I'm guessing you have to kind of bounce between 3.5 and PF to completely answer your question. For instance, in PF a NPC hobgoblin warrior (CR 1/2) is rated more difficult than an NPC human warrior (CR 1/3, in the NPC gallery). So it kind of makes sense that hobgoblin would be a clearly stronger race than a human.
But a duergar is more complicated. They have the same CR as a human when comparing level 1 warrior to level 1 warrior. But 3.5 says:
Duergar with levels in NPC classes have a CR equal to their character level. Duergar with levels in PC classes have a CR equal to their character level +1.
So considering that, it makes sense that a warrior duergar is the same CR as a human warrior yet the duergar level 1 fighter is considered more powerful than a human level 1 fighter.
But the difference in power is pretty slight. As a GM I'd have to eyeball it. If you're clearly using the race to its maximum potential, then I might consider a level 1 character of that race as a level 2 character. That is profoundly harsh in PF (it was typically a bad choice in 3.5 as well). If a player was new to the game and not well-versed in optimal playing/choices, I probably would let the player play as-is with no adjustments.
I'm guessing you have to kind of bounce between 3.5 and PF to completely answer your question. For instance, in PF a NPC hobgoblin warrior (CR 1/2) is rated more difficult than an NPC human warrior (CR 1/3, in the NPC gallery). So it kind of makes sense that hobgoblin would be a clearly stronger race than a human.That's not the case, though. The Bestiary hobgoblin is a fighter 1, which means his CR 1/2 is exactly the same as a human's.
Likewise, the Bestiary duergar is also CR-appropriate for a standard race; it's a warrior 1 and CR 1/3.
So doesn't that mean that they're both acceptable in terms of having them stand side-by-side with humans, elves, gnomes, etc. in terms of being appropriate as PC races?
Oh. I misread (: I was probably confusing the entry for hobgoblin in 3.5 (which is a warrior) for the one in PF (which is now a fighter).
Yeah, I would just ignore the level differences entirely. The only exceptions would be things like svirfneblin or noble drow, etc.
With Pathfinder's new base line for races, I don't treat aasimar/tieflings as +1LA races anymore.See, this is what I thought too - that tieflings and a large number of 0-HD monster races that were formerly +1 LA are now viable as standard races - but that section on how to nerf tieflings from the Council of Thieves Player's Guide is what's causing me to second-guess Pathfinder's stance on this.
Was the council of thieves released before the actual Pathfinder rules came out? If so it closer to 3.5 mechanics than PF mechanics. . .
Edit: No, council of thieves was the first adventure path to fully use the pathfinder rules. . . hmmm
Tieflings are, perhaps, slightly more powerful than the core races. Definitely not enough to be a level behind. I, personally, would allow them to sit alongside core races with no adjustment. I think CoT was playing on the cautious side, as an experiment with allowing non-core races. Experience should show us that tieflings, along with most of the other 0-HD races from the two Bestiaries, are fine as PC races. I'd guess that if this issue comes up in the future, Paizo will just say "you can play tengu without adjustment."
As it is, while there doesn't seem to be any clear resolution to the disparity, most of the circumstantial evidence does seem to indicate that tieflings and similar races are roughly equal with the standard PC races.
The only "official line" from Paizo that I've seen is complete deference to the GM on the ground.
The rule is PCs cannot be races other than those in the core rules. GMs are allowed to permit whatever they want, and some races are easier than others to integrate.
At the moment, though, there are no hard and fast rules for playing monster PCs — just a number of different suggestions and guidelines, often conflicting.
As a GM with a tiefling in campaign myself, I chose not to apply any kind of penalty, and treat it as though it was a player race. This might be because he came in at 10th level. At level one, the tiefling's abilities are actually quite pronounced and I may have taken a different approach.
My understanding of Paizo's stance matches Evil Lincoln's.
As for the discrepancy between the Bestiary and Council of Thieves, I think this falls under another explanation I have seen.
Material in the Rulebook line is attempting to be as world-neutral as possible. Material in the APs, Companion, and Campaign Setting lines presumes Golarion as a baseline. The treatment in the Bestiary is the "world-neutral" view. The material in Council of Thieves is the "Golarion-specific" view. The two do not have to match 100%.
I did not see the nerfing in council of thieves, I only saw more options ?
In my opinion the tiefling are about equal to pc races, asimar seem a little better, they could use a penalty to one other score in my opinion.
The Bestiary in itself is a poor guide to making PC's though, even going from CR alone it does not make sense ;
A CR 4 minotaur is about as strong as a 4th level PC fighter.. ok fine.
