The Goblin - Pathfinder 2's Newest Ancestry!

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Today's Pathfinder 2nd Edition update is all about the Goblin! Paizo introduces the first (and the newest) of the game's Ancestries. As always, this information will be added to the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Compiled Info Page!

• Goblins! Last night Paizo revealed the first of the Ancestries - the Goblin!
  • Boosts to Dexterity and Charisma plus one other ability score of your choice
  • Flaw to Wisdom
  • 6 hit points
  • Speed 25'
  • Common and Goblin starting language
  • Darvision (see in the dark as though it were daylight)
  • Sample Ancestry feats --
    • Burn It -- bonus damage on fire spells or alchemical items, and increases persistent fire damage by 1 points.
    • Junk Tinkerer -- craft ordinary, poor quality items out of junk.
    • Razor Teeth -- 1d6 piercing damage.
    • Very Sneaky -- move additional 5' when taking the sneak action (normally half speed) and possibly render target flat-footed.
• Jason Bulmahn on including Goblins -- "Concerning goblins and how they fit in Golarion: Times change and so do people's opinions. Goblins as PCs have been a part of our world since the first "We Be Goblins" adventure. Many of the comments here echo those from back during the launch of 3.0 when Half-Orcs returned to the game as a player choice. There was a lot of conflict at first, but the tone of them shifted over time. We always knew this would be a bit controversial and that there were some who would loudly proclaim "not at my table" and I get that. It's your table and your game after all. We are moving forward, trying to allow players to explore these characters, their culture, and their viewpoint. We are hoping to give you plenty of reasons, both mechanically and story-driven, to allow goblins in your game."
• Mark Seifter on that flexible ability boost -- "It's one of ways you get to really customize your ancestry to fit your character concept, melding the story and life of your character to the mechanics. Plus you can play the class you want without worrying about as much of an uphill battle with ability scores if you don't match the bonuses from the race with the class you had it mind. Incidentally, it provides a really nice design space to much more easily create and handle subraces that have different ability modifiers... "
• Mark Seifter confirms that repairing an item is a untrained use but building is trained only.
• Seifter on failed saves vs. dominate -- "the wording is subtly different now. Anyway, because it implies what you've said here, I wouldn't say "if you critically fail your save against dominate, you are completely under the spellcaster's control". There is still some possibility to resist a particularly abhorrent new order on a critical failure, but you're going to have to fulfill that first command no matter what."
• Community News --
  • Frank "Mottokrosh" Reding has put up the results of his survey regarding the future of his Pathfinder character sheet app.

 

[Sunseeker]

Kurviak is correct. It has not yet been explicitly stated that one +2 must be in a physical attribute and one must be in a mental, but that has been the case with all three Ancestries they have revealed so far, including Goblin, and it fits the pattern generally followed by PF1.

On the subject of things that haven’t been explicitly stated, but we can pretty reasonably assume, they haven’t actually said what exactly “Ability Bonus” and “Ability Flaw” mean. I will be very surprised if they don’t mean +2 and -2 to their respective score, but technically speaking, it’s as likely that they mean something else as it is that the two bonuses don’t go one to physical and one to mental.

Kinda makes me wonder just how many combinations you can reasonably make. I think there'd be, 9? Before you include the -2. That becomes 36 once you include the -2, but I don't think the penalty should really be the element that defines an ancestry. But with a mandatory +2/+2 in a physical/mental stat, you use up your combinations pretty quick. If you opened that up to a +2 in any other score, you'd have 30 possible combinations. Still not HUGE design space but there are only 6 attributes, and 30 is still much more to work with than 9. And that would of course give you even more possible variations when you include the -2 (120).

So I hope they're not going with mandatory +2 physical and +2 mental, because that just really limits design space.

 

[Charlaquin]

I believe they've said that nothing in the playtest is set in stone. Whether we should believe that is anybody's guess. I was on the fence before about this issue ("eh, why not?" being my general feeling, as long as they're not booting out a more iconic race to do so), but I think that if this is indeed a formula that all the races will adhere to, I have to change my feeling to "Goblins shouldn't be a PC race". None of the mental ability scores seem appropriate to give goblins a bonus to.

