[3.P]Defend Aasimars/Tieflings

[CockroachTeaParty]

I think it started with 4e... when Tieflings became part of the core race lineup.

Initially, I gave a shrug. Whatever, they weren't any goofier than Dragonborn. It was a new system, a new world, and I had an open mind, willing to experience what it had to offer.

A few years later, I had all but stopped playing 4e (for various reasons; that's a tale for another thread) and returned to 3.5, which was, and still is, my preferred edition of D&D.

However, the lifeblood of 3.5 was slowing down, coagulating into a sort of stagnation; sure, various forum-goers (here, and elsewhere) kept the system alive, but I no longer could feel that particular rush of excitement when a new book was released.

Then, I discovered Pathfinder. Despite some initial objections and scoffing, I've come to embrace Pathfinder; it certainly has its flaws, but the community of active players is alive and well, and it did enough to freshen things up a bit for me.

However... following the release of the Advanced Race Guide (or whatever it's called), and recent amendments to the Pathfinder Society rules, aasimars and tieflings have become one of the 'featured' races; indeed, they can now be made into PFS characters without a merit. For all intents and purposes, they are now perfectly legal to play.

...Now, I know this is mostly a matter of opinion. I'm unlikely to be swayed. But I really don't like aasimars and tieflings. They just don't do it for me. Something about them seems stale, bland, uninteresting.

They echo of a certain 'Mary Sue' flavoring to me. An aasimar or tiefling is automatically a tragic figure, alienated from normal (human) society, yet blessed with great potential and unique gifts. This is reflected in their ability score bonuses (+2/+2 in Pathfinder, with no negative hit to a third ability).

Sure, they're not really unbalanced; they come out ahead a little bit in the ability score department, have some innate resistances and SLA's, but they're not going to be noticeably different from a human character built in a similar way.

Again, it's not a balance issue... it's a flavor one, an issue of essence, a certain 'je ne sais quoi.' They're humans with different-colored eyes (and sometimes hair), with perhaps a tail and little horns if you're feeling dramatic. In all other respects, they're basically human. There's no unifying culture, no inherently-inhuman angle from which to RP them; you're a human with a sad backstory of alienation, except somehow less interesting than a half-orc.

It's fair to say that I find the whole 'human half-breed' phenomenon somewhat unpalatable; but my aversion (disdain, even) towards aasimars and tieflings runs deeper than that. Am I a racist? No... I don't think so.

One of the main things that irks me about these planetouched races is that everyone seems to play them. (I'm aware that such a sweeping generalization is inherently untrue, but read on) Just go to the 'currently recruiting' forums for PBP games, here or anywhere else. You could make a drinking game out of it: drink for every tiefling or aasimar submission. Your liver will soon disintegrate.

So many people seem to love them; they seem to err on the side of newcomers to the game. There's very little in the way of variety between these characters; tieflings are dark and moody (or else WACKY and PHUN), while aasimars are really boring (sometimes moody, otherwise no different from a human with strong convictions). They all have red/gold eyes, silver/black hair, and... an amazing power to make me lose interest in them almost immediately.

I almost consider them a creativity crutch. Or maybe they appeal to power-gamers; 'Ooh, this race has +2 to two ability scores! MUST PLAY!'

Eh... I dunno. Maybe I'm just being strange. Does anyone else share my loathing for tieflings and aasimars? Would such folk care to elaborate on the intricacies of their hatred?

Likewise, if anyone has an impassioned love for these races, and wishes to explain their virtues and benefits, I'd also be interested in reading such replies.

Again, I know that there's little that can sway an opinion such as mine, which essentially boils down to 'I find them boring and over-played.' But I needed to vent this.

Feel free to share any pseudo-illogical fictional racial preferences here; I love sharing!

[Deadline]

I quite like Aasimars and Tieflings, but my love for D&D started with Planescape, so planars aren't "lonely outsiders", they are the norm.

I found your "creativity crutch" comment odd, given that you freely admit that they don't generally have a racial identity or culture. How can a blank slate be a crutch? It seems an awful lot like the exact opposite of that.

Now I can understand hatred of a particular fantasy race, but planars (presumably your hatred extends to the other planars, like chaonds)?

No. There is a race deserving of your ire though. A race so decidedly unpleasant that their very existence has been eliminated from at least one official setting. Store up your bile and venom and unleash it on the race that truly deserves it.

