Dear members of the Paizo universe I call upon thee
My group and I will be starting a new campaign in the very near future and our most veteran member will be DM'ing the campaign. As most of his d&d experience as well as most of the modules he'll be running are 3rd and 3.5 material he has opted to using the ECL system instead of any exp debt or other potential choices.
This has become a problem for myself as I was getting excited to crack open a character concept I've had for over a good year now, a tiefling witch. The only problem with this is that my DM seems to be adamant that the Tiefling and Aasimar races although don't warrant a +1 ECL do in his view so far warrant spending your 1st level feat so that they are "on par" with other less powerful races.
I've tried to defend them being on par with the core races for several reasons such as the core races from 3.5 all got an ability stat boost in pathfinder while the planetouched have either stayed the same or actually lost some power such as the tieflings darkness SLA being debuffed.
I'm not looking to start any sort of flame war here just looking for your opinions on the matter.
So do you believe that the race would warrant such a cost or not and please give your reasons why if you believe the feat cost is warranted?
Thankyou All.
Jakynth
As an overall package they are a little bit better assuming you're using their full potential by using a class that benefits from their stat boosts but it is only a little bit.
Most DM's don't have an issue with them because there are many ways to make overpowered dudes without using them. Usually classes get banned or at least certain archetypes.
At the end of the day your DM gets the last word and it's either his way or the highway I'm afraid.
The DM is still unsure of how he wants to have it go he's just leaning very heavily towards this. As of right now I'm the person he's having help him make many of the decisions he has to make about how he's going to manage certain parts of the campaign so its not exactly a his way or the highway situation yet and he his a reasonable level-headed individual so if presented with a solid case hopefully with some backing by people on here then I'm hoping to sway his final decision.
You need to balance up the enjoyment of playing your character minus one feat against playing something else.
Unless you're all powergamers the one feat loss, although a tad harsh in my opinion, isn't going to make a huge difference in the long run.
Tieflings and Aasimars are incredibly powerful races that have some absurdly powerful class options. As a witch, I can't be certain how good it is, but those guys have access to some crazy stuff. I absolutely despise racial feats granting powerful benefits and they give them niche options for character concepts.
I love how Paizo developed a point system for balancing all the races and then let players pick ones that have more race points than the rest -_-
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pathfinder core races got buffed, planetouched got slight nerfs
the nerfs came in the form of, weakening the power of particular spell like abilities by tweaking the base spell, modifying how polymorph subschool spells such as alter self work, modifying the traits of the outsider type and the fairly recent effort to remove a few, increasing hit points and damage potential all around, making resistances far less valuable than they once were, giving all the core races an extra +2 and a few other abilities. even with the customizability, i'd rate tieflings, aasimaars and planetouched inferior to most core races unless you want to enter a spellcasting prestige class early
the biggest benefits of the outsider type in 3.5 was the various new alter self forms, by removing that benefit, the outsider type is a hinderance, and race points are not a good measure of a races power
an aasimaar may be 15 points, a tiefling 12 and a fetchling 17, but they pay through the nose for advantages that are either negligible or too awesome to use. you could, through strategic use of frugal point expenditure, exploitation of synergies, ignoring of overpriced skill bonuses, and exploitations of irrelevant disadvantages, build a 10 point race that is more brokenly overpowered than most published 25 or 30 point races.
why isn't my response visible?
They're not OP. The only thing they have going for them that makes them so good is the alternate stat allocations, and even that isn't a huge deal since it's not like they're "Never before seen Tiefling only stat adjustments". That's the standard there, +2 to two stats, -2 to one other.
They have Darkvision (but so do like half the playable races or more), some decent elemental resistances (barely useful after a while, but still nice), a bonus to two skills (pretty sweet, but overall not going to affect much), a pretty useful SLA usable once per day, and a racial trait that is only semi-useful if you are a Sorcerer of a specific (and pretty crappy) Bloodline, which can be traded out for something kinda cool but not groundbreaking (prehensile tail).
If you can't convince him that they're not OP, ask him what he thinks is so OP about them, exactly. See if he can drop that element (I'm betting it's the SLA, it's the only thing that makes any real sense, or maybe the adjustable stats).
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The race is not overpowered at all. You can actually do better by not even using one. The races are overall better than in 3.5 so that closes the gap. There is nothing the class does to warrant losing a level. What are his specific concerns. PF is close to 3.5, but it is not 3.5. What you can do if he is only going by the 3.5 rules is ask him can you play the race, if the "race" is the core of the problem agree to revisit the race specifically.
Ask him what he thinks is so OP about them, exactly.
