"If I let them be at an above surface game, why not just let them use their swim speed?" To honour the players choices. Half of the fun of playing a unique ancestry like this is to play around their unique features and I can already see ways around this. With Fleet and a 2nd level tailwind they already have 20 ft. A merfolk monk could reach person like speeds on land while becoming a torpedo underwater. Any dedication or feat that grants an animal companion could give them a mount that lets them entirely ignore their puny land speed. There are a multitude ways to play around this.

"Healing flesh" - merfolk interaction with their morrally grey party: "Can you please stop killing and ressurecting me after every combat for my organs? Dying hurts you know!"

Merfolk + Water Kineticist = always bring enough water. Maybe be a dual gate to get some movement ability.

I really like that we are getting more 'experimental' ancestries like this one, the Awakened animals and the Cirkis (or how you spell it) as more ancestry variety will be needed for Starfinder 2es ancestries to feel unique

@swaggyseal

2 ай бұрын

its nice that we went from starfinders awakened bears to a universal template for awakened animals

If it weren't for that darn constitution penalty, you could make a pretty nice healer as a water kineticist, with some decent flavor too. Healing Flesh combined with their more support orientened feats and the general healer feats, you can make a pretty good healer. Being water also can theoretically help with the merfolk needing water wherever they go. it's not necessarily completely unworkable but that -1 to CON really isn't doing you favors.

@theebadluckgamer

2 ай бұрын

There is also the optional rule to get just two free boosts so it's super doable

@Solrex_the_Sun_King

2 ай бұрын

@@theebadluckgamerthis! You don't have to take 3 boosts and 1 flaw, with any ancestry you always have the choice to take any two bonuses, as long as the GM allows it.

@toodleselnoodos6738

2 ай бұрын

@@Solrex_the_Sun_KingMy understanding was that the Two Boost rule is a PLAYER rule and not a GM rule (a Common thing to do). A GM can ban it, but my understanding was that it would be extremely poor taste - something like saying “You’re not allowed to use Step actions since we have Stride”. The game is meant to work to allow players that extra flexibility for creating their character concepts.

Interesting that they decided to give merfolk a penalty in constitution. In 1e they actually had a bonus to constitution (in addition to their bonuses to dexterity and charisma, and no penalties) as well as a +2 natural armour bonus, so they were very sturdy. So this new version being fragile is quite the reversal.

Your pronunciations are pretty good, dawg. This might give off hater energy but I think the 5 foot move speed is fine. Ancestries are already fairly flattened out from the days of ECLs and level adjustments, so its actually kinda neat that they leaned into the fact that the ancestry that is physically different will face actual challenges from that physical difference, at least until level 9 when they can get a better land move speed via feat. These guys are best suited to theme campaigns, and if you want to subject your party members to needing to take a dip every 24 hours then I hope the juice is worth the squeeze. To put it another way with a very exaggerated hypothetical - if there was a game where a character killed everyone in one hit, but if you pushed them over from behind they became helpless, would it be bad sportsmanship to use that weakness? I think if you want something, you should be allowed to have it, warts and all. This ancestry is sick BECAUSE it's so textured.

@theebadluckgamer

2 ай бұрын

I agree whole heartedly

@toodleselnoodos6738

2 ай бұрын

To add: almost all classes have access to movement increases in some shape or form. So if you don’t want to use the wheelchair, there’s still ways to approach it. Also, I really enjoy that you mechanically roleplay overcoming the difficulty of being a fish-out-of-water.

@chrishudson9539

2 ай бұрын

It is just more fun to play.

@Ditidos

2 ай бұрын

Yeah, personally what bothers me is that they are worse swimmers than the azarketi, sure their ignore up or down feat is level 9 rather than 5 but even then it's still a feat that you have to take and at that level even a lizardfolk can keep up with a merfolk on the water. I think it should have had a 30 feet water speed or ignoring difficult terrain when swimming up, down or diagonally as part of the base ancestry for me to keep my verosimilitude (I like the latter option more, personally since that's more specifically fish-like). They having a 5 feet land speed as a base is great albeit maybe strongtail should have been a level 1 feat to open the ancestry for more general campaigns.

Swimmers guidance. For all your saving random npc children who cant swim story moments. Fishblooded - Seems to be more for swimming up water falls or against pressure currents in caves ect, not sure if merfolk are treated like fish, but given fish have swim bladders, swimming up and down normally doenst bother them, swimming against currents though.

@royal9743

2 ай бұрын

Honestly, you can just literally pull those 3 bulk children to the shore. Swimmers guidance seems to be quite a bit better since that lets you ferry your entire party safely across rivers and stuff like that.

32:57 Was not expecting a Savage Garden reference XD

I am so excited, I literally just made a merfolk character, so this is perfect timing. Im a little surprised there's no siren merfolk, 'Atlantean', merrow or cold-water merfolk.

I can't decide between a merfolk commander, or a merfolk nymph sorcerer

love the magic cat at the start there... P

For the Feat Tears of Pearl.... releasing an item is considered a free action, so even if it's your first action, it doesn't cost an action, though it does mean when you come to your senses you'll need to burn an action to pick the item back up...

A Merfolk Burger, my new favorite food

@toodleselnoodos6738

2 ай бұрын

Paizo forgot the three archetypes: Sushi, Sashimi, and Nigiri Merfolk.

Paizo finally unlocked my PDF now I feel like a kid again reading along with the teacher lmao. Although I can't decide if its cool or crappy that they reference book not released yet...but lawd the content in this book :D

Looking forward to info about the Surki

I too was confused why constitution was the flaw. I thought intelligence would be their flaw since maybe they weren’t as aware of all surface society and the world above but that was giving to the athamaru and awakened 🤷‍♂️ so maybe Paizo thought they couldn’t give too many intelligence flaws out there

@dannypestolesi712

2 ай бұрын

My thought was, con flaw because fish can be a bit delicate. It is thiner bones and softer structure of body.

