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What qualifies a creature as an extraplanar outsider, an extraplanar animal/humanoid/etc or an extraplanar native outsider?
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<blockquote data-quote="VelvetViolet" data-source="post: 6271822" data-attributes="member: 6686357"><p>When I discuss creature types and subtypes, I'm doing so from the perspective of the material plane unless stated otherwise. When I say extraplanar, I mean anything not native to the material plane. When I say native, I mean any outsider with the native subtype and native to the material plane. When I say "outsider (extraplanar, native)" I mean an outsider with the native subtype that is not native to the prime material plane.</p><p></p><p>It's a typo or the author forget how outsiders work. The descriptions in the Planar Handbook state unambiguously that the outsider races presented therein are mortal creatures that need nourishment, age and reproduce like other mortal creatures. Otherwise it's not really balanced to have pure outsiders as PC races (at least not without an LA +1 at the very least) due to their blanket spell immunity, lack of need to eat/sleep and inability to be raised or resurrected if killed (barring the spell "revive outsider" which, IIRC, did not exist at the time the PlH was published).</p><p></p><p>Celestial and fiendish creatures are planar counterparts of material creatures. They are not material creatures that have adapted to the outer planes. Both templates are <em>inherited </em>templates, meaning the creatures are born with it, it can't be applied to an existing material creature (outside special circumstances). While some planar creatures might be naturalized, most of them seem to have been born from the planes or created from scratch to populate them.</p><p></p><p>The extraplanar subtype simply didn't exist until 3.5 edition. Before then, <em>all </em>creatures from outer planes were stated as outsiders, even if they otherwise resembled animals, humanoids, etc. Whereas 3.5 open the door for extraplanar creatures of other types and made these the default form of life on the outer planes (e.g. the celestial and fiendish templates). However, the outsider type is <em>still </em>used for any kind of creature from the outer planes (aside from celestial, entropic, fiendish and resolute creatures), even if another type would be equally appropriate. Outsiders have absolutely nothing in common with one another besides being extraplanar and immune to spells that don't affect outsiders. Just take any creature that, if it were native to the material plane, would be one of the standard types and make it into an outsider. There's really no reason why outsiders can't have the same variety of types as material creatures can with the associated changes to hit dice, skills, traits, etc except for the arbitrary "anything not from the material plane is automatically an outsider, except for all these numerous exceptions."</p><p></p><p>The native subtype makes three unrelated changes to the outsider type: native outsiders are native to the material plane (which can also be accomplished by removing the extraplanar subtype), native outsiders must eat and sleep, and native outsiders can be raised and resurrected. The same result can be achieved by giving a non-outsider type the quality "vulnerability to effects that specifically target outsiders." There are several types of native outsiders with dramatically different origins: planetouched are the descendants (often many, many generations later) of couplings between mortals and celestials, fiends or genies, while tritons are outsiders who emigrated to the material plane and somehow developed the native subtype. If, as tritons indicate, outsiders can gain the native subtype simply by living and reproducing on the material plane for centuries (without interbreeding with humanoids), then it stands to reason that animals, humanoids, etc can become outsiders by living and reproducing on the outer planes for centuries (without interbreeding with outsiders). If, as the planetouched indicate, all the descendants of an outsider and a mortal are native outsiders regardless of how many generations removed, then the material plane should be filled with native outsiders.</p><p></p><p>As you state, there's no reason why an outsider can't be native to the material plane without possessing the native subtype: they simply wouldn't have the extraplanar subtype. There's no reason why a planetouched or other outsider (native) can't be native to a plane other than the material plane: they would simply possess both the native and the extraplanar subtype on the material plane. As such, the native subtype is confusingly named because it can apply to outsiders that are <em>not </em>native to the material plane and does not always apply to outsiders that <em>are</em> native to the material plane, and the word "native" itself is <em>always </em>used with reference to outsiders to indicate which plane they are native to. The outsider type is confusingly named because you can have outsiders that are native to the material plane, which grammatically-speaking means they aren't outsiders.