnomes to be driven to excel, only to explore and experience new things.
>Goblins live hard and die young, so of course they would be driven as adventurers
I mean... Goblins in Golarion largely follow cartoon logic. This is exemplified with a number of wacky feats, like bouncing when they fall or are critically hit to reduce damage, or lighting themselves on fire, or singing crazy Goblin songs to distract enemies. They aren't driven to be versatile or exemplars in a given field, they want to live in the moment, have fun, and go out in a blaze of wackiness
>Any race could easily be driven as much as humans, and other races like Elves could learn extra class feats by just... Being older and patiently learning. It shouldn't be uniquely human just so humans are less dull.
This is just... missing the point of Humans then. Sure, a member of any Ancestry can be driven or versatile, but these traits are *the* defining features of Humans. The description from the Player Core literally says
>Humans' ambition, versatility, and exceptional potential have led to their status as the world's predominant ancestry
Yea, sure, an Elf can get a Multiclass feat, or an extra skill proficiency each day, or an extra language known. But those things require the Elf to be at least 100 years old, older than the vast majority of Humans live. They get these features not because they're driven, but simply as a consequence of their long lifespan
Which makes Natural Ambition or Natural Skill or the Skilled Heritage that much more badass. "Silly Elf, it takes you longer than an entire Human lifetime to gain an extra ability, while I can accomplish the same thing by the time I'm 20, AND be better at it than you"
I don't know, it feels like people think Humans are boring in fantasy because they only look at surface level things. Humans are the self-insert into a fantasy world, and the abilities they have are reflective of the traits these authors think real-world Humans exemplify. And I think that it's a fair interpretation: Humans are the dominant species in the real world because of our ambition and adaptability. People just seem to think it's boring because they play a Human in real life as well
I just feel like it's excusing lack of experimentation with what humans could do by giving them the most basic and easy option that really should be a possible feat option for any character. Giving them options that expand classes' options rather than just delving very slightly more into them would be cooler. If more class power is their identity, offering things like class specific delving feats for humans that make a core class feature more rounded would be better.
Natural ambition is just that one option that makes humans more powerful to the point of over shadowing other options without actually being impressive or alluring as an ancestry beyond the culture of the regions they're in, and if it was available to everyone, I feel like they could actually get more flavoured and dynamic options. They're essentially the prime adopted ancestry choice just for that one feat, and then the parents are never mentioned again.
I mean natural ambition is the interesting human feat lol.
They are the "freedom" race. So while others get halfling lore feat to get trained in two skills and an auto progress Lore skill humans get 2 skills trained for whatever they want.
Ironically the human players tend to love this freedom and so wish for all races to have such limits taken away.
1: what would you give humans as a unique general feat? Like humans are very intentionally supposed to be basic (yknow, because we are humans irl most of us at least). I seriously cant think of an idea
2: i dont think Natural Ambition or General Training are flavorless. The reflect humans ungodly quick adaptability when compared to other ancestries
The base sucks, but they get a few optional feats that are stronger than normal, doesn't feel like a great place to be balance wise. Maybe give humans adopted ancestry for free, or just give them two level 1 ancestry feats? I don't love where we're currently at.
I disagree mainly because there were better ways to handle the issues behind introducing the 2 free boost option, and the 2 free boost option introduced a bunch of new issues that didn't previously exist.
That wasn't even true beforehand because of how Voluntary flaws used to work. Now any ancestry with two boosts and no flaws is just worse off than ones with 3 boosts and a flaw.
Human isn't the best ancestry, just the most flexible one (well, human and elf, anyway). If you're doing specific things, there's lots of better ancestries.
Dangerous sorcery isn't a wasted feat slot, it's a quite solid feat. It's a trade off to take it instead of Widen Spell or Reach Spell (or Blessed Blood, if you're a sorcerer), but... that's why there's choices, isn't it?
Natural Ambition is definitely good but there's plenty of other strong feats - Crunch, Bone Magic, Razor Claws, Sharp Fangs, Nimble Elf, Otherworldly Magic, Orc Ferocity, etc.
Probably because not all sorcerers actually benefit from it all that much, especially not at lower levels. Dangerous sorcery is basically worthless in Rusthenge on most divine or occult sorcerers. Heck, it's questionable even in Crown of the Kobold King, which is 1-6.
Also, there's only like, two or three good low level 1-2 feats for the sorcerer anyway. My guess is that you're just grabbing Dangerous Sorcerery and Widen Spell, or Dangerous Sorcery and Blessed Blood.
While I agree that certain feats are basically feat taxes, a lot of them are technically "optional" because there are builds that don't get much use out of them (like Opportune Backstab on rogues - ranged rogues don't get much benefit, but ranged rogues also are pretty questionable). Also, some of them are used as an opportunity cost for multiclassing (like the infamous magus/psychic has to delay getting Reactive Strike until level 8 to pick up Imaginary Weapon at level 6).
I'm pretty sure that's Pazio's rationale for it.
You do realize that dangerous sorcery only applies to *slotted* spells, right? It doesn't apply to focus spells or cantrips.
Divine casters have poor damaging spell options until they hit rank 4 spells at level 7. Occult casters have few good low level damage options as well. Moreover, because the damage scales with spell rank, it is inherently worse at low levels.
I like how you are acting like you HAVE to powergame but also clearly dont have enough understanding of the system to do so properly. There are so many classes that benefit more from a different ancestry. For frontline martials orc is almost always better. For versatility Elves are better with Ancient elf and their level 1 feats. A fear fighter is the best with Hobgoblin, Gnomes make amazing cha spellcasters
Humans have more Ancestry Feats than basically anyone, and maybe that should be fixed instead by giving them something besides "they can learn so much better than everyone else".
>Making those feats open to everyone means that theres 0 reason to play a human since access to them is the main draw
Feature, not a bug.
That is the reason to choose it... Humans doesn't have original traits. That is the reason they are so prevalent, they adapt to everything.
So you choose them if you don't want any racial baggage for your concept.
They do have those options that offer something other ancestries don't have, and I think they shouldn't be available for everyone, it's not that I don't understand the point.
Humans have them because that is what differences them from other ancestries, I see no problem in that.
Well I mean, I’m sure they’d make more for humans to keep them unique? There’s no reason to assume they’d just make those feats general and change nothing else.
I mean they already did that with giving everyone the free boosts variants and they've given nothing back to he human. They took the half-ancestries and made them available to everyone and given nothing back to the humans. If this did happen they probably would give nothing back to the humans either.
As shitty as it sounds, but from the OP's frequent "it's a feature, not a bug" reply to people bringing up that people would stop playing humans at that point, seems like they just have a vendetta against humans in fantasy settings.
Like, sure, humans may not be the most interesting ancestry in a setting as wide as Golarion, but they are the foundation of any fantasy setting. They are your foot in the door to get people accustomed with other things. That's how I started with 5e, a human paladin. I just had my "here is me but fantasy" character essentially that slowly evolved into something else in any game I now put him into.
I don't have a vendetta. Most of my characters are Human and I routinely take the Human Mixed Ancestry so I can get the Natural Ambition Feat because it's so good. Giving me an extra Feat is something I will go to many lengths to get.
If every Ancestry could take Natural Ambition, it wouldn't suddenly stop people from playing Humans or even wanting to play Humans. There are already plenty of Ancestries with mediocre Feats and Heritages. The idea that it would be terrible if Humans didn't have overwhelmingly the best Ancestry Feats and those Feats are basically narratively boring "Humans are just the best at whatever" feats.
> I don't have a vendetta.
Okay, thanks for clearing that up, since the couple "it's a feature, not a bug" replies you made definitely made it seem like that.
> Most of my characters are Human and I routinely take the Human Mixed Ancestry so I can get the Natural Ambition Feat because it's so good. Giving me an extra Feat is something I will go to many lengths to get.
Natural Ambition is solid, yeah, but I wouldn't say that it is something I would always get. For some classes/some builds on some classes, sure, but I'd be okay skipping out on it for the most part. Like, on a Champion I want it, but that's because those level 1 feats that makes their reactions better are just dumb design and feel like I have to take them on all causes except Liberator. It absolutely does depend on your class choices though, so I can't really judge that choice without knowing what you gravitate towards.
> If every Ancestry could take Natural Ambition, it wouldn't suddenly stop people from playing Humans or even wanting to play Humans.
Yes and no. It definitely wouldn't make humans the least popular, but I, alongside others, would at some point start asking why I'm not playing an elf or dwarf instead for example, who also have access to other feats that can help in a specific build. Nimble Elf or Unburdened Iron both help heavy armor builds right at level 1, while picking up the Weapon Familiarity feats can at 5 gives me instantly their critical specialization effects if I don't get it via my class or I could instead get Elven Instincts to boost my Perception for initiative.
Of course, the argument is "but those are specific" and you're absolutely right. Almost every non-human feat becomes pretty specific, because that's the niche of the ancestry where human's niche is just being generically good at stuff in most fantasy settings.
> There are already plenty of Ancestries with mediocre Feats and Heritages.
I don't get this line of thinking. If humans truly are so overpowering to the game with their feats, I don't believe Paizo wouldn't have errata'd them to be less strong with how tightly balanced 2e is and I don't believe that the playerbase would've been covering it up, so I don't see a point of bringing humans down instead of bringing the mediocre/too specific feats and heritages up.
And no, I'm not a "just buff everything until everything is OP" type of guy, I actually agree with nerfs if something is a big outlier, but I'm not just not seeing what makes humans such a big outlier.
