Scion of Humanity and Racial Heritage

I'm not sure if this is a frequent question on this side, but on some other boards this topic comes up in contention semi-frequently.

Can someone who takes the Racial Heritage feat select Aasimar (With the Scion of Humanity alternate trait) as their parent race?

so a Human taking racial heritage Aasimar? Yes you can do that. Was this your question?

References:
Racial Heritage
Aasimar
Scion of Humanity

Since Racial Heritage has a prerequisite of Human, and Aasimars are humans with a significant amount of celestial or other good outsider blood in their ancestry, I see no reason that they cannot ALSO take the alternate racial trait.

so a Human taking racial heritage Aasimar? Yes you can do that. Was this your question?

Basically I want an exact clarification. Given that by default (as evidenced by the fact that they are alternate racial traits) Aasimars are Outsiders, can you select a specific subset of a race to count as?

References:

Racial Heritage
Aasimar
Scion of Humanity

Since the OP doesn't specify the "someone", I'm going to assume it's something non-standard.

Its relating to an argument over on Giants about whether or not Scion of Humanity Aasimars count as a "Race"

By RAW, no you can't.

Racial Heritage

The blood of a non-human ancestor flows in your veins.

Prerequisite: Human.
Benefit: Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered both a human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.

Aasimar Racial Traits

Native Outsider: Aasimars are outsiders with the native subtype.

emphasis mine

The base Aasmiar is Outsider, not Humanoid. Because of that, you can't pick them even if they can take Scion of Humanity and be treated as humanoid. Unfortunately, you can't make that choice for Racial Heritage.

If this is for a home game, however, it probably wouldn't be out of the question to request it from your GM.

That said, you can do the opposite. You can take an Aasimar with the Scion of Humanity trait and qualify for Racial Heritage. :)

Racial heritage does not, in any way, allow you to select alternate racial abilities.

The answer is no, they can not.

According to Inner Sea Races the definition of 'game race' mostly comes down to what stat-block they use: Elves, Drow, and Aquatic Elves are different races, but Snowcasters, Jinin, and Ekujae are different ethnicities within the elven race.

By that system, Aasimars have different stats and thus count as a different 'race' than Humans. However, an Aasimar with the 'Scion of Humanity' trait would still be a member of the 'Aasimar' race.

As others have said, not a valid use of the feat by the rules but entirely plausible for a house rule. Is there a character concept behind this or is it strictly a theoretical?

I'd say it's even possible by RAW:

Scion of Humanity: Some aasimars' heavenly ancestry is extremely distant. An aasimar with this racial trait counts as an outsider (native) and a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids. (...)

This would apply for an ancestor of the character, making the ancestor an Aasimar humanoid. And this would unlock Racial Heritage (Aasimar) for the PC.

I'm going to go on the side of no, Racial Heritage does not specify that you may change the alternate racial traits of the race in order to select it for the feat, nor has any FAQ of errata been made to suggest that either so you cannot select Racial Heritage (Scion of Humanity Aasimar). That being said, is there a specific reason why you aren't simply being an Aasimar in the first place? They're generally considered one of the best races and you'd be able to take all the human FCBs and feats so you're not losing out on much buildwise.

I'm going to go on the side of no, Racial Heritage does not specify that you may change the alternate racial traits of the race in order to select it for the feat, nor has any FAQ of errata been made to suggest that either so you cannot select Racial Heritage (Scion of Humanity Aasimar). That being said, is there a specific reason why you aren't simply being an Aasimar in the first place? They're generally considered one of the best races and you'd be able to take all the human FCBs and feats so you're not losing out on much buildwise.

You can not take human FCBs as an Aasimar. You might be thinking of half-elf.

I'd say it's even possible by RAW:

Quote:

Scion of Humanity: Some aasimars' heavenly ancestry is extremely distant. An aasimar with this racial trait counts as an outsider (native) and a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids. (...)

This would apply for an ancestor of the character, making the ancestor an Aasimar humanoid. And this would unlock Racial Heritage (Aasimar) for the PC.

It doesn't look like that is the question the OP is asking. It looks to me as if he is asking if his human character can take Racial Heritage (Aasimar) and not just general Aasimar but specifically one with the Scion of Humanity trait.

As already pointed out Aasimar's are not humanoid and don't qualify for this feat. So an Aasimar with Scion of Humanity can take Racial Heritage but a Human cannot take Racial Heritage (Aasimar).

Edit: I would be interested to know why he wants to do this. I can't figure out a reason.

The result would be moot. An Scion Aasimar counts as both Outsider(Native) and Humanoid(Human). Racial Heritage lets you select a Humanoid race and count as that race, in addition to Human, for effects related to race. Scion Aasimar count as Human, so you'd be getting Human; which you already count as. To illustrate:

Half-Elf counts as both Human and Elf.
Scion of Humanity Aasimar counts as Human and Outsider(native)
Takes Racial Heritage(Scion of Humanity Aasimar)
- In addition to counting as Human, now also counts as Human
Result: Counts as Elf, Human, and Human. Whoop-de-do

It doesn't look like that is the question the OP is asking. It looks to me as if he is asking if his human character can take Racial Heritage (Aasimar) and not just general Aasimar but specifically one with the Scion of Humanity trait.

I understood it as he wants Racial Heritage (humanoid Aasimar). But Kazaan has a point, it would be just Racial Heritage (human).

Allowing it as houserule sounds good, but then it would also apply to tieflings, half-elemental people (including sulis) and probably more.

Alternatively, there is always the Celestial bloodline, either as class, Eldritch Heritage feat line or as secondary class (variant multiclassing).

For those wondering, it was in regard to a tangential argument over on GitP regarding a third person's character build legality.

Counting as an aasimar would allow you access to the aasimar only feats (Angelic Blood, Flesh, and Wings).

johnnythexxxiv wrote:

I'm going to go on the side of no, Racial Heritage does not specify that you may change the alternate racial traits of the race in order to select it for the feat, nor has any FAQ of errata been made to suggest that either so you cannot select Racial Heritage (Scion of Humanity Aasimar). That being said, is there a specific reason why you aren't simply being an Aasimar in the first place? They're generally considered one of the best races and you'd be able to take all the human FCBs and feats so you're not losing out on much buildwise.

You can not take human FCBs as an Aasimar. You might be thinking of half-elf.

Some aasimars' heavenly ancestry is extremely distant. An aasimar with this racial trait counts as an outsider (native) and a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids. She can pass for human without using the Disguise skill. This racial trait replaces the Celestial language and alters the native subtype.

Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered both a human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.

Emphasis mine.

Can someone who takes the Racial Heritage feat select Aasimar (With the Scion of Humanity alternate trait) as their parent race?

Absolutely not.

Racial Heritage requires that you choose a humanoid race.

Aasimars are outsiders, not humanoids.

The fact that the Scion of Humanity option exists for Aasimar is completely irrelevant. This is an option you can choose IF you're an Aasimar. You're a human and thus can't choose this option.

Yes. This option works in reverse.

The Scion of Humanity Aasimar can take the Racial Heritage feat.

A Human could not choose Aasimar though.

Nothing in the Racial Heritage feat allows you to choose a race with an alternate racial trait, or template.

It's really that simple.