- Then we make the minotaur a PC, we give it PC treasure accordingly
- and PC ability scores, that is where balance loses out.
- Furthermore it sugests the monster PC should catch up in levels to make up for the difference in power level (weird)
- Aside from that the monsters in general are prone to being abused, since they are badly balanced for PC play.
Page 406 of the Core Rulebook...in the sidebar that says Alternative races has the Tiefling s a race that is rqual in power level with the core races.
From my limited understanding the CoT' Tieflings have alot of varients you could have( ala I am guessing similiar to Tieflings in the 2nd Planeswalker's Handbook) so I think they were being a little cautions there.
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As it is, while there doesn't seem to be any clear resolution to the disparity, most of the circumstantial evidence does seem to indicate that tieflings and similar races are roughly equal with the standard PC races.The only "official line" from Paizo that I've seen is complete deference to the GM on the ground.
The rule is PCs cannot be races other than those in the core rules. GMs are allowed to permit whatever they want, and some races are easier than others to integrate.
At the moment, though, there are no hard and fast rules for playing monster PCs — just a number of different suggestions and guidelines, often conflicting.
As a GM with a tiefling in campaign myself, I chose not to apply any kind of penalty, and treat it as though it was a player race. This might be because he came in at 10th level. At level one, the tiefling's abilities are actually quite pronounced and I may have taken a different approach.
I agree, one thing that should be clear though, to offset monster pc's is to make sure to emphasize the roleplaying penalties that may be appropriate for the race in question. For instance, tieflings in Cheliax are almost universally reviled by normal folk and especially by the ruling class. If those penalties are not being applied where appropriate, something is lost in the play experience.
The only nerf I do to the 0 HD outsider (native)s [tiefling, aasimar, the 4 from bestiary 2] is that I houseruled that the 'person' spells work on them - charm person, etc.
The blanket immunity that they had to those spell was much more of a problem in my games than the energy resistances.
So I'm having a bit of confusion regarding using some of the Bestiary races as PC-selectable races. Let me walk through the process I'm using and hopefully someone will be able to tell me where I'm going off the rails.
The Bestiary says:
Quote:
There are a number of monsters in this book that do not possess racial Hit Dice. Such creatures are the best options for player characters, but a few of them are so powerful that they count as having 1 class level, even without a racial Hit Die. Such characters should only be allowed in a group that is 2nd-level or higher.
Okay, fair enough. But it also doesn't explicitly say which monsters those are. Further, it also says:
Quote:
Treat the monster's CR as class levels when determining the monster PC's overall levels.
So, by the latter quote, I can determine that I should use a monster's CR as its "level adjustment" (to use a term left by the wayside with 3.5) and stack that onto its levels. For example, a creature with CR 1 without any class levels is as powerful as a 1st-level character; in a group of 2nd-level characters, a PC playing a CR 1 monster race would have one class level and be as powerful as the rest of the group.
Now, based on what's in the Bestiary for the tiefling (and similarly, for the aasimar and (non-noble) drow), it doesn't seem to fall into the aforementioned area. It's CR is determined by its class levels the same way as a PC-race's CR would be. A 2nd-level tiefling with PC class levels is CR 1 the same as a 2nd-level human with PC class levels.
This is easily contrasted with the noble drow, which does have a CR adjustment; it's "Drow Noble Characters" section explicitly tells us that its CR equals its class levels, so that we'll know it bumps up its CR (and thus it's presumed level for PC use) by 1.
Okay, so far so good. But then I'm reminded of the "Playing Tieflings" sidebar from the Council of Thieves Player's Guide which seems to clearly state that tieflings are more powerful than base races to the point where you might want to nerf them or boost the other PCs to compensate (though to be fair, it does also says "The difference in power is slight enough that some GMs won’t mind letting you play a tiefling...").
So, at the end of the day, what's the official Pathfinder position on playing a tiefling/aasimar/non-noble drow in terms of whether or not they have the same effective character level as PCs playing standard races?
Obviously, at the end of the day, the official position would be GM's call and decision on the matter. I'm not sure why that the Council of Thieves PG says that they're more powerful (I don't believe so), but I'm also not sure why they say that the prestige class Pathfinder Chronicler gains Bardic Music as a special ability to be followed from the same ability found in the Bard class, when the ability in the Bard class is called Bardic Performance.
