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I'm opening an old-ish can of worms here, but I'm not quite finding what I was looking for Searching the boards.
I was reading some of the fiction about Radovan and Varian Jeggare recently, and it got me to thinking about Tieflings, and Aasimar to a degree, as player races. According to the Core book, they're roughly on a level with the base races. I was wondering what forum pulse is on that implication. Going through some of the threads from the Playtest days, it seems like a lot of people were saying Elves should be more powerful than Tieflings, so I went through and did a side-by-side of them to see what the differences were.
Ineffective vs. Planetouched:
Spells:
Antilife Shell (ineffective)
Atonement (partial, negates Redemption/Temptation usage)
Charm Person (ineffective)
Daze (ineffective)
Dominate Person (ineffective)
Enlarge Person (ineffective)
Enlarge Person, mass (ineffective)
Ghoul Touch (ineffective)
Hold Person (ineffective)
Hold Person, mass (ineffective)
Reduce Person (ineffective)
Reduce Person, mass (ineffective)
Magic Items:
Elixir of Love
Effective vs. Planetouched:
Items
Holy Water
Unholy Water
Spells:
Chaos Hammer (higher damage)
Detect Chaos/Evil/Good/Law (more powerful auras)
Holy Smite (higher damage)
Nightmare (applies)
Order's Wrath (higher damage)
Raise Dead (applies)
Reincarnate (applies)
Resurrection (applies)
Unholy Blight (higher damage)
Magic Items:
Mace of Smiting
Sword of the Planes
In addition to the above differences from not being humanoids, they have the following traits:
-Fairly normal ability mods
-+2 to two Skills, which seems fairly normal
-Resist 5 to three energy types, which is a point I've seen raised multiple times as breaking them.
-A single spell-like ability
-Darkvision (normal)
-Fiendish Sorcery (Tiefling Sorcerers only)
-Normal ability mods
-Low-light vision (normal)
-Elven Immunities
-Elven Magic
-Keen Senses
-Weapon Familiarity (elven)
In response to the people who say that being Outsiders makes Planetouched have unfair spell resistances, I respond with the following list of things that are completely ineffective when used on Elves and things which they are resistant to, all based on the Elven Immunities racial feature:
Ineffective vs. Elves:
Abilities:
Gentle Rest
Master Strike (sleep version)
Spells:
Binding (partial, negates Slumber/Bound Slumber usage)
Deep Slumber
Dream
Nightmare
Sleep
Symbol of Sleep
Magic Items:
Sleep Arrow
Mildly Resistant To:
Abilities:
Fascinate (bardic music)
Suggestion (bardic music)
Suggestion, mass (bardic music)
Enchanting Smile
Spells:
Antipathy
Bane
Binding
Calm Emotions
Charm Person
Command
Command, greater
Confusion
Confusion, lesser
Crushing Despair
Daze
Deep Slumber
Demand
Dominate Person
Enthrall
Feeblemind
Geas, lesser
Good Hope
Heroism
Heroism, greater
Hideous Laughter
Hold Monster
Hold Monster, mass
Hold Person
Hold Person, mass
Hypnotism
Insanity
Irresistible Dance
Lullaby
Mind Fog
Modify Memory
Song of Discord
Suggestion
Suggestion, mass
Symbol of Insanity
Symbol of Persuasion
Sympathy
Word of Chaos (partial, confused condition)
Zone of Truth
Magic Items
Screaming Bolt
Staff of Charming
Staff of Enchantment
Candle of Truth
Elixir of Love
Elixir of Truth
Eyes of Charming
Harp of Charming
Helm of Telepathy (partial)
Cursed Items
Vacuous Grimoire
So, I'm curious what you all think. Planetouched races are immune to a few spells, both harmful and helpful, because they are Outsiders, and they have Outsider energy resistances. They're also affected by a handful of things Humanoids aren't because they are Outsiders. On the flip side of the coin, Elves are resistant to an entire School of Magic (Enchantment), and are resistant to or immune to a handful of class abilities. Likewise, Gnomes are resistant to an entire School of Magic (Illusions).
My question, then, is this: What do you think as far as how balanced these racial abilities are against each other under the Pathfinder rules?
Does this take into account that Aasimar and Tieflings are both statted as potential player races in the Pathfinder Beastiary?
A small thing: I realize this is interpretive and not RAW, but I would argue that a planetouched being should not be immune to antilife shell. Because they are native outsiders, and thus eat, breathe, sleep, and can be raised or resurrected (i.e., do have to an extent dual body-soul nature, unlike pure outsiders), they would therefore count as living creatures. I am aware the argument comes from the fact that the spell description says it does not affect outsiders, but I wonder if the native subtype was taken into consideration when that was written.
As to the broader question: I think ultimately speaking, it all comes out in the wash... that is to say, a lot of the immunities for both races are circumstantial... none of these things are going to be relevant even most of the time--and the one time it is, it's cool, and we move on. I would say planetouched are a tad more powerful because of their elemental resistances, but that is more notable at very low levels than high levels, where it makes less of a difference---and even then, it's still circumstantial.
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TheWarriorPoet519: This is taking into account both Aasimar and Tieflings being statted as player races, yes. Is it unbalanced to say that they are equal to the base races?
I'd probably house-rule the same as you, DeathQuaker. It's just under the strict RAW interpretation that Antilife Shell doesn't apply to them. That also raises the question about spells like Chaos Hammer. Would they have the more powerful effect on an Aasimar of a certain alignment because it is an Outsider of that alignment, or would the spell require it to be an Outsider with the relevant alignment subtype.