Is it just me, or are they OP? I see the merit in having them live in a campaign, but as a PC race?! I just see having resistance almost everything is a bit weird. However, I would like to hear from the other side of the story, and if you think that Aasimars are perfectly legal, please tell me why. (I'm sorry for sounding a bit stiff. Its my first thread.)
They are mostly fine as long as you don't allow the Blood of Angels rules that lets them basically choose which two stats they get their +2s to. If those are allowed, then they get far better than the core races and are thus overpowered.
They are, of course, a bit stronger than most of the core races, but not by a huge amount.
Most of my problem with
them is Acid, electricity and cold resistance 5.
not really. At low levels, the resistance is pretty good. Then it doesn't make as big a difference later on.
The two +2 stats and no -2 is pretty good. But the better options are in Blood of Angels. Otherwise, a +2 CHA and +2 WIS is somewhat meh.
I see what you mean. And if you are planning on becoming a cleric, you can get immunity at later levels.
Well, they're legal. They may be overpowered, depending on your tolerance for cheese.
If I had to GM such, sometimes it's very handy to have a character among the PCs with immunity and resistance and such. And nobody is immune to everything, so if I had to find a kryptonite, there's always options.
For me, the greatest problem with any degree of racial or class or feat/domain/spell power is when it becomes a flavor of the month, or the One True Way. If I looked around and saw nothing but Aasimars, if I went to build and felt I HAD to start with an Aasimar/Orc/Power Attack/Sleep Hex, or I'd be somehow weak... that's when X is over-power.
I guess, when the power of X is greater than the cool of X, that's when I don't want to see more of it.
Aasimars have a way to go before that.
I see your point. There is a reason that when I end up GMing, some races will be banned.
Honestly, it's the strongest thing about a decent race, but there are stronger things. A halfling's +1 to all saving throws may help negate the need for resistance, for example, while humans get a free bonus feat of their choice. That's huge, and better than resistances in my opinion.
|
Why? All of the races and classes are potentially "broken" if used in a certain way, it's like making someone re roll if they roll an 18 for stats,
On the other side if the player is expirenced enough they can make anything extrodinarily powerful my friend breaks fighter types beyond belief, his characters make my casters look like chumps whatever the race. Banning races and classes says one of two things, 1 I want to beet you or 2 I don't trust you.
|
If you don't like them, you are absolutely free to ban them at your table.
I, personally, think they're really flavorful and make for great RP potential (though any race can, really) and wouldn't call them "overpowered." Strong? Yes. But even normal Humans are a really strong option for most classes.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've DM'd for Blood of Angels Aasimars (and their Tiefling counterparts) and after about level 2 they're not any better than any other race.
Really all the varying stat bonuses do is make them as useful for any class as one of the Human/Half-human races unlike things like Elf that are only useful for a handful of classes. The resistances aren't really anything at all.
I've DM'd for Blood of Angels Aasimars (and their Tiefling counterparts) and after about level 2 they're not any better than any other race.
Really all the varying stat bonuses do is make them as useful for any class as one of the Human/Half-human races unlike things like Elf that are only useful for a handful of classes. The resistances aren't really anything at all.
blood of angels aasimaars are hardly any stronger than most races.
the energy resistance is a short lived advantage. and the attribute bonuses are outright inferior point wise to specific combinations like +2 STR +2 WIS -2 CHA. which for 0 RP, can minmax a fighter, barbarian, or monk. or for 1RP, you can get +2STR +2DEX -2 CHA. which favors switch hitters. both of which are advantages over of any of the blood of angels combos.
the energy resistances can also be replaced by a 2nd level spell, or a feat chain.
darkvision can be easily replaced by a 75 gold piece ioun stone.
Not having a negative stat isn't really that big of a deal. Most people build their characters with a negative in mind so it doesn't really come up. SR and Resistances a slightly helpful against specific things early on, but are quickly outpaced by everything.
None of the playable races are particularly OP. (Ignoring the Noble Drow.)
darkvision can be easily replaced by a 75 gold piece ioun stone.Not *quite* Lumi. Darkvision's primary benefit is replaced by that Ioun Stone, but that Ioun Stone does come with it's own faults. For one thing it shows observers where you are and that you're coming, and for another it can be sundered, stolen, or dispelled.
