Level Up (A5E) Questions about the Planetouched Heritage

[Corinnguard]

From page 23 of the Adventurer's Guide:

With your Narrator’s approval, you can choose a heritage gift from a heritage other than the one you originally chose; this allows for the easy creation of adventurers with parents of two different heritages, or use of bases other than human for heritages such as tieflings.

Say I wanted to play a Dwarven Aasimar. I would pick up the Dwarf heritage and get their Age, Size, Speed, Darkvision, Creator's Blessing and Tough. But instead of picking up one of the two Dwarven gifts, I would be picking up the Planetouched's Aasimar gift instead. Right? And would my Dwarven Aasimar also be picking up the Planetouched's Immortal Blessing trait as well?

Would a Human Aasimar keep the Human heritage's Fast Learner and Intrepid traits? Or would they be replaced by the Planetouched's Darkvision and Immortal Blessing traits?

I am asking because I am trying to make sense how the Planetouched heritage works compared to the 7 other heritages in A5e. It definitely counts as a Mixed heritage since it involves a character whose parents come from two different heritages (with one parent being a Celestial or a Fiend, and the other one hailing from the Material Plane). But the wording here from the Mixed Heritage sidebar and the Planetouched heritage is a bit confusing to me. It seems to be saying that humans are the default heritage for this mixed heritage. And then it goes to show the traits that are common to all Planetouched even though the other 7 heritages have their own set of commonly held traits.

Thoughts?

 

[Micah Sweet]

From page 23 of the Adventurer's Guide:

With your Narrator’s approval, you can choose a heritage gift from a heritage other than the one you originally chose; this allows for the easy creation of adventurers with parents of two different heritages, or use of bases other than human for heritages such as tieflings.

Say I wanted to play a Dwarven Aasimar. I would pick up the Dwarf heritage and get their Age, Size, Speed, Darkvision, Creator's Blessing and Tough. But instead of picking up one of the two Dwarven gifts, I would be picking up the Planetouched's Aasimar gift instead. Right? And would my Dwarven Aasimar also be picking up the Planetouched's Immortal Blessing trait as well?

Would a Human Aasimar keep the Human heritage's Fast Learner and Intrepid traits? Or would they be replaced by the Planetouched's Darkvision and Immortal Blessing traits?

I am asking because I am trying to make sense how the Planetouched heritage works compared to the 7 other heritages in A5e. It definitely counts as a Mixed heritage since it involves a character whose parents come from two different heritages (with one parent being a Celestial or a Fiend, and the other one hailing from the Material Plane). But the wording here from the Mixed Heritage sidebar and the Planetouched heritage is a bit confusing to me. It seems to be saying that humans are the default heritage for this mixed heritage. And then it goes to show the traits that are common to all Planetouched even though the other 7 heritages have their own set of commonly held traits.

Thoughts?

I don't think they're being treated as a mixed heritage in the sense that the sidebar is referring to. They seem separate to me. That said, you can of course handle it however you want.

 

[Anselm]

I don't think they're being treated as a mixed heritage in the sense that the sidebar is referring to. They seem separate to me. That said, you can of course handle it however you want.

Agreed - I think @Corinnguard, you're making this a bit more complicated than it is. Mechanically, a heritage is a set of basic traits and a heritage gift that you choose from a set of options. Mixed heritage allows you to pick the traits from one set and a heritage gift from another set. Planetouched is just another heritage. Having a halfling X planetouched means you can choose the traits of either a halfling or planetouched and a heritage gift from the other one.

I believe the paragon features would come from the heritage you chose the traits for as the mixed heritage rules state "you can choose a heritage gift from a heritage other than the one you originally chose", putting the 'default' heritage as the one with the traits and the gifts as the exception, but I'd allow it to come from either.

 

[Corinnguard]

Agreed - I think @Corinnguard, you're making this a bit more complicated than it is. Mechanically, a heritage is a set of basic traits and a heritage gift that you choose from a set of options. Mixed heritage allows you to pick the traits from one set and a heritage gift from another set. Planetouched is just another heritage. Having a halfling X planetouched means you can choose the traits of either a halfling or planetouched and a heritage gift from the other one.

I believe the paragon features would come from the heritage you chose the traits for as the mixed heritage rules state "you can choose a heritage gift from a heritage other than the one you originally chose", putting the 'default' heritage as the one with the traits and the gifts as the exception, but I'd allow it to come from either.

You're right, a heritage is a set of basic traits and one of several gifts that you can choose from. As for a Mixed Heritage, you choose the traits from one heritage and one of the gifts from another heritage. So you could choose to create a half-elf by first choosing the human heritage, and then selecting one of the elven heritage's gifts. You could also choose to create a half-elf by choosing the elven heritage and then selecting one of the human heritage's gifts.

I am not sure the planetouched heritage is the same as the other 7 heritages. Well before A5e, the planetouched were essentially hybrids. Part Material Plane humanoid, part Outsider. A Native Outsider in earlier editions of D&D.

 

[Anselm]

You're right, a heritage is a set of basic traits and one of several gifts that you can choose from. As for a Mixed Heritage, you choose the traits from one heritage and one of the gifts from another heritage. So you could choose to create a half-elf by first choosing the human heritage, and then selecting one of the elven heritage's gifts. You could also choose to create a half-elf by choosing the elven heritage and then selecting one of the human heritage's gifts.

I am not sure the planetouched heritage is the same as the other 7 heritages. Well before A5e, the planetouched were essentially hybrids. Part Material Plane humanoid, part Outsider. A Native Outsider in earlier editions of D&D.

It is mechanically the same in terms of the rules for mixed heritage. You just need to decide if you want the planetouched traits or the aasimar gifts. Mechanically that is all you get to do. However, you can flavor the end result however you want in terms of what you're character looks like.

 

[Corinnguard]

True. Given a choice between the planetouched traits or the aasimar gift, I probably would go for the aasimar gift for that otherworldly flavor. The planetouched traits and another heritage's gift IMO would result in a planar individual, not a prime individual. Hmm...planar as a culture.