Taking the Planar Heritage feat lets a human qualify for feats and the like as if they were another native outsider race. It's a cool feat and lets humans branch into the native outsider races a bit. However, the Xenarth is a native outsider demon allowing it to qualify for the demonic possession feat. I'm not sure it's that big a deal, but I'm certain that it's unintended. Are there any other entertaining uses of the planar heritage that I should be prepared to reject when players bring it to the table?
There's a bunch of feats which require the character to be an urdefhan (a native outsider). I'm not sure that having a skaveling companion is as big a deal as all that, and most of the rest seem to require a strength-draining bite, but you might need to point out the latter at least.
Yeah, it would take some work. Being a Mindchemist can shave that down to needing a 15 wisdom and a 17 charisma. You won't need your body to be nice since you won't need it for long.
This is the sort of thing that you shouldn't feel obligated to supply an in world reason for rejecting. It's blatantly outside of what the game is designed to support. Letting players use this to gain access to soul jar early or outside of class is cool, but using it to get it at level one is obviously just a poor idea for game balance if nothing else. This is just my illustration for how this feat needs to be narrowed in scope a bit.
Bulette are already a magical creation, the hows and whys of our human bulette hybrid aren't really bound by any laws. Attacking this concept with in game reason is doomed.
The feat treats you as that race for the purpose of qualifying for feats, traits, and being targeted by bane weapons and the like. You're going to be wrecked by tons of spells that would otherwise leave you alone with the chaotic, evil, and demon subtypes. So it certainly does give you access to things that require the demon subtype. You don't have the subtype though, so anything inherent to the subtype isn't granted. You aren't immune to electricity and poison for example, nor would you have access to things that required immunity to electricity and poison.
These sorts of feats are built in a way that's easy to abuse since the system wasn't written with assumptions that something like this could exist. The other human ancestry feat doesn't have the
"You must have the requisite physical features to gain certain benefits, as determined by the GM (for example, you cannot gain feats that augment your tail’s abilities if you do not actually have a tail)."
line in it, meaning that you can take a lizardman feat that gives you a tail attack despite not having a tail. These abilities are cool, but they aren't easy to write in a game this broad in scope without breaking a few things.
putting that aside. anyone know any OTHER good feats\races that might be nice?
i know racial heritage shenanigans could let you pick stone giant for stone skin (and more nat ac). or storm giant for electricity immunity.
any good outsider feats are there?
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Planar Heritage (Xenarth) allows you to count yourself as Human and Xenarth. You do not gain any subtypes, such as Outsider (Native), Demon, Chaotic or Evil.
That said, Planar Heritage is a really cool feat which I'm happy you brought to my attention.
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Yeah, it would take some work. Being a Mindchemist can shave that down to needing a 15 wisdom and a 17 charisma. You won't need your body to be nice since you won't need it for long.You need a 'permanent' source of stats to get a feat. Temporary effects don't qualify you to obtain a feat. Once you have the feat different effects could disqualify you from using it, or enable you to use it again.
Bare minimum would be some sort of item that enhances your stats that you can use 24 hours a day. So a character that managed a 19 wisdom/20 charisma could come up with a +2 headband of charisma (4,000gp) to qualify for that feat at 1st level...is a lot more likely to level up to 4th level and put the last point needed in via leveling. That is if the character could survive adventuring considering how many points they would have to drain from other stats. Oh, and you'd need to do the +2/+2 to stats thing which means giving up the extra feat.
Not true, you only need the ability to be able to consistently obtain the requirements. If you lack the requirements, you lose access to the feat until you recover them. This is how you can select Weapon Focus: Claws even on characters like a Draconic Bloodrager who lacks claws while not in a rage.
Not true, you only need the ability to be able to consistently obtain the requirements. If you lack the requirements, you lose access to the feat until you recover them. This is how you can select Weapon Focus: Claws even on characters like a Draconic Bloodrager who lacks claws while not in a rage.Yeah, it would take some work. Being a Mindchemist can shave that down to needing a 15 wisdom and a 17 charisma. You won't need your body to be nice since you won't need it for long.You need a 'permanent' source of stats to get a feat. Temporary effects don't qualify you to obtain a feat. Once you have the feat different effects could disqualify you from using it, or enable you to use it again.
Bare minimum would be some sort of item that enhances your stats that you can use 24 hours a day. So a character that managed a 19 wisdom/20 charisma could come up with a +2 headband of charisma (4,000gp) to qualify for that feat at 1st level...is a lot more likely to level up to 4th level and put the last point needed in via leveling. That is if the character could survive adventuring considering how many points they would have to drain from other stats. Oh, and you'd need to do the +2/+2 to stats thing which means giving up the extra feat.
Apparently its more complicated than that and answers on the topic have been inconsistent. The cleanest way is to allow people to take any feat they like and only allow them access to the feat when they qualify for it. Doing otherwise makes it impossible to build on temporary abilities making temporary forms and weapons a big problem. You don't have the ability to summon monsters for 24 hours a day, so any feat requiring you to be able to cast summon monster wouldn't work.
If we stick to the 24 hour ability only reading, then our only option is picking up the soul jar feat at level 3, grabbing extreme mood swings at first level and taking at least two levels of Skald, court-poet/bacchanal. We should be able to drink every round of the day and stay contemplating for 24 hours. That would be a rough character to keep alive though.
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Planar Heritage (Xenarth) allows you to count yourself as Human and Xenarth. You do not gain any subtypes, such as Outsider (Native), Demon, Chaotic or Evil.
This is my gut, too.
It's definitely intended to let you qualify as an aasimar, tiefling, etc, not to let you qualify as a demon or half-demon, which is a much stronger level of fiendish blood.