(Not that your post wasn't generally accurate, I just felt like clarifying that point.)
it does show observers where you are, but darkvision has a similarly limited range, and most foes you face will have equal or better darkvision or some other sense. which makes the stealth benefit of your own darkvision a little less important.
while most PCs can easily get 60 feet with most races, most monsters can gain 90 or 120 much more easily without requiring a specific rarely used feat. there do exist racial options with 90 or 120 as well. but they have their own limitations.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why? All of the races and classes are potentially "broken" if used in a certain way, it's like making someone re roll if they roll an 18 for stats,
On the other side if the player is expirenced enough they can make anything extrodinarily powerful my friend breaks fighter types beyond belief, his characters make my casters look like chumps whatever the race. Banning races and classes says one of two things, 1 I want to beet you or 2 I don't trust you.
I want those fighter builds.
I see everyone's point, that many races can be made into formidable opponents. However, my characters tend to stay low level for a while, on account of arguing during combat. (Not me, them.) I have friends that create super broken class/race things. (and by the way I did not know that darkvision can be replaced by an ioun stone)
Most of the races in the Advanced Race Guide are slightly more powerful than their Core counterparts. However, I don't see Aasimars being overly powerful because of their racial statistics or traits.
I do see them being powerful in certain cases due to their favored class bonus. This is nothing new though. Each race has certain favored class bonuses that tend to be powerful choices.
I see everyone's point, that many races can be made into formidable opponents. However, my characters tend to stay low level for a while, on account of arguing during combat. (Not me, them.) I have friends that create super broken class/race things. (and by the way I did not know that darkvision can be replaced by an ioun stone)
there is an item in the advanced player's guide called the ioun torch. it costs 75 gold pieces. it is a grayed out ioun stone with the benefits of a continual flame spell. it has the downside of being able to be sundered or stolen, or be temporarily suppressed by dispel magic.
Humans can also put +2 on any two stats (not just two that the book has paired) as an alternate racial trait. If you then give the Aasimar scion of humanity it still has 4 skill point (pre-distributed), dark vision, resistance, and a weak spell like ability up on humans.
So yeah I think I they are more powerful than other races, but I don't see those things as game breaking.
Incidentally last time I checked fire was the most common energy used in the game.
and the most commonly resisted as well.
but aasimaar resistances are short lived.
Not shorted lived, just that their usefulness is at it's peak at low levels, then slowly declines. Resistance 5(electricity) is good against a 1st level Shocking Grasp, but less useful against a 5th level one, for example.
Just gonna point out about the two +2's and no -2 thing:
Humans have the Dual Talent alternate racial which gives +2 in two ability scores of your choice. Now admittedly it gives up their bonus feat and bonus skill points, but it is completely free on what you put them into as opposed to the Aasimar specifically choosing Wis and Cha for them (and there's not a whole lot of overlap on Wis and Cha based classes, short of multiclassing).
Though I admit to being unfamiliar with how Blood of Angels lets Aasimar rework those bonuses, I feel that the rest of their racials are fair enough. Resist 5, even to multiple energy types, can be good at low levels, but kind of gets to be unimportant when enemies are doing 10d6 or more of those elements in one blast.
even playing in a game where the GM allows you to pick and choose freely among the alternate abilities aasimar are rarely OP
compared to versatile humans they are clearly superior for no reason other than they get darkvision, and mediocre energy resistances
most of the SLA's are not that useful, but the skilled bonuses make them good depending on class selection which leads me to the real point
any races negative stat can be overlooked if you put the character in the right class
elves take a negative to CON, and as a result are best at being wizards who rarely should be involved in physical combat anyway where having a higher CON should matter
halflings make good rogues because they can use DEX based feats and weapons instead of relying on STR for damage
dwarves are great fighters because they get a bonus to their Will save which is their biggest weakness and a bump to CON which is good for any martial class
the point is certain races can be tailored to a particular role where the negative stat is negligible anyway, making it unfair to aasimar to be labeled OP simply because they lack one
even in blood of angels if you tailor your aasimar to your particular class (and you can find a variant for ANY class, trust me) they still arent that OP when you compare it to one of the other builds because having a negative in a dump stat is effectively the same as not having it in a dump stat, because regardless, its a dump stat
certain variants let you get even better stats, and if you wanna compare those to the other races and say they are OP its not a bad assertion, but they still lack in other racial benefits that truly break them, like elves overcoming SR or halflings getting +'s to saves
there are alt. SLAs that make them comparable to these race/class combinations, but they are no where near being the monsters that they were in 3.5 compared to the other races
Not shorted lived, just that their usefulness is at it's peak at low levels, then slowly declines. Resistance 5(electricity) is good against a 1st level Shocking Grasp, but less useful against a 5th level one, for example.
