JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Aasimar & Tiefling, A guidebook to the Palnetouched, is the latest in the Races of Renown series from Green Ronin Publishing. Weighing in at 96 pages for $19.95, the book is priced at industry standards with some of the best art in the business. Fan favorites like Toren “Macbin” Atkinson, James Ryman, and other add their considerable talents to make this book visually appealing. If you like the cover, also by James Ryman, you'll enjoy the interior art.
The book introduces numerous types of planetouched. The first part covers those who are only partially touched by the planes by having an ancestor of outer origins in their bloodline, the aasimar and tieflings. One of the nice things about this section is that in terms of playing these characters, they cover not only attitude and options for role playing, but how each race approaches the core classes, and those classes found in Green Ronin's Master Class series.
Those looking for options will enjoy the section on making your own planetouched. It's a system that assigns bonuses and penalties for abilities. If you're like me and too lazy to go through that math right away, there are seven new races introduced that show how the math is done with total level adjustment figured out for you. These range from the silvans, a race of elves changed by their time on the astral plane, to the jinx, a gnome crossed with a fiend somewhere in it's history. The illustration is like an evil lawn gnome and slightly disturbing. The only thing I didn't like was for that each time level adjustment was mentioned, it refers you to the DMG. Okay, once for that warning would've been enough. Some of the descriptive text makes me wonder if some errors didn't slip by too. The nergaz, a demonic race of orcs, has a +4 Strength, +2 Con, -2 Charisma and notes, “Nergaz ... being stronger and tougher.” A standard orc has a +4 to strength so I don't see where that statement is correct in terms of strength. Superior overall? Yes, but not in the category it claims.
The half-races, cambion and nephilim, seem a little suspicious. They start with hit dice, but no starting feat or skill points. According to the DMG, “Characters with more than 1 Hit Die because of their race do not get a feat for their first class level...Instead, they have already received a feat for their first Hit Die because of race.” This information was lost somewhere between the DMG and this book. So for outsiders, they should have a base attack bonus of +2, good saving throw on Fort, Ref and Will (+3 each), and (8x4)+8 = 40 skill points. Next problem, what skills should be assigned? That's assuming you go with the outsider as the type instead of humanoid. A separate entry for CR modification would be nice too as the CR does not equal the level adjustment. In addition, due to their racial hit dice, and their level adjustment of 4, that makes them a total ECL of 6, which might be a little too high for most players who'd rather just go with the half-fiend template, which is a straight +4.
The rest of the book spends its time adding to the planteouched with feats, prestige classes, spells, magic items, and monsters. It's a good mix overall. The feats are concentrated on awakening your innate abilities due to your heritage. It starts with Awaken Ancestry, a general feat that allows you to take other ancestry feats. The ancestry feats range from At Your Peril, where you impose a penalty to an enemy's first attack roll against you, to Disgorge Hellfire, where you can spit fire once every 1d10 rounds doing 2d4 points of damage, half fire, half unholy. Some problems arise in that not all prerequisites make sense. For example, the mentioned Disgorge Hellfire just has Awaken Ancestry as a prerequisite. Should a being of angelic descent be able to take this feat? No. Perhaps if there were two descriptions with alternative titles for the feats, that would take care of a lot of those little issues.
One thing I would've liked to have seen is some type of tree for the various ancestry paths. For example, all of the 'evil' or fiendish feats listed out in a table and another with the 'good' or celestial feats.
The prestige classes introduce the following:
Astral Reaver: 10 lvl PrC, specializing in sailing the silver sea. The interesting thing about this class is that they can either get bonus spells per day by advancing in their spellcasting class, or if a non-spellcaster, a bonus feat. A different way of handling a PrC that may have someone like a cleric or a multi-classed character entering it.
Cosmosopher: These divine spellcasters worship no gods and use ambient divine energy to power their abilities. They are questioners whose abilities grow so great, that eventually they can try to ignore any divine spells cast at them even as they advance in spellcasting power.
Energist: This is an epic PrC. As the character goes up in level, they gain different transmogrifications. The first one, air, allows the user to transform into an elder air elemental or plane shift to the elemental plane of air. They eventually reach ultimate transmogrification where his type becomes elemental, doesn't need to eat, sleep or breath, damage reduction, and a bonus to Charisma checks when dealing with elementals, at the cost of being able to be restored to life only through high powered magic as he's now an elemental, and not a humanoid.
