Aasimar is a fun and flavourful species to play withinDungeons & Dragons: You can mix a trickle of celestial heritage into a character to amplify a paladin or cleric’s zeal or to add a conflicting sense of destiny to a character wanting to choose their own path.
Related:Dungeons & Dragons: Best Species For A Cleric Character
The subtypes allow for playing the aasimar as willful zealots, reluctant pawns, or obstinate rebels. While there are a variety of directions the iconic group can be taken in, you’ll want to keep the following tips in mind both for planning your character and for using them in the game.
Choose The Right Subspecies For Your Character
There are three main options that are offered for playing an aasimar: Fallen, Protector, and Scourge. Each offers its own options in terms of character building and role play.
How To Play A Fallen Aasimar
Despite the name, afallen aasimar doesn’t have to be an evilcharacter. Instead, they might simply be exercising thefree will of their mortal heritage in a way that conflicts with their celestial heritage: Many settings allow for their deities to express flaws, and you can create powerful stories fromhaving a divine servant having a moral dispute with their deity.
You can also make a story about a fallen aasimar who wasunwillingly severed from their celestial guideand is working to reclaim it.
A fallen aasimar can work well as a class that can manipulatepeoples' inherent reverence for aasimar. Themastermind and swashbuckler rogueare both good at this, with the mastermind’sSoul Of Deceit ability allowing you to lie under magical oath.
The other direction you can take a fallen is to pledge them to another power that overrides their celestial heritage.PaladinsandWarlocks are well suited to this,and you can negotiate with your GM to have yournecrotic shroud take aesthetic flairs from a Great Old One or other warlock patron.
There are two main mechanical differences in how the fallen aasimar play:
How To Play A Protector Aasimar
The protector fits nicely as amiddle ground between the zealotry of the scourge and the rejection of duty represented by the fallen. In this way, you may use the protector toexpress human virtues in a celestial light.
One way to do this is to focus on other types of good to what the scourge leans into: Make efforts to do good deeds rather than prioritising the punishment and extermination of evil.
In combat, you have the Radiant Soul daily power, which gives you one minute of flight each day and some bonus radiant damage while using it.
Unlike most forms of temporary flight, thisdoes not require concentration,allowing for a spell-casting protector topair their flight with powerful spellssuch as Spirit Guardians.
Unlike many forms of flight granted by species, itdoes not have a restriction about heavy armour.
The appearance of the Protector as a winged figure dealing radiant damage allows them to lean more heavily into the species’traditional archetype as paladins and clerics, butthis isn’t a requirement.
Amartial classcan make use of theHealing Hands ability and celestial resistance to increase their versatility, while most barbarian subclasses would appreciate a daily dose offlight for repositioning and chasing winged foes.
Zealot barbarian can be a flavourful choice for a divine protector: Their level three abilityWarrior Of The Godsallows you to be resurrected at no cost, letting you make sacrificial plays whenever it would be dramatically appropriate.
How To Play A Scourge Aasimar
Scourge aasimar have the least amount of mortal in their representation: You are filled with the desire to destroy evil, potentiallydisregarding consequence and nuance.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t use discretion or participate in social scenes but that it should represent awillful effort by the scourge aasimar to be more than their commitments.
Scourge aasimar have a verydifferent combat styledue to their radiant consumption ability. Unlike the other two aasimar, which only gain stronger single-target damage from their daily power, the scourgegives this additional single-target damage and inflicts half as much as an aura around you.
The downside is thatyou are damaged by the effect as well, although this is halved by your celestial resistance. The damage has no condition attached to it outside of being within ten feet of you. This makes it a useful tool againstenemies with high AC but low hitpoints.
Be careful using this ability on low HP:It will continue to inflict damage on you if you are incapacitated and will cause automatic failures on your death saving throws.
The single-minded commitment to purging evil that is represented bythe scourge is well suited to paladins.AnOath Of Conquest or Vengeancecan add a sinister edge to the ruthless pursuit of justice. A grave domain cleric can also make an intimidating figure,using their celestial visage to act as a psychopomp.
Zealot barbarianis also a fun option for scourge aasimar: They can use the Warrior Of the Gods ability to be resurrected the same as a Protector, only instead of making sacrifices, you can use it tocharge blindly into the fray with the assurance that you’ll eventually grow back.
