First things first. If you haven't gotten to look at the alternative Tiefling traits in the back of the Bastards of Erebus go, buy it, read it and bask in its awesomeness, then come back here.
Now, as cool as that is, let's be honest here. Tieflings are cool on their own. Aasimers tend to be a little forgotten sometimes. (Nualia's a cool exception)
Basically I am just starting this thread to see what the community thinks and to see if they have any ideas. I'll start with a few ideas and add more as I think of them.
Variant Aasimer Heritages
Angel (Standard Aasimer's are assumed to have angelic parentage)
+2 Wis, +2 Cha
Azata
+2 Dex, +2 Int
Archon
+2 Str, +2 Cha
Agathion
+2 Con, +2 Wis
Titan
+2 Str, +2 Con
Lillend
+2 Dex, +2 Cha
It's at this point I'm running a little low on Good-aligned outsiders or their close equivalents. I was briefly tempted to put unicorns as a heritage - "briefly" being the operative word here. So unless you want your next paladin to have to order a specially crafted helmet to accomodate his horn throw out some more ideas please.
Variant Aasimer abilities (In no particular order) - The abilities presented here replace a Aasimer’s daylight spell-like ability, with a caster level equal to its class level.
1. You gain the ability to understand and speak with all creatures. You possess the truespeech ability of your angelic forbearers.
2. You have feathered angelic wings that grant you a +2 racial bonus to Acrobatics checks made to jump. In addition, you can use you wings to save yourself from a fall, no matter the height. If you were to become unconscious your wings automatically stiffen in an open position negating all but 1d6 of falling damage. These wings are not strong enough to carry you.
3. Immunity to petrification
4. When attacking an evil outsider or evil undead you deal +1d4 points of damage.
5. Once per day you can fire a ray of light that deals 2d12 points of damage, this bypasses all damage reduction.
6. Once per day you may change into any canine form as though using Beast Shape II.
7.
And it is about here I see it's almost 3:30. I had hoped to add more in the initial post. I'll stop back in and continue adding soon.
Thanks
P.S. Constructive critiscism is welcome always. Remember, this is just a first rough draft of one guy's opinions. I'm always open to suggestions. Lastly, sorry it's light on the fluff. I'm a bit crunch happy myself. If anyone wants to take a crack at adding fluff you're more than welcome.
|
I wholeheartedly support this project. I've always believed aasimar should be as varied and weird as tieflings.
It's at this point I'm running a little low on Good-aligned outsiders or their close equivalents.
Depending on whether you're open to including closed-content creatures, this can be alleviated by going back and taking a look at the other monster books out there. Asuras as they are traditionally envisioned in D&D(fire winged CG harbingers of righteous vengeance) are a definite contender.
Looking back at Planescape, zoveri and those neat, black, oily amorphous slime guys whose names I can't recall off the top of my head could also work if you look at them a certain way in PFRPG rules.
Valkyrie?
Considering the Indian and Arabian-specific candidates for Tiefling heritage(rakshasas and divs), you might want to look at the celestial equivalents for those cultures to mine as well, along with those from African, Native American, etc., traditions. Apsaras and such.
(and hey, why stop at 10? :D)
First things first. If you haven't gotten to look at the alternative Tiefling traits in the back of the Bastards of Erebus go, buy it, read it and bask in its awesomeness, then come back here.
Now, as cool as that is, let's be honest here. Tieflings are cool on their own. Aasimers tend to be a little forgotten sometimes. (Nualia's a cool exception)
Basically I am just starting this thread to see what the community thinks and to see if they have any ideas. I'll start with a few ideas and add more as I think of them.
Variant Aasimer Heritages
Angel (Standard Aasimer's are assumed to have angelic parentage)
+2 Wis, +2 Cha
Azata
+2 Dex, +2 Int
Archon
+2 Str, +2 Cha
Agathion
+2 Con, +2 Wis
Titan
+2 Str, +2 Con
Lillend
+2 Dex, +2 ChaIt's at this point I'm running a little low on Good-aligned outsiders or their close equivalents. I was briefly tempted to put unicorns as a heritage - "briefly" being the operative word here. So unless you want your next paladin to have to order a specially crafted helmet to accomodate his horn throw out some more ideas please.
Variant Aasimer abilities (In no particular order) - The abilities presented here replace a Aasimer’s daylight spell-like ability, with a caster level equal to its class level.
1. You gain the ability to understand and speak with all creatures. You possess the truespeech ability of your angelic forbearers.
