Survey for Aasimar players

[Shea731977]

Just a simple thought... not strictly about aasimars but about any "powerful" race (those with ECL mostly):

- Races with bonuses are always welcomed, no one can argue about it.

- Aasimars are easily welcomed, they have no penalties on stats so they can be perfect for players who likes good aligned RP.

- For my personal experience i love madly (as everybody knows ) another ECL race (drow) mostly for the challenging of RPing and the thrilling of the UD setting (yeah, Stats bonuses and SR are useful too... i know it!).

- Going back to Aasimars... well you're somewhat connected with the quintessence of Good, even prhaps this bond can be very weak, so i'd like to RP one (if that ever happen) with the obvious feelings about blatantly evil ones.

Just my two cents.

[Arn]

I choose aasimar for purely mechanical reasons, TBH. If I have a build where I want to max out Wisdom or Charisma, it's a simple choice for me. There is little (or no) RP downside, and my understanding is that aasimar can even pass as human. Races of Faerun, page 112.

For me to not pick aasimar, the Wisdom and Charisma bonuses would have to eliminated. And to be clear, I'd be fine with that.

[DaloLorn]

I realized a little late that I'm technically targeted by one of these questions...

As an aasimar player, what reasons do you pick this race for the builds you play? Are there any RP considerations, or is it solely mechanical?

Never actually played the guy, but a while back I drew up a build for an EDMing Divinate buffing to 30 STR and 32 CHA. Assuming a +4 CHA item, he would have had 3+9 uses of EDM, plus 4 from Extra Turning (which I never decided if I'd get via my level 18 feat or an item), with each activation lasting 22 rounds. For reference, that's a total EDM duration of 35.2 consecutive minutes, or nearly two full rest timers of uninterrupted combat: It's entirely plausible that my buffs might expire before I run out of EDM, unless I had to burn a few uses on Divine Shield.

It was a strictly mechanical experiment, I hadn't even gotten as far as naming him. I'd probably want to adapt my RP to the race, but it'd be a paladin either way, so...

What would you as a player need to encourage you to pick another race for your build? Examples could be, changes to feat stat requirements (eg EDM).

The build was pretty streamlined, to the point of having a free(ish) feat at level 18. Given the ability scores in play, drow might have been advantageous due to having the same net ability budget with SR on top... but I could never take a drow paladin seriously, whereas aasimar are made to be paladins, to the point of even having it as a favored class (for what little that matters when you don't want to multiclass).

I suppose if humans were a net-2 ability race, it might be tempting to trade a bit of CON for Luck of Heroes and an extra skill line... but it wouldn't make or break the build, and I couldn't tell you in advance which race I'd take.

If you aren't playing an aasimar, but are playing a class that is normally favored by aasimar, what do you feel you would need to make it feel like a more viable pick for your race?

Air genasi silverstar (albeit soft-retired and having offscreen adventures in Silverymoon). I'm getting hammered with penalties to all my cleric stats, but for some reason I'm dumb enough to still pour all of my ASIs into WIS instead of building in a more martial direction (besides a fighter dip for extra feats, enabled by my favored class).

The sylph penalty block from Pathfinder (-2 CON instead of -2 WIS/CHA) would probably be pretty helpful. I'd probably want to RCR to shuffle my stats around a bit, because 8 CON feels like a bad idea for a martial-ish cleric, but...

TBH, all the genasi ability scores could be pulled from Pathfinder and it would be perfectly fine in my book. It's embarrassing that the designers thought a net-0 and a net-4 race should have the same ECL, considering how similar the aasimar and genasi statblocks are in all other respects.

EDIT: I also forgot a bunch of others I've had that could be used to answer this last question...

Hidden: show

• Wood elf druid (pretty much retired): Not really a lot comes to mind that would be in any way justifiable. I guess a Pathfinderized statblock would possibly be to her benefit, losing one of her ability score penalties... but Amaetha's race is the least of her worries with that class lineup.
• Human dragon disciple (with paladin dip; retired, i guess): Getting to choose a +2 ability score would be useful! With hindsight, Berred was wasting his level 1 bonus feat anyway... though in my defense, he was a pre-ToT build.
• Human dragon disciple (with fighter dip; mostly retired): Eeeeeh, ditto. But I don't think Shali really needs it; she's actually getting some decent value out of being human, narrative and mechanical alike.
• Human bard (sort of retired): ... Ability score. Again. (And like the dragon paladin, Mainda would work perfectly fine mechanically as an aasimar, I was just addicted to Able Learner in the pre-ToT days.)
• Human monk (retired): I swear, I'm not a broken record, but being able to put 2 points in WIS would be nice for Lamir.
• Human warlocks (x2, one more firmly retired than the other): Okay, maybe I am a broken record. Ability score.
• Human, uh... wuxia protagonist? (failed to launch): You guessed it...
• Half-elf sorceress (dead): Same as the humans, actually! The halfbloods are all better than PnP, but still kind of wimpy compared to their base races IMO.
• Moon elf man-at-arms (retired): It's been forever and I don't even have a build sheet for this guy, but I think extra ability scores would have helped somehow... and MaA is an aasimar-friendly class with those CHA features!
• Water genasi sorcerer (retired): Trading up for the undine ability block (+DEX/WIS, -STR) would definitely have been a neat upgrade.

[calvinus]

* As an aasimar player, what reasons do you pick this race for the builds you play? Are there any RP considerations, or is it solely mechanical?

