Revised Planetouched

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Rhys's picture
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Revised Planetouched

How do these look for a version of planetouched? I searched everywhere to try and figure out the best way to represent them, and here's what I came up with:

Genasi, Air

•  +2 Dexterity, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma
•  Air genasi base speed is 30 feet.
•  Airy (Ex): An air genasi can hold his breath for twice as long as a human, or a number of rounds equal to his Constitution score times 4. Additionally, air genasi are always considered acclimated to extremes of elevation (see the Mountain Travel section on page 90 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide). Additionally, gravity seems to have a weaker hold on air genasi. An air genasi can treat any fall as if it were 10 feet shorter than it actually is. This stacks with similar abilities, such as a monk’s slow fall ability.
•  Wind Scion (Ex): Attack rolls made by an air genasi are unaffected by up to windstorm-level winds. Listen checks made by an air genasi are unaffected by up to hurricane-level winds. After these levels, the rolls are affected as normal.
•  +2 racial bonus on Jump and Listen checks: An air genasi is light and takes to the sky easily, and is sensitive to sounds carried on the winds.
•  +1 racial bonus on saving throws against all air spells and effects, including the supernatural or spell-like special abilities of creatures with the air subtype. This bonus increases by +1 for every five character levels the genasi attains.
•  Automatic Languages: Planar Trade, home region. Bonus Languages: Any (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
•  Plane of Origin: Any (often Plane of Air)
•  Favored Class: Rogue.
•  Level Adjustment +1.

Genasi, Earth

•  +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Dexterity: Earth genasi are physically powerful, but can be oblivious and ponderous.
•  Earth genasi base speed is 30 feet and they have a climb speed of 15 on stone surfaces, either natural or hewn.
•  +2 natural armor bonus.
•  Stability (Ex): Earth genasi gain a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, flying, riding, or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).
•  Stone Tell: An earth genasi gains a +5 racial bonus to find or follow tracks on firm or hard ground.
•  Elemental Heritage (Ex): +1 racial bonus on saving throws against earth spells and effects, including the supernatural or spell-like special abilities of creatures with the earth subtype. This bonus increases by +1 for every two character levels the genasi attains.
•  Low-Light Vision: An earth genasi can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
•  +2 racial bonus on Appraise, Craft, Knowledge, and Profession checks related to stone or metal items.
•  +8 racial bonus on Climb checks on stone surfaces, either natural or hewn, due to climb speed.
•  Automatic Languages: Planar Trade, home region. Bonus Languages: Any (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
•  Plane of Origin: Any (often Plane of Earth)
•  Favored Class: Fighter.
•  Level Adjustment +1.

Genasi, Fire

•  +2 Charisma, -2 Wisdom: Fire genasi tend to be passionate and bright, though often reckless.
•  Fire genasi base speed is 30 feet.
•  Elemental Heritage (Ex): +1 racial bonus on saving throws against fire spells and effects, including the supernatural or spell-like special abilities of creatures with the fire subtype. This bonus increases by +1 for every two character levels the genasi attains.
•  Flame Scion (Sp): Fire genasi can cause a nonmagical fire within 10 feet in them to diminish to the level of coals or flare to the brightness of daylight and double the normal radius of its illumination. This ability does not change the heat output or fuel consumption of the fire source, lasts 5 minutes, and may be done a number of times per day equal to the genasi’s Charisma bonus (minimum 1). They use this ability as a sorcerer of their character level (at least 5th).
•  A fire genasi applies its Elemental Heritage bonus against smoke-based effects. This includes normal smoke and pyrotechnics, but not gaseous poisons.
•  +10 racial bonus against non-lethal damage caused by heat. Fire genasi are quite comfortable in extremely hot temperatures.
•  +2 racial bonus to Intimidate and Tumble checks. Fire genasi are terrible in their anger and can dart forward nimbly.
•  Automatic Languages: Planar Trade, home region. Bonus Languages: Any (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
•  Plane of Origin: Any (often Plane of Fire)
•  Favored Class: Sorcerer.
•  Level Adjustment +1.