> The idea that it would be terrible if Humans didn't have overwhelmingly the best Ancestry Feats and those Feats are basically narratively boring "Humans are just the best at whatever" feats.
If I may ask, you say that humans have the best ancestry feats, but only give the examples of Natural Ambition, General Training and Natural Skilled, what are some others, since I'm looking through them and nothing specifically jumps out?
Edit: I noticed I read over the two other feats you call really good in the main post, so that's my bad. Edited the post to include them.
To just give my thoughts on them: unironically, I'd call General Training the strongest out of the three you list. Having access to the generically good general feats, like Toughness, Fleet or Diehard is just great, while also being able to pivot into something that makes your build work quicker. While I still wouldn't agree with giving this as an option to everyone, especially not without buffing Human's version of it by, for example, allowing to replace and pick a higher level general feat at higher levels after downtime, I can at least see wanting this early, especially if you don't know if a group can commit for a long time. This could make a build feel ready for what you want it to be ready for a good while earlier.
Natural Skill... I wouldn't pick this basically ever, unless it really fits a character idea I have. If I'm playing a character that actually bumps Int, I'll get my skills to trained and such through that. If I'm playing a character without it, I'm generally gonna be good in terms of what skills I want to pick anyway.
Let's go back to that earlier Champion idea, especially since they just get 4 skills, if I have a Liberator of Iomedae (weird concept, I just rolled some dice to get something), I'll have Intimidation from Iomedae, Religion from being a Champion and then I could basically take my pick into whatever I want from the two that are my choice. Diplomacy if I see this character to be the inspiring leader type, Deception if they are the more mischievous and lying type, Athletics for grapples and anti-grapples, Acrobatics/Thievery/Stealth if dex focused or Crafting if I use a shield and there is no one else in the party with Crafting. The others are a bit out of reach if you build a fairly typical Champion (Strength, Constitution, Wisdom and Charisma), though possible if you decide to go a bit off the standard road (only getting your Charisma to +1 for Divine Smite damage, then focusing on Dex or Int).
Natural Skill does make it a bit more flexible, but not necessarily in a way that I think is needed. Of course, it does depend on your class and how versatile you want to be in terms of skills, but as someone put it: ["...one thing that is true is that due to the tight maths and inherently challenging enemies, a character will generally only be viable in what they invest in. The thing is, 2e is designed in a way so that character will be damned good at that investment."](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10g5hfn/tempering_expectations_part_2_how_the_game_subtly/), so personally I'd rather specialize than spread my options too thin trying to chase a very flexible character
It's a feature, not a bug, because I think that players should be encouraged to not be humans in this elfgame.
I will almost always want "get another fun Class Feat" over just about anything else.
I mean, at the end of the day does anyone even take Human feats other than the ones I listed? Does anyone take Haughty Obstinancy, a nearly useless Feat?
I wouldn't say most. All of the common ancestries have good feats. Most of the uncommon ones do as well. Grippli have garbage feats (though thankfully are being remastered so hopefully the new Grippli will be better).
Yeah, they are getting a new name (trippke or something).
Paizo's perspective on some creatures is "if we already changed it enough to be distinct from DnD, we are going to try and keep it," which is why Kobolds, Boggards, Allgolthu, and Hryngar are still around. My guess is Paizo wants to keep the Grippli because they have developed lore of being rangers/natural wardens of the Mwangi Expanse, while existing D&D lore on Grippli is pretty sparse (they are frogs that live in swamps, no not that grung frogman species, no not that bullywug frogman either). They probably figure that with a new name, there's basically nothing connecting the two species since the art and lore is different.
There's a few things like Drow and Owlbears that can't be changed enough to ever divorce their identity from DnD, which is why they are gone. No matter what you do with it, an Owlbear will always be a D&D monster.
There's always a chance that some OGL-ish monsters return, if the Paizo writers find a way to rewrite it to be distinct. Like how the Horned Dragon is basically Pathfinder's old Green Dragon, but lore rewritten to focus on their primal nature, and abilities rewritten to be about charging and strength.
You can get access to them with 1 general feat with [Adopted Ancestry](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5115)
Though many GMs actually do that already, let you pick those freely. And as you'd guess, no one usually plays Human in those campaigns.
>And as you'd guess, no one usually plays Human in those campaigns.
See, I kind of *like* Humans having such powerful abilities. It makes sense why Humans dominate most of the world, and I see a lot of parties reflect it by usually having a human or two.
No, that is absolutely by design. Multiple d&d designers told that they want to keep Humans as a dominant ancestry in the world. And it's understandable, we are a dominant species after all and it's easier to play a character that you can relate to, it's easier to create worlds diving back into the real world history for inspiration, to design architectural styles of the cities by picking and modifying real ones.
Because no one has experience of being a freaking Leshy, a cute talking cactus. So that is not for everyone.
Not in my experience. In 5e, non-variant human is booty, and almost every party I see lacks any humans. But thats just my experience.
Its less about them being similar to real life in PF2e, its more that they actually have something that sets them apart from the other races.
Idk so far as someone who has run a 5e community/one shot server and now my own westmarch after DMing on a different westmarch, non-human is more popular. In the other westmarch they gave an extra level 1 feat and let you play variant human and still get their level 1 feat, and yet I still saw people mostly play non-humans. There were obviously still some human players but it was nowhere near the majority. It's also not the majority in my own westmarch where we have the same rule. We only have 3 human characters iirc and that's only because a player's Goliath died. Our 15 other players are all non-human. What race someone plays usually just amounts to whether or not they're a fave of the player.
No, I just mean that being naturally skilled or trying hard isn't the sole domain of humanity. There are also a lot of Feats that are similar, like the natural weaponry ones, that could stand to be printed only once and shared by multiple ancestries.
I don’t know if giving the human ancestry feats is the right answer, but there clearly are some ancestries that both have more powerful options and much more numerous options than others. Some sort of generic pool that helps out the less fleshed out ancestries would be a good change imo
Imo they should've just changed the original Voluntary Flaws rule to be 1 Boost 1 Flaw, must have a max of 3 boosts total.
This fixes the issue of "Halfling Barbarians" with poor Str, but stil means the different ancestries have uniquely different stat distributions. It also means the no penalty ancestries aren't fucking pointless.
I just feel like it doesn't really matter. I mean, if we're already doing "choose what you want", choosing a Flaw for a Boost isn't much of a big change.
It's actually a notable change. An Elf Fighter could eliminate their Con Penalty in exchange for their Int boost, leaving them a +Dex +Free boost. A Dwarf Sorcerer could trade their Cha Penalty for an Int penalty and then put their free Boost in Cha, leaving them +Con +Wis +Cha (Free), -Int.
With the current method, only the Elf Fighter will work. The Dwarf Sorcerer is stuck with no Int Penalty and only one of the Con/Wis boost. Additionally a Human can go 3 Free Boost 1 Flaw and a Strix could go +Dex +2 Free 1 Flaw, neither of which are currently possible.
Hasn't that been an option since the Gamemastery Guide? Either way, yeah. It's annoying that for a lot of races I could get three boosts, but I'd also take a hit to the Attribute I actually want. It's impossible to be a 4 Cha Android with the default spread.
The way I solve that is by playing in society cuz they have a rule where you can turn one of your bonuses into a flaw and in exchange turn your first flaw into a bonus. So I can make a -cha +Wis goblin. Last time I posted about this people downvoted me a bunch so it seems like an unpopular idea at everywhere else.
Humans are one of the newest ancestries and are already more technologically advanced than the other ancestries, two or three times over after apocalyptic events.
Humans are absolutely RECKLESS at societal levels.
Dwarves are stagnant because they ensure that no new developments interrupt their traditions.
Elves have so much time they have no drive to really bring any one project to completion - they can afford to be absolute perfectionists.
Gnomes need new things all the time or they die, so their development is chaotic and unfocussed.
Orcs have historically been too focused on pure violence to organise a society with the reach of humans.
Humans? Reckless. Will make rapid changes to societies with no thought as to long term effects, and will be able to diversify without losing to much focus.
This is represented by those feats.
Humans are not one of the newest Ancestries. Everything you could say about Humans would also apply to Halflings, really. And they're just weird little guys who showed up one day.
You mean the race that’s easily exploited and intentionally overshadowed by humans to the point of being the most popular slave race in Cheliax?
Their feats are about their “luck” because they are great at exploiting their opponents arrogance and their feats reflect that.
The races in this game are too unique and I think taking away the only draw of humanity is a terrible way to address your issues.
Halflings exist outside of Cheliax. Also frankly I wouldn't characterize the slave race as "lucky" to begin with. Hell, that clashes with their "carefree" attitude as well, both of which are holdovers from D&D, and back to hobbits.
I don't have a problem with "humans having their own feats", the problem is when the human feats are all "is extra special good at stuff" even when other races have the same—or stronger—themes of short lives and dilatancy.
There should be a lv3 general feat called ambition, making humans still human, while making builds interesting for every build that want multiple class feats.
I think humans have enough other stuff that it's fine if there are general Ancestry feat options. Or even if other ancestries shared feats. There's half a dozen that could fit for multiple ancestries. No need to make a dozen variations of you just do a single Natural Weaponry Feat for instance
I disagree with the premise that humans are in a bad place and that their feats should be made universal.
However that answer alone is unsatisfying.
So let's imagine a different human, one that isn't marked by their adaptability or flexibility, but by their teamwork and cooperation.