GNOMES

[CockroachTeaParty]

@Deadline
Mm... perhaps I wasn't saying it quite correctly.

By creativity crutch, I mean that it seems if someone wants to play a moody, edgy, or dark character, they have a tendency to roll up a tiefling. It's 'moody darkness in-a-can,' if you will. You could do the same thing with a human, or any other race, really; there's multiple options. If you like the 'tainted bloodline' thing, you could make a sorcerer with an abyssal or infernal bloodline, for instance. Of you could make an ostracized dwarf with nothing to lose, hell-bent on vengeance; anything would be more interesting to me other than another cut-and-paste tiefling.

I don't have anything against the concept of plane-touched as a whole. The thing is, I never see anything other than aasimars or tieflings on that front. No genesai, or genie-touched, or what-have-you. I'd almost welcome some variety.

As for blank-slates versus non blank-slate races, I find that having something like a racial culture, history, etc. can actually help make a character more interesting. Do they play against the stereotype? Do they conform? What's their opinion on... stuff? Aasimars and tieflings have a similarly 'blank slate' to humans, but with nothing else really going for them; no culture, etc. And they (should[?]) be rare enough that most normal folks wouldn't even know what they were (depending on setting) essentially putting them right back to being a baseline human. Just a 'special' human.

[BRC]

I am incapable of forming strong feelings on them, largely because of their rather bland fluff.
Tieflings have the "Rejected Outsider" thing going for them, which is an interesting angle, but it's the same angle you could go for with, say, a half-orc. Aasimars are basically just pretty humans. Neither one forms their own society, and both can be basically indistinguishable from Humans.

Mind you, I have yet to encounter anybody who was playing either an Aasimar or a tiefling, but I have a feeling that if somebody wanted to play a dark, brooding character, they would do so whether or not Tieflings existed.

[Deadline]

I thought "rejected" and "brooding" were what Drow rangers were for?

[Hiro Protagonest]

I just wish they'd change the Angel-Blooded SLA so that it's actually worth a damn as more than a combat buff.

I was so pumped when I first discovered it. I was like "yes! Finally, a good shapechanging ability" (being able to swap genders is kind of an obsession for me, and full shapechanging means I can do the "old man who's actually a powerful warrior/spellcaster" trope). Then I realized "wait, it lasts ONE MINUTE PER LEVEL!?". *sigh* Just give me the ability to change shape into any small or medium humanoid race, WITHOUT taking on the physical stats of the race, and make it last day or week/level.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I don't know about Pathfinder, but for 3.5, they see a lot of play because, for certain character archetypes (specifically, those that rely on certain ability scores), they are probably the best--at least, in "lesser" forms. Tieflings, with +2 DEX/+2 INT/-2 CHA and racial bonuses to Bluff and Hide (two essential "roguelike" skills), are probably the best race for a skill monkey without an overtly social focus (and even so, the flat -1 penalty is often compensated for by the extra skill points), and they come with a lot of bonuses that, while not totally remarkable on their own (Darkvision, three minor energy resistances, Darkness SLA), can be good at lower levels (and the Drow of the Underdark feats corresponding to the Darkness SLA can be worthy of mention--specifically, the ability to cast it as an immediate action as a defensive ability, or the ability to hide in plain sight in this darkness).

An Aasimar, by contrast, makes for a good divine caster, being that it's the only LA+0 race with a WIS bonus, and an especially good Cleric or Paladin, since both have abilities relating to Charisma (turn undead, smite, divine grace). A Magic-Blooded Lesser Aasimar has a +4 CHA at zero Level Adjustment, and you can't underestimate the value of two extra bonus spells and a save DC two higher for a Sorcerer. Additionally, Spot and Listen bonuses are never wasted, and, combined with the WIS bonus, makes for a passable scouting character on that merit alone (consider a Ranger, who has WIS-based casting, but is not gearing toward a particular combat focus).

So these two races are often chosen for reasons other than "I want to be super duper original and play a slightly demonic character with light purple eyes and a troubled past"--sometimes, they're played because they actually are mechanically sound in certain niches. Of course, you will end up flooded with Tiefling Rogues and Aasimar Clerics as the natural conclusion of this progression, but then, I don't see many people complaining at the lack of Dwarf Sorcerers or Elf Dragon Shamans, so I hardly see this as an issue unique to the lesser planetouched.