They have a number of things in common with other races (Darkvision, bonus to two skills, the standard +2/+2/-2 stat adjustment), minor elemental resistance, and a neat SLA.
If it's the SLA or something see if he'll let you just drop that.
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You DM is mistaken. As a Tiefling or Aasimar you are essentially on par with the other races. If you are allowed the Variant types of Aasimar/Tieflings then you are essentially able to be great, attribute wise, for almost all the classes.
The power of your class is far beyond what your race gives. You could play a 2-handed fighter and use a great-axe. You could, in theory, at level 3, crit for 90 damage with a max str build. Piss him off.
In Pathfinder they are roughly equal.
In 3.5 they were above average.
Pathfinder classes are way more powerful than they were in 3.5, and that makes the race difference less important.
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The Aasimar/Tieflings are not more powerful than the other races by any major degree, with the variants they can be ideal, statistic wise, for almost any class, and that makes some people angry.
Since the vast majority of your power comes from your class in Pathfinder the race isn't all that important. Some will disagree, and that is fine--they do not have to agree with me.--
The difference is not worth a Feat. Your DM does not understand the difference between the Pathfinder races and the 3.5 races.
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The tiefling really isn't that overpowering. Obviously it's the DM's call, but as long as he doesn't do something odd like throw a bunch of fire at you so you can stand there unscathed while the rest of your party perishes in a burning field it should be fine. There are many builds in which the tieflings are inferior to comparable core races. And they're probably not as strong as Aasimar.
Also Tieflings are cool.
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My main use of planetouched races are to acquire Arcane Strike on an otherwise martial class. They can get into spellcasting prestige classes earlier, but its usually not worth it.
Core races are generally more suited to optimization.
Since your DM is used to 3.5, it might be worth pointing out that the "Player's Guide to Faerûn" book included a section on playing planetouched characters with no LA (page 191). It essentially simply stated "make them Humanoid (planetouched) instead of Outsider (native)."
Unless you particularly want the Outsider type, this could be the way to go for playing your concept without sacrificing a valuable resource like a feat.
Edit: That said, to answer the original question; no, tieflings aren't overpowered, and neither are aasimar. In my experience, they weren't overpowered in 3.5, either.
Thankyou soooooo much everyone for all your input. I think my DM is just a bit to Lawful Neutral to change what his past experience with the race has shown him. As far as all of the variant Tieflings I can understand that those may be a bit stronger considering the SLA's are better than darkness yet I will actually be playing the standard tiefling just with beguiling liar and prehensile tail options.
Were not powergamers but optimization is usually in our nature however with this character I've actually not gone with a fully optimized character in favor of a little more fluff. However, the feat loss at first level would really hurt not just me but the rest of the group since the class lends more towards damage mitigation and I'd really love to pick up Extra Hex.
I also would hate to do something to intentionally piss him off as he is a very good friend of mine, just never had him as a DM before.
And as far as choosing the Faerun option of the lesser Tiefling which loses the outsider(native) type I think is just absurd. That would be like playing an elf without pointed ears or a dwarf without a beard to me, without the outsider(native) it just isn't really planetouched to me...just thats what makes it unique.
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Really if you have him look at the races in the core book vs. the 3.X core races, you'll see that they are all +1 vs. 3.x core. The whole +2 to two stats -2 to one stat (or human just a flat out +2) did a ton to balance the +1 ECL races.
They weren't even OP in 3.5. There was actually a variant for them that removed the level adjustment at the cost of changing their creature type. If I remember right, ECL wasn't based on whether the race was too powerful or not, it had a criteria.
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If he's fine with you playing a Witch then a Tieflings advantages are negligible compared to the power that class brings with it, if he's looked over Witch and is happy to allow it then there really isn't a shred of a reason to require an extra feat for a Tiefling... though telling him that maaaaaay not actually help your case ;)
If he's fine with you playing a Witch then a Tieflings advantages are negligible compared to the power that class brings with it, if he's looked over Witch and is happy to allow it then there really isn't a shred of a reason to require an extra feat for a Tiefling... though telling him that maaaaaay not actually help your case ;)
You think the Witch is powerful class? I think its strong, but no stronger than the Wizard.
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They are stronger than most core races but not so much one should call them over powered.
We usually give them one trait less. The only level 1 feat seems a bit too much while letting be played without drawback seems too strong.
Ask your GM is you could find a compromise with them getting a trait less (or is you play without traits give everyone 1 trait).
Well, comparing race points, a Tiefling is at a 13, compared to a human's 9, but also a dwarf's 11, as well as the 10 held by most other races. So it is not that much of a problem.