@slapmallow69

2 ай бұрын

@@dannypestolesi712 but how come the athamaru dont have that same flaw lol they're literally walking fishes

@swaggyseal

2 ай бұрын

​@@slapmallow69 merfolk seem to be a lot thinner and more agile, while athamaru are stockier and sturdier.

@dannypestolesi712

2 ай бұрын

@legaspijs honestly, I have not watched the vid on that ancestry so I do not know enough about them to make a determination. But as the other commenter said. That could be part of it. How they are portrayed physically as a default. A quick google search brought up a chonky lookin lad. Stocky fishpeoples. Where as, merpeople are usually very lithe and nimble and agile and flowy. At an absolute minimum. I can see why Con is not one of their boosts. Then you have to look at the other stats and decide, what is our flaw? Int, does not fit much for such a widely metropolitan and modernized peoples. Wisdom does not fit either because they are very worldly as a default. Being so spread out and around and a part of nature with their magic. So that leaves Con and Str. Fish, we know fish to pull people out of boats and be giant muscle monsters. (Which could equally go to Con very quickly if we talk about how, yeah this fish fought for 5 hours on the line. But i digress). I think in the end, to fit narrative, it fit best for Con or Str to be their flaw, and they went with Con. With it being very very slightly narrativelt flavored

Maybe like... A flying carpet? I dunno that speed is a bummer

@thatoneguy1477

2 ай бұрын

Or a horse lol... Why didn't I think of that!?

@toodleselnoodos6738

2 ай бұрын

Centaur being mountable… How incredibly sus Paizo. How incredibly sus…

What I'm planning for this Ancestry (kinda) is the literal meaning of "catfishing" my foes, cuz I'm gonna make a Catfolk +Versatile Heritage (Merfolk) and I'm absolutely gonna use Ill Tide + Black Cat Curse to "catfish" the heck out of them ò¬ó/

Combine Doom of Sailors with Scare to Death for a better chance at insta-kill... Damn, now I gotta try that.

the wheelchair rules you mentioned, were they the original ones? im sure the new water wheelchair mentions move speed?

@theebadluckgamer

2 ай бұрын

The new chair doesn't change any 9f the movement rules

@swaggyseal

2 ай бұрын

@@theebadluckgamer well hopefully they fix that in the next big wave of errata (like big chunks of RoE lmao)

@chrishudson9539

2 ай бұрын

Amphibious Wheelchair is a level 9 item and it will work fine.

@swaggyseal

2 ай бұрын

@@chrishudson9539 the only issue is that is the level a merfolk can just yank their tail off. The original blog spoke about the water chairs as a way to get around easily.

@swaggyseal

2 ай бұрын

the new errata gives them a land speed of 20ft or their swim speed, whichever is lower.

Merfolk? Finally! Huh, my Hero Frame videos are going to be getting more content to cover... When is Howl of the Wild coming out again?

@theebadluckgamer

2 ай бұрын

The 22nd

@Drahjan_BeginDownload

2 ай бұрын

@@theebadluckgamer cool, cool... I should start preparing for that. The algorithm demands relatable content, lol.

merfolk summoner with water eidolon. Could the eidolon provide enough water for hydratation?

@slapmallow69

2 ай бұрын

probably not? Since technically they’re needing to breathe in that water. That would be the equivalent of, “oh if i’m dying of thirst in a desert, i’ll drink my water elemental eidolon”

@toodleselnoodos6738

2 ай бұрын

Apparently there’s a new lvl. 0 item called Pelagic Helmet which completely sidesteps the issue. Even the iconic character essentially has basic clothing which sidesteps it for her too.

@stephensmith8490

2 ай бұрын

But a ranger with the new elemental companions added in rage of elements might be a way to submerge yourself in your companion.

The constitution flaw, other than being a fish out of water, might have to deal with their skeletal support structure being more in line with a fish (cartilage) rather than a human's.

@annanilsen5833

2 ай бұрын

Only sharks and rays have cartilaginous skeletons, all other fish have boney skeletons

@PizzaMineKing

2 ай бұрын

​@@annanilsen5833Still, gravity is effectively a problem of the land dwelling...

FISH!!

Now that maked my day!

You mentioned that the summon kraken ability grabbed all creatures in the 30ft area; and how that could be bad if your allies are in that area. But the range on it is 120ft. If you're playing a notical adventure such as a pirate game or something like that, 30ft could cover most of an opposing ships deck from a pretty fair distance away. And sustaining it is a lot of damage to a lot of enemies over a minute. I think its an incredible ability!! Even in an out of water campaign. Imagine your merfolk opening up this ability on an enemy camp from 120ft away!! They might not even realize whats happening or who's doing it if you're off in the darkness.

ya'll still using penalties........ here i am giving 3 free ability boosts....

@swaggyseal

2 ай бұрын

there is an alternate rule for EVERY ancestry to give the human boosts: 2 free

@natanoj16

2 ай бұрын

3 free boosts?

@Wyrmshield

2 ай бұрын

Still upset that those are still around in the remaster. Racial stat penalties are cringe

@swaggyseal

2 ай бұрын

@@Wyrmshield i personally really like them. a little halfling is weak and a recently awakened plant/animal without formal education is less book smart. Like i said earlier, the remaster gave us the option to take 2 free boosts and no flaws on any ancestry.

@PizzaMineKing

2 ай бұрын

​@@swaggysealwasn't that a thing before the remaster anyways?