Genasi, Water

•  +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: Water genasi are tireless and insightful, though others cannot easily relate to their mindset.
•  Water genasi base speed is 30 feet. They have a swim speed of 15 feet.
•  Water genasi can see through dark water as if they had darkvision to a range of 120 feet. This vision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight.
•  +10 racial bonus against non-lethal damage caused by cold. Water genasi can survive the numbing cold of the depths.
•  Elemental Heritage (Ex): +1 racial bonus on saving throws against water spells and effects, including the supernatural or spell-like special abilities of creatures with the water subtype. This bonus increases by +1 for every two character levels the genasi attains.
•  Amphibious: Water genasi breathe water or air equally well. Spells which would fill the target's lungs with water or otherwise overwhelm the target's breathing with water have no effect on water genasi.
•  +2 racial bonus on Heal checks.
•  +8 racial bonus on Swim checks, due to their swim speed.
•  Automatic Languages: Planar Trade, home region. Bonus Languages: Any (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
•  Plane of Origin: Any (often Plane of Water).
•  Favored Class: Druid.
•  Level Adjustment +1.

Aasimar

•  +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma. Aasimar have a powerful spirit and presence.
•  Aasimar base speed is 30 feet.
•  Low-Light Vision: An aasimar can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
•  Touch of the Planes (Sp): An aasimar may shed light from its body. This functions as the daylight spell, centered on itself (caster level equal to class levels) and is usable a number of times per day equal to the aasimar’s Charisma bonus (minimum 1).
•  +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy and Sense Motive. Aasimar have a calming presence about them, causing others to trust them easily. They are perceptive toward the motives of others.
•  -2 racial penalty on Intimidate checks. Sometimes an aasimar’s aura of serenity works against it, and coercion through threats goes against its instincts on a gut level.
•  +4 racial bonus on Fortitude saves against diseases. Aasimar have a natural purity and their bodies are difficult to corrupt.
•  Automatic Languages: Planar Trade, home region. Bonus Languages: Any (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
•  Plane of Origin: Any (often Upper Planes).
•  Favored Class: Paladin. Additionally, a multiclass aasimar may choose one class and ignore the Paladin’s multiclass restriction for that class only.

Tiefling
•  +2 Intelligence, +2 Dexterity. Tieflings are quick in mind and body.
•  Tiefling base speed is 30 feet.
•  Low-Light Vision: A tiefling can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. It retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.
•  Touch of the Planes (Sp): A tiefling may cast an area into darkness once per day. This functions as the darkness spell, centered on itself (caster level equal to class levels) and is usable a number of times per day equal to the tiefling’s Charisma bonus (minimum 1).
•  +2 racial bonus on Hide and Bluff checks. Sneaking and subterfuge come naturally to tieflings, who often must rely these skills to get by. 
•  -2 racial penalty on Handle Animal checks. Tieflings have no great instinct for gentleness, and animals are often disturbed by their presence.
•  +4 racial bonus on Fortitude saves against poison. A fiendish bloodline grants tieflings a resilience against noxious materials.
•  Automatic Languages: Planar Trade, home region. Bonus Languages: Any (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
•  Plane of Origin: Any (often Lower Planes).
•  Favored Class: Rogue.
•  Level Adjustment +1

Thanks to A Man in Black at the Wizards forums for coming up with a better version of genasi resistances.

When designing these, I kept a few principles in mind. I thought that the 3rd edition planar races didn't have enough intricacy them. There should be more to being these races. So, wherever possible, I tried to find out where the races could interact with the rules in interesting ways.

You might notice things like prominent energy resistances and immunities don't appear. Sean K. Reynolds's Fewer Absolutes concept for races was part of the original inspiration for that. Plus, I don't like player character abilities that are so static. In my experience, when the game is less fun with absolute abilities. Which brings us to my most important principle:

Why all the darkvision? It's awful. I actually had a campaign experience where I asked my players, all of a sudden, "Wait. You guys have no light sources here in Pandemonium. How are you seeing?"
"Darkvision."
"Darkvision."
"Darkvision."
"Darkvision."
"Oh. Um, I guess the only human forgot to light a torch."

So, in my version, you don't get to see in the dark unless you actually have cause to do so. If all your player characters have darkvision to 60 feet for no other reason than the fact that most of them are Outsiders with the (Native) subtype, then that's bad. That's bad because the Outsider type, even with the (Native) subtype, doesn't do Planescape justice. There are just too many Outsiders running around. And it doesn't help that the Ask Wizards feature of the wizards.com site just confirmed that all Outsiders, even PC races, are proficient in all martial weapons.

I'd actually rather make all these races Humanoids, instead. What business does an aasimar sorcerer have using alter self to become a dretch, but not to become an elf, anyway?

And, of course, tieflings don't get penalized in Charisma. Few things make a mortal more confident than knowing that your grandmother is a marilith.