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="VelvetViolet, post: 6271822, member: 6686357"] When I discuss creature types and subtypes, I'm doing so from the perspective of the material plane unless stated otherwise. When I say extraplanar, I mean anything not native to the material plane. When I say native, I mean any outsider with the native subtype and native to the material plane. When I say "outsider (extraplanar, native)" I mean an outsider with the native subtype that is not native to the prime material plane. It's a typo or the author forget how outsiders work. The descriptions in the Planar Handbook state unambiguously that the outsider races presented therein are mortal creatures that need nourishment, age and reproduce like other mortal creatures. Otherwise it's not really balanced to have pure outsiders as PC races (at least not without an LA +1 at the very least) due to their blanket spell immunity, lack of need to eat/sleep and inability to be raised or resurrected if killed (barring the spell "revive outsider" which, IIRC, did not exist at the time the PlH was published). Celestial and fiendish creatures are planar counterparts of material creatures. They are not material creatures that have adapted to the outer planes. Both templates are [I]inherited [/I]templates, meaning the creatures are born with it, it can't be applied to an existing material creature (outside special circumstances). While some planar creatures might be naturalized, most of them seem to have been born from the planes or created from scratch to populate them. The extraplanar subtype simply didn't exist until 3.5 edition. Before then, [I]all [/I]creatures from outer planes were stated as outsiders, even if they otherwise resembled animals, humanoids, etc. Whereas 3.5 open the door for extraplanar creatures of other types and made these the default form of life on the outer planes (e.g. the celestial and fiendish templates). However, the outsider type is [I]still [/I]used for any kind of creature from the outer planes (aside from celestial, entropic, fiendish and resolute creatures), even if another type would be equally appropriate. Outsiders have absolutely nothing in common with one another besides being extraplanar and immune to spells that don't affect outsiders. Just take any creature that, if it were native to the material plane, would be one of the standard types and make it into an outsider. There's really no reason why outsiders can't have the same variety of types as material creatures can with the associated changes to hit dice, skills, traits, etc except for the arbitrary "anything not from the material plane is automatically an outsider, except for all these numerous exceptions." The native subtype makes three unrelated changes to the outsider type: native outsiders are native to the material plane (which can also be accomplished by removing the extraplanar subtype), native outsiders must eat and sleep, and native outsiders can be raised and resurrected. The same result can be achieved by giving a non-outsider type the quality "vulnerability to effects that specifically target outsiders." There are several types of native outsiders with dramatically different origins: planetouched are the descendants (often many, many generations later) of couplings between mortals and celestials, fiends or genies, while tritons are outsiders who emigrated to the material plane and somehow developed the native subtype. If, as tritons indicate, outsiders can gain the native subtype simply by living and reproducing on the material plane for centuries (without interbreeding with humanoids), then it stands to reason that animals, humanoids, etc can become outsiders by living and reproducing on the outer planes for centuries (without interbreeding with outsiders). If, as the planetouched indicate, all the descendants of an outsider and a mortal are native outsiders regardless of how many generations removed, then the material plane should be filled with native outsiders. As you state, there's no reason why an outsider can't be native to the material plane without possessing the native subtype: they simply wouldn't have the extraplanar subtype. There's no reason why a planetouched or other outsider (native) can't be native to a plane other than the material plane: they would simply possess both the native and the extraplanar subtype on the material plane. As such, the native subtype is confusingly named because it can apply to outsiders that are [I]not [/I]native to the material plane and does not always apply to outsiders that [I]are[/I] native to the material plane, and the word "native" itself is [I]always [/I]used with reference to outsiders to indicate which plane they are native to. The outsider type is confusingly named because you can have outsiders that are native to the material plane, which grammatically-speaking means they aren't outsiders. [/QUOTE]
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What qualifies a creature as an extraplanar outsider, an extraplanar animal/humanoid/etc or an extraplanar native outsider?
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