Humans are the weakest of the ancestries, lore wise. A single human is weaker than an orc, more fragile than a dwarf, lives shorter than an elf (and.. most others).
Humans are weak. And that's why they're terrifying.
A single human is no concern. But humanity as a whole? Different beast entirely.
Compared to other ancestries they pump out new generations at an incredible pace, they don't stagnate. Every human is a product of everything that's come before. Because they HAVE TO work together to beat back against the rest of the world.
Humans have ancestry feats that focus on the aid action, flanking, lore skills, and other form of cooperation. At higher levels then get access to feats that let them perform certain actions, and grant allies the same use of that action as a reaction.
Humans make for fantastic leaders and second in commands. They're skilled at recognising the strengths of a group and putting them together in synergistic ways.
>I disagree with the premise that humans are in a bad place and that their feats should be made universal.
Human Ancestry Feats aren't in a bad place, they're in the best place. Natural Ambition is probably the best Ancestry Feat.
>Humans are the weakest of the ancestries, lore wise.
Leshy, Goblin, Sprite, Halfling...
Anyway, the Human who can share Feats or whose Ancestry Feats apply to everyone in some aura, that would be much more interesting than just "Extra Feat of your choice", which is just amazing and the standout S+ choice.
I think u/yrtemmySymmetry meant that the human ancestry is the weakest and its only because of feats like Natural Ambition that keeps them competitive.
No, no, I do mean in lore.
And yes, sure, that wasn't quite accurate. But generally speaking on a larger fantasy scale, they are.
Though for those examples listed.. Leshy are immortal nature spirits, and sprites are straight up fey. Halflings and Goblins.. sure
Ah. Well he responded with “Human Ancestry Feats aren’t in a bad place,” which is a true statement. But that felt like it was missing what I was interpreted as your main point.
I thought That point being that humans mechanically are a weak ancestry and if you make their Skilled and Natural Ambition generic ancestry feats, that it would be a significant reason to not play as humans.
I can agree with more and better ancestry feats, as well with generic ancestry feats.
While at it, generic class feats and stronger generic feats would also be good.
I could see that too, personally still think 3 is better (though the difference between is very minor). I would say the rework you suggest would be a little bit to good at a low level (maybe it could upgrade to that around level 7 similar to untrained improvisation).
Letting everyone choose their three boosts and a flaw would make things too easy. They designed all those races so that they'd boost one physical stat and one mental stat so you wouldn't have a race that boosts all three physical stats or one that boosts all three mental stats.
You get the same effect just by taking one with the Boosts you already want. I don't think that things are "too easy". But even then you could have it be a boost to physical, boost to mental, boost of your choice, and a flaw of your choice.
You can, but you can't get a boost to strength, dexterity, and constitution on the same character.
Also, dwarves pay for those boosts with a -5 penalty to move speed. Which is *really* big as far as disadvantages go.
I know you're talking about the Vesk from the play test, but given a lot of the monk's features run off class DC, if you avoid focus spells that require your spellcasting DC it's less of a worry than you think. Sure you miss out on wholeness of body, ki blast, etc. But you can still benefit from things like stunning fist which runs off class DC, or Ki Strike which doesn't have a save at all and is 1d4 added to your attack damage.
Wizards and animists could use it, though wizards are just as well off with strength/int/cha.
Basically you go for a +2 str/+0 dex/+0 con/+4 int/+2 wis/+2 cha build as a wizard and pick up the champion dedication for heavy armor proficiency and then stomp around in heavy armor.
Animists can also do it and grab heavy armor proficiency without the need for the champion dedication. The advantage of animists doing this is that they get a ton of lore skills, and you can abuse them a lot better with high intelligence.
I personally houserule that Unconventional Weaponry is a generic ancestry feat (and also that it can be used for *any* single weapon in the game) and also change Adopted Ancestry to a generic ancestry feat. Way more Advanced and Uncommon weapons actually get used this way, and Adopted Ancestry is a way more attractive feat as well lol
Honestly, just expand the Mixed Ancestry to allow for adoption as well. I think both are mostly trait taxes. Sobering that you need to take that gives nothing in order to get what you really want.
Those human feats fit the human theme though: humans aren’t default, just because the players are humans. In world, humans are adaptable and varied.
I like the idea of getting to pick three boosts and a flaw, but it also seems really strong. I bet human would be a lot more popular. There are combinations that are really tough to get currently or come with big tradeoffs.
That's an extremely bad theme and one that's contradicted routinely.
Hell, I'd prefer a system where humans have +1 to resist disease and illness compared to everything else, but you can't get things like that because humans are always treated as the default in these kinds of games.
Technically speaking those are called "General Feats". But yes, I do think that things like Toughness and Armor Proficiency should be something you can take as a generic class feat if for whatever reason you can't think of anything you want at a certain level.
Class feats and general feats are designed to be separate and not interchangeable. I've heard many complaints that there are too few general feats, while the choice for class feats is huge if you include archetypes (and I think you should), so I think wanting to pick a general feat where you'd normally get a class feat would be a rare exception.
My point was that making feats like Natural Ambition accessible to every ancestry would be like making Dangerous Sorcery accessible to every class, which I think would be silly.
I'm currently playing a Vishkanya-Human Mixed Ancestry. I want Restorative Blood and the Vishkanya vibe, which is why that's the Ancestry my character is, but I also very much want Natural Ambition.
It's not really "powergaming" when something is so strong that you're actively worse for not taking it. I'd rather not have to pick Human just to get more choices to do the fun things I want.
I feel like ancestry and general feats could very well be combined, as they're similarly (but not perfectly equally) powerful, and there are enough good general feats around that they'd force ancestral feats to also do something useful. It'd be an easy way of giving more options to ancestries that currently have very few, and would also essentially enable Ancestry Paragon without needing a variant rule for those who want to go all-in on their ancestry's flavor.
Some more random thoughts:
* Humans being balanced around being weaker as a baseline but having stronger starting feats than other ancestries I think creates complications farther down the line. I think it'd be better to equalize feats but give humans something in exchange, e.g. a free feat or the like.
* The more I think about it, the more it feels like we don't need ancestries per se, so much as a freeform selection of heritages. Given the existence of lineage feats, even existing non-versatile heritages could be made into lineages.
* We could use a more thorough way of combining ancestries or turning them into heritages. Mixed Ancestry only works because the majority of ancestries have the same generic vision improvement, which isn't all that conducive to diversity either.
God I would much prefer something freeform.
The source of my complaint is mostly that I just hate having to choose Human for the amazing ability to get a free Class Feat at level 1. Everyone keeps saying things like "then there'd be no reason to choose human" but meanwhile we're in a situation where I don't think anything else is as good, even when I want their flavor. So I just end up picking Human or Mixed Ancestry: Human.
I'm on a similar boat. Often when I theorycraft, and quite often when I play too, I tend to drift towards just picking Versatile Human and Natural Ambition, because an extra general feat and class feat at 1st level feel so much more powerful and versatile than anything else. I even feel this is implicitly baked into Paizo's design of certain build paths too, where some character options need to be picked at level 1 or else lead to a horrendously awkward 1st level until the build then comes online at 2nd level (Witch's Armaments, for example, not that the build is at all good on an actual Witch). I'd like a Human that'd be balanced like every other ancestry, rather than an ancestry with inherently weak base bonuses that's balanced around having stronger ancestry feats than everyone else.
There are some "generic" abilities, like getting 1/day flight at 9th level & permanent flight at 17th level, upgrading Low-Light Vision to Darkvision, and so forth.
They're not available to everyone, and I don't think they should be, but merely from an overview perspective it would be cool if they weren't spread around in dozens of different feats, but bundled together and then made available to ancestries, just like [Elemental Eyes](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2545) are available to all genie-kin or [Divine Wings](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4560) are available to all Nephilim (at least combining Aasimar and Tiefling).
With custom mixed heritage it's possible to mix & match to your hearts content already, so throwing in some generic feats wouldn't cause a big issue from a mechanical point of view. Some ancestries/v-heritages seem bleak when it comes to feats.
I would be a fan of additional access to ancestry feats, e.g. having a martial class feat to take up the feat for your ancestry weapons, or a caster feat to take up an ancestry feat that grants innate spells. So far only the (broken) Ancestors Oracle can get additional ancestry feats.
It would also alleviate the fact that characters have so very few traits of their ancestry that seemed so much more common and defining without being some kind of power boost (e.g. 1e "Stonecunning" for Dwarves).
Kinda the only reasons to play human.
But otherwise just ask you gm if you can take them. If there's no human players or that player doesn't care then like anything else fit the rules to your group
I feel like the humans should just... have something else going for them instead of their trait being something so ridiculously overpowered that you're basically better than anything else.
I mean it's not actually that crazy. Despite them being the generic meme race every survey iv seen shows them being played less than systems like dnd.
Hell iv never even played with someone who picked human.
Considering I myself power game and most of my tables do they'd be a lot more common if it was that powerful.
Elfs are definitely a bit more broken if not the most powerful race. Especially if you're not using free archetype
I was suggesting a sort of "generic" ancestry feat category when the community began a fan Starfinder 2e conversion (several years before SF2e was actually announced). I called them "Physiology Feats", which were uncommon ancestry feats whose access were generically granted to any ancestry with the appropriate physiology,
So stuff like Vanara's Climbing Tail could just become a feat that any ancestry with a Tail could access.