Azriael's picture
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Revised Planetouched

Looks good, couple of quick questions - why does the earth gensai have climb? wouldn't burrow be more appropriate? is this for balance reasons?
Should the air gensai possibly have a higher movement rate?This would fit the fluff associated with them but I'm not sure what would have to be compromised to balance this. possibly a reverse of the "sturdy body"? feature dwarves have - an air gensai can move faster but responds poorly to being weighed down.
Anyway, just a couple of thoughts.
Nice job.

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AkumaDaimyo's picture
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Revised Planetouched

Um Tieflings do indeed get a negative to charisma. Few things make people like you less than knowing your descended from a demon, also I can see good alinged tieflings not being confident about it, after all it does say that Tieflings often feel urges to do evil and selfish things. Hardly a confidence booster. Also, most Outsiders have Darkvision so it only makes sense that those desended from them would have it as well. Darkvision isn't all that great ethier for one. You realize it's in black and white? Try giving a accurate description of something when you have NO color vision. But as you stated before, its a helluva a lot better than not seeing at all.

Also if you want different kinds of Tieflings you should use the table in the Planar Handbook. You roll on it and they get completly different powers than what they normally get. I'm going to use it for sure. They still get infravision (Darkvision now) but the idea is very cool. They also have a table for appearance and other side effects. I just wish they had one for assimar.

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I don't think the air genasi need a better movement rate, though I liked (but did not include) an ability that has been used by other people. With this ability, air genasi don't actually have a fly speed, but they do have improved maneuverability ratings and rates when they gain a fly speed by some means.

A burrow speed would be tough to explain. I haven't given any of the planetouched an ability as wildly supernatural as being able to phase through solid objects, à la an elemental's "earth glide" trait, so I can't see how the burrow speed would work.

I hate the tiefling Charisma penalty. If you want to represent the distrust that most people harbor for tieflings, the appropriate way to do that is by using Diplomacy the way it's supposed to be used. Penalizing the race in Charisma is a bad way to go (in AD&D they had a Charisma bonus!) because it also penalizes them in sorcery, in Intimidate, in Bluff, and it's a strange imbalance with aasimar. Mistrust is not enough to justify a Charisma penalty. Certainly not when tiefers have so much going for them, charismatically-speaking. What's more charming than the Devil?

Tieflings and aasimar, in standard 3.5, have equal skill bonuses and energy resistances, yet for some reason, tieflings get shafted with a stat penalty while it's all in the plusses for aasimar, and their spell-like ability can be overridden by the higher-level aasimar spell-like ability.

As for darkvision, it's given out far, far, far too much. There's a reason only two of the PHB races have it: besides the fact that they and they alone come from underground-dwelling lineages and therefore have a need to see in total darkness, having too many races with darkvision is silly. Out of all the new races presented in PSCS Chapter 2, exactly one of them does not have darkvision to 60 feet. Know which one it is? Here's a hint: It's the one that has darkvision to 120 feet.

That's just silly. If all these planewalkers can walk (or planewalk, for that matter) around without light sources, you have to wonder why it doesn't influence planar culture more. Has the Sigilian torch-maker's industry completely fallen apart? Does an aasimar have any reason to stock candles in his house?

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It's not silly, there are still lots of other races around who don't have Darkvision and yet once again you forget Darkvision is ONLY in Black and White. Kinda hard to really see things for what they are when you can't see in color now isn't it? Say you get robbed by a bunch of guys in the dark and you can only see in black and white? They are all gonna look pretty alike aren't they? Plus there are other factors for light such as some creatures don't like light or can't use their abilities in it, such as oh say a Shadow Dancer? No shadow no shadow jumping. No, it's completly fine. Also, sorry the Devil is NOT charming to everyone and whats more charming? An Angel. Because I know he's on the up and up and is good alinged.

And I still disagree with the Charisma hit to Tieflings. They deserve it. They are descended from fiends and demons and people don't like them. Also they are not guaranteed to be handsome or charming. If you want to change things why not instead make sub-races or more defined versions of Tieflings? A tiefling descended from a Sucubuss for example would be gorgeous and probably have a charisma bonus while a Tiefling descended from a more ugly, less social fiend would have a penalty.

