Aasimar is not native outsider?

Moogle, you may want to consider using the so-called "lesser planetouched". "Lesser-planetouched" are planetouched with the Humanoid subtype who are still affected as Outsiders by banishment-type spells. THey are LA +0, finally an acceptable way to balance the planetouched.

I'm not sure where these are detailed but its in one of the newer WotC books.

I totally support the non-outsider planetouched. The accent in the revised edition is on the extraplanar subtype anyway, not on the outsider type. THe aasimar and tiefling can be banished as easy as anyone else who is not native to a plane, but they are not given the immortality (temporal) and immunity to raise dead.

If it were up to me, I'd even remove the "default" darkvision from the aasimar, since celestials should have no default affinity with darkness, but that's just me...

Their what? The darkness spell-like ability? I don't know, that's one celestial that uses darkness, and an entire species of celestial-related beings that see in the dark...

The celestials have darkvision 60 ft. by default because they are outsiders, and if the aasimar are no longer outsiders, IMHO there's no reason to keep the darkvision.

Well, PrCs with double full spellcasting progressions aren't against WotC's current thinking either, and where does that leave us?

The two planetouched are LA +1, as they should be. Elemental resistance plus nice ability modifiers - it's a +1.

Now, the githyanki and githzerai at +2? Not sure. I play "psionics are different", so their PR is not as useful against spells. I keep thinking about making them LA +1, but the 'zerai's +6 Dex is still bugging me.

Well, that's not quite true. Native and Extraplanar are just subtypes that determine whether you are prime-born or plane-born, regardless of your creature type. Just as you can have extraplanar humandoids, aberrations, and whatnot, you can have native outsiders. For example, an aasimon born on the Prime Material would be listed as Outsider (Native).

It's not just that. There are no outsiders. Couatl aren't outsiders. Hell hounds aren't outsiders. Baatezu aren't outsiders (although they do have an outsider-like type: exemplar).

If that were true, the "native" subtype would be completely redundant. But it's not; it has very specific consequences - native outsiders need to eat and sleep, and they have souls. Why should a minor thing as what plane the creature was born on result in such radical physical and metaphysical changes?

There's no reason to assume that outsiders are extraplanar by default, though, any more than there's any reason to assume that beasts, giants, dragons, plants, vermin, or humanoids are by default native to the Material Plane. Creature type has nothing to do with what plane you're from - that's what the extraplanar subtype is for.

And, of course, nothing is extraplanar on its own plane.

Outsiders are defined in D&D 3.5 as creatures "at least partially composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane," which doesn't necessarily mean they're from an other plane. Couatls are composed of the essence of Mount Celestia, no matter where they brood. Rakshasas are composed of the essence of Acheron, even if they birth their litters on the Prime.

If they have some other reason for needing to eat, sleep, and having souls seperate from their bodies, that needs to be explained. I can't imagine what it might be.

It's not my rule; it's the official rule.

Native Subtype: A subtype applied only to outsiders. These creatures have mortal ancestors or a strong connection to the Material Plane and can be raised reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be. Creatures with this subtype are native to the Material Plane (hence the subtype's name).
Unlike true outsiders, native outsiders need to eat and sleep.

There's nothing in the description which says that creatures with mortal ancestors who were born on other planes don't qualify. They only need "mortal ancestors or a strong connection to the Material Plane." There's nothing that says that every Outsider who happens to be a native of the Prime deserves the subtype, either; they need mortal ancestors, or another strong connection. I don't think merely being born in the Material Plane qualifies as a strong connection, and I don't think merely being born in some other plane removes that connection.

That half-demon should be a native outsider with the extraplanar subtype - so yes, you should be able to banish it back to the Abyss.

You're right that the description of the native subtype says that all natives are considered to be native to the Material, which technically means it should only have the extraplanar subtype when in the Abyss or other non-Material planes, but I think we agree that that's stupid. So, in this case I advocate contradicting the official rule.

Despite the subtype's name, all it really does is represent mortal traits the creature inherits from mortal ancestors - a soul and the need to eat and sleep. Our Abyssal cambion friend should have those traits (merely being born in the Abyss won't change that).

The native subtype should be considered to be entirely seperately from the extraplanar subtype.

I still think that's a horrible, masochistic idea. Why make the statistics for so many D&D creatures invalid? Because the name "outsider" (like the name "native") happens to be Prime-centered? That makes it worth rewriting the stats for scores of monsters? Call all the outsiders "exemplars" if you want, but I don't see the point of recalculating all their skill points, hit dice, and feats.

