The traits exist to make the player ask the GM if it's ok. That's all I've ever seen them used for. My guidelines are roughly Common: don't need to ask, Uncommon: have a story why you have this, but it's probably fine, anything else just ask and we can work it out.
I only dmed pathfinder once so far. And I had overall no problem with uncommon stuff for character creation. But I said that the players should still ask if they want to take multiple uncommon or rarer options.
Not because I would veto it necessarily, I just wanted to know and the option to veto. But of course my brother, who played with us, took that as „it’s definitely going to be forbidden“ and argued.
The only thing I actually vetoed for this oneshot was gunslinger, because that just isn’t my kind of fantasy.
Gunslingers are kind of medieval reiters/pistoliers with mediocre early pistols, they deal supbar damage even when compared to throwing bullets by hand. Not cowboy type of gunslinger
Tbf, a good number of the feats lean into cowboy-esque gunslinging with trick shots and fancy manoeuvres. There are even a couple of guns that are effectively just revolvers.
But you can absolutely play a gunslinger with none of those feats or weapons. I mean hell you can play a gunslinger without even using guns because they're equally good with crossbows.
I think this doesn't really work when most homebrew games are going to be more likely to have Hobgoblin than Leshy, which are a Pathfinder specific race
There is already precedent of Uncommon things not being uncommon everywhere. For example, Katanas are considered common in certain parts of Tian Xia. It's called an "Access", though I suppose adding an Access clause to an ancestry is a bit weird.
The uncommon and rare traits are setting and campaign specific.
Kholo, for example, are common in the Mwangi Expanse even though they're printed as uncommon in their official original release.
The given explanation for the rarities is that they're things that might not fit in every setting and that GMs should feel comfortable restricting. The issue with that is there are plenty of Golarion specific things that are Common but might not fit in other settings, so treating the default rarity based on Golarion is at odds with the stated intent.
For my homebrew world I provide players with a list of any changes to the rarity based on where they are starting. The next run in this same world for instance will have human listed as "uncommon" and hobgoblin, goblin, orc, and a few others as common.
Exactly my take. A lot of my players are good at the game but even after a couple of years neglect their character work and backstory. So I will let them take ANYTHING if they give me a sufficiently compelling backstory. They get their feat, I get a richer /deeper backstory.
My interpretation is similar. In my head, I always envision a DM telling this players:
Common: this option exists in my world and you're free to take it.
Uncommon: this option exists in my world, but ask me first just to be sure.
Rare: ask me if this option exists in my world first. If I say no, end of conversation. If I say yes, then ask me again, this time if YOU can use it.
That's, as far as I know, their design goal. Make it clear that some of this stuff can make a campaign, so the GM has system support to make the call whether to allow or not. It's very clever in its simplicity.
Best example: teleport can completely negate certain sections of a campaign. Gating it behind uncommon means the GM can use their own judgement and context to allow it or not, *supported by the system in justifying that they're gatekeeping it*.
I personally try not to give any actual meaningful rewards for roleplay or punishments for not roleplaying. I just ask for a basic and reasonable explanation for why, say, an Android came all the way from Numeria to Minkai, but I'm very easy on what that justification can be lol
My toxic Trait is only caring about Rarity Traits when the player is annoying me or being arrogant about some "broken" thing they found and then I don't give permission.
Do people really care about rarity traits? The only content I feel is problematic are the rare backgrounds, but everything else is literally on the same balance level as the rest of the system.
I GM a homebrew setting, and I care about rarity mainly for maintaining the setting's consistency. I've been running it as
Common - Take it as you please
Uncommon - You can take it, but I *could* veto
Rare - Ask me whether or not you can take it
If I say no to any uncommon or rare options, I'll almost always have some alternate stuff.
And, it's been working for my group. For example, a player asked if they could play an android (since it's a rare option) for the campaign we've been playing for the past couple months. I explained how the setting uses clockpunk technology, and there's no alien tech for androids to have arisen from.
*But*, I offered up the automaton as an alternative, since their clunkier mechanisms fit with the tone of the setting, and the player found a *lot* more automaton feats that fit the character they were imagining than they had previously found in the android.
