I have been playing around with the plain-touched races for our setting (DL) 3.5 + Pathfinder.
Thought I would throw them out here as well, and see what kind of comments and suggestions I recieved.
"I have always been conflicted about the inclusion of plane-touched races in Dragonlance.
On the one hand, I really like the basic idea, but on the other hand....the setting does not really lend itself to their inclusion.
I have also found it frustrating trying to include plane-touched as written in the MM.
Why doesn't my Elven/Aasimar have anything that actually makes him appear elven, and why does my Tiefling Ogre seem short changed ???
The release of Fiendish Codex II gave me some relief, as the Hellbound race “fluff” made more sense to me in a DL setting, and now (as odd as it may seem) the 4E fluff for Aasimar/Deva has struck a workable cord with me as well.
So this is the solution I am working on, it is a 3.5 + Pathfinder solution, although I have tried to keep the “fluff” “setting neutral”.
As Pathfinder is still undecided as to how LA races will be handled (due to the bump in core races) I have chosen to go the template route (which gives me the racial flavor of both the base race, plus the plane-touched race) for a +1LA template to an existing race."
Deva template (AKA Asimar)
Lonely wanderers who rarely see others of their kind, devas roam all corners of the world.
They are not a race created by the gods; but came into being when celestials chose to incorporate themselves in mortal flesh, and became the race of devas—or aasimars, as they are known to some.
Devas accepted the fate of perpetual reincarnation amongst mortals, and for thousands of years, each deva has been incarnated again and again in the world.
Devas are driven to seek new experiences and see new lands, lured on by an undying fascination with
the world and its people.
Each Deva has been reincarnated through scores of lifetimes in the far corners of the world, and in numerous forms.
Few have any ambition greater than living, loving, and striving in whatever circumstances they find themselves in,
and have no lands to which they are bound and no godly masters they are sworn to serve.
Deva is an inherited template that can be added to any corporeal Humanoid, or Giant (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
A Deva uses all the base creature’s statistics and abilities except as noted here. Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit dice base attack bonus, saves, or skill point.
Abilities Increase from the base creature as follows: +2 Int, +2 Wis
Skill Bonus: +2 racial bonus to Kn: History & Religion.
Memory of a thousand lifetimes (Ex): You gain a +2 insight bonus to all attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks.
Bloodline feats: You gain a bonus bloodline feat, chosen from a list specific to your bloodline.
You gain bonus bloodline feats at 1st, 7th, 13th, and 19th levels.
Immortal origins (Su): You are considered an “outsider” in regards to spells that restore souls to their bodies.
Spells such as Raise dead, Reincarnate, and Resurrection, don't work on you.
It takes a different magical effect, such as Limited wish, Wish, Miracle, or True resurrection to restore you to life.
Level Adjustment: +1
Hellbred (AKA Tieflings)
Sometimes, a soul recognizes the great evil he committed in life and truly wishes to repent. Most of these unfortunates
become spectres that haunt the world, repenting only as they realize their true fate. Others ascend to the heavens, having sought forgiveness before it was too late. Hellbred fall in the middle. They repent in the moment before their condemnation to Hell, yet too late to find salvation. The gods of good and justice, suspicious that the condemned soul merely seeks escape
for selfish reasons, instead reincarnate the individual to give him one last chance at salvation. In exchange, this newborn
creature, called a hellbred, gains impressive powers to better thwart the minions of Hell and maybe—in some way—prove
his worth to the gods of good to gain clemency.
Most hellbred are truly damned, despite their best efforts.
While they sought repentance, they asked for it too late. Only the most epic of heroic acts can release them from their
bond to Hell. Thus, a hellbred embarks on one seemingly doomed or impossible quest after another. A hellbred must
prove his worth to the gods of good, but the laws encoded in the Pact Primeval ensure that only the most exceptional
hellbred ascend to the celestial planes. Most still end up in Hell, where demons await to extract a hideous price for
their daring.
Hellbred is an inherited template that can be added to any corporeal Humanoid, or Giant (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
A Hellbred uses all the base creature’s statistics and abilities except as noted here. Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit dice base attack bonus, saves, or skill point.
Abilities Increase from the base creature as follows: +2 Int, +2 Cha
Skill Bonus: +2 racial bonus to Stealth and Bluff.
Infernal Resistance (Ex): You gain resistance 5 to Cold, Fire, and Electricity.
Bloodline feats: You gain a bonus bloodline feat, chosen from a list specific to your bloodline.
You gain bonus bloodline feats at 1st, 7th, 13th, and 19th levels.
Hellbound (Su): You are considered an “outsider” in regards to spells that restore souls to their bodies.
