Playing Tieflings
Since tieflings are slightly more powerful than the base
races, check with your GM before you create a tiefling
character. The difference in power is slight enough that
some GMs won’t mind letting you play a tiefling, but the
following requirements can help to mitigate the disparity
between the races—your GM may require one of the
following from you (or a similar restriction) if you play a
tiefling. Work with your GM to find a solution that pleases
your entire group.
XP Debt: Before you gain actual XP to progress in level,
you must “work off” an XP debt equal to half what you
normally need to reach 2nd level. This puts you slightly
behind other characters in the party, who will reach higher
levels more quickly than your character, but as you gain
levels, this gap narrows.
NPC Class: Your GM might require you to begin a
tiefling character as a commoner, expert, adept, or warrior
at 1st level.
Tiefling Trait: If your GM allows bonus traits, he might
require your tiefling character to take the “Infernal Bastard”
trait (see page 9); this trait is designed to “depower” the
basic tiefling race to bring it more in line with the power
afforded to a typical PC race.
PC Boons: Your GM can simply give the other PCs a
boon to bring their races up in level to equal the slightly
increased power afforded to the tiefling. Allowing a nontiefling
PC to gain an additional +2 bonus to an ability
score that doesn’t already have a racial bonus applied to
it is one solution, as is increasing a non-tiefling’s starting
cash by 500 gp.
Infernal Bastard: You are a tiefling. You might be an
escaped slave, a hidden shame, or a homeless vagabond,
but whatever your upbringing, life has been particularly
hard on you. You have suffered greatly, nearly starving to
death one winter, nearly being beaten to death by racist
sailors one summer, and so on. Whether or not these
experiences have made you a bitter and cynical scoundrel
or a pious and hopeful optimist is up to you, but one thing
is certain—you are something less than even your tiefling
kin. Perhaps it is a result of your hard life, or perhaps it is
due to some fault in your fiendish heritage, but you lack
a tiefling’s standard resistances to cold, electricity, and
fire—instead, you merely have a +2 bonus on all saving
throws made against these effects. Likewise, you do not
have the ability to use darkness as a spell-like ability once
per day—instead, you may choose any one 0-level spell
that you can instead use at will as a spell-like ability.