Cool Tiefling's page

Is there any particular reason why your so opposed to selecting a fiendish lineage feat?

Slip sideways works with any of Grimspawn (NE daemons), Pitborn (CE demons), or Hellspawn (LE devils).

Without selecting one of these, your Nephilim doesn't have a clear distinction of being a "tiefling" it's a "planar scion" of indeterminate origin manifesting no real features/traits.

If anything, I think there's an argument to be made that you should get one of the lineage feats (for free) and be required to select one.

If things weren't written as they are, you could end up with Celestial nephilim taking something that was meant for evil descended characters.

Yes, there's a reason - maybe more than one - why I oppose this idea so much.

First and foremost, I dislike the tropes depicted in the lineages. A devil might be many other things besides a deceptive lawyer. A demon might be something other than a brute and so on. I like to create my characters own backstory based on what I think is the right fiendish ancestry for my Tiefling who can't even call himself that anymore.

My character has plenty of fiendish traits. Only they aren't based on sny lame lineage feat.

I think that you should be able to choose whether your ancestry is fiendish based or not without the need to spend your precious ancestry feat on something you don't like and previously could easily avoid.

Thank you all for your input. I think that we may call this a wrap since my GM has listened and reconsidered.

Cheers :-D

You guys are cracking me up... RFLMAO :-D

Cool Tiefling wrote:

I would LOVE to be able to apply common sense but we are playing RAW.

I love this sentence. If I have the choice between a sensible rule and an illogical one, I'll choose the illogical one as RAW is specifically designed to screw the gaming experience.

And then, I'll proudly tell everyone that I play RAW, as if others were playing something else (if you know where to find RANW, I'm interested).

Everyone plays RAW, otherwise they play another game.
And common sense has a lot to do with RAW. In general, the rules try to be sensible. That's why you roll a Fortitude save against poison and a Will save against mind affecting spells and not the other way around. Because illogical rules reduce the gaming experience.

So, the only question is: Would you enforce a reading screwing the gaming experience when you have far enough leeway to apply a sensible one?

Why don't you read my OP or alternately my last post completely?

I am NOT the GM! Get it? So my whole point of asking for help is to try to find unobjectionable rules that clarify the matter and which is not based on subjective interpretations.

I present you with the arguments that I'm facing. Not because I am against a sensible ruling but because my GM is playing by the rules as written.

Not everybody is playing with RAW. Somebody is playing with RAI - Rules as Intended. The RAW and RAI terms are very commonly used in this Forum so please - pretty please - stop patronizing me.

I thank you all for clarifying my problem. The last link was just what I needed. Thank you very much. :-)

For those who know Drows absolutely. For those who just have heard of strange looking subterranean elves who worship demons, critical failure on RK might make it real.

But which is the better option? To be mistaken for a demon worshipping elf or some kind of actual half-fiend? LOL

I have read all of the above and to summarize it a bit:

No check needed to recognize:
- Common ancestries like:
- Humans including common versatile heritages like half-orc and half-elf
- Elves
- Dwarves
- Gnomes
- Halflings
etc.. (all the common player character races)
- Common heritages from one's own ancestry

A simple DC check to identify:
- Common heritages like Rock Dwarf, from common ancestries that you don't belong to
- Uncommon heritages from one's own ancestry (but not information about lineage, bloodlines, etc.); eg., you're a human a recognizes a human Tiefling as such.
- Uncommon ancestries (but not their heritages)

But I wonder at what difficulty??

A simple DC based chack at increased difficulty to identyfy:
- Uncommon heritages from common ancestries that you don't belong to (but not information about lineage, bloodline, etc.); eg.; you're a human and recognizes a dwarfish Tiefling.

A level based DC to recognize:
- More specific information on rare ancestries, heritages or histories about specific individuals.

But again I'm not sure about these rules, so what exactly is a Level based DC?

It's really a problem only because tieflings are ostracized within the setting of Pathfinder. If you're making a character of a heritage that is ostracized, then I would expect that you would expect to deal with being ostracized. And I'm not suggesting that you can't hide it, but also saying narrative description alone doesn't do the job. Make a deception check and cover yourself with a cloak. At a distance people wont be able to make you out as anything besides humanoid. Up close, your deception might fool them.

Or be loud and proud about being a tiefling and fight for tiefling rights.

Or your GM doesn't have to keep the ostracized tiefling thing as part of the setting.

But I just think making a character that is a member of an ostracized heritage that just writes away all their problems misses the point a bit.

Ultimately though, it's all up to the GM and how the handle it.