But if you really wanted to rebalance them, just drop the SLA and maybe 2 resistances. That would drop them by 4 race points right there, and make them about the same as a human.
There is also the large number of choices for stats, but those are still rather balanced, and on par with what you find throughout most races. Humans are also extremely flexible with their bonus where ever they want and a feat that can be used with anything, as well as an extra skill point per level. So again, not that much worse than a human.
I will admit that those aasimar jerks are a problem though. Two bonuses and no negatives. Unfair. They don't have to go around making tough decisions with their point buy. Even humans have to sacrifice their bonus feat to accomplish something like that.
Well, comparing race points, a Tiefling is at a 13, compared to a human's 9, but also a dwarf's 11, as well as the 10 held by most other races. So it is not that much of a problem.
My DM and I both agree that the ARG can't be taken seriously as the point build system for races are extremely flawed.
But I do agree that the Aasimar is stronger than the Tiefling.
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My DM and I both agree that the ARG can't be taken seriously as the point build system for races are extremely flawed.
Agreed completely. In my opinion, the human bonus feat makes that race the strongest of the core races, and far from one of the weakest. The very fact that it's scored so low in the race points system makes that system fairly useless (again, in my opinion).
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The big issue with native outsiders is that they don't benefit from spells like Enlarge/Reduce Person, which are some of the most useful combat buffs in the game. They're immune to Dominate/Charm Person, too, but the usefulness of that heavily depends on the GM.
I will admit that those aasimar jerks are a problem though. Two bonuses and no negatives. Unfair. They don't have to go around making tough decisions with their point buy. Even humans have to sacrifice their bonus feat to accomplish something like that.
Keep in mind the game doesn't break even if you change everyone to have 2 +2's of their choice. The human trade off to get a +2 to 2 stats of their choice is actually pretty weak, what they have from the start is probably one of the best setups. If you ever plan to get skill focus they have a pretty nifty racial trait that lets you get 3 for one.
He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.
Haha agreed, our normal DM said something along the same lines lol.
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Well, comparing race points, a Tiefling is at a 13, compared to a human's 9, but also a dwarf's 11, as well as the 10 held by most other races. So it is not that much of a problem.
But if you really wanted to rebalance them, just drop the SLA and maybe 2 resistances. That would drop them by 4 race points right there, and make them about the same as a human.
There is also the large number of choices for stats, but those are still rather balanced, and on par with what you find throughout most races. Humans are also extremely flexible with their bonus where ever they want and a feat that can be used with anything, as well as an extra skill point per level. So again, not that much worse than a human.
I will admit that those aasimar jerks are a problem though. Two bonuses and no negatives. Unfair. They don't have to go around making tough decisions with their point buy. Even humans have to sacrifice their bonus feat to accomplish something like that.
race points aren't even a valid measure of a races power. the prices are skewed, as to make planetouched look better than they are, and to make humans, elves and dwarves, look a little worse than they truly are.
the costs are deliberately fudged to make the core races look balanced and the noncore races look imbalanced. just so the Devs could prove their own math with justification
thing is, you could build a 10 point race that is more powerful than most 25 point races through exploitation of synergistic features, use of seemingly irrelevant or minor flaws, ignoring overpriced racial abilities, such as skill bonuses, and taking the obvious bang for your buck racials, like hardy, prechosen bonus feat (primary feat for build), standard attribute bonus (+2 to primary offensive physical and +2 to primary mental, -2 to dump stat of little importance) and cheap things like darkvision, the humanoid type and picking as your standard 7 languages, languages you would have already picked as a PC.
an Example of a Minmaxed ARG fighter build
+2 Strength +2 wisdom -2 Charisma (0RP)
Darkvision 60 feet (2RP)
Ferocity; Gain Diehard as a bonus feat (2RP)
Overwhelming Force; Gain Power Attack as a bonus feat (2RP)
Dual Minded; Gain +2 to will saves (1RP)
Fast Speed; 40 foot speed (1RP)
medium size (0RP)
humanoid type (2 subtypes) (0RP)
Quick Reactions; Gain Improved Initiative as a bonus feat (2RP)
Language Array; Common, Bonus Languages; choose 7 adventurer friendly languages, doesn't matter how immersion breaking they are
would you agree that this 10 RP example exploitation of the advanced race guides race builder shows you how a 10 point race through synergies alone, can be stronger than most 25 point races
i'd be less likely to allow this abomination than an aasimaar, tiefling or fetchling and despite happily allowing those three in most games, the example is so overpowering compared to most fighter races by virtue of gaining 3 major combat feats as static bonus feats. one of which, is a melee staple and the other 2 anybody would want.