To be fair, I believe them when they say goblins as a core PC race is something they would be willing to change in response to playtest feedback. I just don’t think there’s any chance the feedback will warrant that. Lots of people, myself included, love goblins and would be happy to see them as a core PC race. And most of the people who don’t want them as a core PC race aren’t so opposed to it that they wouldn’t be willing to put up with their presence in the core book and just ban them at their tables. The people who are actively opposed to goblins being in the book as a core PC race at all are, I think, a minority.

As for the +2 physical, +2 social, -2 to one from either category and a floating +2... I could see them bending on that a bit. Maybe making some races with both fixed boosts in physical, or both in mental, or only one fixed boost and no penalty. Humans will almost definitely just have two floating boosts. But I definitely do not think that they will give any PC races a net adjustment more or less than +4, nor will they put more than +2 in any one score.

 

[Charlaquin]

Kinda makes me wonder just how many combinations you can reasonably make. I think there'd be, 9? Before you include the -2. That becomes 36 once you include the -2, but I don't think the penalty should really be the element that defines an ancestry.

Well, if Goblins are getting their boosts in Dex and Cha, that right there is prescedent for an Ancestry being differentiated by its Flaw, unless they change Halflings. Which is another reason I think Goblins’ Ability Flaw shouldn’t be in Strength.

But with a mandatory +2/+2 in a physical/mental stat, you use up your combinations pretty quick. If you opened that up to a +2 in any other score, you'd have 30 possible combinations. Still not HUGE design space but there are only 6 attributes, and 30 is still much more to work with than 9. And that would of course give you even more possible variations when you include the -2 (120).

So I hope they're not going with mandatory +2 physical and +2 mental, because that just really limits design space.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Races break the formula later down the line. But yeah, I agree. Committing to one fixed Boost in a physical and one in a mental is a little overly restrictive.

 

[snickersnax]

To be fair, I believe them when they say goblins as a core PC race is something they would be willing to change in response to playtest feedback. I just don’t think there’s any chance the feedback will warrant that. Lots of people, myself included, love goblins and would be happy to see them as a core PC race. And most of the people who don’t want them as a core PC race aren’t so opposed to it that they wouldn’t be willing to put up with their presence in the core book and just ban them at their tables. The people who are actively opposed to goblins being in the book as a core PC race at all are, I think, a minority..

This goblin thing is a deal breaker for me. I'm out

 

[Tony Vargas]

People play races other than goblins in PF?

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, if Goblins are getting their boosts in Dex and Cha, that right there is prescedent for an Ancestry being differentiated by its Flaw, unless they change Halflings. Which is another reason I think Goblins’ Ability Flaw shouldn’t be in Strength.

I was speaking less mechanically and more thematically. You don't want to define anything by its flaws. It puts a negative perspective on the thing in question. It's great if that's your goal but I doubt they want that approach right off the bat and for the core races.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Races break the formula later down the line. But yeah, I agree. Committing to one fixed Boost in a physical and one in a mental is a little overly restrictive.

Probably. I get it from a balance perspective, but it's going to be repetitive fast.

Unless they make those stat packages into "Ancestral Strengths/Weaknesses" which could then be applied to any playable sentient.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was speaking less mechanically and more thematically. You don't want to define anything by its flaws. It puts a negative perspective on the thing in question. It's great if that's your goal but I doubt they want that approach right off the bat and for the core races.

But what I’m saying is, they are doing exactly that already, unless it turns out Halflings have a different combination of Boosts this Edition.

 

[Sunseeker]

But what I’m saying is, they are doing exactly that already, unless it turns out Halflings have a different combination of Boosts this Edition.

Well, if that's the case, then that's a bad idea.

 

[jimtillman]

This goblin thing is a deal breaker for me. I'm out

m

to each there own
my wife and i are thrilled by them adding goblin pc's in the core book .

frankly adding goblins to core makes a lot of people happy and takes nothing from people that do not like them .

i don't like halforcs and elves but it does not bother me that there in the core book.

 

[Aldarc]

Ok. That doesn't change the fact that they're making goblins a PC race, and they're giving PC races +2, +2, -2. Like it or not, it's what we've got to work with. And to me, +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Cha is the most fitting mechanically. If the narrative needs to be adjusted to account for that, so be it. But I have a feeling "Goblins shouldn't be a PC race" and "PC races shouldn't get +2, +2, -2" is not the kind of feedback Paizo is looking for.

I take that your idea of "wisdom" is hiding in furnaces, playing destructively with fire, and general batshit insanity? Good to know.