[Chambers]

Again, it's not a balance issue... it's a flavor one, an issue of essence, a certain 'je ne sais quoi.' They're humans with different-colored eyes (and sometimes hair), with perhaps a tail and little horns if you're feeling dramatic. In all other respects, they're basically human. There's no unifying culture, no inherently-inhuman angle from which to RP them; you're a human with a sad backstory of alienation, except somehow less interesting than a half-orc.

I bolded the part that stood out for me. When I think of Aasimars & Tieflings and their cultural heritage (which isn't very often, to be often), I think of the Celestial Heavens and the Nine Hells. The Pact Primeval is part of a Tieflings cultural heritage - how awesome (and terrifying) is that? Aasimars share bloodlines with the direct servants of the Holy - how might an Aasimar that's descended from an Angel of Tempus be different than one who is descended from an Angel of Boccob? How would those differences play out in the characters life?

I place Aasimars and Tieflings against the greater backdrop of the Planes. There's so much going on in the Heavens and Hells and each Planetouched character gets to be connected to it in some intimate way. How is that not awesome? :smallwink:

[Waker]

Maybe other people have had a different experience than me, but I almost never see either of those races being played. In 10 years, I think I have seen both of them played a total of once, incidentally both in somewhat recent PF games. And really, I don't think it was because the players wanted tragic, brooding characters or ones that were mechanically superior, but rather that the party's makeup was kinda weird. The Tiefling shared a party with two half-orcs, a ratkin, ??? (Synthesis Summoner, never saw him) and a dwarf. The Aasimar was partnered with a Goliath, Killoren, Half-Elf and a Human.

[Spuddles]

This thread needs some tl;drs. I honestly just skimmed the text walls

The planetouched have good mechanical stats. Their individual fluff is as much you want to make out of it, which frankly, I find nice. Having 20 books devoted to dwarves and being told I'm "playing my dwarf wrong" because he does something that is contradicted in a book somewhere makes me want to punch someone in the face.

[avr]

Sometimes people want to play them because they want to play that particular flavour. Sometimes they want to play them because they want to play a Mary Sue who isn't bad at anything. Either way, who are you to tell them they're having fun wrong?

[Sayt]

Mary sue is what you make of it. While I agree that there are certainly some very tired tropes of Aasimar and Tieflings, the same is equally true of the aloof elf, the alcoholic scots-dwarf, or the kelptomaniac halfling, all tropes I basically despise.

Also, small point of order, all pathfinder tieflings and tiefling variants are at +2, +2, -2

[Malimar]

One of the main things that irks me about these planetouched races is that everyone seems to play them. (I'm aware that such a sweeping generalization is inherently untrue, but read on) Just go to the 'currently recruiting' forums for PBP games, here or anywhere else. You could make a drinking game out of it: drink for every tiefling or aasimar submission. Your liver will soon disintegrate.

I don't know if I have much of an opinion, positive or negative, on the rest of your thesis, but I feel the urge to offer counterevidence for this particular one. Even though you say yourself that you know it's untrue/an exaggeration.

My 3.5e open megadungeon game on this forum has had 41 characters submitted. It's a game that's friendly to obscure races (mongrelfolk are the most populous race in my world): There's been a whisper gnome, a hellbred, a grey elf, a silverbrow human, and two warforged*, but no planetouched. And I even allow lesser planetouched!

Though, in fairness, I don't think it's explicitly stated anywhere that I allow lesser planetouched, other than that the book it's in is on my list of permitted sources, so there's a bit of the "you'd have to ask" barrier that skews the sample, given that this game starts at level 1. I imagine planetouched are much more popular in Pathfinder, where all the +0 races were bumped up in power and planetouched no longer have whatever's Pathfinder's equivalent of LA is.

Of all the games I've played over an actual physical tabletop, I've seen two aasimar and two tieflings (one of each in 3.5e games, one of each in Pathfinder games). None of them were played with much in the way of the "outcast" fluff. (Well, one of them was just created this week, by me, and I haven't even played him yet, and I'm kind of going to play him as an outcast, but that has more to do with having 6 charisma and being a witch.)

* I kind of feel about warforged the way you feel about tieflings/aasimar, though I don't frown upon or restrict them or penalize people play them or anything. (And yet I've been thinking about making one for the next 3.5e game I get invited to, only because I had the crazy idea of a warforged fleshwarper, who deliberately replaces his mechanical parts with gooey, slimy organic parts, and found it hilariously excellent.) Probably everybody's just got one race that really bugs them, but which a majority of the rest of the population think are just cool.