Ethereal Pilot: These individuals use ethereal barges to sail through those murky ethereal seas but are more captain like than the astral reavers who are pirates. This is a 5 level PrC where the user continues to gain spellcasting ability and bonuses to his captaining ability through bonuses to leadership and bonding with his ship.
Planar Guide: Another 5 level PrC that specializes in survival, these individuals gain energy resistance, improved uncanny dodge, and the ability to eventually breech barriers, a supernatural ability that allows them to unlock not only standard doors and portals, but also planar gateways.
Planomancer: A 10 level PrC that requires the user to have the ability to use arcane, divine and psionic powers, the planomancer gains psionic points and spellcasting ability. The stupid thing about the wording for it's spellcasting advancement, is that the requirement is to be able to cast divine and arcane spells so of course the player will have some type of class in both fields. Why then, do they note, “If the caster had more than one spellcasting class...” The neat thing about this class is that they can lace their spells with elemental power. Tired of casting fireball? How about earth ball or waterball? Same effects, just different element. Reminds me a little of the templates from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed.
Plane Singer: A 5 level PrC that focuses on increasing their knowledge of the planes even as they gain variants of their bardic abilities like song of attunement where they can grant weapons the align weapon ability or disrupt concentration through the Song of Chaos, effecting those who fail their Concentration Check, opposed by the Plane Singer's Perform check, with lesser confusion.
Warrior Maidens of the Valkyrie: A full ten level PrC that grants either continued spellcasting at a reduced pace of bonus feats in addition to their mastery of mounted combat and ability to shrug off minor damage through their damage reduction.
Xen Chi Mystic: A 10 level monk PrC that focuses on mobility. These individuals can use dimension door, fast movement, a minor blur ability, and an armor class bonus. These abilities grow as the character gains levels so that blue ability is a full blown one at 7th level with a full 20% miss chance, even as they've gained a full 30 feet to their base speed.
Those looking for new spells and magic items will not be disappointed. Spells are broken up by class, level and school. This allows you to quickly see that for wizards/sorcerers, they have five fifth level spells, or that there are three 8th level transmutation spells. There is a nice mix between the powerful, like the 8th level necromantic Bogg's Black Ball of Bleakness, granting a negative energy level to all within a 20 foot radius to the 2nd level Detect Outsider. Even druid's get a little boost with spells like Magma Burst, a 5th level spell that effects a 20 foot radius with magma where they continue to take damage as the magma cools.
The magic items are an interesting lot that I felt could've used a little more tweaking. For example, while the armor and shields section has many new abilities, they also have specific armors. The weapons have new properties, but no specific weapons. It would've been great to see some type of cambion artifact that used the old Dead property, an ability that deals 1d6 cold damage and an extra 1d6 damage against good alignment victims. The various rods and staffs go a long way in making the book useful to spellcasters though as items like the Staff of Chaos allow a few select spells, shatter, chaos hammer, dispel law and word of chaos, to be concentrated in one item. Another useful section here are the new special materials. Heavenly Steel for example, deals half damage as holy, while sky steel weighs one tenth of its normal weight and is masterwork.
Those GMs wondering what they can use to kill off all of these pesky half and quarter breeds will enjoy the new monsters in Planar Perils. It starts off with the massively powered Chaos Horror, a CR 19 outsider that is a master of melee combat and can smite law. What's worse is that those struck by the creature may become “a spongy, amorphous mass.” Other creatures include the psionic based hallucinaught that 'leak a strange psychedelic vapor'. This vapor requires a Fortitude save each round of it drains 1d6 Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma but puts the victim in a state of ecstasy so they never really know what's going on. Another two I'll be using are the Shifting Horror and the Ultae. The former is a creature born from the Plane of Shadow and chaos, a creature that uses poison and spell like abilities to assassinate it's victims, while the latter, the Ultae, is a engine of destruction with four arms, each one using a magic sword.
The book ends with a listing of NPC stats for some of the core concepts like aasimar paladin, cambion necromancer, and tiefling rogue.
