Do tieflings dream of half-fiend sheep?

[Clavis]

And are the children of demons doomed to be as evil as demons themselves? How would/should a devout enemy of demons (paladin, ranger with favored enemy: evil outsider, etc) react to meeting a tiefling the first time?

I'm starting a new campaign -- and playing for a change, woohoo! -- and my character is a CG demon hunter (high Int, low Wis, moderate Cha, if it matters). One of the other players will be bringing in a tiefling character. I'm trying to figure out a reasonable in-character response, between the two extremes of "Half-demon, you must die!" and "You look like a trustworthy fellow despite your horns, tail, and stink of brimstone -- please join us!"

It depends on the tone of the campaign. In the real world, people can get killed for just having a different skin tone. A reasonable human reaction to a tiefling, IMHO opinion, would be to either run away in fear, or immediately attack the obvious spawn of evil. I personally wouldn't penalize paladins, for instance, for immediately killing any tiefling on sight, because that would be consistent with a fanatical, medieval world-view. It would be a Lawful act, because it would be considered unnatural for humans to mix with demons, and it would be a Good act, because it would be destroying the spawn of the physical embodiments of evil. In fact, any paladin that let a tiefling (ANY tiefling) live would be in very severe trouble with their sponsoring church. That includes tiefling women and children.

On the other hand, most D&D campaigns seem to assume that the human inhabitants of their worlds are very used to seeing strange races, and don't share the persistent racism of the real world. Therefore, I would ask your DM what would be an appropriate reaction in his or her game world.

 

[blargney the second]

Tiefling: Demon:HB Sorcerer: Dragon.

That's a pretty good analogy. Nothing strained about it.

 

[lukelightning]

Back in 2e I played with an annoying player who had a female tiefling character who insisted his character's parent was a demon lord and would threaten us with angry parent action if we upset him (the player).

This would have been an interesting roleplay thing if done right (i.e. a tiefling under the delusion that her parent is a powerful demon or devil prince), but the player himself insisted insisted that his character was half-demon lord. He went on a huge rant/tantrum when I suggested that he shouldn't count on his character's parentage as an advantage, since demon lords are not generally known for parental love....

 

[Jhaelen]

Flow my tears the demon-hunter said

I love this thread's title

Well, since your demon-hunter is good-aligned, your reaction towards the tiefling character shouldn't be overly aggressive. Even half-fiends should receive the benefit of doubt: Their heritage can go both ways, they might even be dedicated demon hunters themselves!

Now, if the tiefling character is evil-aligned, things might become a bit difficult in the long run... Otherwise it shouldn't be much of a problem. While your character may initially be wary of the tiefling, her actions will tell him soon enough if you can trust her.

 

[Deekin]

Tieflings and other planetouched due ping on the Detect X 'dar, but what they ping as depends on their alignment.

The Spells say X Outsider, not Outsider with X subtype. So a 2nd level CG Tiefling will ping as a moderate Good and Chaos aura.

 

[Rechan]

Here's another important thing:

Why are you two working together?

If it's just "We meet in a tavern and decide to go treasure hunting" ... I don't see it happening. If I'm an elf and orcs killed my parents, and I love to slay orcs, I am not going to go galavanting over the countryside with an orc PC by choice.

If you must work together (You are all hired by the same patron, you are in the same place when something bad goes down), then it will add tension, but should not be a problem.

If it's the latter (and I hope it is), your character ought to be distrustful. Make it known to the Tiefling that "he's got his eye on him". He'll probably eventually make up his mind about the tief, but until then, it's a matter of "I'm suspicious."

This will likely be more severe if the Tiefling tries to conceal its nature (hat over the horns, etc).