So I am making a teifling sorcerer. Under the description of teiflings, it says that teiflings get Fiendish Sorcery. This apparently gives teifling sorcerers (with the abysal or infernal bloodline) a +2 to their Cha for all sorcerer class abilities.
What are the sorcerer class abilities? All I see are class abilities and class features.
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"Tiefling sorcerers with the Abyssal or Infernal bloodline treat their Charisma score as 2 points higher for all sorcerer class abilities."
Treat your charisma as if it were 2 higher for anything that involves being a sorcerer. Spellcasting, bonus spells, DCs, Spell Like abilities, pretty much all of it.
"Tiefling sorcerers with the Abyssal or Infernal bloodline treat their Charisma score as 2 points higher for all sorcerer class abilities."
Treat your charisma as if it were 2 higher for anything that involves being a sorcerer. Spellcasting, bonus spells, DCs, Spell Like abilities, pretty much all of it.
Does this count for class skills, too?
I would say no.
Thank you for your input. I am always amazed at the speed and accuracy of the people that respond to my many questions. Thanks again.
Skills are not specifically class abilities, which is why you don't suddenly get +1 to all Cha-based class skills.
What happend if you select as your 1st feat the fiendish heritage of PF #25, and you chose the 'Demon-Spawn Tiefling'. You will have the +2 charisma and a +2 if you are a abysal or infernal sorcerer?
yes you would, though it seems a bit powerful.. the original idea I suppose was to negate the charisma penalty to make them viable sorcerers.
Guess I would allow it with some reservations.
I believe there's advice in #25 concerning that topic, but I'm playing in it so can't check.
I don't have the text here, but "Fiendish Heritage" and "Demon-Spawn Tiefling" sound like basically the same thing. I suspect the fluff text on these traits/feats says something like "your daddy was a demon so you can do some demon stuff". More or less.
Maybe I'm wrong - someone with access to those texts could provide details.
But if I am right, then even though they are different sources, the intent is basically the same thing: demon daddy passes on a few demon genes. In which case I would rule that the player should pick one or the other because he doesn't have two demon daddies. Picking both would be like picking human twice so you could get two bonus feats.
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I don't have the text here, but "Fiendish Heritage" and "Demon-Spawn Tiefling" sound like basically the same thing. I suspect the fluff text on these traits/feats says something like "your daddy was a demon so you can do some demon stuff". More or less.
Maybe I'm wrong - someone with access to those texts could provide details.
But if I am right, then even though they are different sources, the intent is basically the same thing: demon daddy passes on a few demon genes. In which case I would rule that the player should pick one or the other because he doesn't have two demon daddies. Picking both would be like picking human twice so you could get two bonus feats.
"Demon-Spawn" is one of the 10 options you can choose when taking Fiendish Heritage. (Feat linked) The short of it is that you switch out the default Tiefling's +2/+2/-2 ability scores for a different set of them. Everything else stays the same.
Yes, Fiendish Heritage and the demon-spawn subrace would stack. Thank god there's only a very small chance that such a tiefling would also roll the +2 Charisma instead of Darkness spell-like ability on the Variant Tiefling Abilities table. That would result in a sorcerer that has practically +6 on his main casting stat and no kind of level or challenge rating adjustment. :D
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Yes, Fiendish Heritage and the demon-spawn subrace would stack. Thank god there's only a very small chance that such a tiefling would also roll the +2 Charisma instead of Darkness spell-like ability on the Variant Tiefling Abilities table. That would result in a sorcerer that has practically +6 on his main casting stat and no kind of level or challenge rating adjustment. :D
Check out the Council of Thieves players guide. It talks about Tieflings being a bit more powerful than normal races and has recommendations for how to use them in a normal game. My favorite two are:
1. Let the player keep full racial abilities, but make them take an NPC class for their first level.
OR
2. Let the player take whatever classes they want, but nerf the racial abilities a bit. The book uses a Campaign Trait to do this, reducing the resist 5 abilities down to +2 to save against those (with no more resist) and changing the Darkness spell-like for a 0-level spell-like.
Check out the Council of Thieves players guide. It talks about Tieflings being a bit more powerful than normal races and has recommendations for how to use them in a normal game. My favorite two are:
I have the Council of Thieves player's guide and personally I don't think that weakening them is necessary after all other races in PF have been buffed. Fiendish Sorcery as a benefit forces you into a tightly-defined role, Darkness is nice but only 1/day. The only really good thing about Tieflings is their Fiendish Resistance and that will become weaker the more damage enemies deal.
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**Edit: I read the last post wrong.
The Player already has to burn a Feat to pick from the list of Heritage Racials, otherwise, they roll a d10 to randomly pick. And they always have to roll 3d100 and pick their fav from those to get the +2 cha, if they roll it. So there is a low % chance to get the +2 racial, +2 for trading darkness AND the +2(kinda) for the bloodline.
So if the stars (or the 9 hells) align just right, you could have a +6 on top of your point buy to Cha. That would be a little much, at that point I'd restict the player from putting all their points into CHA, buy limiting their max score (Say 20) so they would have a an effective 22 for cha for sorc spells. They can always use those points in another stat.
Well, keep in mind that the recommend weakening was made after the Pathfinder Races were upgraded, so the designers had the new upgraded races in mind.
I know. ;-) I just don't agree with their assessment.
I don't think Tieflings are a *lot* more powerful than other races, but I do think they are a bit better.
Yes, but how much? Assuming that you don't restrict Tieflings in any way (like nerfing the race or blocking them from reaching their capstone on level 20) would everybody have to make a Tiefling to be able to contribute to the party? As Solarious wrote, they already have to burn a feat to be able to choose a beneficial stat array (and to have a half-way decent chance not to get something worse than Darkness if they want to roll on the variant abilities table). I think their advantages are too small to warrant any kind of nerfing. But that's just me.^^
I generally don't have a problem with different power levels in games (like werewolves and vampires in WoD or soon normal humans and space marines in Dark Heresy/Deathwatch), and that's a lot more of a difference when compared to Tiefling vs. elf or human. :D|
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Well, it used to be that a Tiefling was a +1 level adjustment. That meaning that you always had one less total level than your companions for the same experience. The races have been buffed, and the new recommendation is that Tieflings don't need to lose a level, they just have to take an NPC level at 1st. So they can still get HP, skills, BAB, etc.
I think that's fair. The power difference between Tieflings and normal races has gone down, so has the penalty for being a Tiefling.