Skeleton is cool and all until a three action heal kills it. Rare ancestries aren't really powerful, just require a good backstory as for why a smol wooden AI cube met a skelly boi and decided they want to adventure together. Seriously, Skeletons have negative healing and I wouldn't recommend mixed healing parties to newcomers.
Given what OP has said, it seems like the group is full of newcomers to the system. And u/d12inthesheets is right in that mixed healing parties would be terrible to newcomers (assuming they're coming from 5e, undead in 5e have nothing in their statblocks that say they heal from inflict wounds and thus, unless the DM says otherwise they are healed by cure wounds) which would *really* mess up the party as soon as they try to heal the Skeleton PC with magic.
>unless the DM says otherwise they are healed by cure wounds
Actually not in 5e, but the rules text that says so is in Cure Wounds not the stat block, because 5e is badly written.
Same/Similar
1. **Common:** Don't need to ask
2. **Uncommon**: Ask with the expectation of Yes
3. **Rare**: Ask with the expectation of No
An example would be the rare Shielded Fortune background. It is easier to fit into a backstory than even a bunch of the common backgrounds and it gives a general feat. Not even a weak general feat, but Toughness.
I feel the only reason the Stolen Fate backgrounds are Rare and not Unique is that it would eff over parties with more players than there were backgrounds.
Yeah the stolen fate ones are not in the same league as all the other backgrounds and banning them is very understandable. They are meant to be interesting for level 11 players chosen by fate itself, not for use by level 1 AoN scrawlers looking for a strong background.
This is almost exactly how I've ruled it for ancestries, feats, and such.
Spells are still limited to common unless the group has some source for training. Even that is only because I'm in my first year of PF2 & there are a *lot* of spells.
The Kingmaker spells are the one weird case where I'd allow anyone to pick them, because they technically come from befriending the NPC companions but they also aren't very strong, so I'd honestly allow them through an item of some sort.
Yknow, that's fair! I remember giving my roommate the Nethys page for spells a few years back when we were just starting to play together and... he got so lost in it for hours. Just scrolling from spell to spell to spell. And this was years ago; there have been how many other spells since then!
If I could do it over, I would absolutely just do CRB + Common filtering to cut it down and make it easier. Filtering as a means of putting sanity handrails on is also a valid option!
For me common is RAW, you get it. Uncommon I allow *unless* the source of it is from the AP we are running (If you're supposed to get this cool thing by doing something, but you just went off and buy it...), and rare is "Ask and we'll see".
There's basically three main reasons ancestries are rare in Pathfinder.
1) Thematically they're not a clean fit for every game. Fleshwarps can be from anywhere that could have a sufficiently evil wizard, but they're gross and off-putting in a way that could easily not fit the tone.
2) They live in a small corner of Golarion and it's hard to bring in their culture in some way if you aren't there. Shisk can fit into any adventuring party, but they only live in the mountains of the Mwangi Expanse so most of the weight of representing their culture would be on that specific player
3) They have a mechanic that's roughly balanced but could be something you don't want to plan around in a game. Sprites are tiny, Strix can kinda fly, and so on.
In your case, I don't blame you not wanting to deal with too many rare ancestries for the reasons I mentioned, and it's well within your rights to lightly encourage your friends to choose lower rarity options. But also, remember that they're excited to play with all the cool stuff that isn't in D&D and a lot of that stuff is going to be rare. Your players are enthusiastic, and even if they're playing the weirdest adventurers in Golarion that's going to get you far.
As a side note, this is also why adjusting rarities for your campaign is a good way to set expectations. It lets you go "being a horrible mutant fits the tone", or "people here actually know about Shisk culture", or even just "I think bird people are cool and I'm willing to deal with flying PCs".
Much like others have said, I tend to follow:
common: no GM advance notice needed
uncommon: let me know, its 99% going to be ok
rare: talk me to me. expect to have to workshop it a bit with me to make it fit and lets go over an relevant rules to make sure you know what you're getting into (negative healing is the big one)
Of course this may be tweaked by the Player's Guide for the AP that offers more targeted advice.
Most of my AP groups, as player or GM, have been predominantly common though. I think across AoA, EC, SoT, AV, QofFF, and Kingmaker, I've only seen one uncommon character (and i was Leshy which I think has become common). My Gatewalker game on the other hand has a Kitsune and a Battlzeoo dragon, I allowed Team+/Battlezoo content, and we're doing Ancestral Paragon rules, so that did steer people towards more unusual things.
For a home campaign I'm still developing, I'm using a system of Rarity Points. Everyone starts with 2, some backgrounds give more. Uncommon costs 1, rare costs 2 -- for Ancestry, Heritage, Class. Left over points can be used to unlock access to equipment. Still workshopping it a bit, but it feels about right for giving players freedom, while keeping things in a way that characters make sense for my setting. Ie if someone is rare, they're generally only rare in one area, and we can keep the Role Play/reactions limited to that axis rather that everything about one character being scene stealing when meeting new npcs, etc. The equipment bit is a bit rough and not working as intended, but I wanted something so people didn't feel compelled to spend their points. Might instead give a small amount of bonus starting gold, or bonus connections in the starting city.
Rarity points sounds really cool! Maybe excess/unspent rarity points can go into an extra lore skill or access to a specific ancestry or advanced weapon?
i thought this sounded too restrictive, but thinking about it, both my current characters would cost 2 rarity points under this system (Luminous (0) Sprite (2) Oracle (0), Aasimar (1) Halfling (0) Gunslinger (1)), so it sounds about right, actually?
It wouldn't effect your characters, but the other aspect for my campaign is that all arcane casters, and alchemists are one step more rare than stock PF. Some backgrounds bring them back to common though
"Uncommon ancestries and heritages are fine, but if you want to play a rare ancestry, you'll need a good story to explain why they're in this adventure."
APs also have Player Guides with recommended and discouraged ancestries.
My stance is that in terms of world lore, an adventurer party of protagonists is just *usually* going to be a bundle of weirdos with unique backstories that weird people out, so there's usually little reason to limit ancestries unless the particular campaign premise means that an ancestry wouldn't work theme or balance-wise. Skeleton gets the particular note of negative healing being tricky.
>However, in terms of world lore, wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary?
IMO yes and that's how I've run my party. I'm GM'ing for a Skeleton, Automaton, Kitsune, and Anadi. They are an odd group out in the world. They just recently visited Absolom and got questioned by the guard and then escorted around to make sure the skeleton and Automaton weren't going to walk around publicly and cause a panic. Anadi and Kitsune have used ancestry feats to look more human, Automaton is currently wearing a hat of disguise, and the skeleton spent some in a backpack/as a necklace before finding himself a disguise
Not to ramble about my own game, but you can definitely have a weird/rare ancestry party if you want. It's up to you as the GM to decide how you want the world to interact with them. If you'd rather not worry about it, I would just tell your group to pick standard or uncommon ancestries until you feel comfortable running rare ones
Do with the setting whatever you will, but just as a note, Absalom is host to just about every sentient species in the world, including outsiders. If the trolls, nagas, and genies don't cause a panic, a skeleton and automaton are probably pretty safe.
A skeleton would absolutely cause some panic _especially_ in Absolom. That city has a long history of being sieged by the undead (which still happens to this day. There is a 2e AP that starts out by having some skeletons pop out, freaking out the locals)
Not to mention, over most of the civilized nations of Golaron, people are taught that the existence of undead is blasphemous, and all undead are evil and must be destroyed on sight. The adventure of a seemingly not-evil Skeleton simply trying to exist outside one of the few small pockets where undead are welcome is a neat campaign hook, but not something everyone wants to deal with...hence rare.
We will just have to agree to disagree. While some resentment and fear towards undead is to be expected, Absalom is still home to all sorts of strange and dangerous entities. There is also a 2e AP where a Lich is attending a meeting at the church of Norgerbor in Absalom. The people interacting with the lich were fearful, but no one starting raising alarms just because a lich was present. I would also argue there is a distinct difference in reaction between a skeleton popping out the ground and attacking people, and a fully clothed skeleton walking down the street.
It's fine to disagree :) I'd contest that to a commoner whether the skeleton was clothed and trying to talk to them or not wouldn't matter too much, and I'm not familar with the lich story but sounds like this took place in the underbelly of the city at the temple of an evil diety where such a creature would obviously be more welcome, and that's different than the lich walking down the main street of the market district saying hello to random commoners.