that is what i mean, their usefulness is short lived. they quickly decline at a rather rapid pace. and would decline even faster if casters added their casting stat to spell damage or did the crossblooded dip.
resist elecricity 5 negates a CL1st shocking grasp and heavily reduces a CL2nd or 3rd one fairly well except against a caster with a crossblooded orc/draconic dip and the admixture school.
reducing 7 to 2 or 10.5 to 5.5 is great and reducing 14 to 9 is still valid.
the crossblooded admixture blaster is getting
10 damage at CL2nd
17.5 Damage at CL3rd
24 damage at CL4th.
while resist 5 lasts 4 levels of usefulness against a normal caster, the crossblooded admixture evoker can laugh off the resistance as early as 3rd level with a means to compensate for the missing caster level.
this assumes a 1d6 per caster level spell that maxes out at 5d6 for a 1st level slot (like shocking grasp).
unlike the later levels, the first 4 levels are the fastest running levels, because combat tends to be shorter, healing tends to be faster, numbers tend to be smaller, and wise use of the power attack feat can generally kill bosses. but also, resources tend to be limited, so casters usually pick up a crossbow as a backup weapon.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
even playing in a game where the GM allows you to pick and choose freely among the alternate abilities aasimar are rarely OP
compared to versatile humans they are clearly superior for no reason other than they get darkvision, and mediocre energy resistances
most of the SLA's are not that useful, but the skilled bonuses make them good depending on class selection which leads me to the real pointany races negative stat can be overlooked if you put the character in the right class
elves take a negative to CON, and as a result are best at being wizards who rarely should be involved in physical combat anyway where having a higher CON should matter
halflings make good rogues because they can use DEX based feats and weapons instead of relying on STR for damage
dwarves are great fighters because they get a bonus to their Will save which is their biggest weakness and a bump to CON which is good for any martial class
the point is certain races can be tailored to a particular role where the negative stat is negligible anyway, making it unfair to aasimar to be labeled OP simply because they lack one
even in blood of angels if you tailor your aasimar to your particular class (and you can find a variant for ANY class, trust me) they still arent that OP when you compare it to one of the other builds because having a negative in a dump stat is effectively the same as not having it in a dump stat, because regardless, its a dump stat
certain variants let you get even better stats, and if you wanna compare those to the other races and say they are OP its not a bad assertion, but they still lack in other racial benefits that truly break them, like elves overcoming SR or halflings getting +'s to saves
there are alt. SLAs that make them comparable to these race/class combinations, but they are no where near being the monsters that they were in 3.5 compared to the other races
the most overpowered player race is in the core rulebook.
it gets bonuses to 2 defensive stats with a penalty to charisma
it gets darkvision
it gets +2 to 80% of the saving throws you make, which can be upgraded to +4 with a feat, a trait can add an additional +1 to this bonus
it gets a huge dodge bonus against a common mid level creature type
it gets a limited version of trapfinding underground
it gets proficiency in a few useful 1handed weapons and some potential exotic weapon proficiencies, including a broken trip weapon.
it isn't slowed by armor, despite already being slow
it gets a huge bonus against being bull rushed and tripped
the only downside is that they are short, portly, hairy drunks with german names who speak with whiny scottish accents.
9 times out of 10 I'd totally take Human for the feat and skill points instead of a planetouched.
i would agree, but i would also willingly play a planetouched for the flavor of being perpetually being on the divide of mortal and fiend, or whatever. or for the flavor of being a cursed pariah who became an adventurer to seek acceptance.
the only race with a package mechanically equal to that of the human. is the dwarf.
though a half orc who trades darkvision for skilled, and ferocity for acute darkvision to get darkvision back, can be similarly comparable. effectively having traded ferocity for skilled and an extra 30 feet of darkvision. which effectively makes a human who trades his bonus feat for 90 feet of darkvision, +2 to intimidate, and a handful of weapon proficiencies. a feat that a human cannot replicate.