He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.Haha agreed, our normal DM said something along the same lines lol.
dwarves may be written as 4 points cheaper than aasimaar, but they are a lot more powerful. and actually, Aasimaar aren't much stronger than tieflings, the whole gain an aasimaar gains over a tiefling is the lack of penalty to a potential dump stat. most people don't care about the dump stat, in exchange, tieflings have a more commonly used set of resistances and a more generally useful spell like ability. thing is, it's still a weak SLA either way.
dwarves may be written as 4 points cheaper than aasimaar, but they are a lot more powerful. and actually, Aasimaar aren't much stronger than tieflings, the whole gain an aasimaar gains over a tiefling is the lack of penalty to a potential dump stat. most people don't care about the dump stat, in exchange, tieflings have a more commonly used set of resistances and a more generally useful spell like ability. thing is, it's still a weak SLA either way.He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.Haha agreed, our normal DM said something along the same lines lol.
The way Paizo reworked Darkness for pathfinder I wouldn't even use it as a 0 level spell.
The way Paizo reworked Darkness for pathfinder I wouldn't even use it as a 0 level spell.dwarves may be written as 4 points cheaper than aasimaar, but they are a lot more powerful. and actually, Aasimaar aren't much stronger than tieflings, the whole gain an aasimaar gains over a tiefling is the lack of penalty to a potential dump stat. most people don't care about the dump stat, in exchange, tieflings have a more commonly used set of resistances and a more generally useful spell like ability. thing is, it's still a weak SLA either way.He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.Haha agreed, our normal DM said something along the same lines lol.
i'd typically use neither darkness nor daylight, even as 0 level spells, except as emergency scrolls or oils in highly specific scenarios, such as an oil of darkness to make a shining child less dangerous
They don't have to go around making tough decisions with their point buy.This is entirely dependent on what class you want to play, and what innate Aasimar spell ability you want.
most of the Aasimaar spell like abilities, just like the tiefling ones, are either highly situational, or do little more than offer early entry in a few specific casting oriented prestige classes or the ability to take arcane strike with an otherwise martial character
I realize that RP is an imperfect system, but it is the closest we have to quantification of abilities we have for races. Of course there are plenty of things that skew them, but it still can represents a vague idea of general power.
Plus, it doesn't only make the noncore races look OP and the core ones balanced. The 4 elemental planetouched have RP scores around 6, but they can fit perfectly well into their niches without too much trouble.
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I realize that RP is an imperfect system, but it is the closest we have to quantification of abilities we have for races. Of course there are plenty of things that skew them, but it still can represents a vague idea of general power.
Plus, it doesn't only make the noncore races look OP and the core ones balanced. The 4 elemental planetouched have RP scores around 6, but they can fit perfectly well into their niches without too much trouble.
the abilities possessed by aasimaars, tieflings, suli or fetchlings are completely non-synergistic, the Suli is charged 4 times for an SLA they can use only once per day, the Fetchling's SLAs are highly restricted and highly situational, the aasimaar and tiefling are walking cases of poor synergy in their racial abilities, while the way dwarves are designed, is pretty much built around defensive synergy and the majority of their abilities, mesh with surviving things. i'd rate a dwarf's defenses worth more than anything possessed by an aasimaar, tiefling, fetchling or suli. simply hardy alone, when combined with all the possiblilities for augmentation is worth more than the SLA, the resistances, and the sorcerous affinity, combined, darkvision is handed out like candy, and dwarven modifiers, while not neccessarily offensive, focus heavily on defenses that are otherwise more difficult to raise. a dwarf with steel soul gains 3 feats for the price of one. RP doesn't account for that specific discount.
Honestly, if your GM is that worried about it and is allowing traits, volunteer to take the Infernal Bastard trait from the Council of Thieves Player's Guide; it was intended to "de-power" tiefling. You lose your resistances and instead gain a +2 trait bonus to all of your saving throws against effects with those elements, and you lose your normal spell-like ability in exchange for a single 0-level spell (Arcane or divine, doesn't matter) you can use at-will as a spell-like ability.
Honestly, if your GM is that worried about it and is allowing traits, volunteer to take the Infernal Bastard trait from the Council of Thieves Player's Guide; it was intended to "de-power" tiefling. You lose your resistances and instead gain a +2 trait bonus to all of your saving throws against effects with those elements, and you lose your normal spell-like ability in exchange for a single 0-level spell (Arcane or divine, doesn't matter) you can use at-will as a spell-like ability.
it seemed like a depower
it was more like a buff
since being able to make the save and cut the damage in half, did a lot more than taking 5 points off afterward. and the 0 level spell was probably better than the current racial spell like ability, especially if you chose detect magic, prestidigitation, mage hand, create water, purify food and drink, sift or another similar generally useful cantrip from a class outside your own.