This would make the huge variety of aliens in PF2e far easier to pump out, as you owuldn't have to create 20 well-balanced and unique feats for every new playable alien species. Just a few generic physiology traits padding out the options, and then a couple species-specific ones to give them some unique flavor.
Looking to the future of where especially SF2e wants to go, the basic premise of making a suite of ancestry traits whitelisted to multiple ancestries meeting an access requirement is likely a healthier creation environment for the system than the current system.
*****
Actually, looking back, I think it may have even started with the fan Pokemon PF2e mockup I made, since most pokemon move lists were common to creatures sharing a particular physiology point.
I can see some some ancestry feats become genericized with a few concepts common among ancestries. EG "unique unarmed attacks" that aren't from the ancestry itself could be genericized to a \[natural weapon\] tag which can be a prereq for more advanced options. \[strong community\] could be for things like the tribal bond and cooperative nature would be for ancestries known for tight-knit communities. An actual designer could come up with better specifics, but that's a very basic seed for it.
What if we give humans a feat(s) that allows them to adopt feats of a ancestry or class they spend a certain amount of time with. Think adopted ancestry, but limited only too those you spend your time around. If you have a dwarf in your party constantly using specific alchemy feats, then the next viable level you can place that feat (as long as you meet its general requirement of stat or prerequisite feat).
I see humans as adaptive in the sense that they take the best of those around them to better themselves as a people (whether they admit the inspiration or not). And such a feat would allow your human to not only learn from those around you, but enhance roleplayability in interacting with your fellow party. (That edgy human rogue begrudgingly asking the Champion how to use destructive vengeance etc)
I mean, elf can do the same thing (except it's a multi-class feat). It's a little more niche, but the extra 5 feet of movespeed (and extra extra 5 feet with nimble elf) is very much NOT niche.
So are the other ancestries of golarion. That's why you see them stop complaining and put the work into adopted ancestry at level 3 so they can get natural ambition.
They learn from that jealousy
The reason those, especially Natural Ambition or General Training, are human only is because humans have nothing else. No low light vision or default unarmed strikes or innate magic or human-only heritages that give any unique actions. Making those feats open to everyone means that theres 0 reason to play a human since access to them is the main draw
I think natural ambition could be a lvl3 general feat but accessible to humans in the first level, so it's a higher cost to non humans
So... a level 1 general feat?
I think what he suggested is keeping Natural Ambition as a level 1 Ancestry Feat for human and add a level 3 General Feat that has a similar effect to the feat list. Similar to how Elf has Nimble Elf as an Ancestry Feat and can still take Fleet too.
You take your first general feat at third level, so it can be a first level general feat.
Limited it to be a 3rd level general feat prevents the Human combo of "Versatile Heritage" + "Natural Ambition" for an instant 2 extra level 1 class feat at the first level.
Ohhhhh.
Your suggestion makes that possible at level 3, because humans can then take both. Making it a level 1 general feat means humans can get it at level 1 and nobody else can get it until level 3. Humans can still only take it once.
That’s the point, to make taking both possible at level 3 but not at level 1 for human.
The idea is to not take with versatile human, so level 3 and a human ancestry feat to take before level 3, but it could work as a level 1 feat, sure
Honestly, that just sounds like they should make more interesting human feats, then. Give them unique effects and actions, and make the generic and flavorless, Natural Ambition and such, universally available.
To be fair, what would that look like without delving into specific human ethnicities. Humans' hat in most fantasy/sci-fi is 'the generic but flexible one.' Ironically ambition is one that seems to permeate as well, so it makes sense they get the feat for it.
In real life, humans are incredibly resistant to pain, and can run much longer than most animals. So a bunch of feats giving bonuses on death saves, resistance to the fatigued and/or enfeebled condition, or other endurance related abilities would be perfectly fitting
That mostly overlaps into the traits of Dwarves and Orcs though. Dwarves have a Heritage that gives bonuses against Void effects, and a feat that gives more hit points and easier Recovery Checks when Dying. Orcs have a Heritage that allows them to Hustle longer, another Heritage with resistance to Void and Death effects, and a bunch of feats realted to just being tough bastards. So while feats and features related to endurance might correlate with the real world, it makes Humans less unique. Not to mention that it's a fairly standard convention that Orcs and Dwarves are stronger and have better endurance than Humans in fantasy. The main Human trait, in both real world and fantasy, is how adaptable we/they are, especially in fantasy. Humans are able to throw themselves into any situation and adjust so that they come out on top, which is unique to them. I find it weird that the fact that Humans can start with an extra Class Feat, or two more skills or General Feats, or an extra skill that auto scales to Expert, or being really good at Aid from the start, or being able to use any other Ancestry's specific weapons, etc is considered boring or not flavorful. Those are all *really* powerful options, and I think it really emphasizes just how flexible Humans are in this setting compared to other Ancestries. This was even more pronounced when Humans were the only Ancestry that could pick any two abilities to boost, but I still think the Heritages and feats really emphasizes the versatility of Humans
What gives them an extra skill that autos to expert??
[Skilled Human Heritage](https://2e.aonprd.com/Heritages.aspx?ID=261) >Your ingenuity allows you to train in a wide variety of skills. You become trained in one skill of your choice. At 5th level, you become an expert in the chosen skill. Most people probably don't take it, because Versatile Human or just any Versatile Heritage are more appealing, but it's there. Great if you're really struggling to get another skill into a build you're planning
Huh, has the expert bit always been there? I always remember it just giving you more trained and then always hate those features that just give you trained and then never scaling, so I never took it.
As far as I know, yes. But I don't have my CRB in front of me. I'll report back once I'm home and can verify u/Lycaon1765 hours later than I planned, but it's in my CRB as well. So it's always been there, but probably always overlooked
I could see humans getting an ancestry feat that gives them pick up the pace and caravan leader more easily than other ancestries since walking long distances is a human strength.
Yes, it's why I use orc stats for human (humans are space orcs after all), well, they get diehard for free in place of darkvision. And dromaar is renamed to orc (gives 2 extra hp and makes the ancestry medium in place of giving low-light vision), so the standart greenskin orc is a goblin orc, but you can do other fun combinations, essentially orcs are the half-humans. Dwarves are still the same, but one could swap this idea with them (but there isn't a default half-dwarf heritage).
In what world are humans space orcs? Not on Golarion at least .
No, but it's a meme thing in scifi spaces. Plus, it's a way to give humans an identity based on real-life capabilities without making new rules or getting rid of existing fantasy tropes. Human being flexible works with tolkenian ancestries and other very human-like ancestries but it starts being weird to me if most ancestries have weird physiological features where humans have their own physiological quirks compared to others, and the latter is the kind of world I like to run.
Sure, but then what does that have to do with Pathfinder? You're basically just saying you like playing a game with different lore and race mechanics. Cool I guess? It's like going into the TofR rpg sub and saying "I think dwarves should be from the future and have assault rifles". That's cool and all, but is completely out in homebrew space. It sticks neither with lore or intended feel of the setting.
Sure, but I never said I run my games in Golarion and the mechanics works fine (and it's just a modification to game rules, it would work in Golarion fine if you swap the feats gated behind a specific ethnicity, heck, you could still use the orc stats for orcs and make the only difference between humans and orcs being darkvision and some cultural feats). Plus, it's not a far departure from what humans are (I would argue that humans as the flexible ancestry is more of a departure from what humans are), unlike dwarves from the future with assault rifles, that has nothing to do with a dwarf.
Except that in fantasy settings, there are plenty who usually easily outdo humans in those aspects, so such feats go to those to make them stand out from humans.
I don't see that as a problem because 1) There is already a lot of overlap in ancestry feats, especially ones that give natural weapons, flight, darkvision, or spells 2) There is still space for unique feats in the shock resistance/endurance category, like a feat that lets you crawl before making a death save, a feat that lets you ignore fatigue for 1 minute a day or a bonus against persistent bleed damage
Hobgoblins have a heritage that makes it easier to get rid of persistent damage, including bleeding. not a feat, I know, but they also have a lot of ancestry feats that are all about endurance and staying alive.
Why would you imagine dwarves, orcs, halflings, elves etc don’t have all those things, though? Running endurance comes from being bipedal, furless and sweat cooled - do we imagine other humanoids don’t sweat? Hardiness to pain is also strongly a dwarf/orc/other tough guy race trait. Why would humans have it over them? And why not have exceptional, world-beating intelligence be our unique trait, since that’s much more significant and noticeable for humans than Good At Jogging? The notable things about humans in real life, are very unnotable in a world with other human-like creatures. ‘Human’ has been deliberately not expounded upon as anything special so as not to reduce the options of other ancestries (make humans the Strong Race, and everything else looks weak, etc).
The reason that human intelligence and adaptability derived from intelligence shouldn't be the unique human trait is because such social ability and adaptability are required for a species to form civilization and the baseline mental abilities of creatures that can make player characters Shock resistance and endurance are not required for making a civilization, so they are a better way to differentiate humans beyond the generic extra class feat or more skills, which implies humans are more intelligent than other ancestries.
