Quote Originally Posted by Alexwellace View Post
When talking about the more 'transformative' races such as Aasimar, Genasi and the new Ebberon Shifters, how much would you as a DM care about the 'base race'?

For example in my latest campaign the backstory of my character is quite important to who I am, being a Triton born near a portal to the Plane of Water. All the Planar magic causes some of the children born in this community to end up as Genasi. These Genasi are seen as 'touched' by the Coral Goddess, gathered together and brought up in her temple (Mechanically a Druid Cult). However when I reach level 4 I'm talking to my DM about taking the Triton racial feat of Triton Deep Magic, despite being a Genasi, because I was brought up in a Triton community am not 'physically' decended from the Mariads most Water Genasi are. Working it out together with the DM we're pretty happy with allowing it (I took the Acolyte background so Deep Magic is supported there as well) since it doesn't seem to break the game.

How would you feel about letting an Aasimar 'tap into' their heritage of their base race? Maybe an Aasimar (base race Elf) Blade Singer wanted to discuss taking Elven Accuracy? Or a Wood Elf Shifter (toooootally not a Worgan, I promise...) wanted to discuss the Wood Elf Magic feat? What side would you lean?
Historically I've allowed this. I allowed a Tiefling/Water Genasi, thematically it was awesome, she painted her character and looked totally sweet. I took both races and mashed them together, basically, in a way that seemed balanced at the time (and at the time, it was). I let her have either the Tiefling or Genasi racial spells, and then the tiefling resistance or the genasi water breathing, that kind of thing.

Now, with racial feats, it's a little bit tougher.

Elven Accuracy, for example, is incredibly good. So are the Aasimar racial abilities. Being able to have both would be... quit a bit. For me, it would depend on what they were looking to do, and whether or not they talked to me about this from the onset. If I knew the Aasimar was base Elf from the onset, and that they wanted to take elven accuracy later, I could trade one of the more powerful Aasimar racials for one of the less powerful elven racials to even it out and I'd say yes in a heartbeat.

As for anything that's only for fluff, I always say yes to that, I want to say barring truly absurd things, but can't think of where my line would even be. Look however you want, I don't care, have fun.