Are There Any Variant Races in Pathfinder?

[Palanan]

Did Pathfinder ever offer any variants or subraces during its First Edition run?

I know they started out consciously wanting to avoid the situation in the Forgotten Realms, but I’m wondering if at some point they ever relaxed that posture and allowed for the occasional variant of a core race. So, are there any variant races anywhere in first-party Pathfinder material? Maybe in an AP chapter or some obscure Player's Companion?

[Magelyte]

Yes, there are alternate racial traits, which you can replace the default racial traits with, as well as full subraces which usually work as several alternate racial traits that you have to take together, but there are also some subraces like the ones for planetouched which give you things that you can’t get through alternate racial traits.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Magelyte
Yes, there are alternate racial traits, which you can replace the default racial traits with, as well as full subraces which usually work as several alternate racial traits that you have to take together….

Thanks. I’m aware of the potential to bundle traits into different groupings, but wondered if Pathfinder had ever published any variant races along the lines of the ones in the FRCS, UA, etc.


Originally Posted by Magelyte
…there are also some subraces like the ones for planetouched which give you things that you can’t get through alternate racial traits.

Where can I find these?

[Magelyte]

Where can I find these?

The ones I know of are the subraces for aasimar in Blood of Angels, the subraces for tieflings in Blood of Fiends, the subraces for the elemental planetouched in Plane-Hopper’s Handbook, the subraces for changelings in Blood of the Cover, and the subraces for dhampir that are in both Inner Sea Races and Blood of the Night.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Magelyte
The ones I know of are the subraces for aasimar in Blood of Angels, the subraces for tieflings in Blood of Fiends, the subraces for the elemental planetouched in Plane-Hopper’s Handbook, the subraces for changelings in Blood of the Cover, and the subraces for dhampir that are in both Inner Sea Races and Blood of the Night.

These are excellent, thanks.

Anything like this for any of the other races?

[Drelua]

I've only seen the dhampir and the planetouched options, d20pfsrd.com is probably the easiest way to look them up. They have all the info for each race on one page, I've always found it's better organized than the official srd.

[Magelyte]

These are excellent, thanks.

Anything like this for any of the other races?

Looking through Archive of Nethys, it looks like skinwalkers also have subraces like that, and goblins have the oversized goblin subrace. Heroes of the Fringe also has a bunch of subraces with their own unique alternate racial traits, and while mechanically their own seperate race, aquatic elf, drow noble, monkey goblin, primitive human, pureblood azlanti, and reborn samsaran probably count as subraces as well.

[NightbringerGGZ]

They aren't handled in the same way. Generally speaking, alternate traits are used to provide rules for subraces as well as regional and cultural differences. A few races have specified subraces, usually these change your ability score modifiers and swap out one more traits. Depending on wording, some of these swaps can be further modified by alternate traits.

Races with specified subraces: Aasimar, Changling, Dhampir, Ifrit, Oread, Skinwalker, Sylph, Tiefling, Undine

You also have a few unique races that most would consider as subraces but in PF1e wind up just being unique races: Aquatic Elf, Drow, Drow Noble, Duergar, Monkey Goblin, Sverfniblin

Finally you have the Lashuta who in 1e have extreme sexual dimorphism, leading to males and femalse having different ability scores. Starfinder