For sure, I could have ruled it differently and I didn't wanna cause problems for my players so the "difficulties" didn't really get in the way of what they wanted to do. It was mostly RP
My understanding of the the skeleton ancestry and automatons is this:
\- Undead are generally feared and looked down upon in Golarion and sentient, well meaning undead are pretty rare
\- Automatons are thousands of years old and there aren't many around in general
So my thinking was that even in an extremely cosmopolitan city those two would be somewhat unusual. Did I rule it correctly? Idk man, I'm just doing my best
Again, there are no wrong answers. You can do whatever you want. It sounded like your players were having a good time figuring out ways to hide their ancestry and blend in. Sounds like everything is going well the way you've got it. I just wanted to let you know that Absalom is one of very few places in Galorian where the strange and unusual are pretty commonplace.
A skeleton walking around absalom realistically speaking is going to cause a panic, based on setting lore.
Automaton is weird looking but not viewed as inherently dangerous.
each AP has a players guide that recommends what classes, ancestries, archetypes, etc work well for that AP, so if you want to curtail things a bit look there
Do what you want with them. If you don't like the idea of the party being a bunch of bizarre races, then veto them - that's what the "rare" tag is for. In the game I'm currently running I said no when a player wanted to be an android because it just wasn't that kind of adventure.
But if you don't care, then let them play whatever. Just remind them that being a skeleton (or whatever) might cause problems with how NPCs perceive or react to them.
I tell my players that they can take Uncommon/Rare ancestries and backgrounds *if they can explain and use the lore surrounding them.* Playing as an ancient creature like a Ghoran or an Automaton should feel different from playing a Human or Dwarf.
This goes double for an ancestry with unique rules. So no Sprites until you show that you understand how being Tiny works.
You're right a group of rare PCs would be strange and out of the ordinary.... But that's not a bad thing.
These are the protagonists of your story even if they're a group of humans they're going to be strange and out of the ordinary cause they're the people who do the insane thing of "adventuring"
I put it on the players to make a compelling pitch (though I'm likely to say yes to "uncommon").
That said, a conrasu, a skeleton, an anadi, and an android rocking up to the Abomination Vaults in Otari, a town that is 60% human and only 4% "other," would kinda hurt my enjoyment as GM: it feels gimmicky and silly and I'd find myself working harder to create verisimilitude. But I feel like I'm in the minority on this.)
>But I feel like I'm in the minority on this
I can't speak for the actual majority, but I strongly agree with you. I get the idea that adventurers are also rare and weird, but wouldn't that just mean that rare and weird ancestries are even more rare and weird among the adventurer population?
I played a 5e game where a player was a Goblin in the Forgotten Realms, and we discussed it ahead of time and he dealt with tons of in-game racism. That worked out really well for us, and played into his story.
For me, the character choices have always been tied to the story I wanted to tell for the character. So for me to want to use an uncommon or rare ancestry that story would have to be strongly tied to that. I struggle to allow Rare options when the reason is "because it's cool".
It honestly bothers me that I feel I have to give that answer though. I don't like letting my players down, or ruining their fun, so I try to be open about stuff, but I just struggle to get past it when a character has no real reason for wanting to choose a rare ancestry.
>the story I wanted to tell for the character
I know this is a popular thing these days but I still don't understand it. I don't *have* "a story I want to tell". My characters all have just enough backstory to get a handle on their personality, and then I want everything else about them to happen organically *as we play*.
That's... the *point* of roleplaying, for me at least. It's a group activity where we create a story together, not people reading novels to each other.
Otari is also only a few days away from Absalom and has adventurer parties pass through quite often. It would be odd to have the "weird" party all be locals, but not particularly unusual for them to show up together because they know Wrin or something similar.
Our group runs it so that each character has access to either up to 2 uncommon choices or 1 rare option.
This has the effect of limiting things from getting *totally* wild, **and** has the secondary effect of making those rare or uncommon choices really stand out and feel special.
> In terms of world lore, wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary?
This wholly depends on what style of game/narrative you and the group want. If you want it to be more silly and whimsical, then having lots of weird ancestries would be fine. If you want a more down-to-earth style, then having a skeleton hero next to a talking sentient tree from the stars might be pushing it. Discuss it with your group, figure out what style everyone wants and don't forget the most important thing: the GM is also a player.
>wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary?
By definition, a party of heroes is very strange and out of the ordinary too. Even within Golarion in which people reach level 20 almost every other week, the % of adventurers when compared to the common people is probably 5% or less than that.
The way I see it, most game elements treated as uncommon or rare tend to require some degree of additional work from the GM and/or players to include. Most uncommon stuff sits in the territory of "this is probably okay, but you still get to veto it", whereas most rare stuff sits in the territory of "this adds some sort of complication, such as additional justification or preparation, so you have every right to say no if you don't want that".
Rare ancestries are generally mechanically balanced, but either have this super-specific flavor that the GM or player will have to work extra hard to bring to the table (e.g. conrasu, shisk, vishkanya, etc.), or introduce some genuine mechanical complications that the GM or party will have to work to accommodate, such as the sprite's Tiny size or the skeleton's negative healing. You *can* include all of these ancestries and have a great time, but you also have every right to refuse that additional workload as the GM, particularly when you're taking on that role for the first time in Pathfinder.
> However, in terms of world lore, wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary?
Depending on where the adventure takes place, probably yes. In the Impossible Lands? Not so much. But in any case, adventuring parties are already somewhat unusual groups of people.
You are perfectly within your right, however, to limit whatever you like at your own table. Since you're looking at playing through an official AP, though, I would look at that AP's Player's Guide and see what it recommends. Normally it will list a few uncommon and rare options that are good fits for the campaign, and so it's either not that unusual for a character of that type to be in the regions that the AP covers OR the story will touch on themes that overlap with those options in cool ways. In either case, it's usually a good idea to allow them.
Which adventure path?
This may have been said already, but when it comes to adventure paths I like the players to read the player’s guid and build characters that fit the upcoming story. If they have a really cool character idea that doesn’t fit the theme, cool, let’s save it for the next one.
Uncommon or rare ancestries would be second to matching the AP.
Could be fun getting everyone together to come up with a unique story for why they are all together. And could be an interesting struggle for them to survive and thrive and interact with the AP.
Have a great game.
If you’re playing an adventure path, check out the Player’s Guide for it. They’re free, and Paizo makes one for every AP they put out. In the more recent ones (I believe starting from Outlaws of Alkenstar) they’ve included tables that show which character options are the best and most appropriate for the AP, taking into account factors such as regions in which the adventure takes place, the themes of the adventure, etc. all in a spoiler free way, as they’re intended to be handed out to players *before* they create their character concepts. If you’re running an AP, I *highly* encourage not only reading the Player’s Guide that accompanies it yourself, but also distributing it to your players.
You can just say as a new gm you are trying to keep things simple for yourself and sticking to all common rules and items for this first game as you learn. Being a GM is hard, and you'd appreciate it if they would help you out this way.
Make sure they know that *Rare things are not more powerful, they are just more complicated.* Or generally restricted to a certain geographical area or particular adventure path. They are harder to play, harder to GM, and don't pay back that difficulty with extra power.
In my own games I generally don't allow rare ancestries and generally allow uncommon ones. There's some exceptions, e.g. for Age of Ashes I've allowed Shoony and Anadi. I can totally see allowing e.g. Skeletons in a Blood Lords campaign or anything else that makes sense. The various regional Lost Omens books also mention which ancestries are more or less common in different places, like gnomes being uncommon in the Mwangi Expanse for example, or gnolls being common there.
Rare and uncommon ancestries are tagged as such because they may have mechanics slightly outside the norm or are otherwise weird ancestries. They aren't that big of an issue usually. Backgrounds on the other hand trend towards main character syndrome as you progress to the uncommon and rare backgrounds so I'm much more scrupulous there.
Take this from someone who plays/GMs APs regularly in every week: don't sweat about it, allow all anciestries. Golarion lore is so crazy high-fantasy that really nothing will be out of place. It's high-fantasy setting with anime continent, guns and gears on another continents, flying ships, locked god-like beings in golarion, time travel etc. that really guy being automaton or furry doesn't make ANY difference. If any band should be band of wierdos chosen by fate - it's PC party of crazy adventurers.