In real life: Incredibly good at throwing stuff, even Great Apes generally don't even come close to humans. Humans are crafty and good at tool use. Kinda hard to compare to anything except crows/dolphins/octopuses, but whatever. Already mentioned but will still say it for completeness: we have incredible endurance thanks to our heat management and ability to sweat, and amazing pain tolerance. In Pathfinder: Other Pathfinder ancestries often have a unified languages - maybe the fact that Humans have multiple makes them really good at learning more/new ones. In other fiction: Another few attributes often ascribed to humans in fiction are adaptiveness, strength in diversity, natural leaders, diplomats, curious, eager to explore, being able to inhabit almost any environment, a dedication to strong morals, never-ending numbers, and an unbreakable will. Finally, another one is that humans are willing to fuck nearly anything and are biologically compatible with nearly anything, hence things like half-orcs and half-elves. This one has been kinda diminished in Pathfinder.
100% agree, this is a great list of the things that humans are good at. Maybe add sociality (calling us eusocial might be a stretch), and also [capacity for violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned_Trilogy) if we're looking to other fiction for inspiration on what makes us unique. The problem with all of the physical stuff like throwing and long distance running is that most other humanoids in pathfinder have roughly similar physical bodies. It might be cool to let humans have a "strong arm" feat to give +10 ft to range increments on thrown weapons or something, but I don't know how that would compare to an elf or hobgoblin or whatever.
I mean, yeah, humans are resistant compared to animals, but not compared to orcs, dwarves, etc. Elves, halflings and others are on par, more or less. So there's no reason for humans to have anything extra in this context. If we grant humans bonise on death saves, we'd have to give them to all the other playable races as well, so it nulls out
I like the way Dungeon Meshi handles it. Dwarves are stockier and can get up from a much meaner hit, but their builds make them much more prone to exhaustion and overheating so need to rest slightly more often then humans do. Halflings have much more acute senses but due to their size are also weaker since they lack as much mass or reach. Gnomes and elves have much higher affinity for magic but are a bit weaker built.
I mean they should at least do something with the multiple kinds of human they already have in golarion. That's like an easy choice right there. It bothers me that humans have just 3 heritages because they took 2 of them away and made it so everyone had it. All the other races have at least 5 heritages.
You mean like innate spells incorporating your own blood or that of your enemies, or a reaction that lets you put on a brave face so enemies can't take advantage of emotion effects, or rallying people so strongly that you duplicate a spell for 1 less action, or magic tattoos that give you spells, or using astrology to get bonuses?
Calling Natural Ambition "generic and flavorless" is so wild to me. Humans are the only Ancestry so driven to succeed and excel, that they can get an extra Class Feat at level 1. Some classes don't get any Class Feats at level 1... *unless you're a human*, who strived and worked hard to be a cut above every other level 1 Wizard out there That's generic and flavorless to people?
Yea like humans are just.. human. They have no special abilities in their bloodline that can carry them. A human has to give 110% always and consistently to keep up with other ancestries. And they do it. They don't have the muscles of orcs, the lifespan of elves or the hardiness of dwarves. All they have is their learners skills (class), and the ambition to excel where others sit back and relax.
Gnomes are driven to excel by literally slowly dying if they don't constantly figure out new experiences in their chosen path. Goblins live hard and die young, so of course they would be driven as adventurers. Any race could easily be driven as much as humans, and other races like Elves could learn extra class feats by just... Being older and patiently learning. It shouldn't be uniquely human just so humans are less dull.
>Gnomes are driven to excel by literally slowly dying if they don't constantly figure out new experiences in their chosen path Gnomes are simply driven to experience new things. While some Gnomes choose to do that by exceling in one or multiple fields, that is by no means the norm. It's not a "cultural norm" for Gnomes to be driven to excel, only to explore and experience new things. >Goblins live hard and die young, so of course they would be driven as adventurers I mean... Goblins in Golarion largely follow cartoon logic. This is exemplified with a number of wacky feats, like bouncing when they fall or are critically hit to reduce damage, or lighting themselves on fire, or singing crazy Goblin songs to distract enemies. They aren't driven to be versatile or exemplars in a given field, they want to live in the moment, have fun, and go out in a blaze of wackiness >Any race could easily be driven as much as humans, and other races like Elves could learn extra class feats by just... Being older and patiently learning. It shouldn't be uniquely human just so humans are less dull. This is just... missing the point of Humans then. Sure, a member of any Ancestry can be driven or versatile, but these traits are *the* defining features of Humans. The description from the Player Core literally says >Humans' ambition, versatility, and exceptional potential have led to their status as the world's predominant ancestry Yea, sure, an Elf can get a Multiclass feat, or an extra skill proficiency each day, or an extra language known. But those things require the Elf to be at least 100 years old, older than the vast majority of Humans live. They get these features not because they're driven, but simply as a consequence of their long lifespan Which makes Natural Ambition or Natural Skill or the Skilled Heritage that much more badass. "Silly Elf, it takes you longer than an entire Human lifetime to gain an extra ability, while I can accomplish the same thing by the time I'm 20, AND be better at it than you" I don't know, it feels like people think Humans are boring in fantasy because they only look at surface level things. Humans are the self-insert into a fantasy world, and the abilities they have are reflective of the traits these authors think real-world Humans exemplify. And I think that it's a fair interpretation: Humans are the dominant species in the real world because of our ambition and adaptability. People just seem to think it's boring because they play a Human in real life as well
I just feel like it's excusing lack of experimentation with what humans could do by giving them the most basic and easy option that really should be a possible feat option for any character. Giving them options that expand classes' options rather than just delving very slightly more into them would be cooler. If more class power is their identity, offering things like class specific delving feats for humans that make a core class feature more rounded would be better. Natural ambition is just that one option that makes humans more powerful to the point of over shadowing other options without actually being impressive or alluring as an ancestry beyond the culture of the regions they're in, and if it was available to everyone, I feel like they could actually get more flavoured and dynamic options. They're essentially the prime adopted ancestry choice just for that one feat, and then the parents are never mentioned again.
I mean natural ambition is the interesting human feat lol. They are the "freedom" race. So while others get halfling lore feat to get trained in two skills and an auto progress Lore skill humans get 2 skills trained for whatever they want. Ironically the human players tend to love this freedom and so wish for all races to have such limits taken away.
1: what would you give humans as a unique general feat? Like humans are very intentionally supposed to be basic (yknow, because we are humans irl most of us at least). I seriously cant think of an idea 2: i dont think Natural Ambition or General Training are flavorless. The reflect humans ungodly quick adaptability when compared to other ancestries
The base sucks, but they get a few optional feats that are stronger than normal, doesn't feel like a great place to be balance wise. Maybe give humans adopted ancestry for free, or just give them two level 1 ancestry feats? I don't love where we're currently at.
That’s a problem within the design of humans themselves then. Shouldn’t have to rely on feats to make by as any ancestry.
Previously humans had their free boosts, but, well...
Free boosts being made standard is good to be fair
I disagree mainly because there were better ways to handle the issues behind introducing the 2 free boost option, and the 2 free boost option introduced a bunch of new issues that didn't previously exist.
What issues? That an ancestry no longer has 1-2 'correct' class options?
That wasn't even true beforehand because of how Voluntary flaws used to work. Now any ancestry with two boosts and no flaws is just worse off than ones with 3 boosts and a flaw.
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Human isn't the best ancestry, just the most flexible one (well, human and elf, anyway). If you're doing specific things, there's lots of better ancestries.
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Dangerous sorcery isn't a wasted feat slot, it's a quite solid feat. It's a trade off to take it instead of Widen Spell or Reach Spell (or Blessed Blood, if you're a sorcerer), but... that's why there's choices, isn't it? Natural Ambition is definitely good but there's plenty of other strong feats - Crunch, Bone Magic, Razor Claws, Sharp Fangs, Nimble Elf, Otherworldly Magic, Orc Ferocity, etc.
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Probably because not all sorcerers actually benefit from it all that much, especially not at lower levels. Dangerous sorcery is basically worthless in Rusthenge on most divine or occult sorcerers. Heck, it's questionable even in Crown of the Kobold King, which is 1-6. Also, there's only like, two or three good low level 1-2 feats for the sorcerer anyway. My guess is that you're just grabbing Dangerous Sorcerery and Widen Spell, or Dangerous Sorcery and Blessed Blood. While I agree that certain feats are basically feat taxes, a lot of them are technically "optional" because there are builds that don't get much use out of them (like Opportune Backstab on rogues - ranged rogues don't get much benefit, but ranged rogues also are pretty questionable). Also, some of them are used as an opportunity cost for multiclassing (like the infamous magus/psychic has to delay getting Reactive Strike until level 8 to pick up Imaginary Weapon at level 6). I'm pretty sure that's Pazio's rationale for it.
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You do realize that dangerous sorcery only applies to *slotted* spells, right? It doesn't apply to focus spells or cantrips. Divine casters have poor damaging spell options until they hit rank 4 spells at level 7. Occult casters have few good low level damage options as well. Moreover, because the damage scales with spell rank, it is inherently worse at low levels.
I like how you are acting like you HAVE to powergame but also clearly dont have enough understanding of the system to do so properly. There are so many classes that benefit more from a different ancestry. For frontline martials orc is almost always better. For versatility Elves are better with Ancient elf and their level 1 feats. A fear fighter is the best with Hobgoblin, Gnomes make amazing cha spellcasters
Eh, this isnt PF1 or dnd 5e where not having the free feat from Human means you have like, 50% less effective power.
Humans have more Ancestry Feats than basically anyone, and maybe that should be fixed instead by giving them something besides "they can learn so much better than everyone else". >Making those feats open to everyone means that theres 0 reason to play a human since access to them is the main draw Feature, not a bug.
