Aasimar and Tiefling should be Themes or templates, not races

[Yora]

Since I have a strong preference for lean systems with only as many rules as absolutely neccessary, I've recently come to like planetouched races. I think in 3rd edition it is somewhere mentioned that all planetouched are mostly human and there are special elf and orc tiefling breeds, but actually it doesn't really matter that much.
When you play such races for the fluff, it doesn't really matter if they all have the same racial traits. So a tiefling can be absolutely any humanoid with a fiendish bloodline. Easy as that.
If you have someone playing a gnome earth genasi, you could just come to an agreement that the maximum strength score for the character is 16 instead of 18 as usual for all characters. But since in low to medium point buy games you rarely ever get that high, it really doesn't matter that much.

 

[SeRiAlExPeRiMeNtS]

Well to me the 4e tiefling is better, as a PC race at least, because it is a specific civilization corrupted by devils and not a generic plane touched. It have a cool Melnibonean feel to me. A more generic planetouched should be a template or theme.

 

[harlokin]

Well to me the 4e tiefling is better, as a PC race at least, because it is a specific civilization corrupted by devils and not a generic plane touched. It have a cool Melnibonean feel to me. A more generic planetouched should be a template or theme.

While I really like the 4e Tieflings, I'm also a fan of the 2e "orphans of the planes".

I'd like a random planar origin race to be called Tieflings, while renaming but retaining the 4e demonic muties.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I find that "X should be a Theme" to be the poorest cop-out excuse there is for anything, whether it be for Tieflings or Paladins or whatever that's had a lot of history in D&D before. Themes should only be used for societies and minorly specific character concepts that transcend classes and races.

 

[variant]

I found the tiefling as PC race to be Wizard's awful attempt to appeal to people who play World of Warcraft, as was most of the crap in 4e.

 

[SKyOdin]

I found the tiefling as PC race to be Wizard's awful attempt to appeal to people who play World of Warcraft, as was most of the crap in 4e.

I never saw that exact connection, but what is wrong with appealing to people who play World of Warcraft? How is it different than appealing to fans of Tolkien, or fans of Vance's Dying Earth? If appealing to fans of World of Warcraft lets us have a full Orc race rather than the half-orc, I'm all for it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'm anti-Aasimar and Tiefling as PC races.

As monsters, OK. As "planetouched templates" that could be applied to core races, OK. But I'm opposed to core race bloat.

 

[variant]

I never saw that exact connection, but what is wrong with appealing to people who play World of Warcraft? How is it different than appealing to fans of Tolkien, or fans of Vance's Dying Earth? If appealing to fans of World of Warcraft lets us have a full Orc race rather than the half-orc, I'm all for it.

The failure of 4e is a good example of what's wrong.

 

[SKyOdin]

The failure of 4e is a good example of what's wrong.

Are you saying that the inclusion of the tiefling race is the reason that 4E "failed" (an assertion I doubt is at all accurate)?

 

[variant]

Are you saying that the inclusion of the tiefling race is the reason that 4E "failed" (an assertion I doubt is at all accurate)?

The entire 4e was created to appeal to World of Warcraft players. They system itself looks like it came straight from an MMO.