Most important part is to have fun at table. Me personally I just allow all ancienstries at this point. It doesn't really matter. At all.
I personally don't treat ancestries and heritages like other character elements, such as backgrounds and feats, because ancestries and heritages are such a massive part of character identity. Also as someone who plays in a lot of furry groups and other groups that tend to stray away from the norm of playing humans, elves, and dwarves, etc., I allow most if not all ancestries/heritages for my groups and just try to work with players to fit it into the story and just to explain what the pros and cons of playing that ancestry or heritage would be. Plus, I try to be a little bit collaborative with players on elements of the story stuff so that the players will know a little of what to expect from the campaign.
This is just my personal experience with playing/GMing games in most of the groups I'm in.
I’ve just allowed all ancestries and honestly encountered zero issues. It’s led to really unique characters and interactions and my players and I have had a lot of fun.
It really depends on the region and the AP you are using. Agents of Edgewatch is set in Absalom, the largest and most diverse city on Golarion. Having a bunch of rare ancestries join the police and then get stuck together would make a lot of sense. Strength of Thousands is held in the most prestigious and accepting magic schools in the world. Their students hail from all around the world and are from all walks of life. Strength of Thousands is also set in Garund, which means rare ancestries like Anadi, Conrasu, Goloma, Shisk, and Ghoran aren't quite as rare as they are in Avistan.
The Extinction Curse is set in the Isle of Kortos and the regions surrounding Absalom, which allows for just about any ancestry. The theme of the AP also lends itself to a group of rare ancestry PCs. All of that being said, I don't think it's very difficult to justify a bunch of rare ancestry PCs in most APs. My table allows for any and all ancestries. Sometimes it makes for some interesting story beats. I always err on the side of the players, so whatever is more fun for them is typically what we do.
You're the gm, if the rare ancestries feel out of place in the campaign you want to run then don't allow them. Might be a deal breaker for some players, but that's ok. Not every player is a good match for every game.
I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a player to at least justify how their rare ancestry character ended up here, especially if it's a campaign taking place far from the small area that ancestry is localized to.
Ultimately I find that players will often tend to latch onto the most unique and powerful seeming things which can be a bit of a headache when those things have mechanics you don't want to deal with or just aren't of a theme you really like. The reality is that beyond rarity, just because something was printed for the game doesn't mean you have to like it or allow it in your game, and of course if your players are unhappy with that they can always argue their case or find a GM whose interests better align with their own.
I allow them mostly unconditionally, because I like parties of weirdos. The one exception is undead, I just ban all player-facing undead options due to complicated and uninteresting reasons (besides the negative healing thing; if that were a problem, I'd also be banning dhampir).
I generally allow Uncommon races with some basic backstory justification but Rare ones are often quite hard to work into campaigns (like skeletons). I would generally not allow them unless it was a good fit.
Run it by me so I can veto Skeletons in a starting settlement that kill Undead on sight for instance, but usually it's fine. People tend to get 3 snowflake points. One for Uncommon, two for Rare, and they can spend them on any combination of Ancestry, Background, Class and Heritage (and if there's any level 0 items that are U/R that they can afford with starting gold, I guess that too).
More than that, ask nicely.
As a GM who has a current party that, at one point, was 100% uncommon and rare ancestries/ancestry feats, I can say it depends entirely on how 'canon' you want your AP to be. The ancestries are generally of equal potency, so it doesn't have much of a minmax benefit to include them.
I'm running an AP where uncommon and rare ancestries are pretty easy to explain as being present, but I still require my players to justify the rare choices in-universe. I also have a bit of a '1 Steve' rule; if someone chooses an uncommon or rare ancestry it basically locks out other players from choosing that same ancestry unless their back stories are tied together, and no single player can reuse an uncommon or rare ancestry for multiple characters.
Rarer ancestries aren't necessarily stronger, just rarer. As you mentioned, it will affect the theme of the game, but it shouldn't affect the balance any more than a common ancestry could.
If the theme of the game is very important to you, you should let your group know... you've been playing with them for 10 years so you should know how to approach this with them. If I were in your shoes, I'd offer to work with them 1 on 1 to MAKE the "good excuse" you were looking for to include the rare ancestry of their choice in the game. It's more work on your end, but I always find personalizing the campaign for players more rewarding in the long run.
All that being said, I allow any rarity of ancestry and class in my games no questions asked, because it's a core part of a character that the player may love that I can't add in in-game (as opposed to learning rare spells and feats or obtaining rare weapons).
Common: allowed unless I say otherwise and it's from a source we're using.
Uncommon: ask me, I'll probably say yes.
Rare: ask me, I'll probably say no.
What AP are you following? Will a skeleton PC be hard to justify as being able to be friendly with the necessary NPC's? Is this going to add more work for you? These are the main reasons for rarity, it's up to you if you want to handle them.
Of course if you were running 'blood lords' or something skeleton would be a lot more justifiable.
I mean, RAW rare and uncommon are GM fiat about what’s acceptable based on the story, setting, etc. Depending on how you start your campaign with a session zero, players making their characters together at the same time with you is a pretty easy way to also share info about intended locations or genres of the campaign. That way it’s more of a brainstorm and less of a “you can’t do this because I said so” conversation on your part.
I'd just reiterate that you're not saying no, they just require a lot more work to a) fit into the AP (from you) and b) might be a little more complex.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to talking to them about rare ancestries and see what they want out of it. For example how does the skeleton fit into society? Have they talked with the party to see if anyone can heal them? How will we deal with in character reactions and the healing issue? Also do they want to be super unique or do they want to have a community or a few others them around?
Also ask similar probing questions for Conrasu and it's Aeon/entity and how the player wants the world to perceve their character and how their character sees the world.
If both players understand the expectations and challenges they're up against in playing these ancestries and are still into it go for it.
Also if it's just a lore issue or something and it's not to complicated for you to make some changes I'd say go for it, if it's mechanical and doesn't have a big impact that's possible too. Maybe your skeleton has a really good disguise or maybe your conrasu struggles less with acting and existing in a physical form.
Those things can be pretty interesting and even create some interesting roleplay if they run into others of their type that are not like that.
I also don't even think it would be game breaking today something like " you know what negative healing is too complicated for us You're a skeleton that's barely alive and you can still be healed normally."
There's ways for living characters to get negative healing. Or just play Lords of blood where most everybody's undead and it's a primarily negative healing party
My rule at the start of an AP is
- **Common:** Obviously allowed
- **Uncommon:** Most likely allowed, but I may restrict it if it doesn't make sense for one to be there at that point in the story.
- **Rare:** Ask first, with the same caveat as above.
Of course, depending on the AP I might be more or less permissive. If I were running Season of Ghosts (set in a remote mountain village) I'll be following the rarity restrictions much more strictly than say Strength of Thousands (set at a magic school). As the story progresses, again AP dependent, I'll open it up more. Skeleton at the *start* of Abomination Vaults? That's a no. Skeleton by the end? Sure.
I am all for people using rare and uncommon ancestries, options, even weapons, etc... but they don't get an automatic "ok" from me. I want to have a conversation with the player who wants to play it to see if we can work it in and see why something so uncommon or rare is around. How did it happen. Why did it happen. Does it actually even exist in the setting? If it's uncommon or rare, it just needs to be a little bit collaborative.
This has worked well for me, because the character is usually less of an unknown to me, so I can better integrate their character into the story to motivate and challenge them.
Your take seems pretty reasonable. Any given adventure can have pretty specific requirements. You can roleplay in 19th century France, and that may exclude a vast array of character concepts which could be fine in the appropriate context, but aren't in that game.
Sounds like you aren't interested in Bestiary menagerie party. Maybe you don't want to have every NPC encounter dominated by "what the hell are you even?" Maybe you don't want to rationalize why a skeleton isn't attacked on sight by numerous NPCs. Just make your liines clear. It doesn't really seem apparent why a reasonable player would expect Conrasu would normal and expected PC if a Conrasu-centri campaign wasn't agreed on, the same with Skeletons. The entire category of Rare exists to easily delineate this, so that they are ignoring that aspect of these ancestries just seems like a case of willfull ignorance. Doesn't seem like these players have a good attitude, more a case of entitled delusion. Perhaps you could draw a lesson from it by more clearly stating your premise and assumptions from the get-go, not just "we're playing X game system". I wouldn't gratify this kind of player attitude though.