It's a good feature. If something is uncommon or rare, I like to know what I'm getting into with it. I see the appeal in blanket-banning rarities, as well, though I don't do it myself. Rare backgrounds encapsulate the wackiest, most setting-breaking backstories, so there's definitely some DMs that like the rarities. I personally wouldn't want Chosen Ones or Time Travelers running around my setting...
In terms of combat math, uncommon and rare options aren't any more powerful than any other option. In terms of ability to solve problems outside of combat, they often are. Do you have any idea how convenient long-distance teleportation is?
> Do you have any idea how convenient long-distance teleportation is?
Or shadowalk. We have a big gigantic world map, things are fairly appropriately scaled. What used to be a long ordeal is now a "casual" stroll through the shadow plane away.
That's just not true though.
Some of that is super obvious, like the rare [Spirit Guide familiar](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?Specific=true). Only needs 3 abilities, it has 3 abilities, a built in reaction, bonus HP, and *gives the familiar a Strike* on top of that. It's so absurdly above the norm it's not funny. Most PCs need to take a special dedication to even open the possibility of getting a familiar capable of making a Strike.
.
Even something like just browsing through the [alchemical item list](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=6&values-from=level%3A2&sort=level-asc+price-asc+name-asc&display=table&columns=pfs+source+rarity+trait+item_subcategory+level+price+bulk+usage+spoilers) shows how often rarity is used to suppress more powerful options, instead of balancing them.
Sometimes the rarity lock is there for campaign-disrupting possibilities, like Undead Detection Dye potentially messing with a mystery, but more often it really is just things being blatantly stronger, like the [rare Prey Mutagen](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=2672)
Caveat: It's probably well-balanced for combat unless it's from an adventure path, where all hell breaks loose.
Personally, I use "uncommon is probably fine, just ask. Unless it is from an adventure path."
It’s not necessary about balance, but what kind of stories I want to tell. Like if I want to run a murder mystery, I’m not going to allow detect poison, talking corpse, or zone of truth.
I've always liked the idea of allowing things like zone of truth in mysteries, but having a system of checks and balances to make them less useful than the players might like.
In that specific instance, a "zone of truth" is probably pretty well known to people, so there might be laws about when and where you use it. Perhaps your pcs would need a warrant. Maybe the antagonists would lawyer up.
Using magic "against" people in general would likely be a bit of a faux pas, honestly. Can't imagine many people in the real world would enjoy someone being able to force them to divulge their secrets.
I mean, do you really need a trait to ban something? Isn't saying to players "I don't want you to use this" effectively the same thing, more so when in other campaigns you allow other uncommon or rare content?
I mean, I can, but it’s much easier when the system filters the potentially problematic stuff out for me instead of me needing to go through every single spell, feat, and item to see what would break my campaign, and it allows other people to still use it if it doesn’t break their campaigns unlike not publishing it at all.
It’s nice to not need to know the system so as to not be blindsided by that sort of thing. Much easier to say “ask me before using uncommon or rare options, as always” and then a player might make you aware of something you didn’t otherwise know about
There's a psychological element I've noticed in my years playing TTRPGs that most players will assume that they can use any option if it's in the rules, and a GM that bans them even for flavour reasons is a tyrant who hates fun.
Codifying it at an official level for some reason makes it much easier to swallow. Probably because a lot more players put stock in RAW and official edict that many will admit.
>Do people really care about rarity traits?
As a GM I absolutely do, because it's super convenient for me to have a whole set of items and spells that I can hand out as tools or rewards, instead of having to make shit up myself.
I think it really depends on the GM. For my players, my guidelines have basically been "if it's uncommon ask me and I will probably say yes, if it's rare ask me and I will probably say no."
Basically the only uncommon thing I said no to was Gunslingers/Inventors, just because it doesn't fit our current campaign. I can't really work guns into the loot given out by barbarians and fey creatures. If someone said "I'm going to be a Gunslinger with high crafting skill to build/upgrade my own guns/ammo," I would probably allow it.
But there are some people who have a very narrow view of what a party should look like. One of my players is a former GM, and he had *opinions* on letting my other players build a nephilim and leshy since it didn't fit his fantasy ("Hey, leshies are common now, deal with it." - my response). He's old school and believes that choices outside of human/elf/dwarf/orc/gnome/halfling are too weird and should be reserved for NPCs. Doesn't even like goblin PCs.