With permission from your GM, it is possible totransition between the different subspecies of Aasimar, if doing so would make sense for your character’s story arc. A scourge Aasimar might question their purpose, fall in despair, and grow to be a protector as a resolution to their story.
Plan Around Your Features
The core features of the aasimar can factor into your choice of class and combat style. Somewhat surprisingly, the features all aasimar have can see the best use whennot used to play traditional aasimar classes such as paladin or cleric.
The Celestial Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage has less impact when choosing to play a celestial warlock whogains resistance to radiant damage from their class.
Similarly, the paladin and cleric tool kits have ready access to healing abilities that render obsolete the aasimar’s Lay On Hands power.Playing a class that does not have easy access to healing magicenables you to keep your aasimar healing as a trump card: Nobody expectsthe wizard to be able to give emergency healing.
Separating your character’s identity as an aasimar from their class alsoincreases the number of potential plot hooks and social interactions they can engage with. An aasimar artificer may have just as much to say as a paladin about religion but can provide fresh insight into craft skills and technology.
One feature unique to the aasimar is their angelic guides(unless you’re playing a fallen aasimar). During dreams, you can seek guidance from a higher-order angel. Depending on how your GM utilises this ability, you may gain prophetic dreams or helpful insights.
The utility of an angelic guide will vary depending on the amount of role-playing and downtime that a game has to offer. Your GM may not wish to spend time during the session onan event that only you are able to interactwith, but they might alsouse it to convey plot details in the expectation that you share the expositionwith the group.
The angelic guide won’t always be helpful: Lacking a mortal perspective,it won’t be able to process morally ambiguous or nuanced situationsand might even rebuke you for failing to meet their heavenly standards.
Discuss with your GMhow you want the relationship with your guide to function. Whether yourangelic guide provides helpful guidance or useless platitudes,it is important that you are on the same page. You may need totake the initiative in asking for the angelic guideto be an important part of your character.
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Understand How Aasimar Fit Into The World Of Your Game
The world-building of a setting can heavily determine how to best play as an aasimar.
Understanding what you can expect from the setting cansave both you and your GM some major headaches.
Some settings won’t include aasimar at all, but the GM might allow you to adapt the features and appearance of the species to fit within the setting differently.Be sure to thank your GMif they make the time to do this for you.
Similarly, it can help tounderstand how the aasimar in a setting interact with their celestial heritage.
Ifplanning your characters with other members of your group,it can be entertaining to play a pair of siblings who have both been touched by opposite parts of a mixed ancestry that includes both tieflings and aasimar. The two heritages don’t exclude each other, andyou can create some interesting role-playing moments by intertwining the two.
Have Something Else Going On Besides Being An Angel
It wouldn’t be the most engaging character to have Joseph Blogs the human, whose entire personality is dictated by being humanly humane. Joseph Blogs would be more interesting if they had a family, a day job, two doctorates, and a few hobbies.
In the same way, an aasimar character should havemore than one thing to offer in terms of role-play and plot hooks.
A good opportunity for this is the backstories of an aasimar character. If their heritage was not immediately apparent,they might have lived a large span of their life in a wildly different way to who they are now.
you’re able to use this todevelop aspects of their personality and then decide whether those would be changedby the revelation they are an aasimar.
Role-playing opportunities
Gladiator
On top of the aasimar features leaning into charisma, an aasimar character might have a crisis of identity,reconciling a life of fighting for sport with a newfound duty of fighting against evil.
This could come out in role play and combat as they try to play the crowd during a serious combat encounter or offer the villain a heel-face turn after defeating them.
Urchin
Experiencing destitution and desperation can act as powerful motivatorsto carry out an aasimar’s duties or could lead them to be more jaded towards the intentions of an angelic guidethat didn’t appear during these formative years.
Folk Hero
This background can justifyplaying a more down-to-earthversion of the normally detached aasimar.
It can provide an avenue for interacting with people who might otherwise be afraid of you, orexplain how you discovered your celestial heritage.
You might haveinteracted with your spirit guardian before being consciously aware of them, guiding you towards your destiny through dreams and visions.
Entertainer
One day you performed a fire-eating act so intense that your scourge heritage expressed itself, and your entire body released blinding light. The crowd loved it, and it has now become a regular part of your act.