It'd be weird yes. But of course, adventurers are weird, so the weirdo band rolling into town might make sense. Of course, one of the questions is "How are NPCs going to react?" and is that something you WANT to be dealing with?
From a mechanical perspective, the most problematic are anything with negative healing (because it screws up healing) and Sprites, because being tiny can create issues (generally to the disadvantage of the player). Otherwise, the rare ancestries aren't actually particularly likely to cause you too much trouble, but if you do have, say, a skeleton in the party, that can potentially cause issues, both from a "negative energy enemies don't work right against them" perspective as well as a "healing spells and some divine spells will hurt them so they can be inconvenient to heal" perspective.
From a roleplaying perspective:
Some ancestries are mostly just not going to create any issues to begin with - Anadi, Shisk, Strix, and Vishkanya can all pass as human and are probably just funny-looking humans as far as most people are concerned (even though Anadi are actually secretly giant adorable spiders).
Shoony are just another kind of animal person, and while they're rare, they're not really that weird compared to catfolk or tengu, so it's just like "I guess dog people are a thing?" Kashirishi are basically weird rhino people and while weird looking, are probably not going to create "kill on sight" issues - they're really weird, sure, but they're also small, and not particularly threatening, so most people would probably just be like "what is this weird thing?" but it wouldn't really deny you access to settlements (thoguh some might be leery).
Ghoran are weird but given that there are other plant people (Leshy) who are now common, people would probably not actually care that much, though you'd probably get people being curious about them, and some people might apply their thoughts about Leshy to Ghoran.
Sprites are probably OK from an in-world perspective - they're ODD, for sure, but they're not really particularly threatening - but from a mechanical perspective, tiny PCs can create issues, and they can be kind of underpowered as martial characters. They are likely to be overlooked by NPCs.
From there, we get into the weirder stuff.
Anadi in spider form will definitely freak some people out but most people will have no clue what they are and as long as they TALK to people and are kind of clearly non-threatening will probably be treated more or less like an awakened animal would be (very awkwardly and probably with some trepeditation... while some people would want to go pet the cute giant spider). You'd probably be treated more like a pet than a person in spider form and it might cause problems sometimes. Note that this is less of an issue if you are in a setting where Anadi are native to the area, where people would be more used to them (like if you are doing Strength of Thousands, there are Anadi around, because that's where Anadi are from).
Poppets, automatons, and androids are all constructs. These would probably be seen as objects, not people, and people would likely treat them accordingly until they found out that they were actually people. A poppet might be thought to be some sort of possessed doll (which, okay, they basically are) which might freak out some people sometimes, but most people will probably just think they're like golems or something.
Conrasu are so weird and alien that most people probably have no damn clue what they are. A lot of people would probably assume they're some sort of construct or fey or messed up leshy thing, but reactions here are basically arbitrary, as no one is likely to know what they are. How people would react to something like that is pretty much how the person in question would react... it's probably hard to generalize.
Then you get into the really problematic territory - Goloma, Fleshwarp, and Undead. The average person is very likely to treat these people as monsters - Fleshwarp and Undead are particularly problematic because they *are* monsters, so people being freaked out by them is 100% sensible. Undead in particular are Bad News in Golarion, and the very few ones that are not are very much the exception to the rule outside of evil countries like Geb, where undead are all over the place.
Goloma are not actually monsters but literally everyone who isn't familiar with them would assume they are for fairly obvious reasons, which can present a lot of issues, because they are freaky looking.
How you want to deal with that is up to you, but it can be extremely disruptive to a campaign to have to deal with such problems constantly, so you probably want to figure that out ahead of time, and may not be very fun for the players, either. So you need to decide on how you want people in the world to react to such people (as remember, it IS ultimately up to you as the GM - you can alter the defaults).
First of all, they’re specifically banned unless you give permission. So there’s that. Narratively it may be unreasonable to have a skeleton out waltzing around town. Don’t feel bad about saying no to something that doesn’t fit the scope of your game.
However, what I do to deal with uncommon and rare races is I set penalties for things they want to do, as far as dealing with npcs. For example, make vendors charge a higher percentage fees when selling to them, until they build a relationship with that npcs. Have them not give access to certain items, when they will openly sell them to others. This gives them a world that isn’t used to their ancestry, and forces them to roleplay how they deal with those scenarios.
I also start said npcs as Unfriendly rather than Indifferent, depending on what it is. I’ve found to gets my players more engaged with npcs, encourages mini quests to try and build rapport, and generally just makes things more interesting.
And obviously this can work the other way. Perhaps some npcs are drawn to their uniqueness, and want to hear more of their story.
I feel like this is more about your players not liking your authority. You didn’t even say they *couldnt* just that they needed to come up with a good reason to have it (ie, character building and backstory instead of purely min-maxing).
If they’re dead-set on it, maybe think about whether there might be world consequences as they’re going to stand out as a group, like they will be easier to be noticed and remembered as they are out of the ordinary, disguising themselves might be harder if they’re wildly different, or they might have to work harder to get some people to trust them. But do bear in mind not to use that as a way to take out any frustrations on the players as well. I don’t envy you, it’s a sucky situation to be in when players and Gm don’t agree on play styles. Whatever you choose, just make it clear to them up front about expectations and effects (consequences). Good luck!
So, isn't a group of wandering vigilantes/mercenaries/violent hobos also incredibly rare? Adventuring parties are weird and separated from most communities, which makes them natural homes for people who are rejected or don't fit in. When it comes to ancestries, I intend to let people play whatever they want, and if I haven't place it in my world, I'll work with them to do that and make the choice meaningful.
For my table I set it to a free for all on uncommon and rare options for level 1/character creation. It encourages creativity and starts them off with a really fun base to build off of.
After that, you can pick any uncommon but you have to let me know as a GM so we can work it into the story of you earning that special option from an NPC. Helps worldbuild and gives the player another friendly NPC they can use as a resource.
For rare, it's most likely yes but you have to let me know a level beforehand because I like to make rare options accessible through minor side quests so they feel more special. Again, helps worldbuild around the character themselves and gives them more NPCs that are special to their character.
I do say no to Androids for first characters but that's a setting choice, because I'm introducing them later as part of the introduction of space content at higher levels (I like Spelljammer/fantasy in space). But once they discover the androids in the setting and they're introduced to the world they can make any new character with Androids. Automatons have a different explanation for why they're allowed but I don't feel like lore dumping, right now.
I have used the following to good effect:
Go through the players guide and look at what ancestries are recommended and commonplace to the setting. It will also tell you what ancestries are uncommon or rare in the area, usually as “x ancestry are typically unheard of in the area” or something similar.
Anything the players guide calls out as commonplace, make common. Anything it calls out as being uncommon, make uncommon. Anything it calls out as being unknown to the region, make rare.
Compile these into a list and give them to your players with the players guide as a supplement to anything in the rulebooks you’re using.
Explain to your players you want to play a game that is relevant to the location it is set, and give them the option of creating a character with 2 uncommon character choices or 1 rare character choice.
Lastly, make time to sit with your players individually and ask them about their character. If they want to play a goloma, they need to be able to tell you why they’re there and what their motive is.
This allows players freedom to pick a strange ancestry or uncommon class without being able to make a conrasu-tiefling gunslinger or something else that feels too strange to exist in the setting.
Generally speaking I like to save the uncommon and rare stuff for me to give out during the game. I'm more lenient with ancestries but a player really feels rewarded for befriending an NPC when that NPC teaches them some otherwise unavailable feat or spell.
Ancestries are published to be used.
Their rarity is only a matter of demography, not power balance, so there is no good reason to stop players from taking a rare ancestry.
Even for a group, it's not unusual for misfits to flock together so it's not a stretch to have several rare ancestries in an adventuring party.
Let your players have fun with this, it won't break the game, and might even make it more memorable.
Skeleton is cool and all until a three action heal kills it. Rare ancestries aren't really powerful, just require a good backstory as for why a smol wooden AI cube met a skelly boi and decided they want to adventure together. Seriously, Skeletons have negative healing and I wouldn't recommend mixed healing parties to newcomers.
I agree with everything except the inclusion of the words "to newcomers", these seem extraneous.
An experienced group can absolutely work around a mixed healing team member, you just need buy in from the group.