Spells such as Raise dead, Reincarnate, and Resurrection, don't work on you.
It takes a different magical effect, such as Limited wish, Wish, Miracle, or True resurrection to restore you to life.
Level Adjustment: +1
Opinions ???
I find the two different background fluffs somewhere between distasteful and unworkable. Mostly because they remind me of the extremely risible "tale of Baal Turath" nonsense from 4e, which seemed specifically designed to keep any PCs ancestors from having done the nasty with the nasty denizens of the nasty lower planes (and if you can't do the nasty with them, then who? Dial 976-SUC-CUB-BUS1 Horny demonesses are standing by!)
What these two origins have are people who look like angels are the descendants of angels and mortals, but people who look like devils are reincarnated wicked folk who are being given one last chance by the gods of good but are being made to look somewhat devilish as punishment for past wickedness. Or at least to mark them for convenient lynching.
Mixed in with the "Ew! No sex with devils!" squeamishness is a truly bizarre theological muddle with afterlives as well as reincarnation. Does everyone who dies have to go to an afterlife, or can some just reincarnate, regardless of their goodness and/or wickedness?
I think the current Pathfinder bloodline background for Sorcerers is exactly what it should be: Someone's distant ancestor somewhere shagged a demon, angel, lich, dragon or fairy princess, and that's it.
Actually that was the point to some degree, the setting we play, doesn't lend to a whole lot of extra-planer "bumping of uglies".
I should have included an appearance section, but both basically look like their parent race with the usual mild but striking differences;)
I actually like the idea that the Deva are actual celestials that are trapped in a cycle of mortal lives, each time a Deva dies, it reincarnates almost immidiatly somewhere else as a child of a varied race. That's far more inventive than my great granfather stuffed it to an Angel.
But "fluff" aside, I'm more concerned with the mechanics.
Each gets a +4 total ability modifier.
A first level ability.
And the option to take bloodline feats (scaled as the Sorcerer bloodline).
And the restriction to effects that restore them to life (as in outsider type).
Is that a fair +1 LA ???
What these two origins have are people who look like angels are the descendants of angels and mortals, but people who look like devils are reincarnated wicked folk who are being given one last chance by the gods of good but are being made to look somewhat devilish as punishment for past wickedness. Or at least to mark them for convenient lynching.
Mixed in with the "Ew! No sex with devils!" squeamishness is a truly bizarre theological muddle with afterlives as well as reincarnation. Does everyone who dies have to go to an afterlife, or can some just reincarnate, regardless of their goodness and/or wickedness?
Yes, in our setting most souls enter the river of souls at death and move on to something else (outside of reincarnation type magics, or being outsider types).
The fluff is biased towards the setting we play in, I'll have to give some thought as to how to clear that up.
I assure you it's not squeamishness regarding sex, It's just an attempt to come up with something more inventive than sex.
The main issue I was trying to address was the mechanical idea of using these as templates on existing races, so that the characters base race was still relevant, and the plane-touched aspect was "in addition too" so to speak.
The fluff is biased towards the setting we play in, I'll have to give some thought as to how to clear that up.
While I am rather indifferent toward the fluff, the mechanics sounds good.
I actually may steal some of it for my game...
'findel
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The mechanincs sound pretty good. If it is going to be just a template. The bonus feats can get rediculous. I mean a human/Deva Fighter has 3 feats to start? that could get a good many powergamer halfway into a few differnet feat trees. I was first looking at Whirlwind attack as that one is really hard to get too, and the Great cleave. I would say adjust that a bit. I mean take a look at the half-clestial, and half-fiendish templates. They are +4 with bonuses to every stat a chance for wings, and a spell-like ability at every couple of levels.
I just got hung up on one comment you made though.
Why doesn't my Elven/Aasimar have anything that actually makes him appear elven, and why does my Tiefling Ogre seem short changed ???
The reason for this is becasue the Assimar, and tiefling, are "human" with fiendish or celestial blood taininting them. The Forgotten realms made a few of the base races into the tainted ones. Like the Tanaruck is the Orc fiend. Sorry, just bugged me that someone tried the I am an Elf/Aasimar. Being a powergamer myself. I hate when the rest tweak rules so much.
The mechanincs sound pretty good. If it is going to be just a template. The bonus feats can get rediculous. I mean a human/Deva Fighter has 3 feats to start? that could get a good many powergamer halfway into a few differnet feat trees. I was first looking at Whirlwind attack as that one is really hard to get too, and the Great cleave. I would say adjust that a bit. I mean take a look at the half-clestial, and half-fiendish templates. They are +4 with bonuses to every stat a chance for wings, and a spell-like ability at every couple of levels.
