Pathfinder 1E Reflavoring

[Fauchard1520]

For those of you who haven’t stumbled across the term before, I’m using “reflavoring” to denote the re-fluffing of game mechanics. Instead of rage my barbarian gets possessed by ancestor spirits. Instead of a sword my fighter uses a macuahuitl. Instead of a bow that shoots enchanted arrows my weapon is a glove that throws enchanted rocks. In game terms these things may be identical, but the flavor is distinct.

On the surface, that's all creative good fun. But when taken too far, you begin to muddle the flavor of mechanically distinct options. As a point of comparison, Savage Worlds often gets accused of this. When I’m obliged to reflavor “melee +2” as anything from expert judo to medieval jousting, my characters begin to feel samey.

So as an exercise in better character building, please hit me with your best example of successful reflavoring that you’ve used in a game. And if you’ve got an example of “reflavoring gone too far,” shout that out as well. With any luck, we can all walk away with a broader understanding of the pros and cons of the technique.

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

 

[payn]

This can be tricky because sometimes its a simple reflavor, sometimes its an attempt to get a much better mechanical option in place of something less effective. Like saying Im using a greatsword, but it actually looks like a scythe. These examples are usually pretty easy to spot but need to be watched for none the less. One of the benefits of a system that has so much nuance is that you get the variety you may not in SW style reflavoring, but also it leads to less (sometimes greatly lesser) mechanical heft.

I made a Tengu ranger that focused on hunting Oni in a PF1 campaign. I wanted to use that sword style where the user draws, strikes, and returns the weapon to the sheath in each strike. I was willing to spend a feat on quick draw to do this. The feat doesn't let you return the weapon as a free action, but the GM was willing to let this slide. It did give the character the advantage of not having their weapon out for disarm attempts, but the GM barely ever did them anyways. The agreement was that if it became problematic, we would revisit the concept.

 

[PnPgamer]

Mine is a 5e dnd example but this topic is kinda system agnostic, imo.
But as i play an arcane trickster in that game, i requested, as for being a dwarf, my magic comes from runes instead of the usual weaving magic. Nothing changed mechanically and it has not come up actually outside of ME mentioning it to other players. I just wanted to combine my trade tool proficiencies with my class provided magic (stonemason and calligraphy, iirc.).

 

[aco175]

We done some minor things with weapons. A cowboy character with a longsword that was more a sabre instead of a more knight with longsword.

We tried a couple times to flavor spells for personal affect. My magic missiles appear to be tiny arrows or streaking swords. Well, mine look like tiny screaming skulls or poison dart frogs. One player started to try and get his spells to look like other spells to avoid being countered and such, so we had to end most of it. Right now, nobody seems to do much with it.

 

[Fauchard1520]

We done some minor things with weapons. A cowboy character with a longsword that was more a sabre instead of a more knight with longsword.

We tried a couple times to flavor spells for personal affect. My magic missiles appear to be tiny arrows or streaking swords. Well, mine look like tiny screaming skulls or poison dart frogs. One player started to try and get his spells to look like other spells to avoid being countered and such, so we had to end most of it. Right now, nobody seems to do much with it.

I've got a Starfinder technomancer who flavored her magic missiles as purple glowing rebar.

Weirdly, I find that it's easier to rejigger magic than other game elements.

 

[aglondier]

Did a fair bit of reflavouring with my magus' spell list to make spells that fit the idea of underground, dwarfy, forge, and earthy themes rather than the slops bucket offcasts of the sorceror/wizard spell list they came from...

 

[DrunkonDuty]

From years of playing Hero system I've long been happy with players reflavouring anything they want. Even including turning Fireball into Lightning Ball, etc.