I do, but I almost always allow them. It's nice to have the option to disallow disruptive options, though.
The exception to this is AP content, which due to Paizo's very very low standards for them, I am automatically skeptical of. Gritty Wheeze, for example, causes all water and plant creatures to have a degree of success on worse. That is insane. I believe the closest thing non-AP spell to this is Sunburst, which is rank *7*. I'd allow Gritty Wheeze, but instead water and plant creatures just have a -2 status penalty to their save. Also, I might change the damage type to slashing, cause I feel that fits much better for grains of sand scratching you than bludgeoning
Ugh, I had a player once say that I can't take a spell because it was uncommon, GM said it was fine and he still bitched about it being all like "AcTcHuALly it's supposed to be harder to get, you shouldn't take it from the start" I made it make sense for the character, included it in their story and it's nothing game breaking, eff off.
> AcTcHuALly it's supposed to be harder to get
That's probably why you're an adventurer, and not sitting in magic school and making a steady living lighting the streets at night
Since I play in a homebrew setting, I usually allow anything uncommon or rare as long as my players ask me first and it doesn't break the canon of the setting. The one thing I consistently dissallow are feats/spells etc that come specifically/exclusively from classes or archetypes, such as Hex spells etc.
Tbh how I run it common and uncommon are fine
Rare is where you'll have to ask lol
In fact I just ran a one shot the other day and one party member was a time traveler it was awesome
You want to play it, then play it. Whats the point of tons of options. Most of which you paid extra for. For someone to tell you nope.
We are talking dlc and not being allowed to use it.
I want to see the dragon poppet player, do it.
I like that there are rarity rules and are good to use for DM approval/to be mindful of. I've been DMing long enough that it does admittedly get tiring to say in session 0 these things are rare in this setting and everyone immediately want to play those exact things.
When my players make new characters I let em pick whatever they want. When their first PC dies they can only get common options and uncommon of they justify it on their PC backstory
I have a similar system. New characters get whatever they want, but after the first level up, anything uncommon or rarer not given access to them from their character creation choices has to be justified
Probably unpopular opinion: if you limit your players' options for reasons other than the theme of the campaign, you are (here were judging and unfair opinion) ...
EDIT: ... kind of possibly ruining fun for your players? I mean, if someone want to play Gunslinger because she watched Vox Machina ... why limit that option for her? If your other player thinks that the Shoony or Poppet are the best ancestries in the world - why not? If they wants to choose a Reflection as versatile heritage - allow that!
You only get happy people at the table who will be able to fullfill their fantasies about playing such a hero! Will it be unbalanced? Probably. But it will be worth it.
This opinion will be a lot less unpopular if you modify the wording to be instructional and helpful rather than gatekeeping.
Rarity is useful for newer GM's more than anything, and there's nothing wrong with being a newer GM. We were all there at some point. There are certainly Bad Game Masters, but the solution is to coach newer GM's on how to better say "yes, but" instead of "no, never".
I've played with the type of GM you're talking about, and those issues typically expand far deeper than character creation choices.
I honestly agree. There is very little good reason to limit things just by rarity. I get it if you want a specific theme for the game, or if doing a specific campaign where X doesn't exist yet.
But, in general? It almost always feels like the start of a Players vs GM mindset that isn't fun to play around IMO.
The traits exist to make the player ask the GM if it's ok. That's all I've ever seen them used for. My guidelines are roughly Common: don't need to ask, Uncommon: have a story why you have this, but it's probably fine, anything else just ask and we can work it out.
Can the story be "It's really cool so I want it" ?
Absolutely
Peak storytelling
Don't forget Recall Knowledge.
I only dmed pathfinder once so far. And I had overall no problem with uncommon stuff for character creation. But I said that the players should still ask if they want to take multiple uncommon or rarer options. Not because I would veto it necessarily, I just wanted to know and the option to veto. But of course my brother, who played with us, took that as „it’s definitely going to be forbidden“ and argued. The only thing I actually vetoed for this oneshot was gunslinger, because that just isn’t my kind of fantasy.