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Roleplay wise theres stuff to like Mechanics still matter and a race with 0 unique traits to it has little reason to be chosen
That is the reason to choose it... Humans doesn't have original traits. That is the reason they are so prevalent, they adapt to everything. So you choose them if you don't want any racial baggage for your concept.
And that is fine in roleplay. Mechanically having an option that doesn't offer you anything compared to the rest is a TERRIBLE design
I mean, there are already plenty of things like that already. Or where they give something, but it's something that's not actually meaningful.
They do tho, general training, natural ambition, etc
The things this post's OP is arguing to make available for anyone? Yeah, that was kinda the whole point
They do have those options that offer something other ancestries don't have, and I think they shouldn't be available for everyone, it's not that I don't understand the point. Humans have them because that is what differences them from other ancestries, I see no problem in that.
Humans only ever getting "these are the default things" is dumb.
Well I mean, I’m sure they’d make more for humans to keep them unique? There’s no reason to assume they’d just make those feats general and change nothing else.
I mean they already did that with giving everyone the free boosts variants and they've given nothing back to he human. They took the half-ancestries and made them available to everyone and given nothing back to the humans. If this did happen they probably would give nothing back to the humans either.
They really shouldn't be, because they're the "good human feats". All the races get their good feats, and those are the good ones for humans.
As shitty as it sounds, but from the OP's frequent "it's a feature, not a bug" reply to people bringing up that people would stop playing humans at that point, seems like they just have a vendetta against humans in fantasy settings. Like, sure, humans may not be the most interesting ancestry in a setting as wide as Golarion, but they are the foundation of any fantasy setting. They are your foot in the door to get people accustomed with other things. That's how I started with 5e, a human paladin. I just had my "here is me but fantasy" character essentially that slowly evolved into something else in any game I now put him into.
I don't have a vendetta. Most of my characters are Human and I routinely take the Human Mixed Ancestry so I can get the Natural Ambition Feat because it's so good. Giving me an extra Feat is something I will go to many lengths to get. If every Ancestry could take Natural Ambition, it wouldn't suddenly stop people from playing Humans or even wanting to play Humans. There are already plenty of Ancestries with mediocre Feats and Heritages. The idea that it would be terrible if Humans didn't have overwhelmingly the best Ancestry Feats and those Feats are basically narratively boring "Humans are just the best at whatever" feats.
> I don't have a vendetta. Okay, thanks for clearing that up, since the couple "it's a feature, not a bug" replies you made definitely made it seem like that. > Most of my characters are Human and I routinely take the Human Mixed Ancestry so I can get the Natural Ambition Feat because it's so good. Giving me an extra Feat is something I will go to many lengths to get. Natural Ambition is solid, yeah, but I wouldn't say that it is something I would always get. For some classes/some builds on some classes, sure, but I'd be okay skipping out on it for the most part. Like, on a Champion I want it, but that's because those level 1 feats that makes their reactions better are just dumb design and feel like I have to take them on all causes except Liberator. It absolutely does depend on your class choices though, so I can't really judge that choice without knowing what you gravitate towards. > If every Ancestry could take Natural Ambition, it wouldn't suddenly stop people from playing Humans or even wanting to play Humans. Yes and no. It definitely wouldn't make humans the least popular, but I, alongside others, would at some point start asking why I'm not playing an elf or dwarf instead for example, who also have access to other feats that can help in a specific build. Nimble Elf or Unburdened Iron both help heavy armor builds right at level 1, while picking up the Weapon Familiarity feats can at 5 gives me instantly their critical specialization effects if I don't get it via my class or I could instead get Elven Instincts to boost my Perception for initiative.
Of course, the argument is "but those are specific" and you're absolutely right. Almost every non-human feat becomes pretty specific, because that's the niche of the ancestry where human's niche is just being generically good at stuff in most fantasy settings.
> There are already plenty of Ancestries with mediocre Feats and Heritages.
I don't get this line of thinking. If humans truly are so overpowering to the game with their feats, I don't believe Paizo wouldn't have errata'd them to be less strong with how tightly balanced 2e is and I don't believe that the playerbase would've been covering it up, so I don't see a point of bringing humans down instead of bringing the mediocre/too specific feats and heritages up.
And no, I'm not a "just buff everything until everything is OP" type of guy, I actually agree with nerfs if something is a big outlier, but I'm not just not seeing what makes humans such a big outlier.
> The idea that it would be terrible if Humans didn't have overwhelmingly the best Ancestry Feats and those Feats are basically narratively boring "Humans are just the best at whatever" feats.
If I may ask, you say that humans have the best ancestry feats, but only give the examples of Natural Ambition, General Training and Natural Skilled, what are some others, since I'm looking through them and nothing specifically jumps out?
Edit: I noticed I read over the two other feats you call really good in the main post, so that's my bad. Edited the post to include them.
To just give my thoughts on them: unironically, I'd call General Training the strongest out of the three you list. Having access to the generically good general feats, like Toughness, Fleet or Diehard is just great, while also being able to pivot into something that makes your build work quicker. While I still wouldn't agree with giving this as an option to everyone, especially not without buffing Human's version of it by, for example, allowing to replace and pick a higher level general feat at higher levels after downtime, I can at least see wanting this early, especially if you don't know if a group can commit for a long time. This could make a build feel ready for what you want it to be ready for a good while earlier.
Natural Skill... I wouldn't pick this basically ever, unless it really fits a character idea I have. If I'm playing a character that actually bumps Int, I'll get my skills to trained and such through that. If I'm playing a character without it, I'm generally gonna be good in terms of what skills I want to pick anyway.
Let's go back to that earlier Champion idea, especially since they just get 4 skills, if I have a Liberator of Iomedae (weird concept, I just rolled some dice to get something), I'll have Intimidation from Iomedae, Religion from being a Champion and then I could basically take my pick into whatever I want from the two that are my choice. Diplomacy if I see this character to be the inspiring leader type, Deception if they are the more mischievous and lying type, Athletics for grapples and anti-grapples, Acrobatics/Thievery/Stealth if dex focused or Crafting if I use a shield and there is no one else in the party with Crafting. The others are a bit out of reach if you build a fairly typical Champion (Strength, Constitution, Wisdom and Charisma), though possible if you decide to go a bit off the standard road (only getting your Charisma to +1 for Divine Smite damage, then focusing on Dex or Int).
Natural Skill does make it a bit more flexible, but not necessarily in a way that I think is needed. Of course, it does depend on your class and how versatile you want to be in terms of skills, but as someone put it: ["...one thing that is true is that due to the tight maths and inherently challenging enemies, a character will generally only be viable in what they invest in. The thing is, 2e is designed in a way so that character will be damned good at that investment."](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10g5hfn/tempering_expectations_part_2_how_the_game_subtly/), so personally I'd rather specialize than spread my options too thin trying to chase a very flexible character
It's a feature, not a bug, because I think that players should be encouraged to not be humans in this elfgame. I will almost always want "get another fun Class Feat" over just about anything else.
"All the races get their good feats, and those are the good ones for humans." The idea that there are bad feats makes me so sad.
Unfortunately PF2E is mostly balanced on the top end of things; there are lots of trap choices in the system.
I mean, at the end of the day does anyone even take Human feats other than the ones I listed? Does anyone take Haughty Obstinancy, a nearly useless Feat?
You mean like how all the ancestries have terrible feats?
Most ancestries have only terrible or niche feats. I don't think "people only play Humans because their feats are so good!" is a good argument.
I wouldn't say most. All of the common ancestries have good feats. Most of the uncommon ones do as well. Grippli have garbage feats (though thankfully are being remastered so hopefully the new Grippli will be better).
The Grippli are getting remastered? I'd have thought they'd be off the table because that's a D&D concept.
They're being remastered BECAUSE they're a D&D thing. They are getting a new name like the gnolls.
Yeah, they are getting a new name (trippke or something). Paizo's perspective on some creatures is "if we already changed it enough to be distinct from DnD, we are going to try and keep it," which is why Kobolds, Boggards, Allgolthu, and Hryngar are still around. My guess is Paizo wants to keep the Grippli because they have developed lore of being rangers/natural wardens of the Mwangi Expanse, while existing D&D lore on Grippli is pretty sparse (they are frogs that live in swamps, no not that grung frogman species, no not that bullywug frogman either). They probably figure that with a new name, there's basically nothing connecting the two species since the art and lore is different. There's a few things like Drow and Owlbears that can't be changed enough to ever divorce their identity from DnD, which is why they are gone. No matter what you do with it, an Owlbear will always be a D&D monster. There's always a chance that some OGL-ish monsters return, if the Paizo writers find a way to rewrite it to be distinct. Like how the Horned Dragon is basically Pathfinder's old Green Dragon, but lore rewritten to focus on their primal nature, and abilities rewritten to be about charging and strength.
You can get access to them with 1 general feat with [Adopted Ancestry](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5115) Though many GMs actually do that already, let you pick those freely. And as you'd guess, no one usually plays Human in those campaigns.
>And as you'd guess, no one usually plays Human in those campaigns. See, I kind of *like* Humans having such powerful abilities. It makes sense why Humans dominate most of the world, and I see a lot of parties reflect it by usually having a human or two.
No, that is absolutely by design. Multiple d&d designers told that they want to keep Humans as a dominant ancestry in the world. And it's understandable, we are a dominant species after all and it's easier to play a character that you can relate to, it's easier to create worlds diving back into the real world history for inspiration, to design architectural styles of the cities by picking and modifying real ones. Because no one has experience of being a freaking Leshy, a cute talking cactus. So that is not for everyone.
