D&D 5E Monster Manual and Races

[Minigiant]

Bad week for aasimars; they don't even make the 5e DMG and they got pushed out of Pathfinder Organized Play. I would say they should call their lawyer, but where are you going to find one on the Upper Planes?

All the good lawyerscome from the other set of planes.

Hope the Hobgobs make the DMG. They own half of 2 planes in my setting.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I can't speak for WotC, of course, but speaking for myself as gamer and writer...

My lack of interest in aasimar isn't that they tend toward good. I liked the deva, for instance. It's that thy have no hook to them.

Tieflings may "tend toward" evil, but that's not the only thing about them. They have built-in conflicts, built-in story hooks, in terms of their history, their physicality, their place in society.

Devas had a good, solid hook with the "multiple lives" thing. I found that fascinating.

Aasimars--at least so far as I've ever seen them portrayed--don't have anything like that. They seem to exist solely so that there's a good equivalent to the tieflings, and symmetry isn't really a strong hook IMO.

That said, I'm not intimately familiar with the aasimar, so by all means, if I'm wrong, tell me. What story hooks or roleplaying hooks are intrinsic to the race?

 

[Obryn]

That said, I'm not intimately familiar with the aasimar, so by all means, if I'm wrong, tell me. What story hooks or roleplaying hooks are intrinsic to the race?

The only things I can think of are the pretty tired ones of "guy who's so lawful good he's really evil" and "fallen angel turned to wickedness," but there might be more?

 

[Pentegarn]

Bad week for aasimars; they don't even make the 5e DMG and they got pushed out of Pathfinder Organized Play. I would say they should call their lawyer, but where are you going to find one on the Upper Planes?

Eh...Typical of what we see all the time these days. Seems the majority of younger people playing don't like to play heroes or the good guys these days. They all like to jump the "Soul this...", "Shadow that...", "Bleeah, Bleeeah, I'm a vampire!" bandwagon. The corps and management that have the final say pander to these masses. Nothing new or surprising here.

 

[Minigiant]

That said, I'm not intimately familiar with the aasimar, so by all means, if I'm wrong, tell me. What story hooks or roleplaying hooks are intrinsic to the race?

The only hooks I ever saw with aasimar are the "paladin" ones.

You are Kill On Sight to most bad guys.
You are favorites to corrupt for the other bad guys
And everyone else assumes you are good and will help them.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

It's amuses me that the most interesting Aasimar is Qaida, who's Neutral Evil and is basically a necromantic extortionist. Though I know the hooks for Aasimar aren't even as strong as the hooks for Genasi are.

Probably the thing to play off them is that they are supposedly privileged, so having one abuse such privileges (like being a charlatan) might make for some amusing hooks.

An Aasimar in denial of their heritage (either the mortal or celestial) out of distaste and scorn could be another concept, though I feel having one in denial or distaste of their celestial heritage might be more heroic than one in denial of their mortal heritage who probably would be more villainous.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Other ideas for Aasimar would be:

-The secret bloodline, the Aasimar is from a secret lineage who have lived among mortals for generation for some secret purpose. Problem is there's some YA novel that I think has a similar idea.

-The Aasimar has visions regularly as a part of their celestial bloodline. That could mean apocalyptic visions of horror and a drive to stop them, or just a very insane character "the Stars told me to do it!"

 

[Incenjucar]

The hook for the aasimar is about the same as the tiefling, except from the opposite direction - everyone expects them to DO something (good somethings).

An aasimar who just wants to be a baker or a poet or a pig farmer is going to have people begging for them to intercede with the divine or to go slay the evil demon in the swamp or to cast judgement on them.

"Yes my mother was an angel, but I just run a stamp collection counter, so please stop bringing your dying children to my shop."

 

[Mouseferatu]

The hook for the aasimar is about the same as the tiefling, except from the opposite direction - everyone expects them to DO something (good somethings).

An aasimar who just wants to be a baker or a poet or a pig farmer is going to have people begging for them to intercede with the divine or to go slay the evil demon in the swamp or to cast judgement on them.

"Yes my mother was an angel, but I just run a stamp collection counter, so please stop bringing your dying children to my shop."

That's a viable story hook for a character, under certain circumstances, but it's not intrinsic to playing the race. This is D&D; your PC's not going to be a non-adventuring stamp collector--or if he is, it's a one-time hurdle that will be dealt with once he's dragged into the campaign.

There's inherent conflict/story in playing someone people expect to be evil. Unless you're playing in a word where being recognizably good is a major drawback (like Midnight), that's not the case with PCs who are expected to be good. (And if you're an evil PC, being expected to be good is as much an advantage as a hindrance.)

I wasn't saying it's impossible to come up with a story for any given aasimar character; of course it is. What I was saying is that any given PC race should come with story reasons for playing it. The race should either permit, or at least encourage, a story- or RP-experience you won't get with others. Otherwise, it might as well be human.

Most of the classic races do that. Both versions of tieflings do it. Deva did it. I've yet to see any way in which aasimar do.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't have the playtest rules handy at the moment, but I wonder how many of the MM monsters might be quickly usable as PC races. In general, playing a monster as PC requires it to be able to gain XP and level up. In absence of rules for "levelling up in monster's levels", let's focus on using monsters with classes (just like races do).

1- If the monster doesn't have any ability score higher than 20, how about using its stats as-is, as starting PC stats? A gaming group who only uses point-buy is not going to like this, but a gaming group that normally uses rolled abilities should have less problem, as long as the stats are valid results. (Alternatively, extrapolate bonus/penalties by comparing stats with 10, but this is more complicated).

2- Ignore the monster's hit points, use HP/HD normally by your class and level.

3- Ignore the monster's weapon attacks numbers, use proficiencies by your class and level, but add natural attacks to your proficiencies. Maybe also add signature weapons.

4- For skills, look carefully if some of the listed ones have clearly high bonuses, and add them to your proficiencies.

5- Use all monster's special abilities, and if they have a DC, calculate that as per spellcasters' spells DC, with proficiency bonus by your character level.

Unfortunately I can't make a concrete example right now, but it might go like this:

Schlumpf, as MM monster

Str 8, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 11
12 HP
Attacks: shortsword -1 (1d6 dmg), shortbow +1 (1d6 dmg)
Skills: Perception +2, Stealth +5
Special: Charm Person 1/day DC 15, can hide in dim light

Schlumpf, as race

Str 8, Dex 13, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 11 (fixed starting array)
(No additional weapon proficiencies)
Skills: proficiency in Stealth
Special: Charm Person 1/day DC=8+Cha+prof, can hide in dim light