Fiendish Sorcery

[Salthorae]

James - if I were to start a subscription to the adventure paths today, is there anyway to get #25 for the 30% off and free pdf too?

Thanks!

 

[James Jacobs]

James - if I were to start a subscription to the adventure paths today, is there anyway to get #25 for the 30% off and free pdf too?

Thanks!

Actaully... I'm not sure. I just make these things... I'm not sure how the rest of everything works at this place!

I do know that if you shoot an email to customer.service@paizo.com, or give customer service a call at 425-250-0800, they'll be able to hook you up with the answer superfast!

 

[Xendria]

Then I'm curious why you even released a simple generic Tiefling? Honestly I was defending the Tiefling in the Preview Beastiary. The negative stats don't completely remove a race from a class, just make them less natural. Even with a -2 wis you can easily have a Tiefling Cleric of (insert evil god here), it's just like having a dwarf sorcerer. I just agree with the fact of -2 wis more than -2 cha. Most demons have atleast equal wis/cha and most have higher cha. It just seems more fitting for that to show in their ancestors as well.

 

[pawsplay]

But penalizes the iconic tiefling cultist of the fiendish demon-god. The problem is that no matter what mental stat you decide to penalize, you're going to be nerfing at least one really cool iconic bad guy role.

I can see where you're coming from with the multiple bloodlines, and indeed for a planar campaign, I think you probably need them. The central issue is not nerfing bad guys, though, it's trying to present the race coherently. +2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Cha has history behind it, but maybe a little too much history. I'm going to just say I don't think most players should be directed to "The Tiefling Issue" in order to get a tiefling that covers basic archetypes.

As it is, fiendish sorcery is a kludge, and essentially one that punishes arcane tiefling sorcers.

Looking at the iconic through a different lens,

1. Why can't the cultist be a sorcerer?
2. -2 is not fatal for the one-off tiefling. As it is, the tiefling arcane sorcerer has to deal with the same issue and I am more concerned about him.
3. I can see the tiefling cultist as an archetype, but it's far less compelling to me than the tiefling Sigil rat, tiefling caster, tiefling arcane trickster, tiefling musician, etc. Tieflings to me are the downtrodden masses of the planes and the transgressive things lurking at the edges of major cities on the Material plane. They are grifters, "helpful guides," disposable spear-carriers, and living currency. Not necessarily big cult leaders. Or even particularly clerical acolytes. "Cultist" translates to me to "rogue who got religion."
4. I'd be more inclined to make a clerical leader as a cambion, or whatever kids are calling them these days.
5. Hello, advanced template.

You could turn a lot of that on its head, but at the end of the day, to me tieflings are adept at arcane magic and roguery, and they are rarely clerics. Even diabolical ones. They don't worship, they serve.

If you really wanted to play with the idea of tieflings coming from different bloodlines, or blended ones, they should probably have gotten the floating +2 that humans, half-elves, and half-orcs get. Particularly if you want them to hew to the concept of being part-humanoid, part-outsider, rather than "human with a twist of evil lime."

 

[James Jacobs]

Then I'm curious why you even released a simple generic Tiefling? Honestly I was defending the Tiefling in the Preview Beastiary. The negative stats don't completely remove a race from a class, just make them less natural. Even with a -2 wis you can easily have a Tiefling Cleric of (insert evil god here), it's just like having a dwarf sorcerer. I just agree with the fact of -2 wis more than -2 cha. Most demons have atleast equal wis/cha and most have higher cha. It just seems more fitting for that to show in their ancestors as well.

Because of compatibility with 3.5 for one, and because we wanted to present a tiefling on a single page (all of the monsters in the Bestiary are on one or two pages). We DID want there to be tiefling sorcerers, and the fiendish bloodline ability is an addition to address that that does not hurt compatibility and also doesn't take up much room at all.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Seems to me like a good house rule would be to give tieflings (and aasimar, for that matter) the same +2 to any ability score and no penalties that half-orcs, half-elves, and humans get. That would reinforce the idea that human heritage = versatility that the core rulebook seems to have.

 

[Xendria]

I can see the +2 to any stat. My question is, is the fiendish sorcery just to offset the -2 cha then? If it is, is it supposed to affect bonus spells, spell CD's, etc? Because now I am questioning if I should use it in my campaigns for other races (ie: genasi and aasimar as mentioned before). I like it but I don't agree with just using it as a fix for a -2 cha or any stat for that matter.

 

[pawsplay]

Because of compatibility with 3.5 for one, and because we wanted to present a tiefling on a single page (all of the monsters in the Bestiary are on one or two pages). We DID want there to be tiefling sorcerers, and the fiendish bloodline ability is an addition to address that that does not hurt compatibility and also doesn't take up much room at all.

I can appreciate that. By the way, I just wanted to stop and praise the amount of work put into the Pathfinder roleplaying game. Writing a new game, page by page, while keeping track of how one change affects other parts of the system, is a huge undertaking. I hope you will intepret the occasional nitpick not as a complaint, but as a sign of interest.

 

[pawsplay]

I can see the +2 to any stat. My question is, is the fiendish sorcery just to offset the -2 cha then? If it is, is it supposed to affect bonus spells, spell CD's, etc? Because now I am questioning if I should use it in my campaigns for other races (ie: genasi and aasimar as mentioned before). I like it but I don't agree with just using it as a fix for a -2 cha or any stat for that matter.

Even as a "fix" for low Cha, the ability doesn't really alter balance if you move the penalty to a different state. While it may take a tiefling from an effective 15 to an effective 19 if you go from penalty to bonus, since a sorcerer's highest stat is probably going to be a Cha anyway, it doesn't change much. In theory, you might be assisting in a stat dump if their lowest ability is the the one that gets the penalty, although I tend to believe that any sufficiently low ability become a liability soone or later.

A fix is useful because it means that a tiefling with the standard array can have a Cha 19 and hence 9th-level spells without an enhancement or inherent bonus.

Basically, the ability is equivalent to about two feats. You can presume that an infernal tiefling is probably about one feat ahead of his peers in terms of balance while an arcane sorcerer is about one feat behind.

 

[imurphy943]

if you have no racial bonuses to any mental ability score, then it's impossible to raise that stat above 18, and therefore impossible to cast 9th level spells without some sort of special help- bringing up the separate problem that dwarves can't be good arcane spellcasters with their ability modifiers.