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If he's fine with you playing a Witch then a Tieflings advantages are negligible compared to the power that class brings with it, if he's looked over Witch and is happy to allow it then there really isn't a shred of a reason to require an extra feat for a Tiefling... though telling him that maaaaaay not actually help your case ;)You think the Witch is powerful class? I think its strong, but no stronger than the Wizard.
Slumber, Ice Tomb, charms on anyone they talk to, the ability to make almost any spell incredibly hard to resist for level appropriate enemies via misfortune, evil eye, etc and all at the cost of zero daily resources? Then add a comprehensive debuff spell list which includes access to healing on it as well? Oh and a familiar. Yeah, Witches are a very powerful class. We won't even go into the Scarred Witch Doctor archetype.
On topic however, I'd definitely agree there really isn't anything OP about Tieflings that should cost a feat, perhaps mention to your GM that the human Focused Study alternate racial gives them *3* feats as well as everything else they have... compared to that Tieflings are fine.
There is also the fact that in most settings I have heard of, the tiefling is a huge social stigma with people they meet. Let's face it, when many places you go are likely to lynch you when they discover you, especially out in the countryside where so many adventures seem to go, it can add a lot of finesse to running such a character if the gm decides to use it and adds yet another balance to the race.
Sending a lynch mob after someone when they go to the city to rest/socialize/purchase items isn't really a good balance, it can make it pretty darn impossible to play if you do it every time. Its also really uncalled for because the class in question isn't really out of balance, or at least not in a way that calls for that probably.
Roleplay doesn't do a good job of balancing something mechanically. It can be cool to roleplay that now and then, but as something to balance its really difficult to know how much is too much or too little and it can directly control how the game is run rather than making it fluid and flexible.
Thankyou all for the many responses, more will always be appreciated.
Jakynth
He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.
Why? I'm honestly confused as to what's OP about dwarves.
Losing a feat seems a bit harsh. Why don't you just ask him to get rid of some tiefling trait like fiendish resistance or the SLA? A last ditch effort might be to ask him if you could take -2 penalty to another ability score. Wisdom probably fits a tiefling best.
With the way he's looking to run the session making changes to the race isn't a real option. Although I don't think the race needs to be debuffed in any way to be on par with the core races such as the dwarf.
He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.Why? I'm honestly confused as to what's OP about dwarves.
Dwarves are not really OP, but they are a good race, because of they get bonuses to two good stats and they get a penalty to the most common dump stat. In addition they get a +2 to some good saves. They are not as versatile as humans are, but they are good for defense(saves), and if you take steel soul those saves go up even more.
He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.Why? I'm honestly confused as to what's OP about dwarves.
Base +2 to all saves(can be turned into +4 with a feat), built in trapspotting, good bonus attribute allocation for several classes(everyone wants con and wisdom!), dark vision, hatred racial has several replacements that can be tailored to a campaign(or take flight sentinel and its good against darn near everything).
Those are all good things.
On the whole I think the prepackaged tiefling isn't really overpowered. Depending on the scenario some of the alternate tiefling stuff can be very good (mostly martial classes getting natural attacks), but I don't foresee any problems with a witch.
He should be banning dwarves or requiring you to spend a feat to use them.Why? I'm honestly confused as to what's OP about dwarves.Base +2 to all saves(can be turned into +4 with a feat), built in trapspotting, good bonus attribute allocation for several classes(everyone wants con and wisdom!), dark vision, hatred racial has several replacements that can be tailored to a campaign(or take flight sentinel and its good against darn near everything).
Those are all good things.
don't forget
penalty to an extremely common dump stat, no incentive to wear light armor, massive dodge bonuses against an extremely common creature type by default, but customizable to suit the campaign, +4 against 2 common manuevers, proficiency in a bunch of unique exotic weapons, most of which are unique, such as a reach/threaten adjacent 1 handed weapon, a reach 2handed bludgeoning weapon that deals 2d6 base damage and a few others.
While it is true that the race builder system has flaws and that you can easily min-max a race, keep in mind that the race builder was not meant for players to use. It's supposed to be a tool for GMs to create custom races.
While it is true that the race builder system has flaws and that you can easily min-max a race, keep in mind that the race builder was not meant for players to use. It's supposed to be a tool for GMs to create custom races.
It is still inaccurate and while the GM has the final say the book is aimed at players.