Pathfinder 2nd edition Readthrough: Goblin, Oh dear god they made Drizzt a Fishmalk



Disclaimer: I was not a fan of the PF 2e dev diaries, or of the play-test. This does not mean I'm going to do nothing but bash this book, and I legitimately hope to be pleasantly surprised, but keep in mind this read-through is likely to be very biased. A fair bit of it is also for comedic purposes. It is by no means a declaration that people should not play PF 2e, that people are wrong for enjoying it, or anything along those lines

Goblin
Reading the fluff...this is a fishmalk. Short, energetic creatures with a love for fire, comedy, eating disgusting food, hated across golarion. With a racial Drizzt treatment of turning on their Chaotic Evil comrades. Why Paizo thought their comedy race who specialize in animal cruelty themed weapons was a good idea as a core race was a good idea I do not know. Also, another short, specialized in stealth, tinkering, and short stabby things as a race also applies to two other races already in this chapter. There was a lot they could have done for a sixth race that would have been unique. If you wanted to go for an evil race turned good, Gnoll, Orc, Hobgoblin, Sahuagin all fit and have a niche as a tough melee fighter. Yuan-ti, Changeling, etc. They could have tried a large sized race. A flying race. Tiefling or Aasimar which are practically core races for many anyway. Instead we have short halfling/gnome mixtures with fishmalk supporting fluff. Some people may think I over-exaggerate, but no, a lot of the fluff outright makes it sound like a pain to have in your party. The what others probably do involving you section is literally a list of the party stopping a goblin PC, getting irritated and preventing the goblin from being a lolrandom chaos person.

As a side note, these aren't the new Kender. One of the more annoying things about Kender was that they were supposed to be naturally innocent who just stole things because they didn't know what property means (despite what the player controlling them actually knew) so in-universe feeding them into a woodchipper is in-universe an evil act. Probably. Possibly. With a goblin, that is no longer the case. Rev your woodchippers!

The artwork is alright, just a goblin eating a cucumber. Don't feed it after midnight.

In core, it has a speed of 25', so I guess the Dwarf really is the slowest, it has 6 HP, two+Int modifier languages, a bonus to one, dexterity, and charisma. For a race that is described as being despised and hated across the civilized world. The flaw in wisdom makes sense. Oh, and Darkvision.

Heritages
-Charhide Goblin: Gains Fire Resistance equal to half of it's level. Pauses as he hears crying It's second ability is probably better than Forge Dwarf, as it decreases the DC to end persistent Fire damage by five. Excuse me for a sec Goes off to comfort Forge Dwarf
-Irongut Goblin: Fluff wise, you eat more garbage than most goblins, because OFC you do. In terms of mechanics, you get +1 to your saves vs Affliction, getting Sickened, or ending the Sickened effect....only if you ingest something that causes this. Oh, and your success on these become Critical! I suspect this not in fact makes this worth it.
-Snow Goblin: While Charhide Goblin was mostly a copy of Forge Dwarf, this is literally a copy of Artic Elf. Take if you are in a snow campaign, maybe.
-Razortooth Goblin: Gain a 1d6 bite attack. 6HP base makes this kind of a sad choice, since this would be nice to have in melee. Might be good on a rogue build depending on what that class is like now.
-Unbreakable Goblin: Your base HP becomes 10 and fall damage based on height is halved. You want this for your melee Gobbo, and I am actually really sad that you can not take this and Razortooth Goblin at the same time.

Ancestry Feats

At 1st Level
-Burnt It!: Oh great, it's our support Pyromania feat. You get additional damage on fire spells and Alchemical items equal to half the spells level and a quarter of the Alchemical Items level. Wait, Items have level? If I spot a Starfinder style level equipment list, I will burn something! Anyway, I have no idea if this applies to bombs or why the bonus is different between spell and item. Oh, you also get +1 to persistent fire damage.
-City Scavenger: You can get +1 to Subsist, and can use Society or Survival for this action that I do not know the use of. Same for the Earn income action. This bonus is doubled if you are an Irongut.
-Goblin lore: See Dwarf and Elf. Not Gnome which apparently aren't allowed Lore of their own. Pity the Gnome.
-Goblin Scuttle: A reaction when an ally ends their move near you, this lets you make a Step, which you must collect to get a ladder. Now, they might mean a five-foot step, but if they are going to start AW-flavored move names for their actions, please define them before the uses of those words in the core rulebook.
-Goblin Song: Makes the Paladin put you in the wood chipper, as it is described as an annoying song. An enemy within 30 feet can be targeted with a Performance check against their Will DC as a side effect. This gives them -1 to Perception and Will saves, which is a bit weird, I would think attack rolls would be in there, otherwise this effect mostly becomes a caster buff move. A -1 to most rolls for one round wouldn't even be too bad. Anyway, if you critically succeed it lasts for a minute, if you critically fail they are immune for an hour. With each advance in proficiency rank in the skill you can now target 2/4/8 enemies. Overall not bad even if I wish it affected something besides Will and Perception.
-Goblin Weapon Generic Feat: Same as the rest, except the non-racial weapons are now the Dogslicer and Horsechopper, furthering Paizo's support of Animal Cruelty in weapon choices.
-Junk Tinker: Let's you make Level 0 (SF stay out!) items that are not armor item out of literal junk. You can make items at 1/4th the cost, but they are Shoddy, which is a penalty when not in your hands. Without access to Shoddy, I withhold judgment.
-Rough Rider: You get a +1 to command a Goblin Dog or a Wolf Mount. You also always get a Wolf as your animal Companions, which if they resemble the 1e version is rather nice. This is a build I actually enjoy and wish to see more of despite my reservations for goblins.
-Very Sneaky: When taking the Sneak action (Apocalypse World Action names, not now!) you can move five feet further. I don't remember movement restriction or sneak being an action in the past so we will see how this shakes out when we get to those terms. Also as long you continue to make Sneak actions and succeed you can be in stealth even when not in Cover or Greater Cover. But only if you start the action Concealed, in cover, or in Greater Cover. I think this means you get Hide in Plain Sight, kind of?

5th level
-Generic fifth level weapon feat: Blah

9th Level
-Cave Climber: Climb speed of ten feet. But slow but honestly any alternate move speed tends to be a decent grab, and maybe this edition will focus on verticality more.
-Skittering Scuttle: You need your goblin Skitter first, let's you Stride half your speed instead of Stepping. I.....define your terms Paizo! I'm on Page 49 of this book, am a veteran of 1e, and even then I'm operating entirely on guesswork for what half of this even means!

13th Level
-Weapon Focus MK VII: There is nothing new except what weapons it affects.
-Very, Very Sneaky: Requires Very Sneaky. Anyway, you can now move your full speed when S raking, and you no longer need to have Cover, Full Cover, and Concealment to Hide or Sneak. Hurrah, we finally get Hide in Plain Sight, at 13th Level, but hey we got i-wait. Wait. What does Hide do? How is Hide different than Sneak? Is this some Dark Heresy 1e mimic where I need three different skills to do stealth properly? Or 3.0 DND?

Anyway, while I was saving concluding thoughts on the chapter for the end, I'll say a bit on the Goblin now. Some people may think I'm being too harsh. They may be right. But frankly the fluff is begging to be used in a fishmalk, lolrandom, imma Fireball the party and kill the friendly NPC kinda way. And second, having a new race there was so much potential, so many options for what they could do, but they went for a comedy race that mechanically feels like it's trying to share shoes with the Halfling and the Gnome at the same time. I was hoping for something better.

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