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Yes, darkvision is black-and-white, but think about the days before color in movies and television. It was black and white. There's a huge market for black and white photography. Most security video systems operate black and white. Text on a screen (meaning an enormous chunk of Cyberspace) is black and white, yet you can easily tell the difference between characters. If you can't tell people apart or see detail on a black and white image, chances are excellent that you are simply blind. Now, if you are in the dark without any sort of vision or darkvision, or if your eyes are squeezed shut, then I can see your point. Very difficult to make out detail in that sort of situation. Eye-wink

And what is more seductive, the gorgeous temptress (or tempter) demon, or the stiff old nun? Vengeance is easier and more fun than forgiveness. It's faster to steal wealth than earn it, and cheating leaves you more room to do what you want instead of study. Different folk have different views, but there is a very important reason evil works at all--it's attractive.

That said, I completely agree with Rhys. Darkvision is everywhere, and it can make things damnably difficult, and I have always thought tiefers would be mysterious and alluring, even if they were mistrusted--which would be half the point. Rhys' comments about economics and culture are nicely considered, too.

And THANK YOU for considering the fewer absolutes variant (something that has been planned for my next campaign for months now). What do we need to do to get that into the PSCS? Eye-wink

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Tiefers already are mysterious and alluding even with the charisma penalty. There is nothing whatosever that says they are necessarily strong willed. In fact the outlook giving for them sounds pretty much depressing and low self-image. I support the charisma hit given their outlook on life.

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'AkumaDaimyo' wrote:
There is nothing whatosever that says they are necessarily strong willed.

Wisdom.

Apparently most people who write for D&D have a great misconception of the Charisma score. One time (in an RPGA Living Greyhawk module) my character received a curse that altered his appearance. This gave a -2 Charisma. Suddenly, because my appearance was made slightly creepier, I couldn't cast spells as well! Isn't that amazing?

I agree with Rhys. Proper use of the Diplomacy skill (and/or actual roleplaying) can easily deal with the social mistrust tiefers receive.

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AkumaDaimyo's picture
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But Charisma is force of personality, not wisdom. If your character is a Bard or a Sorceror and you take a Charisma hit it does indeed make sense that you can't cast spells as well because they really on force of personality to cast spells, not how wise they are.

nick012000's picture
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The Charisma penalty makes perfect sense to me.

The demonic blood that burns within their veins (and whispering in their minds) causes antisocial behavior, and in many cases, Antisocial Personality Disorder. This negatively influences their ability to interact with others.

It doesn't stop them from being physically attractive or superficially charming (high base charisma score), but it will unnerve people who hang around one for long enough.

Combine this with poor self esteem from being persecuted all of their lives, and you've got the recipe for a Charisma penalty.

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'AkumaDaimyo' wrote:
But Charisma is force of personality, not wisdom. If your character is a Bard or a Sorceror and you take a Charisma hit it does indeed make sense that you can't cast spells as well because they really on force of personality to cast spells, not how wise they are.

That is correct. Strong-willed is a trait of Wisdom, however. My other point was that in the example I gave, I think it was inappropriate to lower my character's Charisma, because appearance - or what people think of you - is only a small part of Charisma, and not its most relevant part, either.

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'nick012000' wrote:
The Charisma penalty makes perfect sense to me.

The demonic blood that burns within their veins (and whispering in their minds) causes antisocial behavior, and in many cases, Antisocial Personality Disorder. This negatively influences their ability to interact with others.

That, on the other hand, seems to be a rather good explanation of why a Charisma penalty applies. I don't think it should apply to every tiefling, though.

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'nick012000' wrote:
The Charisma penalty makes perfect sense to me.

The demonic blood that burns within their veins (and whispering in their minds) causes antisocial behavior, and in many cases, Antisocial Personality Disorder. This negatively influences their ability to interact with others.

Ding Ding Ding! It does say that being a tiefling does make it hard to resist antisocial behavior and they also have urges to do evil and selfish deeds. That doesn't make for a likeable person who can always easily influence others. That being said you can still have a charismatic tiefling but you won't be starting with a 18 charisma. But as I said you could still make other subgroups of tieflings who have different attributes and abilities. In fact as I already stated the Planewalkers Handbook has a table on page 80 along those lines.

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"That is correct. Strong-willed is a trait of Wisdom, however. My other point was that in the example I gave, I think it was inappropriate to lower my character's Charisma, because appearance - or what people think of you - is only a small part of Charisma, and not its most relevant part, either."