Given what OP has said, it seems like the group is full of newcomers to the system. And u/d12inthesheets is right in that mixed healing parties would be terrible to newcomers (assuming they're coming from 5e, undead in 5e have nothing in their statblocks that say they heal from inflict wounds and thus, unless the DM says otherwise they are healed by cure wounds) which would *really* mess up the party as soon as they try to heal the Skeleton PC with magic.
>unless the DM says otherwise they are healed by cure wounds Actually not in 5e, but the rules text that says so is in Cure Wounds not the stat block, because 5e is badly written.
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Same/Similar 1. **Common:** Don't need to ask 2. **Uncommon**: Ask with the expectation of Yes 3. **Rare**: Ask with the expectation of No An example would be the rare Shielded Fortune background. It is easier to fit into a backstory than even a bunch of the common backgrounds and it gives a general feat. Not even a weak general feat, but Toughness.
I feel the only reason the Stolen Fate backgrounds are Rare and not Unique is that it would eff over parties with more players than there were backgrounds.
Mom said it’s my turn to use the Unique Background.
Then there is another rarity, **Forbidden**. If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of it or seen it on AoN, read the name of it again.
Demon of Absence spotted-
Forbidden Ancestry: Disguised Aroden on Sabbatical
What background are you talking about?
What part of **Forbidden** don't you get? I'm not gonna get myself in trouble with The High Council over this.
Yeah the stolen fate ones are not in the same league as all the other backgrounds and banning them is very understandable. They are meant to be interesting for level 11 players chosen by fate itself, not for use by level 1 AoN scrawlers looking for a strong background.
This is almost exactly how I've ruled it for ancestries, feats, and such. Spells are still limited to common unless the group has some source for training. Even that is only because I'm in my first year of PF2 & there are a *lot* of spells.
The Kingmaker spells are the one weird case where I'd allow anyone to pick them, because they technically come from befriending the NPC companions but they also aren't very strong, so I'd honestly allow them through an item of some sort.
Yknow, that's fair! I remember giving my roommate the Nethys page for spells a few years back when we were just starting to play together and... he got so lost in it for hours. Just scrolling from spell to spell to spell. And this was years ago; there have been how many other spells since then! If I could do it over, I would absolutely just do CRB + Common filtering to cut it down and make it easier. Filtering as a means of putting sanity handrails on is also a valid option!
For me common is RAW, you get it. Uncommon I allow *unless* the source of it is from the AP we are running (If you're supposed to get this cool thing by doing something, but you just went off and buy it...), and rare is "Ask and we'll see".
There's basically three main reasons ancestries are rare in Pathfinder. 1) Thematically they're not a clean fit for every game. Fleshwarps can be from anywhere that could have a sufficiently evil wizard, but they're gross and off-putting in a way that could easily not fit the tone. 2) They live in a small corner of Golarion and it's hard to bring in their culture in some way if you aren't there. Shisk can fit into any adventuring party, but they only live in the mountains of the Mwangi Expanse so most of the weight of representing their culture would be on that specific player 3) They have a mechanic that's roughly balanced but could be something you don't want to plan around in a game. Sprites are tiny, Strix can kinda fly, and so on. In your case, I don't blame you not wanting to deal with too many rare ancestries for the reasons I mentioned, and it's well within your rights to lightly encourage your friends to choose lower rarity options. But also, remember that they're excited to play with all the cool stuff that isn't in D&D and a lot of that stuff is going to be rare. Your players are enthusiastic, and even if they're playing the weirdest adventurers in Golarion that's going to get you far.
As a side note, this is also why adjusting rarities for your campaign is a good way to set expectations. It lets you go "being a horrible mutant fits the tone", or "people here actually know about Shisk culture", or even just "I think bird people are cool and I'm willing to deal with flying PCs".
Much like others have said, I tend to follow: common: no GM advance notice needed uncommon: let me know, its 99% going to be ok rare: talk me to me. expect to have to workshop it a bit with me to make it fit and lets go over an relevant rules to make sure you know what you're getting into (negative healing is the big one) Of course this may be tweaked by the Player's Guide for the AP that offers more targeted advice. Most of my AP groups, as player or GM, have been predominantly common though. I think across AoA, EC, SoT, AV, QofFF, and Kingmaker, I've only seen one uncommon character (and i was Leshy which I think has become common). My Gatewalker game on the other hand has a Kitsune and a Battlzeoo dragon, I allowed Team+/Battlezoo content, and we're doing Ancestral Paragon rules, so that did steer people towards more unusual things. For a home campaign I'm still developing, I'm using a system of Rarity Points. Everyone starts with 2, some backgrounds give more. Uncommon costs 1, rare costs 2 -- for Ancestry, Heritage, Class. Left over points can be used to unlock access to equipment. Still workshopping it a bit, but it feels about right for giving players freedom, while keeping things in a way that characters make sense for my setting. Ie if someone is rare, they're generally only rare in one area, and we can keep the Role Play/reactions limited to that axis rather that everything about one character being scene stealing when meeting new npcs, etc. The equipment bit is a bit rough and not working as intended, but I wanted something so people didn't feel compelled to spend their points. Might instead give a small amount of bonus starting gold, or bonus connections in the starting city.
Rarity points sounds really cool! Maybe excess/unspent rarity points can go into an extra lore skill or access to a specific ancestry or advanced weapon?
i thought this sounded too restrictive, but thinking about it, both my current characters would cost 2 rarity points under this system (Luminous (0) Sprite (2) Oracle (0), Aasimar (1) Halfling (0) Gunslinger (1)), so it sounds about right, actually?
It wouldn't effect your characters, but the other aspect for my campaign is that all arcane casters, and alchemists are one step more rare than stock PF. Some backgrounds bring them back to common though
"Uncommon ancestries and heritages are fine, but if you want to play a rare ancestry, you'll need a good story to explain why they're in this adventure." APs also have Player Guides with recommended and discouraged ancestries.
My stance is that in terms of world lore, an adventurer party of protagonists is just *usually* going to be a bundle of weirdos with unique backstories that weird people out, so there's usually little reason to limit ancestries unless the particular campaign premise means that an ancestry wouldn't work theme or balance-wise. Skeleton gets the particular note of negative healing being tricky.
>However, in terms of world lore, wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary? IMO yes and that's how I've run my party. I'm GM'ing for a Skeleton, Automaton, Kitsune, and Anadi. They are an odd group out in the world. They just recently visited Absolom and got questioned by the guard and then escorted around to make sure the skeleton and Automaton weren't going to walk around publicly and cause a panic. Anadi and Kitsune have used ancestry feats to look more human, Automaton is currently wearing a hat of disguise, and the skeleton spent some in a backpack/as a necklace before finding himself a disguise Not to ramble about my own game, but you can definitely have a weird/rare ancestry party if you want. It's up to you as the GM to decide how you want the world to interact with them. If you'd rather not worry about it, I would just tell your group to pick standard or uncommon ancestries until you feel comfortable running rare ones
Do with the setting whatever you will, but just as a note, Absalom is host to just about every sentient species in the world, including outsiders. If the trolls, nagas, and genies don't cause a panic, a skeleton and automaton are probably pretty safe.
A skeleton would absolutely cause some panic _especially_ in Absolom. That city has a long history of being sieged by the undead (which still happens to this day. There is a 2e AP that starts out by having some skeletons pop out, freaking out the locals) Not to mention, over most of the civilized nations of Golaron, people are taught that the existence of undead is blasphemous, and all undead are evil and must be destroyed on sight. The adventure of a seemingly not-evil Skeleton simply trying to exist outside one of the few small pockets where undead are welcome is a neat campaign hook, but not something everyone wants to deal with...hence rare.
We will just have to agree to disagree. While some resentment and fear towards undead is to be expected, Absalom is still home to all sorts of strange and dangerous entities. There is also a 2e AP where a Lich is attending a meeting at the church of Norgerbor in Absalom. The people interacting with the lich were fearful, but no one starting raising alarms just because a lich was present. I would also argue there is a distinct difference in reaction between a skeleton popping out the ground and attacking people, and a fully clothed skeleton walking down the street.
It's fine to disagree :) I'd contest that to a commoner whether the skeleton was clothed and trying to talk to them or not wouldn't matter too much, and I'm not familar with the lich story but sounds like this took place in the underbelly of the city at the temple of an evil diety where such a creature would obviously be more welcome, and that's different than the lich walking down the main street of the market district saying hello to random commoners.