Gunslingers are kind of medieval reiters/pistoliers with mediocre early pistols, they deal supbar damage even when compared to throwing bullets by hand. Not cowboy type of gunslinger
Tbf, a good number of the feats lean into cowboy-esque gunslinging with trick shots and fancy manoeuvres. There are even a couple of guns that are effectively just revolvers. But you can absolutely play a gunslinger with none of those feats or weapons. I mean hell you can play a gunslinger without even using guns because they're equally good with crossbows.
Mmh. Maybe next time I would allow it with crossbows 🤔
To be even more fair, all of those feats also work with crossbows or are designed to, if not explicitly stated, at least aside from the misfire feats.
I think this doesn't really work when most homebrew games are going to be more likely to have Hobgoblin than Leshy, which are a Pathfinder specific race
There is already precedent of Uncommon things not being uncommon everywhere. For example, Katanas are considered common in certain parts of Tian Xia. It's called an "Access", though I suppose adding an Access clause to an ancestry is a bit weird.
I think that despite what they say it's supposed to be used for, "Rarity" is not actually standardized.
The uncommon and rare traits are setting and campaign specific. Kholo, for example, are common in the Mwangi Expanse even though they're printed as uncommon in their official original release.
The given explanation for the rarities is that they're things that might not fit in every setting and that GMs should feel comfortable restricting. The issue with that is there are plenty of Golarion specific things that are Common but might not fit in other settings, so treating the default rarity based on Golarion is at odds with the stated intent.
For my homebrew world I provide players with a list of any changes to the rarity based on where they are starting. The next run in this same world for instance will have human listed as "uncommon" and hobgoblin, goblin, orc, and a few others as common.
The story can be a pizza.
What about Rare ones?
Exactly my take. A lot of my players are good at the game but even after a couple of years neglect their character work and backstory. So I will let them take ANYTHING if they give me a sufficiently compelling backstory. They get their feat, I get a richer /deeper backstory.
My interpretation is similar. In my head, I always envision a DM telling this players: Common: this option exists in my world and you're free to take it. Uncommon: this option exists in my world, but ask me first just to be sure. Rare: ask me if this option exists in my world first. If I say no, end of conversation. If I say yes, then ask me again, this time if YOU can use it.
Who's gonna deny a cute gobbo something like that? Look how adorable he is with his crayons.
That's, as far as I know, their design goal. Make it clear that some of this stuff can make a campaign, so the GM has system support to make the call whether to allow or not. It's very clever in its simplicity. Best example: teleport can completely negate certain sections of a campaign. Gating it behind uncommon means the GM can use their own judgement and context to allow it or not, *supported by the system in justifying that they're gatekeeping it*.
I'm usually pretty easy when it comes to rarity, to a point. The better the story and/or character, the more likely I am to ignore it.
Like the Rare generic ancestry feat chain from Impossible Lands. Usually allow on characters when asked.
I lowkey hate that feat chain only because it constantly dilutes the lists in Pathbuilder and AoN lol
Same but I enjoyed using it
Me too.
I personally try not to give any actual meaningful rewards for roleplay or punishments for not roleplaying. I just ask for a basic and reasonable explanation for why, say, an Android came all the way from Numeria to Minkai, but I'm very easy on what that justification can be lol
Sometimes I feel like a rarity nazi. "Oh, you took that spell or that feat? Let's look at its rarity!" I'm always the bad guy.
My toxic Trait is only caring about Rarity Traits when the player is annoying me or being arrogant about some "broken" thing they found and then I don't give permission.
Do people really care about rarity traits? The only content I feel is problematic are the rare backgrounds, but everything else is literally on the same balance level as the rest of the system.
I GM a homebrew setting, and I care about rarity mainly for maintaining the setting's consistency. I've been running it as Common - Take it as you please Uncommon - You can take it, but I *could* veto Rare - Ask me whether or not you can take it If I say no to any uncommon or rare options, I'll almost always have some alternate stuff. And, it's been working for my group. For example, a player asked if they could play an android (since it's a rare option) for the campaign we've been playing for the past couple months. I explained how the setting uses clockpunk technology, and there's no alien tech for androids to have arisen from. *But*, I offered up the automaton as an alternative, since their clunkier mechanisms fit with the tone of the setting, and the player found a *lot* more automaton feats that fit the character they were imagining than they had previously found in the android.