The problem people had with the outsider type is a relic of early 3.0 D&D, when all planar monsters seemed to belong to the same creature type (though this wasn't actually true even then - devourers, ethereal marauders, inevitables, and all celestial, fiendish, axiomatic, and anarchic creatures belonged to other creature types, among other monsters).

The introduction of the extraplanar subtype fixed that problem, and the native subtype fixed the practical (as opposed to theoretical) problems people had with planetouched. The vast Planewalker type-redesigning project has outlived its usefulness.

I don't mind just changing the planetouched around, or even the bariaurs - those are just a few creatures who are important PC races. But changing everything?

"Nemui" wrote:

So it should be something like Medium Outsider (Chaotic, Evil, Extraplanar, Native)?!

That's right.

A half-fiend born in the Outlands, visiting Toril.

Or a half-fiend born in Toril, visiting the Outlands.

If you want me to find an example in an official product, you're out of luck. You're not arguing with Xan here or someone else who cares about such things. My point is that this isn't that this is how WotC is doing things, only that is the way things should be, for a number of reasons. My point is that WotC has bungled their own rules in a really obvious, hideous way.

It's not just common sense, it's a game balance issue. Why should my rakshasa (or half-celestial, eladrin, whatever) character from Sigil not have to eat or sleep while your rakshasa character from Eberron does? Why should you be able to resurrect your rakshasa character from Eberron while I can't do the same for my rakshasa Cager?

This double standard twists the whole game out of whack.

Extraplanar means the character is not on its home plane. This subtype affects how certain spells effect the character.

Native defines the nature of a character's flesh and soul. You still haven't explained why being born on one side of a portal as opposed to the other should affect that. Should in the in-game sense or should in the metagame sense - it fails by both standards.

By the rules, incidently, the half-fiend from the Outlands and the half-fiend from Toril would both be (chaotic, evil, native, extraplanar) while on the Outlands and (chaotic, evil, native) while in the Material Plane, while an elf from the Outlands would be (extraplanar) on Toril and an elf from Toril would be (extraplanar) while on the Outlands. That's a stupid double standard all of its own, but it's not quite so bad as your interpretation: at least planar characters have the same bodies and souls as their prime equivalents, even if spells affect planar-born native outsiders in the opposite way that they should. I quoted the actual text of the rules; I'm not sure why you still don't believe me.

For what reason? The extraplanar subtype already distinguishes them in that way.

The native subtype was invented so that people who wanted to play tieflings, aasimar, or genasi (or fey'ri or tanar'uks) in the Forgotten Realms setting could do so without significant complications. It was a hack of the game rules and there's no reason to read anything more into it that that

Don't get me wrong, it was a good thing, but there's no reason - either logically or by the official rules - that it shouldn't be as useful in planar campaigns as it is in the Realms.

It's only illogical if you're hung up on the names. Forget about the names: I agree that the names are horrible. If I were choosing the names, I would probably call them "mortal extraplanar reifications," which isn't an illogical combination at all. That's what the names mean; it's just that whoever picked the names out was doing so from a confusingly Prime-centered point of view.

No, no. Look at the actual rules. "native outsider" means "mortal exemplar" - native, regardless of the name, means the character has a soul like a mortal and their body has mortal physical needs. Outsider means the character has an (at least somewhat) spiritual body made from the abstract concepts of the planes of the sort that ordinarily wouldn't have a body/soul duality and wouldn't normally have mortal physical needs.

The line that says that native outsiders are always native to the Material Plane whatever plane they're actually from reads like an editorial afterthought, and makes no rational sense at all. Ignore it, is my advice.

No, I'm using them as examples of how WotC has misapplied the "native" subtype, presumedly because someone had the idea of how they could prove how versatile it was, but didn't really think about what on in Heaven's name the in-game explanation might be.

Do you have any ideas?

Rakshasas and couatls are outsiders, which means according to the official definition that they contain the essence of planes other than the Material Plane.

I don't actually have a problem with outsiders personifying the essence of the Material Plane. Presumedly such a creature would be the personification of sunlight, or nature, or the stars, or the crystal spheres and the phlogiston, or the space/time continuum. I don't think these creatures should have to eat or sleep, and I don't think they should have a soul/body duality. By the rules, these creatures have a connection to the Material Plane and they're outsiders, so they should be natives, but it doesn't make any sense to use the native rules on them.

Rakshasas and couatls personify flavors of evil and good, respectively. They're clearly outer planar, regardless of what the designers of the 3.5 Monster Manual thought.