2. You have feathered angelic wings that grant you a +2 racial bonus to Acrobatics checks made to jump. In addition, you can use you wings to save yourself from a fall, no matter the height. If you were to become unconscious your wings automatically stiffen in an open position negating all but 1d6 of falling damage. These wings are not strong enough to carry you.
3. Immunity to petrification
4. When attacking an evil outsider or evil undead you deal +1d4 points of damage.
5. Once per day you can fire a ray of light that deals 2d12 points of damage, this bypasses all damage reduction.
6. Once per day you may...
hmm.. well, I am not sure, I think it is ok if the DM makes them, having a scale of abilities that won't be focussed towards one thing in particular. keep in mind they are not half-angels, rather quarter angels at best, sometimes they might be just humans touched by
(a good) divinity before birth.I am fine with having aasimar alternatives, especially for radical different aasimar, but I do not want a thread like 'my daddy was a solar' - kinda thing. ^^
I'd like to see a very similar table of 100 alternate abilities, just like the Tieflings of Golarion article. An aasimar PC rolls percentile at character creation and gets what they roll. Insert a similar feat to the one presented in said article that allows them to select which ability score background they have, and roll thrice on the table for alternate ability and pick their favorite.
So. Here's my contribution. A few more people contribute, then some balance discussion, then maybe this gets compiled into a nice free PDF, yes?
7. Your body is covered in a feathery down. This effectively masks the your true physical size and precise shape, granting you a +2 bonus to CMD.
8. A divine power considers you a favorite great-great-great grand-child and subtly provides aid when you most need it. You suffer only a 40% miss-chance against creatures with full concealment, including those who are invisible.
8. You are not anchored in time in the same manner as most mortal creatures. As such, once per day when rolling initiative you may roll an additional die (same as your largest hit-die) and treat the sum as your initiative roll. You may choose to use use after seeing the result of your d20 roll.
9. Your spirit is less bound to your home plane than your body. This allows you to use a teleportation effect once per day to relocate yourself up to 30ft as a swift action. This requires line-of-sight and is a Supernatural Ability.
10. You are non-existent to fey. They cannot see or hear you and will generally never attack you. If a few attempts to move into your space (or vice-versa), it becomes aware of an obstruction and may become curious or angry, but cannot understand your nature.
11. Gravity doesn't have the same attraction for you that it does for other mortal creatures. You weigh 1/10th what you should. This reduces the DC for Climb checks you make by 5 and grants you a +2 bonus to Acrobatics checks to jump.
12. Distance ancestors were committed to holy war against fiends and your body has racial memories of this. You are proficient with all martial weapons.
13. Your body repels water and you can never become wet (strangely, this trait extends to your clothing as well). A side-effect of this already unusual ability is that you cannot drown in water - you simply do not need to breathe when immersed.
14. People find your appearance comforting and are disarmed around you. When making Bluff checks, you may roll 2d20 and take the better die of the two as your result.
15. It is phenomenally difficult for you to become inebriated, intoxicated, or otherwise mentally unclear. You gain a +2 bonus against all mind-affecting effects.
16. When traveling by foot, tracks you leave behind vanish 10 minutes after you make them.
17. Your proprioceptive is highly unusual and your sense-of-self can be cast outside of your body at will. You may look around 90-degree corners up to 5ft away from you as if you had ducked your head around.
18. Your body repels those of opposed faiths, granting you a +4 deflection bonus to your touch armor class against melee touch attacks made by creatures who oppose your alignment on one or more axes.
19. Mother always knew you were special. Her doting care has left you more confident than most others, granting you a +2 morale bonus to one Strength or Dexterity-based skill you select at 1st level.
20. You are what you are. A reincarnation spell always creates a body identical to your original.
21. Everyone who looks at you sees a different face which subconsciously reminds them of someone they have fond memories of. You never be accurately described. Thus nobody can identify you unless they have seen you before. (This for instance makes it very difficult to hire an assassin to kill you, or send a guardsman to arrest you, or a messenger to deliver something to you.)
22. There is a touch of immortal blood within you. Once per day you may defer any amount of normal damage you take from a single attack or spell until the end of your next round (or current round, if taking damage during an attack of opportunity).
23. Your skin gives off a mild electric current. Any creature that attempts to use the swallow whole ability on you vomits you up one round later. Also, creatures larger than you take 1d4 electricity damage any time they bite you. Strangely, smaller or same-size creatures are unaffected by this energy.
24. Writing, including magical writing, has atypical behaviour around you. Attempts to erase or obscure non-magical writing within 30ft of you unexpectedly fail. Additionally, any scroll you cast has a 10% chance to not be consumed, remaining completely usable thereafter as if having never been cast.
25. Cursed items have no effect whatsoever on you. When handling such an item, you feel an empathic sense of intense frustration emanating from the object.