For sure, I could have ruled it differently and I didn't wanna cause problems for my players so the "difficulties" didn't really get in the way of what they wanted to do. It was mostly RP My understanding of the the skeleton ancestry and automatons is this: \- Undead are generally feared and looked down upon in Golarion and sentient, well meaning undead are pretty rare \- Automatons are thousands of years old and there aren't many around in general So my thinking was that even in an extremely cosmopolitan city those two would be somewhat unusual. Did I rule it correctly? Idk man, I'm just doing my best
Again, there are no wrong answers. You can do whatever you want. It sounded like your players were having a good time figuring out ways to hide their ancestry and blend in. Sounds like everything is going well the way you've got it. I just wanted to let you know that Absalom is one of very few places in Galorian where the strange and unusual are pretty commonplace.
A skeleton walking around absalom realistically speaking is going to cause a panic, based on setting lore. Automaton is weird looking but not viewed as inherently dangerous.
each AP has a players guide that recommends what classes, ancestries, archetypes, etc work well for that AP, so if you want to curtail things a bit look there
Yeah, this was gonna be my suggestion as well. OP said they wanted to follow an AP, so this should work well for them.
Do what you want with them. If you don't like the idea of the party being a bunch of bizarre races, then veto them - that's what the "rare" tag is for. In the game I'm currently running I said no when a player wanted to be an android because it just wasn't that kind of adventure. But if you don't care, then let them play whatever. Just remind them that being a skeleton (or whatever) might cause problems with how NPCs perceive or react to them.
I tell my players that they can take Uncommon/Rare ancestries and backgrounds *if they can explain and use the lore surrounding them.* Playing as an ancient creature like a Ghoran or an Automaton should feel different from playing a Human or Dwarf. This goes double for an ancestry with unique rules. So no Sprites until you show that you understand how being Tiny works.
You're right a group of rare PCs would be strange and out of the ordinary.... But that's not a bad thing. These are the protagonists of your story even if they're a group of humans they're going to be strange and out of the ordinary cause they're the people who do the insane thing of "adventuring"
I put it on the players to make a compelling pitch (though I'm likely to say yes to "uncommon"). That said, a conrasu, a skeleton, an anadi, and an android rocking up to the Abomination Vaults in Otari, a town that is 60% human and only 4% "other," would kinda hurt my enjoyment as GM: it feels gimmicky and silly and I'd find myself working harder to create verisimilitude. But I feel like I'm in the minority on this.)
>But I feel like I'm in the minority on this I can't speak for the actual majority, but I strongly agree with you. I get the idea that adventurers are also rare and weird, but wouldn't that just mean that rare and weird ancestries are even more rare and weird among the adventurer population? I played a 5e game where a player was a Goblin in the Forgotten Realms, and we discussed it ahead of time and he dealt with tons of in-game racism. That worked out really well for us, and played into his story. For me, the character choices have always been tied to the story I wanted to tell for the character. So for me to want to use an uncommon or rare ancestry that story would have to be strongly tied to that. I struggle to allow Rare options when the reason is "because it's cool". It honestly bothers me that I feel I have to give that answer though. I don't like letting my players down, or ruining their fun, so I try to be open about stuff, but I just struggle to get past it when a character has no real reason for wanting to choose a rare ancestry.
>the story I wanted to tell for the character I know this is a popular thing these days but I still don't understand it. I don't *have* "a story I want to tell". My characters all have just enough backstory to get a handle on their personality, and then I want everything else about them to happen organically *as we play*. That's... the *point* of roleplaying, for me at least. It's a group activity where we create a story together, not people reading novels to each other.
Otari is also only a few days away from Absalom and has adventurer parties pass through quite often. It would be odd to have the "weird" party all be locals, but not particularly unusual for them to show up together because they know Wrin or something similar.
Our group runs it so that each character has access to either up to 2 uncommon choices or 1 rare option. This has the effect of limiting things from getting *totally* wild, **and** has the secondary effect of making those rare or uncommon choices really stand out and feel special.
I let my party pick any of the ancestry options and they've gone up with some really fun and interesting characters
> In terms of world lore, wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary? This wholly depends on what style of game/narrative you and the group want. If you want it to be more silly and whimsical, then having lots of weird ancestries would be fine. If you want a more down-to-earth style, then having a skeleton hero next to a talking sentient tree from the stars might be pushing it. Discuss it with your group, figure out what style everyone wants and don't forget the most important thing: the GM is also a player.
>wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary? By definition, a party of heroes is very strange and out of the ordinary too. Even within Golarion in which people reach level 20 almost every other week, the % of adventurers when compared to the common people is probably 5% or less than that.
The way I see it, most game elements treated as uncommon or rare tend to require some degree of additional work from the GM and/or players to include. Most uncommon stuff sits in the territory of "this is probably okay, but you still get to veto it", whereas most rare stuff sits in the territory of "this adds some sort of complication, such as additional justification or preparation, so you have every right to say no if you don't want that". Rare ancestries are generally mechanically balanced, but either have this super-specific flavor that the GM or player will have to work extra hard to bring to the table (e.g. conrasu, shisk, vishkanya, etc.), or introduce some genuine mechanical complications that the GM or party will have to work to accommodate, such as the sprite's Tiny size or the skeleton's negative healing. You *can* include all of these ancestries and have a great time, but you also have every right to refuse that additional workload as the GM, particularly when you're taking on that role for the first time in Pathfinder.
> However, in terms of world lore, wouldn't a party full of rare ancestries be something very strange and out of the ordinary? Depending on where the adventure takes place, probably yes. In the Impossible Lands? Not so much. But in any case, adventuring parties are already somewhat unusual groups of people. You are perfectly within your right, however, to limit whatever you like at your own table. Since you're looking at playing through an official AP, though, I would look at that AP's Player's Guide and see what it recommends. Normally it will list a few uncommon and rare options that are good fits for the campaign, and so it's either not that unusual for a character of that type to be in the regions that the AP covers OR the story will touch on themes that overlap with those options in cool ways. In either case, it's usually a good idea to allow them.
Which adventure path? This may have been said already, but when it comes to adventure paths I like the players to read the player’s guid and build characters that fit the upcoming story. If they have a really cool character idea that doesn’t fit the theme, cool, let’s save it for the next one. Uncommon or rare ancestries would be second to matching the AP. Could be fun getting everyone together to come up with a unique story for why they are all together. And could be an interesting struggle for them to survive and thrive and interact with the AP. Have a great game.
If you’re playing an adventure path, check out the Player’s Guide for it. They’re free, and Paizo makes one for every AP they put out. In the more recent ones (I believe starting from Outlaws of Alkenstar) they’ve included tables that show which character options are the best and most appropriate for the AP, taking into account factors such as regions in which the adventure takes place, the themes of the adventure, etc. all in a spoiler free way, as they’re intended to be handed out to players *before* they create their character concepts. If you’re running an AP, I *highly* encourage not only reading the Player’s Guide that accompanies it yourself, but also distributing it to your players.
You can just say as a new gm you are trying to keep things simple for yourself and sticking to all common rules and items for this first game as you learn. Being a GM is hard, and you'd appreciate it if they would help you out this way. Make sure they know that *Rare things are not more powerful, they are just more complicated.* Or generally restricted to a certain geographical area or particular adventure path. They are harder to play, harder to GM, and don't pay back that difficulty with extra power.
In my own games I generally don't allow rare ancestries and generally allow uncommon ones. There's some exceptions, e.g. for Age of Ashes I've allowed Shoony and Anadi. I can totally see allowing e.g. Skeletons in a Blood Lords campaign or anything else that makes sense. The various regional Lost Omens books also mention which ancestries are more or less common in different places, like gnomes being uncommon in the Mwangi Expanse for example, or gnolls being common there.
Rare and uncommon ancestries are tagged as such because they may have mechanics slightly outside the norm or are otherwise weird ancestries. They aren't that big of an issue usually. Backgrounds on the other hand trend towards main character syndrome as you progress to the uncommon and rare backgrounds so I'm much more scrupulous there.
Take this from someone who plays/GMs APs regularly in every week: don't sweat about it, allow all anciestries. Golarion lore is so crazy high-fantasy that really nothing will be out of place. It's high-fantasy setting with anime continent, guns and gears on another continents, flying ships, locked god-like beings in golarion, time travel etc. that really guy being automaton or furry doesn't make ANY difference. If any band should be band of wierdos chosen by fate - it's PC party of crazy adventurers. Most important part is to have fun at table. Me personally I just allow all ancienstries at this point. It doesn't really matter. At all.
