Pathfinder Review: Blood of Fiends

Solid review. I am still ambivalent about tieflings, but I might give the book a change to change my mind.

They suffer, in part, from a lack of thematic balance in the game - there really is no "children of angels" player suitable race.

 

[Sunseeker]

What I think is nicest about this is that it lets you break down the rather generic "tiefling" classification. Perhaps in your game only rakshasa's pollute human blood, or maybe there are strange colonies of Qlippoth-spawn from an ancient invasion. While folks may not be fond of "tieflings", I think the massive level of diversity provided in this book will allow players and DM's to move beyond the typical "hot chick with horns" of 3e or "I look like a devil but I'm really not" of 4e. I think that will be beneficial to any game that wants to include demonic dabbling in humanity.

 

[Filby]

I cut my teeth on Planescape, so tiefling PCs are right up my alley.

The only thing that bothered me about tieflings in the default 4E setting was that they all had the same racial origin (Bael-Turath?) and the same general appearance. They didn't have the same feeling of being a race of wildly different individuals like in Planescape - though Planescape also had the aforementioned problem of making most tieflings sexy girls with horns and tails. I think Blood of Fiends does a great job portraying tieflings with the variety their flavor always implied.

 

[prosfilaes]

It's included as an option, I believe unchanged from the AP.

I spoke in error here. I can't find it in the Blood of Fiends book, so I must have seen it on d20pfsrd and mentally copied it back to the book. Sorry.

If one believes the numbers in the Advanced Race Guide, a tiefling is worth 13 points, with the baseline races being worth between 8 (half-orcs) and 11 points (elves). When I wrote up the rules for my campaign, I didn't stress about the difference, but cut four points of stuff out of the aasimar (15 points).

 

[TheBigBlueFrog]

I've been ambivalent about tieflings. Frankly, I've never understood the reluctance to play them or the mystique which some players attach to them. Still, reading your review has piqued my interest. I'm always up for playing a new race, and as someone who never has owned Bastard of Erebus, this information will all be new to me. As a new GM, the prospect of creating some well fleshed out tiefling NPCs for my PCs to interact with is reason enough for me to pick up this book. I'll look forward to your review of Blood of Angels.

The store is down right now. What are they charging for this 32-page buffet of devilish newness?

 

[prosfilaes]

The store is down right now. What are they charging for this 32-page buffet of devilish newness?

Paizo is up for me? As is Amazon and a score of other online bookstores, I may note. In any case, the player companion's are consistently $10.99 a volume.

 

[TheBigBlueFrog]

I'm picking up what you're puttin' down, Prosfilaes. I was in a hurry, and when the Paizo store didn't work for me, I didn't want to shop around. It was quicker to just ask the question, and it's something you expect in a retail product review anyway. Thanks for you help.

 

[TheBigBlueFrog]

Evil is some varying combination of destructive, nihilistic, and domineering. Unless the DM is willing to run an all-evil campaign, fitting tiefling PCs into a party and having them stay true to form is often a big stretch.

I guess the "out" here is that while tieflings are half-fiends, the are also half-humans, so just like half-orcs, they can follow either path: the fiendish path to evil or a "humane" path of some good or neutral alignment. The idea of any intelligent creature with a soul being locked into an alignment or alignment axis has always smacked of racism to me. Just as some half-orcs struggle with their bestial side and eventually win, I could see a tiefling battling his or her fiendish half and the prejudices of society to prove that their ancestral taint is not the master of their destiny.

 

[Tsuga C]

I guess the "out" here is that while tieflings are half-fiends, the are also half-humans, so just like half-orcs, they can follow either path: the fiendish path to evil or a "humane" path of some good or neutral alignment. The idea of any intelligent creature with a soul being locked into an alignment or alignment axis has always smacked of racism to me. Just as some half-orcs struggle with their bestial side and eventually win, I could see a tiefling battling his or her fiendish half and the prejudices of society to prove that their ancestral taint is not the master of their destiny.

A half-fiend is the product of a fiend and a mortal; tieflings are at least one more generation removed (i.e. grandchildren, great-grandchildren of a fiendish ancestor without any more fiendish blood being introduced to the family line).

Racism? *sigh* Fighting dogs (e.g. pit bulls, AmStaffs, cane corsos) from family lines bred for the ring as far back as 4 generations ago are simply not to be trusted around children as they have a statistically proven increased likelihood of mauling someone. It's essentially the same phenomenon with tieflings. Re-read my second and third paragraphs and you'll see that we're actually on the same page.

 

[TheBigBlueFrog]

When I said "half-fiends" I should have noted that I didn't mean it in the Monster Manual sense, but in the sense of "having fiendish blood" in the same way that half-orcs aren't necessarily the product of one full orc parent and one full human parent.