I actually agrees with everything that you wrote here :-)

I never intended for my Tiefling character to not face ostracism. In fact I play him as proud of being what he is. However he is also a hunted man - wanted for a crime he hasn't commited. So for that reason he wants to be able to pass as a normal human being if the need arises.
And it kind of triggered me when you said that he was always gonna be recognisable even when in fact this isn't the case.
But aside from that, I never intended to write up a human character who had all the benefits of being a Tiefling but none of the drawbacks. That would indeed be missing the point.

So for your benefit I will share a picture of my character as he will look when he will (soon I hope) have his tail back.

An oldschool ink drawing of my Tiefling character

Actually, I do not think we can really mistake them for Fiends. Because those need Religion to identify IIRC, whereas I think Tieflings fall under Society.

I agree. Fiends are very otherworldly to behold whereas Tieflings only seems "weird" or abhorent. But not otherworldly. And I say this because Tieflings now have the human and humanoid trait. Gone are the "Native outsider" which were used in D&D 3.5 and PF1, and thus their "otherworldliness" as well.

But a half-fiend (also known as cambions) would definitely reek of otherworldliness.

There's actually a Tiefling feat for energy resistance. It is less powerful than its PF1 equivalent, but it has more flavor because it is tied to the specific fiend you descend from.

I am fully aware of all the tiefling heritage feats, Morgan. But a Tiefling in PF2 is but a shadow of its former D&D3.5/PF1 self, which was what I was trying to say.

And as I have been arguing for; when you don't get any fancy abilities then in what way will that affect your characters appearance?

I never intended this discussion to be about what are or aren't allowed when deciding on the appearance of Tieflings. It appears that PF2 has made it easier to create a very very slightly planetouched human being who may still call herself a Tiefling, but who in appearance doesn't differ from an Infernal powered sorcerer.

I miss the native outsider character with Bane, Darkness, Resistance to Fire, Cold and Acid, etc., etc. This was a cool kind of character to play, and i deeply lament its departure from the possibilities of Pathfinder character creation.

Another Tiefling character of mine was all this: A guy with goats horns, pointy ears, a nasty bite, greyish skin, glowing red demon eyes and a muscular prehensile barbed tail. He was a PF1 character but since we were playing in the Forgotten Realms setting, he originated from Thay, and was a trained Rogue/Fighter Knifemaster Assassin. A Neutral Evil piece of Mask venerating nastiness who didn't care whether you recognised him as a Tiefling or not.

So how do your Tiefling characters look like? And do they care?

The Shadowdancer Archetype from APG gain the Greater Darkvision ability when taking the Shadowdancer Dedication Feat (8th level at the earliest)

I strongly disagree. Not with the heritage bit, bad wording on my part I guess. But with the idea that you can descriptively rid yourself of your problems. Saying "I had to cut off my tail" isn't paying a price unless you had a tail which provided a benefit and cut if off, losing that benefit, to pass for human (or whatever base ancestry).

Passing for not a tiefling is a benefit that shouldn't be free, from a mechanical perspective. Saying "I filed off my horns or cut off my tail" doesn't represent a real expenditure from your mechanical options.

I agree that one should not be able to descriptively pay a price for gaining an ingame benefit. But what benefit are you refering to? PF2 Tieflings gain nothing baseline for being a Tiefling except for Low-light vision and a bad reputation.

You as a player have lots of indluence on how to describe the appearance of your character. Many obvious choices will make you stand out as a Tiefling. But other less obvious choices will definitely not. At least not unless you have personal interactions with other people.

And horns, tails, vestigial wings and whatever is not required as appearance traits. RAW never mentions this anywhere. In fact a Tiefling might appear a fully normal human but with displaced internal organs. This will make you stand out from a normal human - but not in any obvious way. And this is RAW, mind you.

Unless stopped and interrogated, my character would pass as a human or any other kind of humanoid without problem if he - say was wearing a hooded cloak. Orcs, Hobgoblins, Elves, etc. would be equally able to do that.

But if he was stopped then everybody would be alerted by his black eyes and pale skin. Maybe some kind of check would be necessary to identify him as a Tiefling but no check would necessary to identify him as something ELSE than a normal human.

If they created a tiefling feat called "Pass for Human (or whatever race)" then that would be fair. It'd probably need to restrict you from gaining any feats that would obviously mark you as not of your base ancestry, such as wings on a human.

I'm not saying tieflings have to stand out, but to the extent that people are able to identify what "race" a character is they will know you are tiefling. Otherwise, is my opinion, your getting a benefit at not cost.

Edit: That said, you could use the deception skills to hide/disguise your features to pass for human to make up for lacking a "pass for human" heritage feat.

Of course, that comes with the cost of investing a skill so again it balances itself.

