Aasimar - Amended

[Langsley]

I created this because I believe that in the original Aasimar subraces funneled heavily towards Protect Aasimar, leaving Scourge a moot subrace. In this iteration, I've taken healing hands and placed it as a Protector feature and created new transformation feature. The flight of Protector was moved to Scourge, and a new feature was added to Fallen Aasimar to compensate for Healing Hands' loss.

I'm currently on shifty ground with the Fallen's feature. It was designed to reflect the strong willed nature of the lore blurb about brainwashing. However, I'm aware it that it's currently a stronger - albeit more limited use - version of the Monk's 7th level Stillness of Mind. This being a villainous subrace, I do think some leeway is deserving.

https://i.redd.it/nb0hs01pruj41.png

[Yakk]

As an action, you can remove stunned. That isn't very useful.

And a good percent of charmed and frightened situations don't give you to pick your own actions (either with dominate, it explicitly picks it, or with other charmed cases, you are devoted to protecting the charmed creature (and stripping your own charmed isn't doing that), or frightened where you have to use your action to flee).

[Langsley]

First off, thank you for commenting. I really appreciate it when people help me focus on the minute details of things I might've brushed off. Secondly, this ability was pulled and customized from the Monk's 7th level ability Stillness of Mind.


As an action, you can remove stunned. That isn't very useful.

After reading the the PHB I can imagine how the wording might be confusing. My intention with its addition was to allow a player to be able to still use a bonus action on a turn in which they were stunned. I imagine if there were ever a multi-round stun put in a game for whatever reason, it'd be useful there as well. Do let me know if I misinterpreted your words.



And a good percent of charmed and frightened situations don't give you to pick your own actions (either with dominate, it explicitly picks it, or with other charmed cases, you are devoted to protecting the charmed creature (and stripping your own charmed isn't doing that.

Far as I've looked, this is a very DM ruling kind of scenario.



frightened where you have to use your action to flee

This only applies to Turn Undead as far as I can see.

[Yakk]

As for fear -- um, the fear spell also makes them take the dash action and move away. Can they first use this action? Maybe RAI, but not RAW.

My advice would be, keep it simple.

Mind's Fortress
At the start of your turn, if you are stunned, charmed or frightened, the effect ends. Once you use this trait, you cannot use it again until the end of your next long rest.

Yes this is marginally stronger than the one you intended to write. But it fixes all of the weird rule interactions. It also doesn't let you *save* the effect; it happens automatically.

[T.G. Oskar]

Protector: Like the changes. Even though I'd miss Healing Hands, it makes sense to give them this feature because the race itself is pretty front-loaded with stuff. Their "nova" state is actually very interesting, as it fits the theme of warding allies by granting THP. I'd personally rephrase the ability as follows:

"During [the transformation], once on each of your turns, when you heal a target or grant temporary hit points to one, you grant them temporary hit points equal to your level. These temporary hit points stack with those you are already providing, but only once."

It's more concise language, while still saying the same.

Scourge: Interesting to see the Scourge Aasimar being the one granted flight. I notice that the Scourge doesn't get an extra feature like the Protector or Fallen, but I presume it's for balance reasons. (Fly speed without concentration can be quite powerful, after all.) However, I'd turn the "light aura" as its 1st-level subrace feature, capable of toggling it on and off. You can keep the damage portion of the "nova" state as-is, just mentioning that it affects all creatures within 10 ft, and that it automatically toggles your "light aura" on without being able to turn it off. That way, there's consistency without having to give them a powerful skill.

Fallen: I agree with Yakk. The language used suggests that if you're stunned, or if the particular ability that causes the charmed or frightened condition negates your actions, you can't remove the condition. This one makes it so that you get a pseudo-legendary save effect, but only on those traits and only 1/long rest. That way, you're implacable, but not by much. Even if you make it 1/short rest, it's still reasonably good.

--

That said, I like the changes. Makes the Protector subrace a bit more attractive to certain classes (i.e. Clerics and Druids), while not making the race too frontloaded. I mean - I like the official version, but this one is rebalanced quite well.