Originally when rolling the Helmite paladin Wai in 2013, it was because I wanted her to have a cosmic and racial inclination towards good and part of the reasoning why she came to a Helmite lifestyle after being on a path of evil before and no mechanical reasoning.

* What would you as a player need to encourage you to pick another race for your build? Examples could be, changes to feat stat requirements (eg EDM).

Probably just easier feat progression as suggested with a human race build all else held equal. Human is my favorite race to play, but yeah if I was hoping to have the mechanical benefits of Aasimar, it would be nice to have better epic feat progression with a human race option.

* If you aren't playing an aasimar, but are playing a class that is normally favored by aasimar, what do you feel you would need to make it feel like a more viable pick for your race?

Not applicable in my case.

[Moonsong]

* As an aasimar player, what reasons do you pick this race for the builds you play? Are there any RP considerations, or is it solely mechanical?

Definately, the bonus on WIS and CHA and the RP feel. I am known for liking to break the norms with my character concepts. One of my alts is an Aasimar, with her untypical Aasimar deity. Many people play Tymorans also humans, half elves and halflings serving that one. But i thought it may be a funny twist. Why not have an aasimar, that is not another lawful paladin, but still good aligned? It wouldn't be such fun to play was as any other race

Aileena is more closely tied to Tymora than any other cleric or mink or mystic od Tymora. Considering what kind of Cwelestial her ancestor is, it all if just amplified, making her...a protector of other people's luck and a champion of self fulfillment.

* What would you as a player need to encourage you to pick another race for your build? Examples could be, changes to feat stat requirements (eg EDM).

Wings, fully working wings! Includimng flight spell.

Otherwise i would rather stick with the aasimar race and complain if humans suddenly get an enormous CHA boost or halflings get a +10 WIS.

That being said, the offer would have to be really very tempting to play Aileena as any other race for me.

* If you aren't playing an aasimar, but are playing a class that is normally favored by aasimar, what do you feel you would need to make it feel like a more viable pick for your race?

Cleric, i love to play my main character Tiawyn, who is an elf, as (again breaking the norms ) a spellcaster cleric. I have no issue that she's not your typical melee/tank cleric. I hope people are not too disappointed if they learn that fact about her ICly and still like to play with her and me.

I feel spellacsters are made weak lately. My spellcaster cleric is rather dependend on others regarding adventuring, alltough a player who is good with builds made her build for me. I don't blame him. If i may be blunt, i blame the server balance. In almost all areas that are in her level range she can't survive on her own. I asked for advise, tried to use the suggestion i got, but nothing helprd really much. Spellcaster clerics are great for RP and can do good in plots. But then again i don't really have plotf-riendly playtimes. Due to my health issues i miss most plots. So i depend on being included in small things and RP with other players for her.

But again regarding to adventuring: It would take at least a few not so overpowered high level areas to make her feel like a viable pick for adventuring to me. It would take longer lasting summons that don't disappear after 1 1/2 minutes already, despite high CL and high DC. It would take better control for summons, i tested it and despite the commands, my summons still do what they want at times, instead of what i tell them.

So in short: If the server can't be adjusted to make certain spellacsters more viable picks, they need to be made a bit stronger...and please do not make enemies stonger at the same time again, like it happendd with some of the recent updates. It's very disappointing and frustrating, if you look forward to play a new character concept after a 100% RCR and then you have to realize, that certain monsters also got stronger and are OP for you. But it's too late to go back, because your 100% RCR is already used up.

"Elven clerics are too weak. Make it another race. Make it an aasimar." -> i got that a lot in the past. But too late, i was playing my elf before already and it isn't a new character. I actually also like her as an elf.

I hope the server will -not- restrict, or nerv Aasimars. I hope that divine spellcasters of other races can be buffed a bit more in order to let them catch up with the strengths of the Aasimar a bit.

I heard other players talking about similar experiences. I will not call names, just saying i'm not the only one. Also i wanted to use that chance as Rhifox is already kind enough to care - and ask.

Just my 2 cents. Thanks for reading.

[whatever123]

1. I often choose Aasimar in DnD and Pathfinder if possible. It is mostly the lore aspect, but also the aesthetics, that inspire me to play Aasimar. The CHA and WIS bonus is nice to have, as Cleric and Sorcerer are my favorite classes. But I would play them even if they had no mechanical bonuses whatsoever, or even if they had penalties. In Pathfinder, the Emberkin Aasimar is especially interesting to me from a lore point of view, as they give a nice background for the trope where a character is good, but has an internal power struggle between good and evil.


2. and 3.

I like to have an Aasimar character, but as this server lets you play multiple characters, I don't need the others to be Aasimar even if the race would mechanically benefit them.

[Lockonnow]

well something that cross my mine was if you use summon all those you summon is human/Deva speak Celestial and you need to be Aasimar to understand them right?

[Riddance]

well something that cross my mine was if you use summon all those you summon is human/Deva speak Celestial and you need to be Aasimar to understand them right?

Not necessary, you can just cast tongues/comprehend languages or pick celestial as one of your extra languages if have enough Int / Lingusitic

[DaloLorn]

... If you're going to derail the thread, then please at least do it right.

The celestials can speak and understand Common just fine; you don't need to know Celestial to communicate with them. But yes, if you really needed to, there are plenty of ways to speak or at least understand Celestial without being an aasimar. Some classes even get it by default (e.g. clerics).

[Lockonnow]

DaloLorn you need a hug all Hug DaloLorn

[Rhifox]

Locked.