26. Spirit brothers and sisters you cannot see are frequently trying to help you. Once per day you may roll a skill check for one skill, and treat that skill as if it was a class skill which you had maximum ranks in. You select which skill to apply this ability to at the time of rolling.
27. Nobody expects the Chellish Inquisition. Once per day you may substitute a sense equivalent to discern lies in place of a single Sense Motive roll.
28. Your presence projects deeply into adjacent planes, anchoring you. You cannot be successfully subjected to a Bull Rush.
29. You always know when someone within a mile of you speaks your name. Additionally, you telepathically "hear" the next five words that person speaks. This does not give you the ability to understand the language spoken if you don't already have it.
30. Once per day as a standard action you may summon a swarm of doves. This swarm surrounds and follows you for one minute per class levels you possess and functions in all ways as obscuring mist with two exceptions. First, you can always see through the swarm unimpeded. Second, the swarm is unaffected by winds. The swarm remains vulnerable to such spells as fireball, the application of which leaves a rather depressing sight involving tiny charred avian bodies and peaceful incinerated birds for your benefit.
|
Some of those ideas are incredibly cool and creative, Anguish! Stuff like the 'sees around corners' and 'can't be bull-rushed' are just cool, and the bit about writing not vanishing in your presence is very neat (although I'd limit the scroll bit to scrolls you are reading yourself).
I could go for some language-related effects, such as being able to speak Celestial and make yourself understood to any creature having a language (but not necessarily having the slightest clue what they are saying in return!), or being able to speak 'words of creation' 3/day that act as a mending spell, or a 'word of unmaking' 1/day that acts as shatter spell.
Some of those ideas are incredibly cool and creative, Anguish! Stuff like the 'sees around corners' and 'can't be bull-rushed' are just cool, and the bit about writing not vanishing in your presence is very neat (although I'd limit the scroll bit to scrolls you are reading yourself).
I could go for some language-related effects, such as being able to speak Celestial and make yourself understood to any creature having a language (but not necessarily having the slightest clue what they are saying in return!), or being able to speak 'words of creation' 3/day that act as a mending spell, or a 'word of unmaking' 1/day that acts as shatter spell.
Thanks for the feedback.
Maybe I've worded it poorly (I try hard because I hate ambiguously worded crunch) but the scroll ability does say "any scroll you cast".
I didn't do anything language-specific myself because of the #1 created by the original poster, but I've got some ideas not dissimilar from yours.
31. You may channel energy once per day but are limited to positive energy to heal living creatures. Treat your number of hit dice as cleric levels for purposes of determining the damage healed.
32. What's inside you isn't quite the same as most mortals. You may ignore bleed damage for a number of rounds per day equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). These rounds need not be consecutive.
33. At times of intense stress, your body may become limned in a holy light and strange sounds not unlike that of a choir surround you. This is naturally distracting to others. Once per day upon rolling for initiative, you may roll 1d8 and apply it as a penalty to one other creature's initiative roll. This ability can be used on friends or foes alike, but the creature selected must be able to hear or see or the ability has no effect and is consumed nonetheless.
34. You may consciously control the glands responsible for pheromone release. This allows you to avoid being tracked by scent if you so wish. Additionally, you may release scents pleasing to animals. If you succeed at a Knowledge(nature) check with a DC equal to 10 + the target creature's CR, it starts off an encounter one step friendlier towards you than it normally would.
35. A sixth sense allows brief flashes of insight regarding your surroundings. Once per day you may close your eyes as a free action and gain blind-sight to a distance of 40ft. This ability lasts for one round, during which you must keep your eyes closed.
36. Your hands are imbued with a touch of the heavenly planes your ancestors hail from. This grants you access to a personal extra-dimensional space that you may store a single object in. The stored object may be no larger than a weapon sized appropriately for you and may not be a living or deceased creature, undead, or construct. Storing or withdrawing the stored object is a swift action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. This extra-dimensional space is accessible to you wherever you are, but you must be able to reach into it to store or withdraw an object.
37. Due to your unusual heritage, you form a deep bond with the creatures you meet. Once per day you may send an image of whatever you see as a mental snapshot. This snapshot may be sent to any willing creature you have ever met, as long as they are on the same plane as you when you attempt this sending. The recipient retains a perfect memory of what you send them, allowing them to recall and describe it afterward as if they were looking at a perfect painting.
38. You have perfect pitch and a versatile voice to die for. This grants you a +2 bonus on Perform(sing) or Perform(oratory) checks (you choose one at 1st level) and gives you the ability to perfectly imitate the voice of any humanoid creature you have heard speak.