There are plenty of those things on other planes. Even if they tend to be native to Material marshes and Material forests, it doesn't change the fact that they're not reifications of marshes and forests - that would make them elementals or fey, in all likelihood - they're reifications of good and evil, clearly lesser forms of fiends and celestials.

As I said, they're excellent examples of how the native subtype has been misused.

Oh, good.

Ah, so. Well, as long as we're talking about the way things should be ...

As moogle said, outsiders eat and drink and sleep, or at least that's the way it should be. Being a native outsider should mean no more than that you were (somehow) born on the Prime Material, and thus your kind should not be considered extraplanar there. It is a type for outsiders only, and only those who are not extraplanar. It is obvious to me that this was the intention of the wizards' design team, and that the native subtype traits (eating, sleeping, etc.) were jammed in just to remedy the planetouched.

Should in the in-game sense: You are of the Prime. Your soul lacks certain properties that a true outsider's soul has. There is a dualism in your being, as you are not fully spiritual like your extraplanar relatives, nor are you equal parts sould and flesh, like the mortal primes. Your immortal kin either despises you (if fiendish) or feels compassion (if celestial). You belong nowhere. Go figure. I don't like it overmuch, but it can be explained.

Should in the metagame sense: In 3.0, customer service gets drowned in clueless questions about what can be banished by whom from where, and about outsider type implicating extraplanar "treatment". In the revision, the designers cleverly slap the extraplanar tag on the outsiders that should be considered extraplanar on the Prime, and the native tag on those who shouldn't. When someone asks "And what about the planetouched? They should have certain mortal characteristics." someone else replies "OK, just edit the native subtype." And they leave it at that, which would be fine if there were no extraplanar aasimars, tieflings, and half-outsiders. The intention was to make the extraplanar and native subtypes mutually exclusive. There is no clear mention of this in the rules, but nothing is mentioned about the good and evil subtypes being mutually exclusive either, yet we can safely assume they are.

It's not an issue of belief, I thought we were talking about how things should be, not what actually stands in the rules? I didn't write the native subtype, and we apparently agree that it's

What I'm trying to do is explain how the planewalker.com's interpretation works (well, my interpretation of their interpretation). The fact that the wizard's fumbled with the native subtype has little to do with the planewalker version.

Native is as relative as extraplanar. If you are from the Prime, you are native (and not extraplanar) there, and when on other planes you are extraplanar (not native) there. This stands for all creatures, not just outsiders, yet the extraplanar and native tags are added just to the outsiders because they are usually not from the Prime.

For the reason of D&D audience being a bunch of whiny little bastards that need to have everything spelled out for them, to show that not only is A equal to A, but it is not equal to B. Yes, it is superfluous to you and me and most planescape players. That's why planewalker threw its relevant portion out (the one applying to the planetouched).

I'm hung up on the names because I'm trying to show how the designer's intent was to make the native subtype to distinguish between creatures extraplanar in relation to the Prime and native to the Prime. And how the "soul stuff" (eat, sleep, raise dead) was added later to compensate for the fact that the planetouched were still outsiders. If we eschew planetouched outsiders, we can eschew the "soul stuff" of the native subtype, which we both agree makes little sense.

Now who's sounding like Xan!?

"Clueless" wrote:

Oh for goodness *sake* - don't make me get the hose.

Won't be necessary. I'll just state my opinion one final time and try to stay away from further arguments.

1) All official outsiders have either the extraplanar or the native subtype, but never both. Therefore, it is safe to assume that these subtypes are mutually exclusive.
2) If that is so, than the only purpose of the "eats, sleeps, drinks, gets raised" traits in the native subtype description was to make the planetouched seem more mortal. If we remove the planetouched from the outsider type, these traits are no longer required, and the native subtype is therefore no longer required. It remains nothing more than a sign clarifying that the outsider creature is not to be considered extraplanar on the Prime Material Plane.

"Alas, I can't prove a word..."

These books "Dungeons and Dragons" in their third edition seems to be increasingly written by clueless. I would not worry about their Prime-centric views; as they are just a bunch of misguided clueless.

Ladies and gentlemen, there has been a small change in the casting of this show. The role of Stuart Smalley will be played by Rip van Wormer.

:twisted:

People like me! They do!

I stand corrected. Still, this actually proves my other point - the native subtype is meant to solve a problem with the planetouched, and if that problem has been dealt with in another manner (and it has), the subtype is no longer necessary.

If Planetouched = Humanoid, than native subtype does pike all, since according to moogle and FoE all outsiders have their own special rules regarding age, feeding habits, and death/resurrection.

Again, judging from how it is used in the official books, the native subtype would be used merely as a placeholder for the extraplanar subtype at Planewalker, and little more.