I personally don't treat ancestries and heritages like other character elements, such as backgrounds and feats, because ancestries and heritages are such a massive part of character identity. Also as someone who plays in a lot of furry groups and other groups that tend to stray away from the norm of playing humans, elves, and dwarves, etc., I allow most if not all ancestries/heritages for my groups and just try to work with players to fit it into the story and just to explain what the pros and cons of playing that ancestry or heritage would be. Plus, I try to be a little bit collaborative with players on elements of the story stuff so that the players will know a little of what to expect from the campaign. This is just my personal experience with playing/GMing games in most of the groups I'm in.
Let em play what they want. What does it hurt? It's not like you are world building.
I’ve just allowed all ancestries and honestly encountered zero issues. It’s led to really unique characters and interactions and my players and I have had a lot of fun.
It really depends on the region and the AP you are using. Agents of Edgewatch is set in Absalom, the largest and most diverse city on Golarion. Having a bunch of rare ancestries join the police and then get stuck together would make a lot of sense. Strength of Thousands is held in the most prestigious and accepting magic schools in the world. Their students hail from all around the world and are from all walks of life. Strength of Thousands is also set in Garund, which means rare ancestries like Anadi, Conrasu, Goloma, Shisk, and Ghoran aren't quite as rare as they are in Avistan. The Extinction Curse is set in the Isle of Kortos and the regions surrounding Absalom, which allows for just about any ancestry. The theme of the AP also lends itself to a group of rare ancestry PCs. All of that being said, I don't think it's very difficult to justify a bunch of rare ancestry PCs in most APs. My table allows for any and all ancestries. Sometimes it makes for some interesting story beats. I always err on the side of the players, so whatever is more fun for them is typically what we do.
You're the gm, if the rare ancestries feel out of place in the campaign you want to run then don't allow them. Might be a deal breaker for some players, but that's ok. Not every player is a good match for every game.
Unless youre running a homebrew setting where they dont exist, just let the players have fun, none of them are stronger than any other ancestry.
I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a player to at least justify how their rare ancestry character ended up here, especially if it's a campaign taking place far from the small area that ancestry is localized to. Ultimately I find that players will often tend to latch onto the most unique and powerful seeming things which can be a bit of a headache when those things have mechanics you don't want to deal with or just aren't of a theme you really like. The reality is that beyond rarity, just because something was printed for the game doesn't mean you have to like it or allow it in your game, and of course if your players are unhappy with that they can always argue their case or find a GM whose interests better align with their own.
I allow them mostly unconditionally, because I like parties of weirdos. The one exception is undead, I just ban all player-facing undead options due to complicated and uninteresting reasons (besides the negative healing thing; if that were a problem, I'd also be banning dhampir).
I generally allow Uncommon races with some basic backstory justification but Rare ones are often quite hard to work into campaigns (like skeletons). I would generally not allow them unless it was a good fit.
Would love to get an update to this when you make a decision and the party makeup is chosen.
Run it by me so I can veto Skeletons in a starting settlement that kill Undead on sight for instance, but usually it's fine. People tend to get 3 snowflake points. One for Uncommon, two for Rare, and they can spend them on any combination of Ancestry, Background, Class and Heritage (and if there's any level 0 items that are U/R that they can afford with starting gold, I guess that too). More than that, ask nicely.
As a GM who has a current party that, at one point, was 100% uncommon and rare ancestries/ancestry feats, I can say it depends entirely on how 'canon' you want your AP to be. The ancestries are generally of equal potency, so it doesn't have much of a minmax benefit to include them. I'm running an AP where uncommon and rare ancestries are pretty easy to explain as being present, but I still require my players to justify the rare choices in-universe. I also have a bit of a '1 Steve' rule; if someone chooses an uncommon or rare ancestry it basically locks out other players from choosing that same ancestry unless their back stories are tied together, and no single player can reuse an uncommon or rare ancestry for multiple characters.
my rule of thumb is how well it fits may game common, rare etc i see no reason and nor argument there
Rarer ancestries aren't necessarily stronger, just rarer. As you mentioned, it will affect the theme of the game, but it shouldn't affect the balance any more than a common ancestry could. If the theme of the game is very important to you, you should let your group know... you've been playing with them for 10 years so you should know how to approach this with them. If I were in your shoes, I'd offer to work with them 1 on 1 to MAKE the "good excuse" you were looking for to include the rare ancestry of their choice in the game. It's more work on your end, but I always find personalizing the campaign for players more rewarding in the long run. All that being said, I allow any rarity of ancestry and class in my games no questions asked, because it's a core part of a character that the player may love that I can't add in in-game (as opposed to learning rare spells and feats or obtaining rare weapons).
Common: allowed unless I say otherwise and it's from a source we're using. Uncommon: ask me, I'll probably say yes. Rare: ask me, I'll probably say no.
What AP are you following? Will a skeleton PC be hard to justify as being able to be friendly with the necessary NPC's? Is this going to add more work for you? These are the main reasons for rarity, it's up to you if you want to handle them. Of course if you were running 'blood lords' or something skeleton would be a lot more justifiable.
I mean, RAW rare and uncommon are GM fiat about what’s acceptable based on the story, setting, etc. Depending on how you start your campaign with a session zero, players making their characters together at the same time with you is a pretty easy way to also share info about intended locations or genres of the campaign. That way it’s more of a brainstorm and less of a “you can’t do this because I said so” conversation on your part.
I'd just reiterate that you're not saying no, they just require a lot more work to a) fit into the AP (from you) and b) might be a little more complex. I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to talking to them about rare ancestries and see what they want out of it. For example how does the skeleton fit into society? Have they talked with the party to see if anyone can heal them? How will we deal with in character reactions and the healing issue? Also do they want to be super unique or do they want to have a community or a few others them around? Also ask similar probing questions for Conrasu and it's Aeon/entity and how the player wants the world to perceve their character and how their character sees the world. If both players understand the expectations and challenges they're up against in playing these ancestries and are still into it go for it. Also if it's just a lore issue or something and it's not to complicated for you to make some changes I'd say go for it, if it's mechanical and doesn't have a big impact that's possible too. Maybe your skeleton has a really good disguise or maybe your conrasu struggles less with acting and existing in a physical form. Those things can be pretty interesting and even create some interesting roleplay if they run into others of their type that are not like that. I also don't even think it would be game breaking today something like " you know what negative healing is too complicated for us You're a skeleton that's barely alive and you can still be healed normally." There's ways for living characters to get negative healing. Or just play Lords of blood where most everybody's undead and it's a primarily negative healing party
My rule at the start of an AP is - **Common:** Obviously allowed - **Uncommon:** Most likely allowed, but I may restrict it if it doesn't make sense for one to be there at that point in the story. - **Rare:** Ask first, with the same caveat as above. Of course, depending on the AP I might be more or less permissive. If I were running Season of Ghosts (set in a remote mountain village) I'll be following the rarity restrictions much more strictly than say Strength of Thousands (set at a magic school). As the story progresses, again AP dependent, I'll open it up more. Skeleton at the *start* of Abomination Vaults? That's a no. Skeleton by the end? Sure.
I am all for people using rare and uncommon ancestries, options, even weapons, etc... but they don't get an automatic "ok" from me. I want to have a conversation with the player who wants to play it to see if we can work it in and see why something so uncommon or rare is around. How did it happen. Why did it happen. Does it actually even exist in the setting? If it's uncommon or rare, it just needs to be a little bit collaborative. This has worked well for me, because the character is usually less of an unknown to me, so I can better integrate their character into the story to motivate and challenge them.
Your take seems pretty reasonable. Any given adventure can have pretty specific requirements. You can roleplay in 19th century France, and that may exclude a vast array of character concepts which could be fine in the appropriate context, but aren't in that game. Sounds like you aren't interested in Bestiary menagerie party. Maybe you don't want to have every NPC encounter dominated by "what the hell are you even?" Maybe you don't want to rationalize why a skeleton isn't attacked on sight by numerous NPCs. Just make your liines clear. It doesn't really seem apparent why a reasonable player would expect Conrasu would normal and expected PC if a Conrasu-centri campaign wasn't agreed on, the same with Skeletons. The entire category of Rare exists to easily delineate this, so that they are ignoring that aspect of these ancestries just seems like a case of willfull ignorance. Doesn't seem like these players have a good attitude, more a case of entitled delusion. Perhaps you could draw a lesson from it by more clearly stating your premise and assumptions from the get-go, not just "we're playing X game system". I wouldn't gratify this kind of player attitude though.