Worth noting that the feat only specifies that you must select a Native Outsider. "Choose one type of native outsider". As Xenarth's are listed as a native outsider, this qualifies.
The feat then continues, "You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race."
This means that the only question is: What determines the race of an outsider and what comes with it? Xenarths are Outsiders with the Chaotic, Evil, Demon, and Native tags. While we do not possess any of these abilities ourselves, we do indeed qualify for the purposes of taking traits, meeting feat prerequisites, determining how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.
So, where do we draw the line? I wouldn't allow this in my game, personally, but by RAW it seems to work.
Aside from the fact that I can't find much indication of 'half-demon' anywhere, I assume that's a direct genealogical specification (I would likely count being a half-fiend acceptable).
Demon Revisited has some text on half-demons:
When a demon breeds with a mortal humanoid, the resulting birth is often a specific sub-category of half-fiend — a half-demon. Certain rituals can ensure that the resulting child is a half-demon rather than a half-fiend: such rituals are common in certain demon-worshiping cults, and some demons seek to sire or birth such children for their own sinister purposes.
A half-demon’s statistics are generated as if they were half-fiends, save for some modifications dependent on the type of its demonic parentage. The majority of half-demons are chaotic evil. Each of the following chapters presents adjustments to the half-fiend template when generating a specific half-demon; you can use these 10 examples to generate new half-demon templates for demons not detailed in this book. If an element of the half-fiend template is not mentioned in a particular half-demon sidebar, that element is not adjusted.
Almost all half-demons are half-humanoids. It’s exceptionally rare for a non-humanoid to gain this template — most such situations result in a typical half-fiend. While tieflings — humanoids with a smattering of fiendish blood — may trace their lineage back to such a union, true half-demons are far rarer and more powerful than their watered-down descendants.
What if your grand dad on the demons side was a demon though.
One quarter demon does not a half-demon make.
The feat lets you count as that far distant relative, not as whatever you are now. It would be perfectly reasonable to limit the feat to treating the player as any one of the native outsider player races, but that's not the feat we have here. If that's the intent, the feat needs some cleaning up.
Either way the feat needs a bit of cleaning up. It should either read closer to the Aasimar scion of humanity trait, or made clear that it is very different.
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Isabelle, Isabelle, Isabelle Lee,
Let rest thy pen and hark to me!
If our question here were put to thee
What would thy truest answer be?
What's the intent of the Planar Heritage feat?
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Isabelle, Isabelle, Isabelle Lee,
Let rest thy pen and hark to me!
If our question here were put to thee
What would thy truest answer be?What's the intent of the Planar Heritage feat?
Honestly? Just to create a Planar version of Racial Heritage and see what came of it. I knew the results would be very open-ended, and I've been following these threads with some interest. It's definitely been interesting seeing what folks come up with.
This situation is well beyond my rules lore - I suspect it may defy ruling altogether, unless that ruling were designed with a specific (presumably restrictive) result in mind. Fortunately, we have GMs for this exact reason; I've always been a supporter of GM authority.
With that in mind? Whatever your GM or your table decides upon is the right answer. I didn't have any specific intention beyond seeing what could happen. ^_^
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Cool, my summon freelancer ritual works. Ah, the endless lore and enthralling content that shall be mine! Now I just need to learn a few more outsider(chaotic,extraplanar,freelancer,good) True Names.
What if your grand dad on the demons side was a demon though.One quarter demon does not a half-demon make.Rework that math!
It would still be a half demon. The demon would come from demons who came from demons. That doesn't make them quarter anything.
Not the grandfather is quarter demon, you are. If one ouf your four grandparents is a demon, you're 1/4th demon.
Apart from that: 1) "you yourself are otherwise fully human." - half-demon and fully human aren't compatible.
2) "You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race." - demon isn't a race, it's a subtype. Demonic Possession checks your type, not your race.
@Isabelle. Should've know that feat was written by you. What else in that book sprang from your mind?
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Isabelle. Should've know that feat was written by you. What else in that book sprang from your mind?
This was a pretty major project for me! Let's see...
Archetypes
Azatariel swashbuckler
Chronicler of worlds bard
Dreamthief rogue
Gloomblade fighter
Feats
The whole darn chapter
Spells
The whole chapter here, too
Planes
Elysium
Ethereal Plane
Demiplane, Cynosure
Bestiary
Argent warden
Cynosoma
Empusa
Ganzi
Moon hag
Sapphire ooze
Sirrush
Wrackworm
I'm very proud of it, obviously. ^_^
2) "You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race." - demon isn't a race, it's a subtype. Demonic Possession checks your type, not your race.@Isabelle. Should've know that feat was written by you. What else in that book sprang from your mind?
Treating race as mechanically defined only in cases where the race has been made playable is certainly a reasonable interpretation, but leaving off all the potential weaknesses for the selection makes it a bit bland, and it compares unfavorably to Mostly Human and similar traits available to most of the native outsider races.
I'm "not quite following" because you said nothing about the father being a demon, you only said "grand dad".
When your father is a demon, and you're thus already half-demon, you don't need Planar Heritage to select Demonic Possession, so what does that case have to do with this topic? Am I missing something?
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Gloomblade fighter
Feats
The whole darn chapterSapphire ooze
Can I marry you?
It doesn't surprise me that the conduit feats are written by you* (as you seem to like pushing the boundaries of some options are allowed to do), but there's a lot of other amazing stuff there, too. I'm so going to use the sapphire ooze in my current campaign!
We could use your input regarding a Ganzi ability here, though.
*) plus, "Your hair ignites into flames."