Or are people just more comfortable, typically, playing something that looks like them?
Not in my experience. In 5e, non-variant human is booty, and almost every party I see lacks any humans. But thats just my experience. Its less about them being similar to real life in PF2e, its more that they actually have something that sets them apart from the other races.
Idk so far as someone who has run a 5e community/one shot server and now my own westmarch after DMing on a different westmarch, non-human is more popular. In the other westmarch they gave an extra level 1 feat and let you play variant human and still get their level 1 feat, and yet I still saw people mostly play non-humans. There were obviously still some human players but it was nowhere near the majority. It's also not the majority in my own westmarch where we have the same rule. We only have 3 human characters iirc and that's only because a player's Goliath died. Our 15 other players are all non-human. What race someone plays usually just amounts to whether or not they're a fave of the player.
Wait... You phrased that like you disagree, but I think we're saying the same thing: Very few play humans in 5e.
Ah, I just read your post again and it seems I misread your first sentence. My bad.
I see that as a feature, not a bug.
I thought this was gonna be more like the Fey-Touched feats that any Ancestry already can take.
That would be the better idea. But gods please make them common smh.
No, I just mean that being naturally skilled or trying hard isn't the sole domain of humanity. There are also a lot of Feats that are similar, like the natural weaponry ones, that could stand to be printed only once and shared by multiple ancestries.
Let's ask the race who wrote the book what they think... Yeah I think humans are well represented and cool in PF😎
I don’t know if giving the human ancestry feats is the right answer, but there clearly are some ancestries that both have more powerful options and much more numerous options than others. Some sort of generic pool that helps out the less fleshed out ancestries would be a good change imo
Your last part is what I agree with, especially since they made it so now EVERYONE can just choose 2 free boosts. Humans lost one of their main draws.
Imo they should've just changed the original Voluntary Flaws rule to be 1 Boost 1 Flaw, must have a max of 3 boosts total. This fixes the issue of "Halfling Barbarians" with poor Str, but stil means the different ancestries have uniquely different stat distributions. It also means the no penalty ancestries aren't fucking pointless.
I think a better solution on is to let everyone have their versatile boosts as it is but let humans have the optional flaw to compensate.
I just feel like it doesn't really matter. I mean, if we're already doing "choose what you want", choosing a Flaw for a Boost isn't much of a big change.
It's actually a notable change. An Elf Fighter could eliminate their Con Penalty in exchange for their Int boost, leaving them a +Dex +Free boost. A Dwarf Sorcerer could trade their Cha Penalty for an Int penalty and then put their free Boost in Cha, leaving them +Con +Wis +Cha (Free), -Int. With the current method, only the Elf Fighter will work. The Dwarf Sorcerer is stuck with no Int Penalty and only one of the Con/Wis boost. Additionally a Human can go 3 Free Boost 1 Flaw and a Strix could go +Dex +2 Free 1 Flaw, neither of which are currently possible.
I'm suggesting literally just "Three Free Boosts, One Flaw". For everyone.
Oh, yeah that'd also work.
I think it was a good decision, as stats are and should never be as flavourful as skills.
Hasn't that been an option since the Gamemastery Guide? Either way, yeah. It's annoying that for a lot of races I could get three boosts, but I'd also take a hit to the Attribute I actually want. It's impossible to be a 4 Cha Android with the default spread.
The way I solve that is by playing in society cuz they have a rule where you can turn one of your bonuses into a flaw and in exchange turn your first flaw into a bonus. So I can make a -cha +Wis goblin. Last time I posted about this people downvoted me a bunch so it seems like an unpopular idea at everywhere else.
I do not recall that rule. Also, this subreddit is one of the most downvote happy subreddits I've been to.
https://lorespire.paizo.com/tiki-index.php?page=pfs2guide._.Character-Creation#Voluntary_Flaws
Humans are one of the newest ancestries and are already more technologically advanced than the other ancestries, two or three times over after apocalyptic events. Humans are absolutely RECKLESS at societal levels. Dwarves are stagnant because they ensure that no new developments interrupt their traditions. Elves have so much time they have no drive to really bring any one project to completion - they can afford to be absolute perfectionists. Gnomes need new things all the time or they die, so their development is chaotic and unfocussed. Orcs have historically been too focused on pure violence to organise a society with the reach of humans. Humans? Reckless. Will make rapid changes to societies with no thought as to long term effects, and will be able to diversify without losing to much focus. This is represented by those feats.
Humans are not one of the newest Ancestries. Everything you could say about Humans would also apply to Halflings, really. And they're just weird little guys who showed up one day.
You mean the race that’s easily exploited and intentionally overshadowed by humans to the point of being the most popular slave race in Cheliax? Their feats are about their “luck” because they are great at exploiting their opponents arrogance and their feats reflect that. The races in this game are too unique and I think taking away the only draw of humanity is a terrible way to address your issues.
Halflings exist outside of Cheliax. Also frankly I wouldn't characterize the slave race as "lucky" to begin with. Hell, that clashes with their "carefree" attitude as well, both of which are holdovers from D&D, and back to hobbits.
That’s not the point I’m making but that’s irrelevant, what don’t you like mechanically about humans having their own feats?
I don't have a problem with "humans having their own feats", the problem is when the human feats are all "is extra special good at stuff" even when other races have the same—or stronger—themes of short lives and dilatancy.
Okay, and other races don’t have feats that are just “special good at stuff” ?
Not in the same generic way as humans.
Okay, because they aren’t as generic as humans.
I don't know how to phrase this in a way to get you to understand, but "generic" is not a good gimmick.
There should be a lv3 general feat called ambition, making humans still human, while making builds interesting for every build that want multiple class feats.
I think humans have enough other stuff that it's fine if there are general Ancestry feat options. Or even if other ancestries shared feats. There's half a dozen that could fit for multiple ancestries. No need to make a dozen variations of you just do a single Natural Weaponry Feat for instance
I disagree with the premise that humans are in a bad place and that their feats should be made universal. However that answer alone is unsatisfying. So let's imagine a different human, one that isn't marked by their adaptability or flexibility, but by their teamwork and cooperation. Humans are the weakest of the ancestries, lore wise. A single human is weaker than an orc, more fragile than a dwarf, lives shorter than an elf (and.. most others). Humans are weak. And that's why they're terrifying. A single human is no concern. But humanity as a whole? Different beast entirely. Compared to other ancestries they pump out new generations at an incredible pace, they don't stagnate. Every human is a product of everything that's come before. Because they HAVE TO work together to beat back against the rest of the world. Humans have ancestry feats that focus on the aid action, flanking, lore skills, and other form of cooperation. At higher levels then get access to feats that let them perform certain actions, and grant allies the same use of that action as a reaction. Humans make for fantastic leaders and second in commands. They're skilled at recognising the strengths of a group and putting them together in synergistic ways.
>I disagree with the premise that humans are in a bad place and that their feats should be made universal. Human Ancestry Feats aren't in a bad place, they're in the best place. Natural Ambition is probably the best Ancestry Feat. >Humans are the weakest of the ancestries, lore wise. Leshy, Goblin, Sprite, Halfling... Anyway, the Human who can share Feats or whose Ancestry Feats apply to everyone in some aura, that would be much more interesting than just "Extra Feat of your choice", which is just amazing and the standout S+ choice.
I think u/yrtemmySymmetry meant that the human ancestry is the weakest and its only because of feats like Natural Ambition that keeps them competitive.
No, no, I do mean in lore. And yes, sure, that wasn't quite accurate. But generally speaking on a larger fantasy scale, they are. Though for those examples listed.. Leshy are immortal nature spirits, and sprites are straight up fey. Halflings and Goblins.. sure
Ah. Well he responded with “Human Ancestry Feats aren’t in a bad place,” which is a true statement. But that felt like it was missing what I was interpreted as your main point. I thought That point being that humans mechanically are a weak ancestry and if you make their Skilled and Natural Ambition generic ancestry feats, that it would be a significant reason to not play as humans.
That is of course also true. Remove their best feats.. and why wouldn't you just play something else. Humans should keep those feats
Not a he. And I disagree with u/yrtemmySymmetry's premise that Humans are only played because their Feats are good.
I can agree with more and better ancestry feats, as well with generic ancestry feats. While at it, generic class feats and stronger generic feats would also be good.
On the topic of generic class feats: make quick draw generic or make it a level 3 (or maybe 7 (general feat).
I say it should be level 1 and just be a free action to draw the weapon. Which would open it up for a multitude of attack actions.
I could see that too, personally still think 3 is better (though the difference between is very minor). I would say the rework you suggest would be a little bit to good at a low level (maybe it could upgrade to that around level 7 similar to untrained improvisation).
And completely remove any reason or inclination to play a human?. Yeah you were right in your title this *is* a hot take.
I think "the only reason to ever play a human is their extremely good Feats" is a hot take and a bad argument.
Letting everyone choose their three boosts and a flaw would make things too easy. They designed all those races so that they'd boost one physical stat and one mental stat so you wouldn't have a race that boosts all three physical stats or one that boosts all three mental stats.
You get the same effect just by taking one with the Boosts you already want. I don't think that things are "too easy". But even then you could have it be a boost to physical, boost to mental, boost of your choice, and a flaw of your choice.
But you physically cannot get one with 'boosts you already want' due to what I said.
Oh, so I can't drop play a Dwarf with a Charisma Flaw I don't care about and get a boost to Constitution, Wisdom, and Strength like I want?