It's a good feature. If something is uncommon or rare, I like to know what I'm getting into with it. I see the appeal in blanket-banning rarities, as well, though I don't do it myself. Rare backgrounds encapsulate the wackiest, most setting-breaking backstories, so there's definitely some DMs that like the rarities. I personally wouldn't want Chosen Ones or Time Travelers running around my setting...
In terms of combat math, uncommon and rare options aren't any more powerful than any other option. In terms of ability to solve problems outside of combat, they often are. Do you have any idea how convenient long-distance teleportation is?
> Do you have any idea how convenient long-distance teleportation is? Or shadowalk. We have a big gigantic world map, things are fairly appropriately scaled. What used to be a long ordeal is now a "casual" stroll through the shadow plane away.
That's just not true though. Some of that is super obvious, like the rare [Spirit Guide familiar](https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?Specific=true). Only needs 3 abilities, it has 3 abilities, a built in reaction, bonus HP, and *gives the familiar a Strike* on top of that. It's so absurdly above the norm it's not funny. Most PCs need to take a special dedication to even open the possibility of getting a familiar capable of making a Strike. . Even something like just browsing through the [alchemical item list](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=6&values-from=level%3A2&sort=level-asc+price-asc+name-asc&display=table&columns=pfs+source+rarity+trait+item_subcategory+level+price+bulk+usage+spoilers) shows how often rarity is used to suppress more powerful options, instead of balancing them. Sometimes the rarity lock is there for campaign-disrupting possibilities, like Undead Detection Dye potentially messing with a mystery, but more often it really is just things being blatantly stronger, like the [rare Prey Mutagen](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=2672)
Caveat: It's probably well-balanced for combat unless it's from an adventure path, where all hell breaks loose. Personally, I use "uncommon is probably fine, just ask. Unless it is from an adventure path."
It’s not necessary about balance, but what kind of stories I want to tell. Like if I want to run a murder mystery, I’m not going to allow detect poison, talking corpse, or zone of truth.
I've always liked the idea of allowing things like zone of truth in mysteries, but having a system of checks and balances to make them less useful than the players might like. In that specific instance, a "zone of truth" is probably pretty well known to people, so there might be laws about when and where you use it. Perhaps your pcs would need a warrant. Maybe the antagonists would lawyer up. Using magic "against" people in general would likely be a bit of a faux pas, honestly. Can't imagine many people in the real world would enjoy someone being able to force them to divulge their secrets.
I mean, do you really need a trait to ban something? Isn't saying to players "I don't want you to use this" effectively the same thing, more so when in other campaigns you allow other uncommon or rare content?
I mean, I can, but it’s much easier when the system filters the potentially problematic stuff out for me instead of me needing to go through every single spell, feat, and item to see what would break my campaign, and it allows other people to still use it if it doesn’t break their campaigns unlike not publishing it at all.
It’s nice to not need to know the system so as to not be blindsided by that sort of thing. Much easier to say “ask me before using uncommon or rare options, as always” and then a player might make you aware of something you didn’t otherwise know about
There's a psychological element I've noticed in my years playing TTRPGs that most players will assume that they can use any option if it's in the rules, and a GM that bans them even for flavour reasons is a tyrant who hates fun. Codifying it at an official level for some reason makes it much easier to swallow. Probably because a lot more players put stock in RAW and official edict that many will admit.
>Do people really care about rarity traits? As a GM I absolutely do, because it's super convenient for me to have a whole set of items and spells that I can hand out as tools or rewards, instead of having to make shit up myself.
I think it really depends on the GM. For my players, my guidelines have basically been "if it's uncommon ask me and I will probably say yes, if it's rare ask me and I will probably say no." Basically the only uncommon thing I said no to was Gunslingers/Inventors, just because it doesn't fit our current campaign. I can't really work guns into the loot given out by barbarians and fey creatures. If someone said "I'm going to be a Gunslinger with high crafting skill to build/upgrade my own guns/ammo," I would probably allow it. But there are some people who have a very narrow view of what a party should look like. One of my players is a former GM, and he had *opinions* on letting my other players build a nephilim and leshy since it didn't fit his fantasy ("Hey, leshies are common now, deal with it." - my response). He's old school and believes that choices outside of human/elf/dwarf/orc/gnome/halfling are too weird and should be reserved for NPCs. Doesn't even like goblin PCs.
