Pathfinder 2E Paizo Previews Hobgoblin Ancestry

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

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

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

​

More details over at Paizo.com.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

A jedi ewok was almost canon. It was in a d20 sourcebook by WotC.

 

[zztong]

I've cast Hobgoblins into the role of steppe cavalry with a nomadic culture, akin to the Mongols, for many years. But Golarion is Paizo's world, not mine.

This, and the goblin change, seem like an abrupt change to my understanding of Golarion. Given 4,000 years, Golarion can't break out of the middle ages technology (largely), but they appear to have made major gains in race relations in less than a decade? I don't mind games where there are more racial options. They can be really cool. Usually the setting starts with that premise.

Or maybe I'm full of it.

 

[Shardstone]

I've cast Hobgoblins into the role of steppe cavalry with a nomadic culture, akin to the Mongols, for many years. But Golarion is Paizo's world, not mine.

This, and the goblin change, seem like an abrupt change to my understanding of Golarion. Given 4,000 years, Golarion can't break out of the middle ages technology (largely), but they appear to have made major gains in race relations in less than a decade? I don't mind games where there are more racial options. They can be really cool. Usually the setting starts with that premise.

Or maybe I'm full of it.

Its a bit of a stretch, and a false equivalency, but progress of all forms does often come in huge spurts.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There is no change in those fantasy worlds because most of deities don't allow, and in our reality the scientific thinking was possible after the end of the polytheism where nature was ruled by feys, genies or sprites, and new cosmovision is the Nature has "frozen" or invariable laws established for the creation of the universe, then the Nature could be studied and understood.

 

[Ancalagon]

Lots of players like to go against the tide, to feel they are special and different. It is like fashion waves. When something become too normal, then is fogortten.

I imagine them like unfriendly but enough honorable, a PC hobgoblin would be a renegade who rejected their own people because he suffered the tall poppy syndrome ( = hostility by rivals and envious) and he would rather other folk who show sincere respect for his fight skills, or maybe a fugitive former soldier-slave, and horrible social skills.

And yet often those against the tide choices have stats bonuses .... sometimes it's for rp reasons, but not always.

 

[Campbell]

Some perspective here would help. There is one nation of hobgoblins in the setting that was founded as the result of a peace treaty after an invading army was stopped by a group of adventurers in the fallout of an Adventure Path. The vast majority of hobgoblins are still part of a militaristic society that takes what they want to by force. Part of the reason it is an Uncommon ancestry is that in many places hobgoblins will not be very welcome.

Even many of the options in the Core Rulebook spell out that they might not be accepted everywhere.

Though goblins’ culture has splintered radically, their reputation has changed little. As such, goblins who travel to larger cities are frequently subjected to derision, and many work twice as hard at proving their worth.

Many bloodlines are tied to certain types of creatures, and the reputations of those creatures might color how people see you. If you have the blood of demons, people might fear you; conversely, people of good faiths might assume your angelic blood puts you on their side. These preconceptions aren’t necessarily true, and you can certainly use demonic or infernal powers to d good. Having a bloodline tied to creatures of a certain alignment doesn’t have any effect on your own alignment unless you want it to; your magic is disconnected from its source. That said, many sorcerers seek out creatures or organizations associated with their bloodlines, which can expose them to these forces’ influences.

There has been a concerted effort to humanize the monstrous races somewhat over the last 5 years or so that is continuing in this edition, but they are still mostly monstrous. I do think it would have probably been a good idea to make Goblins Uncommon.

 

[scourger]

Feels familiar:

Kenzer & Company

www.kenzerco.com

 

[GreenTengu]

It feels like Pathfinder is just lazily copying what D&D did with them.

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

And aside from the fact that in D&D, weapon and armor proficiencies are utterly worthless to every single class in the game that isn't a caster as any that are meant to be using weapons automatically start with proficiency in every weapon that a properly stated member of that class that can actually make use of the class abilities would conceivably ever want to use, but also because Intelligence is the most worthless dump stat in the game that is utterly incapable of ever contributing to the success or survival of the PCs.

Pathfinder follows D&Ds lead as such that none of the deviations change this basic fact of reality. Constitution gives you nothing but +1 hit point per level which is virtually never going to actually matter and an Intelligence boost is only going to get you half-way towards getting a +1 on skills that you never need to use if the DM has provided the players with decent explanations and can only be used to coax extra information from the DM that they would probably offer for free without a roll, assuming there is even any relevant information to glean.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

It feels like Pathfinder is just lazily copying what D&D did with them.

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

And aside from the fact that in D&D, weapon and armor proficiencies are utterly worthless to every single class in the game that isn't a caster as any that are meant to be using weapons automatically start with proficiency in every weapon that a properly stated member of that class that can actually make use of the class abilities would conceivably ever want to use, but also because Intelligence is the most worthless dump stat in the game that is utterly incapable of ever contributing to the success or survival of the PCs.

Pathfinder follows D&Ds lead as such that none of the deviations change this basic fact of reality. Constitution gives you nothing but +1 hit point per level which is virtually never going to actually matter and an Intelligence boost is only going to get you half-way towards getting a +1 on skills that you never need to use if the DM has provided the players with decent explanations and can only be used to coax extra information from the DM that they would probably offer for free without a roll, assuming there is even any relevant information to glean.

The third boost that every ancestry with a flaw gets, by itself completely makes the ancestry superior to 5e's take, you have Constitution to give you additional HP, and your choice of Strength or Dexterity for different martial builds, and Intelligence for the extra skill, even if you invest nothing more in it than the baseline. They obviously make good Wizards and alchemists for similar reasons (Intelligence is one of their primary attributes, and you can always make the third stat Dexterity for AC, or Wisdom to patch your baseline initiative back up, depending on your numeric spread.)

 

[Kaodi]

Nothing wrong with +1 hp/level and +1 to fortitude saves and an extra trained skill and language and also a +1 to most recall knowledge checks. Great if you want to play a tanky commander type character.

Besides, we do not know what kind of heritages or feats they are going to get yet, other than maybe one or two they share with goblins. They could have other cool things.

They would possibly also be the best race for a melee mutagenicst alchemist. Throw that floater in strength and you have everything you could want to be a "juggernaut" .