The intent with the feats was for a small group of racially motivated feats to be available over time. The Hellbred feat list has been easy (using the devil touched feats from FF II), but creating a strain for the Deva has been more problematic.
What do people think...is it sound without the feats ???
Would you take a +1LA for the base abilities (minus the bloodline feats) ???
I just got hung up on one comment you made though.
Why doesn't my Elven/Aasimar have anything that actually makes him appear elven, and why does my Tiefling Ogre seem short changed ???The reason for this is becasue the Assimar, and tiefling, are "human" with fiendish or celestial blood taininting them. The Forgotten realms made a few of the base races into the tainted ones. Like the Tanaruck is the Orc fiend. Sorry, just bugged me that someone tried the I am an Elf/Aasimar. Being a powergamer myself. I hate when the rest tweak rules so much.
LOL, yes I am aware of that....it was kind of the point I was trying to make. That is part of the reason I decided to try and apply it as a template......wider range of available racial options.
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Planetouched are not really a problem in DL. It is easily explained by:
1.) Chaos and the effects of the Grey Gem of Gargath, (which no longer exists, sort of).
2.) Ambient Magic, (probably Divine in this case), either causeing some unforseen results, or purposeful experimentation.
3.) Breeding between any monsters you want.
4.) A race that came from outside of Ansalon, and is now either stuck
or chooses to stay there.
6.) A creation or extension of the ascended Mina
I can understand the reincarnation business, but you've got some rather odd theological questions going on here.
Why are devas always devas no matter how many times they're reincarnated, and regardless of how spectacularly they succeed or fail in their incarnate forms, but hellbred are regular mortal souls who were going to go to hell except for a last minute pardon process that got them out on probation but with hellbred powers?
Are there analogous demonic souls that are born in human form but were really devils all along, and do they remain devils even after centuries of doing their wickedness on earth and maybe not doing that evil a job of it? And are there souls who would have been risen as saints because of all the did they did except that, at the last minute, they decided to convert to evil, and the dark gods aren't going to let them go to heaven anyway except for one last reincarnation arm-wrestling match with Goodness? Or maybe best two out of three?
I can understand the reincarnation business, but you've got some rather odd theological questions going on here.
Why are devas always devas no matter how many times they're reincarnated, and regardless of how spectacularly they succeed or fail in their incarnate forms, but hellbred are regular mortal souls who were going to go to hell except for a last minute pardon process that got them out on probation but with hellbred powers?
Are there analogous demonic souls that are born in human form but were really devils all along, and do they remain devils even after centuries of doing their wickedness on earth and maybe not doing that evil a job of it? And are there souls who would have been risen as saints because of all the did they did except that, at the last minute, they decided to convert to evil, and the dark gods aren't going to let them go to heaven anyway except for one last reincarnation arm-wrestling match with Goodness? Or maybe best two out of three?
The direction I would like to go, in regards to the origins text, is to leave room for different possible reasons they can come into being.
For example, Deva are most often celestial beings who chose to incarnate in mortal flesh, in some distant age, only to find that it had trapped them outside the normal cycle of mortal souls.
But some Deva may be celestial beings (possibly servants of the God's) deliberatly returned by the god's to complete some task, or maybe even as a punishment for failing at some task.
Or members of a specific family line may be carrying the blessing of a specific patron god foreword in the family line.
Hellbred could be the souls of evil mortals, who made some significant step to changing their ways just prior to death, or a mortal soul who had been good, but then commited some horrible evil just prior to death which threw their souls destination in question.
Or like many of the Deva, a hellbred could be the soul of a demon, wrapped in mortal form, and loosed on the world by one of the evil gods for some sinister reason.
Conversly either could be spontaniously created by either celestial or infernal taint being aquired through some horrible mistake.
Planetouched are not really a problem in DL. It is easily explained by:
1.) Chaos and the effects of the Grey Gem of Gargath, (which no longer exists, sort of).
I try to avoid the Greygem as a reason (it's been horribly overused) ;)
2.) Ambient Magic, (probably Divine in this case), either causeing some unforseen results, or purposeful experimentation.
This is one of the causes I could see being used, for example a child who wonders into "God's home" and immerges as a Diva. Or a Mystic who climbs the "Silver stair" only to return as a Diva.
3.) Breeding between any monsters you want.
Still a viable option, I just wanted more options ;)
4.) A race that came from outside of Ansalon, and is now either stuck
or chooses to stay there.
I hadn't given that one any thought....interesting idea to persue.
I also like the idea that they could be fragments of Paladin & Takhisis, that's an interesting one to persue as well ;)
Thanks