39. Much to your parents' dismay, you have always had an unnaturally hearty set of lungs. Once per day you may shout, performing a Sunder attempt and add your Charisma bonus (if any) to your CMD for this attempt. This ability does not provoke attacks of opportunity even if you lack the Improved Sunder feat.
40. Fate itself seems to conspire to protect you for reasons you are too wise to question. Whenever reduced to less than zero hit points (but not killed), at the start of your turn each round, you heal one hit point of damage. This healing ceases once you are brought to 0 hit points or more by any means.
41. There is something deeply abnormal about your connection to the material plane. While you appear completely normal outwardly, you and all your gear are invisible to scrying effects. Your area can be remotely observed, but you and your actions remain completely unobservable to the person attempting to spy on you.
CLARIFICATION
#39 should include verbiage indicating the Sunder attempt is made verbally, not with a wielded weapon. It should also indicate that said Sunder attempt must be made against objects within 10ft.
END OF CLARIFICATION
42. Recorded in no tome, documented in no library, and spoken by no mortal exists a language so primal that it is literally the language of the creation of all things. You unconsciously tap into a knowledge of that language. Whenever using the Craft skill, you gain a +5 bonus to your checks. Additionally, if you fail a check by 5 and would normally ruin materials, you may re-roll your check once. If you fail your check the second time, the standard consequences apply as your ineptness momentarily reaches cosmic proportions.
43. You have an unusual affinity for and understand of inanimate objects. Once per day as a you may whisper soothing words of consolation to a damaged object you hold. This process requires one minute of concentration and repairs the item in question as per the make whole spell. This cannot be used on constructs or on intelligent magic items.
44. You have access to a universal language of truth. Once per day you may use any ability that is normally language-dependent (such as casting command) while muttering in tongues and your target understands you as if you shared a language. This ability does not function when used with targets that have no language or are otherwise unable to understand you (for instance if they are deaf).
45. Creatures exude a sense of identity which appears to you as a tangible and readable aura. Upon seeing any creature within 30ft you may use a swift action to learn that creature's name. In the case of a creature with more than one name (or title for instance), you learn only their most commonly used name. This ability has no additional utility - for instance not giving you the ability to discern illusions due to lack of name; in this case you would learn the name of the creature the illusion represents.
46. Deep in your ancestry lies a divine warrior of the holy host. As a swift action you may imbue one held weapon with the flaming property for one round. You may use this ability once per day for every class level you possess.
47. Your body can emit a flash of brilliant holy light. Once per day as a free action you may create a blinding burst of light centered upon you. This light causes sighted creatures within 5ft of you to reflexively avert their gaze, allowing you to avoid attacks of opportunity for 5ft of your movement. This may be used at any point during your movement.
48. One of your progenitors was the divine* soul responsible for inventing the hideous laughter spell and you have inherited a fraction of their brilliance. Once per day you may afflict one creature with 30ft with hideous hiccups as a standard action. The afflicted creature suffers a -2 penalty to attack rolls and suffers a -10 penalty to concentration checks involved with casting spells that have verbal components. This ability lasts one round per class level you possess.
*Note: some believe hideous laughter and your special variant are in fact of diabolic nature. You know better.
49. You occasionally exhibit a benign stigmata. Once per as a swift action you may trigger this. Your wrists begin to bleed though no visible wound exists. You may proffer your wrist to another living creature who may drink of your lifeblood, gaining Fast Healing 1 for one round per class level you possess. Once you reach 10 hit dice, the rate of healing doubles to Fast Healing 2.
50. Creatures of angelic background suffer the stereotype of being less physically passionate than their fiendish counterparts. You are an exception to the generality. Once per day you may bestow a passionate kiss upon a willing recipient. This kiss automatically removes a single negative level the recipient suffers that was inflicted by a succubus' energy drain ability within the last 24 hours.
Personally, I like this version of the Aasimar:
+2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma, –2 Constitution: Aasimar are blessed with good wits and a beautiful appearance but are somewhat frail.
Low-Light Vision: Aasimar can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Cat-Like Reflexes: Aasimar receive a +2 racial bonus on Initiative Checks.
Celestial Resistance: Aasimar have acid resistance 5, cold resistance 5, and electricity resistance 5.
Celestial Fortitude: Aasimar receive a +2 racial bonus on all saving throws against petrification and poison.
Keen Senses: Aasimar receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception skill checks.
Spell-Like Ability: Aasimar can use daylight once per day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this ability equals the Aasimar’s class level.
Languages: Aasimar begin play speaking Common and Celestial as well as any bonus languages selected due to high intelligence scores.