Wuh!? I dunna have a Whinnie accent!!
There's also the human variant azlanti pureblood who gets +2 to all stats...
for +1 ECL. that same +1 ECL could buy the advanced creature template, with gives a net +6 to one attribute, and +4 to the rest, +2 natural armor, and the bonus feat and skill point of being human.
To be fair, I personally consider Merfolk and Strix to be the most op races of them all. I mean, a merfolk has a +6 net gain on stats and a +2 natural armor bonus (with only drawback being a 15 foot move speed with racial trait, which can easily be negated further by speed boots and such), and the strix has a natural 60 foot fly speed (which is just nuts). By comparison, Aasimar are hardly overpowered in my book.
Sorry to say this but in my games I have not seen the Aasimars or Tieflings as over powered, they have for the most part fit in to most games we have run. Humans pretty much rule the day in the games I have been in We have had the occasional Aasimar, Catfolk, Kitsuni, Tengu, Teifling and Undine none of them seem to outclass any of the others and still very rarely outclassed human characters. I even feel safe enough to allow Androids and Suli into my games.
To be fair, I personally consider Merfolk and Strix to be the most op races of them all. I mean, a merfolk has a +6 net gain on stats and a +2 natural armor bonus (with only drawback being a 15 foot move speed with racial trait, which can easily be negated further by speed boots and such), and the strix has a natural 60 foot fly speed (which is just nuts). By comparison, Aasimar are hardly overpowered in my book.
the merfolk has 15 foot move before factoring load or armor. which could lower it's speed to 10 feet. the +2 natural armor bonus cuts into the natural armor benefits of class features such as wild shape or beast totem. and even though it stacks with the amulet, all it does is make up for the AC deficiency of the light armored merfolk who has to wear light armor to retain their 15 foot move.
and because of that limited movement. merfolk are basically limited to classes that provide base land speed boosts and blowing their first level feat on fleet.
the classes that provide speed boosts are, barbarians, oracles (flame or metal mystery only), monk (doesn't stack with most speed boosters), and classes with access to the travel domain. the fire elemental bloodline offers a massive speed boost at 15th level, but that doesn't count because it is an endgame bonus.
merfolk also get bonuses to dexterity and constitution, 2 defensive stats and to charisma, which mostly impacts social skills unless you have some supernatural class featured keyed upon it.
there is more to a race than attribute bonuses.
strix have a 60 foot fly speed, which may help out in the open, but look at the rules for fly checks, such as the DCs, enviromental hazards, ETC, and look at the height of your typical dungeon cieling. most dungeons cannot accomodate the extreme heights that make flight an advantage. and even then, i consider it poor encounter design to not give your humanoid creatures access to a ranged weapon. a sling and some pebbles are free, and flying creatures inside a dungeon are still likely within a sling's first range increment. the loincloths of dead barbarians make excellent slings in an emergency.
when you reread the flight rules in the gamemastering section, flight isn't as powerful as you think.
the majority of campaigns where flight is broken are ones where DMs handwave and ignore the drawbacks associated with flight.
and because of that limited movement. merfolk are basically limited to classes that provide base land speed boosts and blowing their first level feat on fleet.
Any means of flight (of which there are several) will get around this with no problem.
Or pick up a mount. Land speed's not a problem if riding a horse, and hey, you've got a +2 bonus to Cha, in addition to your Dex and Con anyway. Even for classes that might eventually have access to flight, this'll suffice for earlier levels.
And really, if worst comes to worst? You've just got a slow land speed. It can be annoying, but doubtful will it ever be crippling.
And for this one drawback, you get +6 in stats, +2 Natural armor, permanent water breathing and a swim speed, and even immunity to tripping.
Not too shabby.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Might be interesting to see what one could do with a Lame Oracle Merfolk that dedicated itself to just not giving a s!@& about movement at all.
Then... make sure to not take the Strongtail alternate, and make sure to take the Lame Curse.
Congrats! You have a 0 ft. land speed! I don't think it gets any better than that.
Now... if you could somehow lower this down to negative, I wonder if you could move by moonwalking?