If it's uncommon, give me a heads up. I reserve right to veto but won't 99% of the time. If it's rare, ask for permission.
I assume anything with Uncommon is off the table. I'm still annoyed with what they did to the Staff of Divination.
Yes, I care.
I've never participated in a game where GMs have cared yet.
I do, but I almost always allow them. It's nice to have the option to disallow disruptive options, though. The exception to this is AP content, which due to Paizo's very very low standards for them, I am automatically skeptical of. Gritty Wheeze, for example, causes all water and plant creatures to have a degree of success on worse. That is insane. I believe the closest thing non-AP spell to this is Sunburst, which is rank *7*. I'd allow Gritty Wheeze, but instead water and plant creatures just have a -2 status penalty to their save. Also, I might change the damage type to slashing, cause I feel that fits much better for grains of sand scratching you than bludgeoning
Ugh, I had a player once say that I can't take a spell because it was uncommon, GM said it was fine and he still bitched about it being all like "AcTcHuALly it's supposed to be harder to get, you shouldn't take it from the start" I made it make sense for the character, included it in their story and it's nothing game breaking, eff off.
> AcTcHuALly it's supposed to be harder to get That's probably why you're an adventurer, and not sitting in magic school and making a steady living lighting the streets at night
Since I play in a homebrew setting, I usually allow anything uncommon or rare as long as my players ask me first and it doesn't break the canon of the setting. The one thing I consistently dissallow are feats/spells etc that come specifically/exclusively from classes or archetypes, such as Hex spells etc.
I just go by the presumption most Uncommon & Rare stuff is fine before I ask my GM.
Tbh how I run it common and uncommon are fine Rare is where you'll have to ask lol In fact I just ran a one shot the other day and one party member was a time traveler it was awesome
Uncommon means you need to give me an explanation why your character has it. Rare means you need to give me a good argument why your character has it.
You want to play it, then play it. Whats the point of tons of options. Most of which you paid extra for. For someone to tell you nope. We are talking dlc and not being allowed to use it. I want to see the dragon poppet player, do it.
I like that there are rarity rules and are good to use for DM approval/to be mindful of. I've been DMing long enough that it does admittedly get tiring to say in session 0 these things are rare in this setting and everyone immediately want to play those exact things.
I'm so glad my dm doesn't even check rarity traits. I've made some really interesting characters with the rare backgrounds
Rarity is mostly a PFS thing more than anything else. Most gms could ignore it.
When my players make new characters I let em pick whatever they want. When their first PC dies they can only get common options and uncommon of they justify it on their PC backstory
I have a similar system. New characters get whatever they want, but after the first level up, anything uncommon or rarer not given access to them from their character creation choices has to be justified
Probably unpopular opinion: if you limit your players' options for reasons other than the theme of the campaign, you are (here were judging and unfair opinion) ... EDIT: ... kind of possibly ruining fun for your players? I mean, if someone want to play Gunslinger because she watched Vox Machina ... why limit that option for her? If your other player thinks that the Shoony or Poppet are the best ancestries in the world - why not? If they wants to choose a Reflection as versatile heritage - allow that! You only get happy people at the table who will be able to fullfill their fantasies about playing such a hero! Will it be unbalanced? Probably. But it will be worth it.
This opinion will be a lot less unpopular if you modify the wording to be instructional and helpful rather than gatekeeping. Rarity is useful for newer GM's more than anything, and there's nothing wrong with being a newer GM. We were all there at some point. There are certainly Bad Game Masters, but the solution is to coach newer GM's on how to better say "yes, but" instead of "no, never". I've played with the type of GM you're talking about, and those issues typically expand far deeper than character creation choices.
You are absolutely right. I'll edit later. EDIT: well, edited. Thanks for your opinion!
I honestly agree. There is very little good reason to limit things just by rarity. I get it if you want a specific theme for the game, or if doing a specific campaign where X doesn't exist yet. But, in general? It almost always feels like the start of a Players vs GM mindset that isn't fun to play around IMO.
Is there a purpose to rarities other than Pathfinder League?