It might be a little too exotic for daily use in a standard d20 campaign but overall the book is strong in it's game mechanics. The half-races could've used another round. The options would be great for a GM who wants to showcase the influence of the planes or revive the Planescape setting for his own use with Astral Reaver's chasing characters to seek sanctuary aboard the ships of Ethereal Pilots.
The book introduces numerous types of planetouched. The first part covers those who are only partially touched by the planes by having an ancestor of outer origins in their bloodline, the aasimar and tieflings. One of the nice things about this section is that in terms of playing these characters, they cover not only attitude and options for role playing, but how each race approaches the core classes, and those classes found in Green Ronin's Master Class series.
Those looking for options will enjoy the section on making your own planetouched. It's a system that assigns bonuses and penalties for abilities. If you're like me and too lazy to go through that math right away, there are seven new races introduced that show how the math is done with total level adjustment figured out for you. These range from the silvans, a race of elves changed by their time on the astral plane, to the jinx, a gnome crossed with a fiend somewhere in it's history. The illustration is like an evil lawn gnome and slightly disturbing. The only thing I didn't like was for that each time level adjustment was mentioned, it refers you to the DMG. Okay, once for that warning would've been enough. Some of the descriptive text makes me wonder if some errors didn't slip by too. The nergaz, a demonic race of orcs, has a +4 Strength, +2 Con, -2 Charisma and notes, “Nergaz ... being stronger and tougher.” A standard orc has a +4 to strength so I don't see where that statement is correct in terms of strength. Superior overall? Yes, but not in the category it claims.
The half-races, cambion and nephilim, seem a little suspicious. They start with hit dice, but no starting feat or skill points. According to the DMG, “Characters with more than 1 Hit Die because of their race do not get a feat for their first class level...Instead, they have already received a feat for their first Hit Die because of race.” This information was lost somewhere between the DMG and this book. So for outsiders, they should have a base attack bonus of +2, good saving throw on Fort, Ref and Will (+3 each), and (8x4)+8 = 40 skill points. Next problem, what skills should be assigned? That's assuming you go with the outsider as the type instead of humanoid. A separate entry for CR modification would be nice too as the CR does not equal the level adjustment. In addition, due to their racial hit dice, and their level adjustment of 4, that makes them a total ECL of 6, which might be a little too high for most players who'd rather just go with the half-fiend template, which is a straight +4.
The rest of the book spends its time adding to the planteouched with feats, prestige classes, spells, magic items, and monsters. It's a good mix overall. The feats are concentrated on awakening your innate abilities due to your heritage. It starts with Awaken Ancestry, a general feat that allows you to take other ancestry feats. The ancestry feats range from At Your Peril, where you impose a penalty to an enemy's first attack roll against you, to Disgorge Hellfire, where you can spit fire once every 1d10 rounds doing 2d4 points of damage, half fire, half unholy. Some problems arise in that not all prerequisites make sense. For example, the mentioned Disgorge Hellfire just has Awaken Ancestry as a prerequisite. Should a being of angelic descent be able to take this feat? No. Perhaps if there were two descriptions with alternative titles for the feats, that would take care of a lot of those little issues.
One thing I would've liked to have seen is some type of tree for the various ancestry paths. For example, all of the 'evil' or fiendish feats listed out in a table and another with the 'good' or celestial feats.
The prestige classes introduce the following:
Astral Reaver: 10 lvl PrC, specializing in sailing the silver sea. The interesting thing about this class is that they can either get bonus spells per day by advancing in their spellcasting class, or if a non-spellcaster, a bonus feat. A different way of handling a PrC that may have someone like a cleric or a multi-classed character entering it.
Cosmosopher: These divine spellcasters worship no gods and use ambient divine energy to power their abilities. They are questioners whose abilities grow so great, that eventually they can try to ignore any divine spells cast at them even as they advance in spellcasting power.
Energist: This is an epic PrC. As the character goes up in level, they gain different transmogrifications. The first one, air, allows the user to transform into an elder air elemental or plane shift to the elemental plane of air. They eventually reach ultimate transmogrification where his type becomes elemental, doesn't need to eat, sleep or breath, damage reduction, and a bonus to Charisma checks when dealing with elementals, at the cost of being able to be restored to life only through high powered magic as he's now an elemental, and not a humanoid.
