Hello, and welcome to the first ever "Races Revised" post, where observations over a race's selection of traits and power level are made in hopes of finding a way to make them a little less...cringe inducing. And what better way to kick things off with one of the most controversial races of all time: Aasimar.
Perhaps the most obvious gripe with the aasimar is that they're descended from good-aligned outsiders and thus, boring. After all, tieflings are descended from evil outsiders, providing the stigma and angst needed to create story-driving conflict and angst easily. Heck, in fourth edition, they were changed into deva, earthfallen celestials caught in a neverending cycle of reincarnation, just to make the obligatory "anti-tiefling" more exciting.
Personally, I think aasimar are anything but boring. Think about it, children born of celestials being used as a point to argue for the existence of gods, or even being hunted down as abominations by the very celestials who spawned them ala Fallen. You could do what Dragon Age did with mages and have the church capturing them to ensure they never become corrupted! Heck, Pathfinder's very first adventure path had a fallen aasimar as a tragic villain! I could go on, but fluff is not the subject here at Races Revised, as anyone can make their own stuff up. Rather, we're here to discuss how to make over/underpowered races more balanced, and aasimar...could use some work.
Let's take a look at the most bothering traits:
Ability Bonus: +2 to two ability scores
I think this one goes without saying: aasimar don't have a penalty! Yes, I understand that they're a more powerful race, and yes, the Advanced Race Guide puts a price on not having one, but that book's reliability is dubious. Now, if every race didn't have a penalty I'd understand, but nearly every race in Pathfinder has at least one penalty (And those who don't will eventually gain a post here.), so the aasimar are going against the most basic rules of balance. Even the tieflings, who are supposed to be their counterparts, have a penalty.
After looking at the crunch and making some creative adjustments, I think I may have found logical ability score penalties for the aasimar, as well as the variant heritages from Blood of Angels:
Vanilla, Angel-Blooded, & Archon-Blooded: -2 Intelligence; I always imagined aasimar as being rather narrow-minded or sheltered, giving them a rather limited idea of the world outside the gods and celestials they're descended from, especially angels and archons, as many consider them most "pure" of the good outsiders.
Agathion-Blooded: -2 Dexterity; Agahions look rather big and bulky in the artwork, so DEX seemed like a plausible choice.
Azata-Blooded: -2 Wisdom; Azata are the wild, reckless, impulsive, "party-animals" of the good-aligned planes, nuff said.
Garuda-Blooded & Peri-Blooded: -2 Strength & Constitution respectively; I'm going to be honest, these two were a bit of a cop-out. After crunching the numbers and doing the research, I couldn't find a plausible penalty, both gameplay and lorewise, so I looked at their celestial ancestors' statblocks and penalized the lowest stats that weren't already boosted and didn't contradict their builds. Sorry.
Celestial Resistance
Acid, Cold, and Electricity Resistance 5 right from the get-go...wow. This seems rather broken for a starter power, but if you stop and think about it, resistance 5 isn't really that much in the long run. Most low-level monsters tend to rely more on physical attacks or fire than the above energy types, and unlike the spell resistance trait, these don't scale (looking at you drow). Plus, I'm fairly certain these don't stack with resistances gained from class abilities and feats, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. But just to please those who do, only allow your aasimar players to select one resistance at character creation.
This has been, "Races Revised". I am TheDisgaean, good luck and God bless.
Perhaps the most obvious gripe with the aasimar is that they're descended from good-aligned outsiders and thus, boring. After all, tieflings are descended from evil outsiders, providing the stigma and angst needed to create story-driving conflict and angst easily. Heck, in fourth edition, they were changed into deva, earthfallen celestials caught in a neverending cycle of reincarnation, just to make the obligatory "anti-tiefling" more exciting.
Personally, I think aasimar are anything but boring. Think about it, children born of celestials being used as a point to argue for the existence of gods, or even being hunted down as abominations by the very celestials who spawned them ala Fallen. You could do what Dragon Age did with mages and have the church capturing them to ensure they never become corrupted! Heck, Pathfinder's very first adventure path had a fallen aasimar as a tragic villain! I could go on, but fluff is not the subject here at Races Revised, as anyone can make their own stuff up. Rather, we're here to discuss how to make over/underpowered races more balanced, and aasimar...could use some work.
Let's take a look at the most bothering traits:
Ability Bonus: +2 to two ability scores
I think this one goes without saying: aasimar don't have a penalty! Yes, I understand that they're a more powerful race, and yes, the Advanced Race Guide puts a price on not having one, but that book's reliability is dubious. Now, if every race didn't have a penalty I'd understand, but nearly every race in Pathfinder has at least one penalty (And those who don't will eventually gain a post here.), so the aasimar are going against the most basic rules of balance. Even the tieflings, who are supposed to be their counterparts, have a penalty.
After looking at the crunch and making some creative adjustments, I think I may have found logical ability score penalties for the aasimar, as well as the variant heritages from Blood of Angels:
Vanilla, Angel-Blooded, & Archon-Blooded: -2 Intelligence; I always imagined aasimar as being rather narrow-minded or sheltered, giving them a rather limited idea of the world outside the gods and celestials they're descended from, especially angels and archons, as many consider them most "pure" of the good outsiders.
Agathion-Blooded: -2 Dexterity; Agahions look rather big and bulky in the artwork, so DEX seemed like a plausible choice.
Azata-Blooded: -2 Wisdom; Azata are the wild, reckless, impulsive, "party-animals" of the good-aligned planes, nuff said.
Garuda-Blooded & Peri-Blooded: -2 Strength & Constitution respectively; I'm going to be honest, these two were a bit of a cop-out. After crunching the numbers and doing the research, I couldn't find a plausible penalty, both gameplay and lorewise, so I looked at their celestial ancestors' statblocks and penalized the lowest stats that weren't already boosted and didn't contradict their builds. Sorry.
Celestial Resistance
Acid, Cold, and Electricity Resistance 5 right from the get-go...wow. This seems rather broken for a starter power, but if you stop and think about it, resistance 5 isn't really that much in the long run. Most low-level monsters tend to rely more on physical attacks or fire than the above energy types, and unlike the spell resistance trait, these don't scale (looking at you drow). Plus, I'm fairly certain these don't stack with resistances gained from class abilities and feats, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. But just to please those who do, only allow your aasimar players to select one resistance at character creation.
This has been, "Races Revised". I am TheDisgaean, good luck and God bless.
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