In PF1 you gained a lot of perks for being a Tiefling. Of course you had to pay a price for gaining those. The Pass as Human "feat" was not transfered to PF2 because it wasn't necessary to do so. Mainly because you now don't get anything crucial for being a Tiefling. You will have to allocate you precious few Ancestry Feats on every Tiefling ability that gain. And many of those cannot be chosen at 1st level. And you can't change your mind on most of the decisions that you make in this regard.

But it should be obvious that the description of the Tiefling character should correspond to any Feat choice that you make or plan to make.

Finally, I would like to commend the new system, because now you are able to create a Tiefling character that might either be very monstrous to behold (and should be able to take any decired Tiefling Feat) or very humanlike with only a few marks to make him "non-human" (and with a correspondingly narrow choice of feats). Anything is possible - but should be worked out with your GM of course.

I never intended for my character to even have a tail. But I wanted him to have one after he had been in play for a pair of sessions. So I added the tail to his backstory, so he was able to eventually grow a new tail. A tail that doesn't confers any benefits but only flair and roleplaying opportunities.

Given that you need a society check to identify humanoids, I'm not even really sure it can be accurately claimed that ancestry is inherently obvious.

Like, there's probably a reasonable assumption that you could tell members with exaggerated features apart without a roll, but halflings and gnomes are sometimes described as looking similar to human children, and given that they share a size category, a short, stocky human may very well look like a dwarf.

To go on the versatile heritages, like, heterochromia exists in non changelings too, so someone with mismatching eye colors isn't a surefire sign (though it's 100% valid to say your setting/culture has superstitions about heterochromatic people). The blue skin of a duskwalker might also be misconstrued as either a tiefling or aasimar trait to someone who doesn't know much about either, azata (and by extension, azata aasimars) are frequently described as looking like fey (lyrakiens are explicitly mistaken for fey extremely frequently), agathion aasimar and rhakshasa tiefling both have animal features, etc.

Like, seems to me the assumption that ancestry is always easily identifiable is more of player and dm side assumption than anything lore wise

I agree 100% here.

Cool Tiefling wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Radovan looks like a perfect example of what the PF1 Pass for Human race trait is.

Also all versatile heritages are as identifiable as the half heritages. Aasimar and Teiflings are no different then a Changeling, Dhampir, or Duskwalker.

In fact unless there is a feat that says otherwise, or a GM rules otherwise, there is always a mark or sign of the strange heritage. It should be easy enough to see any of the strange features without using a disguise. Ex: Duskwalker's distinctive skin.

Changelings and Aasimars do have an easier time.

Remember that this isn't PF1. You only gain a human with Low Light vision and a strange past when selecting the Tiefling Heritage. Everything else you gain buy acquiring Ancestry Feats.

But I never said that my Tiefling wasn't identifiable as such. Only that you had to look him in his face to do so. Or be riding close by on a horse... in which case the horse would flung you off and start stomping my poor boy. :-D

My statement was a response to the first half were you said tieflings don't have to be recognizable because "pathfinder tieflings are dont have 'standardized looks'". But tieflings are not recognized because their look is standard, they are recognized because they look different from normal.

PF1 Golarion lore is still cannon unless stated otherwise. And tieflings in lore were very recognized because of their strange features. Pass for Humans, was a mechanical effect with in lore consequence, which PF2 does not replicate. Its a matter of GM and Players agreeing what is reasonable, for the lore/mechanics of that table.

If you look Variable Heritages do in fact change the appearance, because you are no longer "just a human" or "just an Gnome". Each one states how the appearance changes or may change. Changelings will have weird eyes, Duskwalkers and Dhampirs will have weird skins, Aasimars and Tieflings will have any number of different traits.

My statement was never about your character.

Then I don't think that we disagree at all.

I did not mean that Tieflings are recognizable because they all look the same, but because they do look different.

TBH, I have no problem with the description of your character as a Tiefling. And I could see the additional disadvantage of being offensive to animals as worth being otherwise almost indistinguishable from a human.

I'm not unreasonable. While having a Tiefling with good looks I wouldn't miss out on some good roleplaying situations. And at some point he will definitely regain his lost tail. ;-)

Radovan looks like a perfect example of what the PF1 Pass for Human race trait is.

Also all versatile heritages are as identifiable as the half heritages. Aasimar and Teiflings are no different then a Changeling, Dhampir, or Duskwalker.

In fact unless there is a feat that says otherwise, or a GM rules otherwise, there is always a mark or sign of the strange heritage. It should be easy enough to see any of the strange features without using a disguise. Ex: Duskwalker's distinctive skin.

Changelings and Aasimars do have an easier time.