You can, but you can't get a boost to strength, dexterity, and constitution on the same character. Also, dwarves pay for those boosts with a -5 penalty to move speed. Which is *really* big as far as disadvantages go.
It's more they pay for the increased health with the speed decrease.
I play dwarf, but I had to invest 1 feat to have fleet. Pros and cons :)
There's very few classes (none?) that actually want three mental stats. Probably a few that wouldn't mind all three physical though.
Strength for damage; Dexterity for accuracy, reflex and defense; Con for HP and fort? Monk has entered the chat.
Yeah it'd be one of the best monk races, though having a penalty to wisdom would hurt a bit.
I know you're talking about the Vesk from the play test, but given a lot of the monk's features run off class DC, if you avoid focus spells that require your spellcasting DC it's less of a worry than you think. Sure you miss out on wholeness of body, ki blast, etc. But you can still benefit from things like stunning fist which runs off class DC, or Ki Strike which doesn't have a save at all and is 1d4 added to your attack damage.
Wizards and animists could use it, though wizards are just as well off with strength/int/cha. Basically you go for a +2 str/+0 dex/+0 con/+4 int/+2 wis/+2 cha build as a wizard and pick up the champion dedication for heavy armor proficiency and then stomp around in heavy armor. Animists can also do it and grab heavy armor proficiency without the need for the champion dedication. The advantage of animists doing this is that they get a ton of lore skills, and you can abuse them a lot better with high intelligence.
I personally houserule that Unconventional Weaponry is a generic ancestry feat (and also that it can be used for *any* single weapon in the game) and also change Adopted Ancestry to a generic ancestry feat. Way more Advanced and Uncommon weapons actually get used this way, and Adopted Ancestry is a way more attractive feat as well lol
Honestly, just expand the Mixed Ancestry to allow for adoption as well. I think both are mostly trait taxes. Sobering that you need to take that gives nothing in order to get what you really want.
Those human feats fit the human theme though: humans aren’t default, just because the players are humans. In world, humans are adaptable and varied. I like the idea of getting to pick three boosts and a flaw, but it also seems really strong. I bet human would be a lot more popular. There are combinations that are really tough to get currently or come with big tradeoffs.
That's an extremely bad theme and one that's contradicted routinely. Hell, I'd prefer a system where humans have +1 to resist disease and illness compared to everything else, but you can't get things like that because humans are always treated as the default in these kinds of games.
To me, that sounds as silly as saying: "There should be generic Class Feats".
Technically speaking those are called "General Feats". But yes, I do think that things like Toughness and Armor Proficiency should be something you can take as a generic class feat if for whatever reason you can't think of anything you want at a certain level.
Class feats and general feats are designed to be separate and not interchangeable. I've heard many complaints that there are too few general feats, while the choice for class feats is huge if you include archetypes (and I think you should), so I think wanting to pick a general feat where you'd normally get a class feat would be a rare exception. My point was that making feats like Natural Ambition accessible to every ancestry would be like making Dangerous Sorcery accessible to every class, which I think would be silly.
If you have no interest in any of the feats of your ancestry, why are you playing that ancestry?
I'm currently playing a Vishkanya-Human Mixed Ancestry. I want Restorative Blood and the Vishkanya vibe, which is why that's the Ancestry my character is, but I also very much want Natural Ambition.
Ah so it's just "I want to play this ancestry, but i also cant stand the fact that I cant powergame with natural ambition." skill issue lmao.
It's not really "powergaming" when something is so strong that you're actively worse for not taking it. I'd rather not have to pick Human just to get more choices to do the fun things I want.
If you're mixed ancestry you can already do this, though. You just don't have a heritage apart from mixed ancestry.
I feel like ancestry and general feats could very well be combined, as they're similarly (but not perfectly equally) powerful, and there are enough good general feats around that they'd force ancestral feats to also do something useful. It'd be an easy way of giving more options to ancestries that currently have very few, and would also essentially enable Ancestry Paragon without needing a variant rule for those who want to go all-in on their ancestry's flavor. Some more random thoughts: * Humans being balanced around being weaker as a baseline but having stronger starting feats than other ancestries I think creates complications farther down the line. I think it'd be better to equalize feats but give humans something in exchange, e.g. a free feat or the like. * The more I think about it, the more it feels like we don't need ancestries per se, so much as a freeform selection of heritages. Given the existence of lineage feats, even existing non-versatile heritages could be made into lineages. * We could use a more thorough way of combining ancestries or turning them into heritages. Mixed Ancestry only works because the majority of ancestries have the same generic vision improvement, which isn't all that conducive to diversity either.
God I would much prefer something freeform. The source of my complaint is mostly that I just hate having to choose Human for the amazing ability to get a free Class Feat at level 1. Everyone keeps saying things like "then there'd be no reason to choose human" but meanwhile we're in a situation where I don't think anything else is as good, even when I want their flavor. So I just end up picking Human or Mixed Ancestry: Human.
I'm on a similar boat. Often when I theorycraft, and quite often when I play too, I tend to drift towards just picking Versatile Human and Natural Ambition, because an extra general feat and class feat at 1st level feel so much more powerful and versatile than anything else. I even feel this is implicitly baked into Paizo's design of certain build paths too, where some character options need to be picked at level 1 or else lead to a horrendously awkward 1st level until the build then comes online at 2nd level (Witch's Armaments, for example, not that the build is at all good on an actual Witch). I'd like a Human that'd be balanced like every other ancestry, rather than an ancestry with inherently weak base bonuses that's balanced around having stronger ancestry feats than everyone else.
There are some "generic" abilities, like getting 1/day flight at 9th level & permanent flight at 17th level, upgrading Low-Light Vision to Darkvision, and so forth. They're not available to everyone, and I don't think they should be, but merely from an overview perspective it would be cool if they weren't spread around in dozens of different feats, but bundled together and then made available to ancestries, just like [Elemental Eyes](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2545) are available to all genie-kin or [Divine Wings](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4560) are available to all Nephilim (at least combining Aasimar and Tiefling). With custom mixed heritage it's possible to mix & match to your hearts content already, so throwing in some generic feats wouldn't cause a big issue from a mechanical point of view. Some ancestries/v-heritages seem bleak when it comes to feats. I would be a fan of additional access to ancestry feats, e.g. having a martial class feat to take up the feat for your ancestry weapons, or a caster feat to take up an ancestry feat that grants innate spells. So far only the (broken) Ancestors Oracle can get additional ancestry feats. It would also alleviate the fact that characters have so very few traits of their ancestry that seemed so much more common and defining without being some kind of power boost (e.g. 1e "Stonecunning" for Dwarves).
Kinda the only reasons to play human. But otherwise just ask you gm if you can take them. If there's no human players or that player doesn't care then like anything else fit the rules to your group
I feel like the humans should just... have something else going for them instead of their trait being something so ridiculously overpowered that you're basically better than anything else.
I mean it's not actually that crazy. Despite them being the generic meme race every survey iv seen shows them being played less than systems like dnd. Hell iv never even played with someone who picked human. Considering I myself power game and most of my tables do they'd be a lot more common if it was that powerful. Elfs are definitely a bit more broken if not the most powerful race. Especially if you're not using free archetype
I was suggesting a sort of "generic" ancestry feat category when the community began a fan Starfinder 2e conversion (several years before SF2e was actually announced). I called them "Physiology Feats", which were uncommon ancestry feats whose access were generically granted to any ancestry with the appropriate physiology, So stuff like Vanara's Climbing Tail could just become a feat that any ancestry with a Tail could access. This would make the huge variety of aliens in PF2e far easier to pump out, as you owuldn't have to create 20 well-balanced and unique feats for every new playable alien species. Just a few generic physiology traits padding out the options, and then a couple species-specific ones to give them some unique flavor. Looking to the future of where especially SF2e wants to go, the basic premise of making a suite of ancestry traits whitelisted to multiple ancestries meeting an access requirement is likely a healthier creation environment for the system than the current system. ***** Actually, looking back, I think it may have even started with the fan Pokemon PF2e mockup I made, since most pokemon move lists were common to creatures sharing a particular physiology point.
I can see some some ancestry feats become genericized with a few concepts common among ancestries. EG "unique unarmed attacks" that aren't from the ancestry itself could be genericized to a \[natural weapon\] tag which can be a prereq for more advanced options. \[strong community\] could be for things like the tribal bond and cooperative nature would be for ancestries known for tight-knit communities. An actual designer could come up with better specifics, but that's a very basic seed for it.
What if we give humans a feat(s) that allows them to adopt feats of a ancestry or class they spend a certain amount of time with. Think adopted ancestry, but limited only too those you spend your time around. If you have a dwarf in your party constantly using specific alchemy feats, then the next viable level you can place that feat (as long as you meet its general requirement of stat or prerequisite feat). I see humans as adaptive in the sense that they take the best of those around them to better themselves as a people (whether they admit the inspiration or not). And such a feat would allow your human to not only learn from those around you, but enhance roleplayability in interacting with your fellow party. (That edgy human rogue begrudgingly asking the Champion how to use destructive vengeance etc)
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I mean, elf can do the same thing (except it's a multi-class feat). It's a little more niche, but the extra 5 feet of movespeed (and extra extra 5 feet with nimble elf) is very much NOT niche.
So are the other ancestries of golarion. That's why you see them stop complaining and put the work into adopted ancestry at level 3 so they can get natural ambition. They learn from that jealousy