Ethereal Pilot: These individuals use ethereal barges to sail through those murky ethereal seas but are more captain like than the astral reavers who are pirates. This is a 5 level PrC where the user continues to gain spellcasting ability and bonuses to his captaining ability through bonuses to leadership and bonding with his ship.
Planar Guide: Another 5 level PrC that specializes in survival, these individuals gain energy resistance, improved uncanny dodge, and the ability to eventually breech barriers, a supernatural ability that allows them to unlock not only standard doors and portals, but also planar gateways.
Planomancer: A 10 level PrC that requires the user to have the ability to use arcane, divine and psionic powers, the planomancer gains psionic points and spellcasting ability. The stupid thing about the wording for it's spellcasting advancement, is that the requirement is to be able to cast divine and arcane spells so of course the player will have some type of class in both fields. Why then, do they note, “If the caster had more than one spellcasting class...” The neat thing about this class is that they can lace their spells with elemental power. Tired of casting fireball? How about earth ball or waterball? Same effects, just different element. Reminds me a little of the templates from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed.
Plane Singer: A 5 level PrC that focuses on increasing their knowledge of the planes even as they gain variants of their bardic abilities like song of attunement where they can grant weapons the align weapon ability or disrupt concentration through the Song of Chaos, effecting those who fail their Concentration Check, opposed by the Plane Singer's Perform check, with lesser confusion.
Warrior Maidens of the Valkyrie: A full ten level PrC that grants either continued spellcasting at a reduced pace of bonus feats in addition to their mastery of mounted combat and ability to shrug off minor damage through their damage reduction.
Xen Chi Mystic: A 10 level monk PrC that focuses on mobility. These individuals can use dimension door, fast movement, a minor blur ability, and an armor class bonus. These abilities grow as the character gains levels so that blue ability is a full blown one at 7th level with a full 20% miss chance, even as they've gained a full 30 feet to their base speed.
Those looking for new spells and magic items will not be disappointed. Spells are broken up by class, level and school. This allows you to quickly see that for wizards/sorcerers, they have five fifth level spells, or that there are three 8th level transmutation spells. There is a nice mix between the powerful, like the 8th level necromantic Bogg's Black Ball of Bleakness, granting a negative energy level to all within a 20 foot radius to the 2nd level Detect Outsider. Even druid's get a little boost with spells like Magma Burst, a 5th level spell that effects a 20 foot radius with magma where they continue to take damage as the magma cools.
The magic items are an interesting lot that I felt could've used a little more tweaking. For example, while the armor and shields section has many new abilities, they also have specific armors. The weapons have new properties, but no specific weapons. It would've been great to see some type of cambion artifact that used the old Dead property, an ability that deals 1d6 cold damage and an extra 1d6 damage against good alignment victims. The various rods and staffs go a long way in making the book useful to spellcasters though as items like the Staff of Chaos allow a few select spells, shatter, chaos hammer, dispel law and word of chaos, to be concentrated in one item. Another useful section here are the new special materials. Heavenly Steel for example, deals half damage as holy, while sky steel weighs one tenth of its normal weight and is masterwork.
Those GMs wondering what they can use to kill off all of these pesky half and quarter breeds will enjoy the new monsters in Planar Perils. It starts off with the massively powered Chaos Horror, a CR 19 outsider that is a master of melee combat and can smite law. What's worse is that those struck by the creature may become “a spongy, amorphous mass.” Other creatures include the psionic based hallucinaught that 'leak a strange psychedelic vapor'. This vapor requires a Fortitude save each round of it drains 1d6 Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma but puts the victim in a state of ecstasy so they never really know what's going on. Another two I'll be using are the Shifting Horror and the Ultae. The former is a creature born from the Plane of Shadow and chaos, a creature that uses poison and spell like abilities to assassinate it's victims, while the latter, the Ultae, is a engine of destruction with four arms, each one using a magic sword.
The book ends with a listing of NPC stats for some of the core concepts like aasimar paladin, cambion necromancer, and tiefling rogue.
It might be a little too exotic for daily use in a standard d20 campaign but overall the book is strong in it's game mechanics. The half-races could've used another round. The options would be great for a GM who wants to showcase the influence of the planes or revive the Planescape setting for his own use with Astral Reaver's chasing characters to seek sanctuary aboard the ships of Ethereal Pilots.