Remember that this isn't PF1. You only gain a human with Low Light vision and a strange past when selecting the Tiefling Heritage. Everything else you gain buy acquiring Ancestry Feats.

But I never said that my Tiefling wasn't identifiable as such. Only that you had to look him in his face to do so. Or be riding close by on a horse... in which case the horse would flung you off and start stomping my poor boy. :-D

Half-orcs and Half-elves are just as recognizable as Dwarves or Halflings. As are Tieflings.

Except for the Tiefling bit you are quite right in your assumption.

But not in regard to Tieflings. Tieflings in PF2 is not a race with a standardized look. Had they had the "good" looks of the DnD 4e or 5e Tieflings then they would have been recognizable from quite a distance. But this doesn't hold true in the Pathfinder universe. Whether that being in novel fiction (Radovan is not immediately recognizable as a Tiefling) nor rulebooks (Blood of Fiends)

And I am talking about recognization from a distance. Not close up, were any Tiefling is likely to get identified as such within a very short timeframe unless they have been disguised. Tbh, I thought this were made clear from previous entries to this thread (and not only my own comments)

Bonus: I just altered my Avatar to another picture of a male Tiefling. He looks more like an elf than like a standard Tiefling, right? And this is an official depiction of a Tiefling!

If I were your GM I would tell you that your character can look like whatever you want (within reason) but everyone is still going to know what ancestry you are, to the extent that any ancestry is obvious.

If people can know a dwarf is a dwarf, a human is a human, and an elf is an elf then they know a tiefling when they see one without a check.

Otherwise you're getting a benefit of passing for human (or whatever base ancestry) without paying a price.

Sorry to correct you here, but Tiefling is now considered a Heritage - NOT an Ancestry. So my Tiefling character IS a human being who just happens to have a cursed bloodline. So within your own reasoning my character just passes for what he already is.

The reason why Tieflings are usually weirdly colored, have horns, and glowing eyes is mostly because of DnD. Those tieflings are most definitely portrayed with those characteristics, which also aligns with Pitborn (Demon-Spawn), Hellspawn (Devil-Spawn), Spitespawn (Div-Spawn), and Hungerseed (Oni-Spawn).

However, if you look at the other heritages found in PF1 you have: Faultspawn (Asura-Spawn) which tend to be androgynous or hermaphrodites, with weird faces: Grimspawn (Daemon-Spawn) which tend to look like corpses or extremely sick, think Smeagol but uglier: Foulspawn (Demodand-Spawn) which tend to look like ogre or ogrekins, with similar behaviors: Shackleborn (Kyton-Spawn) which tend to be born severely mutilated, but otherwise might appear like a regular person, also heavily favor tattoos and piercings: Motherless (Qlippoth-Spawn) tend to look like something straight out of lovecraftian lore: Finally, the Beastblood (Rakshasa-Spawn) tend to look like a human with animal features, think ThunderCats.

Blood of Fiends has an official list of alternate feature. List of alternate Tiefling appearance, the list is at the bottom of the page.

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Speaking of races that don't get the right art. Aasimars suffer the same fate. Most Aasimars are drawn as being angels of some kind.

However they have these: Idyllkin (Agathion-Blooded) which tend to look like humans with animal traits: Musetouched (Azata-Blooded) which tend to have almost impossible color eyes and hair, think anime character: Plumekith (Garuda-Blooded) which tend to have features of birds and eagles: And finally, Emberkin (Peri-Blooded) which to have flaming features. Heck Angelkin (Angel-Blooded) can look like the Silver Surfer or Doctor Manhattan.

here is the list of official alternate traits from Blood of Angels, again at the bottom of the page.

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Blood of Fiends is one of my favourite supplements for Pathfinder. I do hope that it will be redeveloped for 2nd edition. Especially the artwork is noteworthy for its many varied takes on Tiefling appearances.

If i had rolled on the list of alternate features my rolls would be the following:

19: Ears: Pointed
25: Eyes: Other (Black orbs)
60: Skin: Other (Pale - slightly metallic)
62: Tail: Fiendish (Slim/barbed)
67: Teeth: Fanged
??: Aura: Animals gets tense or aggressive when within 10'

I recently made a new Tiefling character for the Extinction Curse adventure path and decided to go against how we normally portray Tieflings.
In short: No horns, pitch black eyes (like demons in the Supernatural series), a slender tail (but it were decapacitated a couple of years earlier - before campaign start, and may grow out again if Regenerated). His teeth is a little bit more pointy than what is seen in normal humans. And his skin is very pale and have a slight metallic sheen to it.

Is this ok? Does a Tiefling have to be red with rams horns, glowing red or yellow eyes and a thick lizard-like tail?