But Charisma is not just appearance, in fact it really has nothing to do with appearance, after all you can be ugly and have a high Cha score. It's force of personality. MINDFLAYERS for instance have like a +8 Cha. That is NOT from appearance. Squid Head people are NOT hot. They are not beautiful. They are scary alien squid people who eat brains. But they are not pushovers and force their will and personality on others. And actually what people think of you is indeed a large part of Charisma. In fact that's pretty much about half of it. The other half is how well you exert your personality on others.

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But their appearance does play into their Charisma scores. Sure, they're horrible monsters, but just because they aren't sexually attractive doesn't mean that their appearance doesn't apply to how high their Charisma is. Eye-wink

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The argument for physical appearance playing into Charisma goes absolutely no further than the nalfeshnee. Huge, bloated pig-demon with a Charisma of 20.

When I posted my revised planetouched, I knew that the tiefling Charisma penalty would be important to some people. Granted, I don't like it, but I really did put some thought into these things before I posted them. I've heard the arguments about tiefling Charisma penalties. That's why I resisted giving them a Charisma bonus (like they had in AD&D when they were first introduced). I figure, humans, tieflings, and any other race can have antisocial tendencies, they can have the urge to commit evil, they can have creepy vibes about them, they can be mistrusted (even mistrusted based on appearance), they can even have low self-esteem. Some of these traits are even things that could, arguably, justify a low Charisma score. But I believe that it should be on an individual basis. How about Hannibal Lector? He's charismatic, antisocial to the extreme, and a human (not a tiefling as far as we know).

A Charisma penalty is not something that over half of the PSCS races deserve.

As for the darkvision thing, it's true that planetouched are generally descended from outsiders. And outsiders universally have darkvision. So, PCs who are of the creature type Outsider will have darkvision unless it specifically notes otherwise. If you want to know why it's stupid to have all these PCs as (native) outsiders, that's a whole other rant.

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I agree on the Charisma not being all appearance thing though. That's why I brought up Mind Flayers. +8 to Charisma and they are ugly, scary squid people who eat brains.

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'Rhys' wrote:
A Charisma penalty is not something that over half of the PSCS races deserve.

A big thing to consider, I think, is the mechanical implications of a charisma penalty. It states that the average tiefling is bad at being a sorcerer or bard (not correct), and has minor issues with being a cleric or paladin (that's fine), a ranger or druid relates to animals more poorly (fairly accurate), is not good at diplomacy (arguable), lying (completely off the mark), intimidation (also probably not accurate), disguise (who has more reason to disguise themselves than a tiefling?), finding out information (I'd say Sigilian tieflings excel at finding info and people about town), activating magic items (because fiend blood wouldn't help with that at all), and all kinds of performances (like juggling and dancing - we all know low self-esteem will drastically impact those abilities).

How many of those things should tieflings reasonably be bad at?

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I'd say... 2 of them. The Paladin thing and the animal empathy thing. Other than that, I'd disagree with the entire CHA penalty for tiefers. And those could be easily dealt with via a racial penalty for Handle Animal checks, and the fact that pallys by the RAW without UA cannot be of Evil alignment, which most tiefers are. Clerics are another matter entirely; there are evil gods galore on the Planes, and clerics don't even need to worship a god.

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In my version of revised planetouched, which I haven't even started to write out the abilities yet, I have only Infernal Tieflings with a charisma penalty (because they're intended to be copy of the MM version), the other 2 Tiefling subraces get a charisma bonus...

But I find charisma penalty's for many races to be a poor excuse for attempting to balance them out. This applies to just about every planetouched race in published WotC sources. There's a reason why I prefer the Cansin (from Dragon mag) over the Chaonds (MMII) and the Axani (also Dragon mag) over the Zenythri (MMII). Then again that same article from Dragon had 6 paraelemental genasi which all had charisma penalties (ooze certainly justified others, not so much). Other races with charisma penalties I disagree with would be the Elan, it's their only racial ability mod, and a really poor excuse for balancing out their abilities.

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Kobold Avenger, I really like your idea for planetouched, and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product. If you need some input, I suggest letting people know that you're open to ideas in the thread.

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Bob the Efreet: Teiflings have a bonus to Bluff checks that counteracts their Charisma penalty.

Additionally, I would point out that most of those uses were skills. Sure, there are lots of teifling rogues who have brilliant people skills. They overcame their racial disadvantage with skill and experience (i.e. skill ranks). Their racial bonus to Int helps them there, because it lets them get more skills.

I would say that being a bard or sorceror ties into confidence- something most teiflings lack (hell, it's something most humans lack).

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