Like I said, I don't believe they are more powerful. When I compare all the racial the abilities of a Tiefling:
+2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Cha
Darkvision
+2 Bluff
+2 Stealth
Spell-Like Ability - Darkness 1/day
Resistance 5 - cold
Resistance 5 - electricity
Resistance 5 - fire
Fiendish Sorcercy (pg. 264 Bestiary)
to that of an Elf:
+2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Con
Low-Light Vision
+2 saving throw bonus against enchantment spell and effects
+2 bonus caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance
+2 bonus on Spellcraft to identify properties of magical items
+2 Perception
Weapon Familiarity - Longbows, Rapiers, Shortbows, and Elven weapons
When you list out each buff being it's own racial quality, they end up more or less equal, even though the Tiefling get's one more, being Fiendish Sorcercy which only applies when the character is a Sorcerer with Abyssal or Infernal bloodlines.
This is what I look at when I'm deciding if a race is more powerful than other races and if I need to do any nerfing. You can even list everything out with a non-noble Drow and you'll find it pretty equal.
I hope I was helpful.
I would have just given a caveat to Tiefling´s Darkness SLA, that they need to have 13 CHA before adjustment in order to use the ability. The attraction is going to be dumping CHA, which players often do for many archetypes, so this requires at least putting a few points into something that then a penalty will apply on top of (for a minimum 11 CHA). Fiendish Sorcery mean Tieflings don´t have a CHA penalty for the relevant spellcasting, but for Sorcerors having an additional Darkness ability isn´t as big of a deal as for Fighters, Thiefs, etc... IMHO. I also would probably have reduced the Resistance list, to something like ´pick 2 of 3´.
If you are still worried about it, I recommend Green Ronin's idea of making the characters first level be an NPC class. Thus, you tone them down slightly without leaving them a level behind in saves and hit points.
I dont have a problem with Aasi or Tieflings personally, and especially at low level those saves are only very infrequently going to come up - its not as if they have resistance against 'cold sharp steel!' or anything :p
I do think the ToZ/GR solution cited abouve is a great balance for those TOO concerned though, and certainly more than fair.
I also would probably have reduced the Resistance list, to something like ´pick 2 of 3´.
I would not lower the resistance because you will not come across the use of these resistance's quite often. I feel that a 5 fire resistance is equivalent +2 Perception or Stealth in the idea that you are going to use a Perception or Stealth check much more than you are going to have an actual benefit to the resistance.
My suggestion would be to refer to pgs 405 - 406 of the Core rulebook that specifically addresses this issue.
That table in the book is nice to see a list of alternate races someone could play, but is not helpful by any means figuring out if you need to create any sort LA. Plus it's also incorrect in stating that Drow possess racial HD, when they do not.
I'm not so sure their difference is as slight as perceived. Aasimars, obviously, are vastly more powerful than core races due to +2 to two stats and no penalty, as well as some significant spell-like abilities. I would never allow one without some kind of substantial cost.
Some of the elemental sorts in the Bestiary 2 are on par. The ifrit sorcerer is a concept I would have to veto. An effective +4 charisma from the start is too much.
Even if it isn't going to have as huge an impact on the world, it has a massive impact on player parity and that is far more important to maintain.
Yeah but aside from making a Cleric or Pally, you aren't doing much else with an Aasimar. Sure I agree the stat bonus is a boon at the start, but even a +2 isn't game breaking, and over a few levels makes less of a difference.
So I'm inclined to roll with it, there are in-game checks and balances that will make life more interesting - try hiding from Detect Good/Detect Evil as an Assi or Tief - under level 5 a CE can hide, not so much with these puppies :P
Stuff like that, and people wanting to harvest your angel wings for juju powder might get old...
Player parity is also something I try keep in mind, but the problem with players is even though the system offers partiy there isn't GAMER parity. A good gamer will still design a more powerful character than an ordinary/novice one... so no matter what we are still going to have inequality at the table.
I'm more worried about whether your X-Race will fit (into party and/or campaign) or whether it is a circus freak. If its the Freak then you plain can't have it. If it fits then I will allow the flex (as long as the party is ok) and find how to work the option in.
In the monsters by CR section, anything below CR1 with "XXXX as playable characters" write ups are pretty much fair game. You'll notice drow nobles are cr = to class level, therefor the drow noble is considered cr1, where as the drow is cr 1/3. The only other playable race with cr greater than 1/2 is svirfneblin, so I personally would throw both of those out as playable at 1 races. Tieflings etc etc are all cr 1/2 or lower
They're perfectly alright. Nothing broken when compared to a dwarven cleric or an elven wizard...
Ifrit, Undine, Oread, Sylph, Dhampir, Fetchling, and one other race from the Bestiary 2 that currently escapes my memory are also excellent player races.
I'd love to see a web enhancement/splat about their favored class alternatives.