The design behind my "Thematic Races"

Thank you for the feedback regarding my “Thematic and Simple” versions of Pathfinder Core Rulebook races.

First, it’s now clear that they aren’t simple. I guess that’s in part due to my lack of skills with English and text organization. Anyway, I’m editing the previous posts titles to “Thematic Pathfinder Races”. I hope to better edit them in the future (maybe a PDF, never did one before).

The basic idea/principles behind these alternate race rules are:

• Remove the racial modifiers and all those numbers and minutiae. This is really just my opinion and there isn’t anything wrong with the Pathfinder. I just don’t like all those +1 or +2, or various circumstantial modifiers.
• However, I do like Rerolls or D&D 5E’s Advantage/Disadvantage. I also love to use dice as modifiers (like DCC RPG, Cortex or Alternity). Rolling dice is fun!
• I like FATE’s original design philosophy which postulates that you don’t need abilities that are mechanically constant (Aspects came originally from this I guess). What I want at my table are racial traits that – once activated – give the spotlight to player’s race of choice. At that moment, the mechanic should make a difference.

Thus, I removed all modifiers and little mechanical bonuses. I tried to exchange them for daily rerolls or similar traits.

Each race now basically gives you this:

• 4 Beneficial Traits (1 of which you can choose).
• 1 Detrimental Trait.

The Detrimental Trait works almost like a FATE’s Aspect (if you know FATE then you can see the Detrimental Trait as a sort of “specific Aspect”, one that can only be activated negatively). The idea of the Detrimental Trait is to showcase a specific racial “flaw” and to grant a new daily use of another racial trait (I find it more interesting than a boring -2 to some Ability Score). It’s a rule that does requires cooperation between the GM and the Player.

Explanations given (I hope), this is your basic racial traits for a 1^st level Elf Ranger:

 Keen Senses.

 Elven Soul.

Nimbleness.

 Elven Fighting Style.

 Frail Form (detrimental Trait).

A 1^st level elf wizard would maybe choose these:

 Keen Senses.

 Elven Soul.

 Nimbleness.

 Elven Magic.

 Frail Form (detrimental Trait).

Note the “”. I use it to mark when a specific Racial Trait is activated. It’s just a suggestion.

To keep my design goal that race should matter at higher levels, you can now choose to acquire new Racial Traits at 4^th, 8^th, 12^th, 16^th and 20^th levels, instead of gaining an Ability Score advancement (I suggest changing the Pathfinder rules so that an Ability Score advancement now grants a +2 to one Stat or a +1 to 2 Stats).

So, at 4^th level, our Elf Ranger could choose to take a new Racial Trait. His abilities are now:

 Keen Senses.

 Elven Soul.

 Nimbleness.

 Elven Fighting Style.

 Frail Form (detrimental Trait).

 Bond with the Land.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to post the Half-Orc next.

As always, any feedback is really appreciated.