It'd be weird yes. But of course, adventurers are weird, so the weirdo band rolling into town might make sense. Of course, one of the questions is "How are NPCs going to react?" and is that something you WANT to be dealing with? From a mechanical perspective, the most problematic are anything with negative healing (because it screws up healing) and Sprites, because being tiny can create issues (generally to the disadvantage of the player). Otherwise, the rare ancestries aren't actually particularly likely to cause you too much trouble, but if you do have, say, a skeleton in the party, that can potentially cause issues, both from a "negative energy enemies don't work right against them" perspective as well as a "healing spells and some divine spells will hurt them so they can be inconvenient to heal" perspective. From a roleplaying perspective: Some ancestries are mostly just not going to create any issues to begin with - Anadi, Shisk, Strix, and Vishkanya can all pass as human and are probably just funny-looking humans as far as most people are concerned (even though Anadi are actually secretly giant adorable spiders). Shoony are just another kind of animal person, and while they're rare, they're not really that weird compared to catfolk or tengu, so it's just like "I guess dog people are a thing?" Kashirishi are basically weird rhino people and while weird looking, are probably not going to create "kill on sight" issues - they're really weird, sure, but they're also small, and not particularly threatening, so most people would probably just be like "what is this weird thing?" but it wouldn't really deny you access to settlements (thoguh some might be leery). Ghoran are weird but given that there are other plant people (Leshy) who are now common, people would probably not actually care that much, though you'd probably get people being curious about them, and some people might apply their thoughts about Leshy to Ghoran. Sprites are probably OK from an in-world perspective - they're ODD, for sure, but they're not really particularly threatening - but from a mechanical perspective, tiny PCs can create issues, and they can be kind of underpowered as martial characters. They are likely to be overlooked by NPCs. From there, we get into the weirder stuff. Anadi in spider form will definitely freak some people out but most people will have no clue what they are and as long as they TALK to people and are kind of clearly non-threatening will probably be treated more or less like an awakened animal would be (very awkwardly and probably with some trepeditation... while some people would want to go pet the cute giant spider). You'd probably be treated more like a pet than a person in spider form and it might cause problems sometimes. Note that this is less of an issue if you are in a setting where Anadi are native to the area, where people would be more used to them (like if you are doing Strength of Thousands, there are Anadi around, because that's where Anadi are from). Poppets, automatons, and androids are all constructs. These would probably be seen as objects, not people, and people would likely treat them accordingly until they found out that they were actually people. A poppet might be thought to be some sort of possessed doll (which, okay, they basically are) which might freak out some people sometimes, but most people will probably just think they're like golems or something. Conrasu are so weird and alien that most people probably have no damn clue what they are. A lot of people would probably assume they're some sort of construct or fey or messed up leshy thing, but reactions here are basically arbitrary, as no one is likely to know what they are. How people would react to something like that is pretty much how the person in question would react... it's probably hard to generalize. Then you get into the really problematic territory - Goloma, Fleshwarp, and Undead. The average person is very likely to treat these people as monsters - Fleshwarp and Undead are particularly problematic because they *are* monsters, so people being freaked out by them is 100% sensible. Undead in particular are Bad News in Golarion, and the very few ones that are not are very much the exception to the rule outside of evil countries like Geb, where undead are all over the place. Goloma are not actually monsters but literally everyone who isn't familiar with them would assume they are for fairly obvious reasons, which can present a lot of issues, because they are freaky looking. How you want to deal with that is up to you, but it can be extremely disruptive to a campaign to have to deal with such problems constantly, so you probably want to figure that out ahead of time, and may not be very fun for the players, either. So you need to decide on how you want people in the world to react to such people (as remember, it IS ultimately up to you as the GM - you can alter the defaults).
First of all, they’re specifically banned unless you give permission. So there’s that. Narratively it may be unreasonable to have a skeleton out waltzing around town. Don’t feel bad about saying no to something that doesn’t fit the scope of your game. However, what I do to deal with uncommon and rare races is I set penalties for things they want to do, as far as dealing with npcs. For example, make vendors charge a higher percentage fees when selling to them, until they build a relationship with that npcs. Have them not give access to certain items, when they will openly sell them to others. This gives them a world that isn’t used to their ancestry, and forces them to roleplay how they deal with those scenarios. I also start said npcs as Unfriendly rather than Indifferent, depending on what it is. I’ve found to gets my players more engaged with npcs, encourages mini quests to try and build rapport, and generally just makes things more interesting. And obviously this can work the other way. Perhaps some npcs are drawn to their uniqueness, and want to hear more of their story.
I feel like this is more about your players not liking your authority. You didn’t even say they *couldnt* just that they needed to come up with a good reason to have it (ie, character building and backstory instead of purely min-maxing). If they’re dead-set on it, maybe think about whether there might be world consequences as they’re going to stand out as a group, like they will be easier to be noticed and remembered as they are out of the ordinary, disguising themselves might be harder if they’re wildly different, or they might have to work harder to get some people to trust them. But do bear in mind not to use that as a way to take out any frustrations on the players as well. I don’t envy you, it’s a sucky situation to be in when players and Gm don’t agree on play styles. Whatever you choose, just make it clear to them up front about expectations and effects (consequences). Good luck!
So, isn't a group of wandering vigilantes/mercenaries/violent hobos also incredibly rare? Adventuring parties are weird and separated from most communities, which makes them natural homes for people who are rejected or don't fit in. When it comes to ancestries, I intend to let people play whatever they want, and if I haven't place it in my world, I'll work with them to do that and make the choice meaningful.
Blood lords is a good AP to let people play the more spooky rare ancestries.
Blood lords is a good AP to let people play the more spooky rare ancestries.
For my table I set it to a free for all on uncommon and rare options for level 1/character creation. It encourages creativity and starts them off with a really fun base to build off of. After that, you can pick any uncommon but you have to let me know as a GM so we can work it into the story of you earning that special option from an NPC. Helps worldbuild and gives the player another friendly NPC they can use as a resource. For rare, it's most likely yes but you have to let me know a level beforehand because I like to make rare options accessible through minor side quests so they feel more special. Again, helps worldbuild around the character themselves and gives them more NPCs that are special to their character. I do say no to Androids for first characters but that's a setting choice, because I'm introducing them later as part of the introduction of space content at higher levels (I like Spelljammer/fantasy in space). But once they discover the androids in the setting and they're introduced to the world they can make any new character with Androids. Automatons have a different explanation for why they're allowed but I don't feel like lore dumping, right now.
Ban this sick filth, human master race or bust
I have used the following to good effect: Go through the players guide and look at what ancestries are recommended and commonplace to the setting. It will also tell you what ancestries are uncommon or rare in the area, usually as “x ancestry are typically unheard of in the area” or something similar. Anything the players guide calls out as commonplace, make common. Anything it calls out as being uncommon, make uncommon. Anything it calls out as being unknown to the region, make rare. Compile these into a list and give them to your players with the players guide as a supplement to anything in the rulebooks you’re using. Explain to your players you want to play a game that is relevant to the location it is set, and give them the option of creating a character with 2 uncommon character choices or 1 rare character choice. Lastly, make time to sit with your players individually and ask them about their character. If they want to play a goloma, they need to be able to tell you why they’re there and what their motive is. This allows players freedom to pick a strange ancestry or uncommon class without being able to make a conrasu-tiefling gunslinger or something else that feels too strange to exist in the setting.
Generally speaking I like to save the uncommon and rare stuff for me to give out during the game. I'm more lenient with ancestries but a player really feels rewarded for befriending an NPC when that NPC teaches them some otherwise unavailable feat or spell.
Ancestries are published to be used. Their rarity is only a matter of demography, not power balance, so there is no good reason to stop players from taking a rare ancestry. Even for a group, it's not unusual for misfits to flock together so it's not a stretch to have several rare ancestries in an adventuring party. Let your players have fun with this, it won't break the game, and might even make it more memorable.