Pathfinder 2E Paizo Previews Hobgoblin Ancestry

The Hobgoblin appears as a playable race in the Lost Omens World Guide. Paizo's Eleanor Ferron has previewed it.

Hobgoblins get 8 Hit Points from their ancestry, are Medium, and have a speed of 25 feet. A hobgoblin speaks Common and Goblin, plus any additional languages they might pick up. Hobgoblins have incredible endurance and are trained for physical discipline, giving them an ability boost to Constitution, and they possess keen minds, getting another ability boost in Intelligence. Like most ancestries, they also get one free ability boost to put in any score. Hobgoblins were originally created from goblins, however, meaning the two ancestries share an ability flaw to Wisdom. With these traits, hobgoblins seem like they’d be perfectly suited to be wizards… if not for the absolute, bone-deep loathing they hold toward almost all magic. Oops!

In fact, hobgoblins hate magic so much that they can choose the Elfbane Hobgoblin ancestry, which can help them resist spells:

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More details over at Paizo.com.

 

[CapnZapp]

Which sucks because they are utterly unusable in D&D unless you expressly play them exclusively as Wizards and Warlocks. Otherwise the racial stats are garbage and you would literally be better off playing literally any other race in the game.

Saying that CON and INT ability bumps make your character unusable is ludicrous hyperbole.

 

[Rhianni32]

Constitution gives you nothing but +1 hit point per level which is virtually never going to actually matter and an Intelligence boost is only going to get you half-way towards getting a +1 on skills that you never need to use if the DM has provided the players with decent explanations and can only be used to coax extra information from the DM that they would probably offer for free without a roll, assuming there is even any relevant information to glean.

CON doesn't get applied to or impact Fortitude, Hustle, Holding breath?
INT doesn't give an extra language or extra skills?
Look if your GM gives out Identify Alchemy and Identify Magic information out for free as their house rule that's fine but I for one think that's pretty relevant information.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Saying that CON and INT ability bumps make your character unusable is ludicrous hyperbole.

Especially in a system where you get a third flexing boost.

As an aside what do you guys think of the 1 Phys Stat, 1 Mental Stat, 1 Flaw pattern? We've had it confirmed as a steady design goal and even the bestiary orcs look like they were built to have a Wis boost (even the simplest orc has a 12 in Wisdom)

I like it because it adds to class variety, and you don't have "stupid" races anymore.

 

[mewzard]

Especially in a system where you get a third flexing boost.

As an aside what do you guys think of the 1 Phys Stat, 1 Mental Stat, 1 Flaw pattern? We've had it confirmed as a steady design goal and even the bestiary orcs look like they were built to have a Wis boost (even the simplest orc has a 12 in Wisdom)

I like it because it adds to class variety, and you don't have "stupid" races anymore.

It's also worth noting that thanks to the extra +2 for two flaws option that you could drop an Ancestry's +2 stat to a -2 and bring up a -2 to the +2. Ancestries have a lot more flexibility for classes than were the case in the past.

But yeah, I do like the choice to make sure every Ancestry is good at some physical stat and some mental stat, alongside the four stat boosts so characters are able to boost things beyond the one-two stats they focus on for their build.

It's just one more aspect that makes me want a regular 2e game.