Do you care what the other 'half' is?

[Alexwellace]

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?

[Millface]

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.

[Theron_the_slim]

With caution? How much depends a lot on the player^^

I have players in my groups that understand the importance of balance, I have players that just love optimising and I have one player that sees it as his duty to break the game as hard as possible.


Example: I have this Goliath, he grew up with this Gang of Halforcs and adopted their way of life. So he makes pretty Savage Attacks and has a Relentless Endurance. I even grant you that he wasn´t that much in the mountains, so he isn´t that Mountain Born and he hasn´t a too extreme Powerful Build.

Granted, that example is rather extreme, but with some players I see it happening (too some extend).

So it all depends: On the players, your kind of game, etc.

Personally, I would allow to trade feats in some manner (similar situnational, no combat vs non-combat), race feats most of the time (because it´s still a price to pay for the feat)
But that´s mostly because I know most of my group members do like to do at least some moderate optimizing.

[Man_Over_Game]

The Half Elf Variants in the SCAG book gives a lot of inspiration on this exact topic.

You can be a High Half-Elf, or a Wood Half-elf, but you have to sell something to do so.

What really helps is that the Half-Elf is fairly mundane, and the thing you sell are the two skill proficiencies (for something like getting the High Elves' cantrip+weapon proficiency). Everything there is mundane.

For something that's already a hybrid, like the human-with-holy-spirit Aasimar, I'd probably say that they couldn't merge well, and mechanically trying to balance the class out when they already get level 1 flying for a minute is pretty difficult.

I say, if you want Elven Accuracy, you probably need to be a boring elf like the rest of them. That's part of the catch of the feat. Otherwise, someone, somewhere is going to be harassing you about how his variant human-half elf is totally balanced because he gave away all of his skills and languages for level 1 Elven Accuracy leveling as a Vengeance Paladin for his stupid 3d20 attack rolls.

[Beleriphon]

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?

Keep in mind that shifters are a true breeding race that aren't half anything in Eberron. They're the descendants of were-creatures and humans, but don't count as either since they aren't actually either. They work the same as dwarves, elves and humans as far as what they are. As for aasimar, genasi and even tieflings they get racial abilities that completely supersede any base race of their parents.

[Palfatreos]

With caution? How much depends a lot on the player^^

I have players in my groups that understand the importance of balance (*give them a single class*), I have players that just love optimising (*give him multiclas sheet*) and I have one player that sees it as his duty to break the game (*gives him a sorc/warlock sheet*) as hard as possible.

my job is donne :)

[Arkhios]

Personally, if I were to allow non-human halves (I'm not saying I wouldn't; this is just hypothetically speaking), they would still use the actual race's traits (e.g. aasimars would still use all aasimar traits as normal, regardless of their other racial half), except where it makes sense to alter due to their racial build.

For example, a dwarven aasimar would have a land speed of 25 ft., and their speed wouldn't be reduced by wearing heavy armor.

Likewise, a halfling aasimar would be small, have the same 25 ft. land speed, and perhaps halfling nimbleness as well.

But I'd look at each case individually.

[Maelynn]

I'd care for it a lot, if it meant the character/personality/background can be fleshed out more. I love detailed characters, both my own and that of others. If they can give a convincing reason to get certain (racial) traits, then I'm very willing to sit down with them and see what we can swap to make it work. Because I do feel that's important, to swap things in order to keep balance. Can't have best of both worlds.

And not just racials due to a biological connection.. there's a Bugbear in my party who spent part of his life in a Halfling village, with no memory of his time before the moment he was found in a pumpkin patch, high as a kite. We polished the story until it made sense, but I did tell him he wouldn't be able to speak Goblin. I did allow Halfling as a replacement.

[hymer]

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?

As others, it would depend on the specifics, inlcuding the player. If it suddenly turns out at level 8 that the genasi is part wood elf, and now lived for a long time among wood elves, and yet there are no details about this time in Woodelvistan, nor are any forthcoming, and I get the sense that this is because the player wants Wood Elf Magic, well... Probably not going to allow that, unless it's one of the 'little guys' in the group who needs a little extra help every now and again.
I'd be prone to allow it if the player discusses it with me before gameplay commences, and if I'm not getting the sense that this is just something the player wants because it would be more powerful than what s/he's strictly allowed.

[dejarnjc]

I thought all Aasimar were of human descent?

[Afrodactyl]

I always go with the premise that the other half is generally irrelevant and in the scientific sense, the other half is the recessive genes/traits that have been overridden by the dominant ones that manifest as the characters outward appearance and racial features (as per the race details in the PHB).

So fluffwise it doesn't matter if you're a half orc/half human, half orc/half dwarf or half orc/half pint of ale, if you choose half orc as your race you look like a half orc and get the racial features as such.

As far as racial features goes, I don't allow mixing. If you want something thats specifically for elves/half elves, then you choose elf/half elf for your race at character creation. I might allow it for a throwaway game or one shot if you can convince me as to why you should get it, but it opens up some avenues that may make things overpowered and unsporting for other players.

[Luccan]

As for aasimar, genasi and even tieflings they get racial abilities that completely supersede any base race of their parents.

I think this is why it's generally assumed that their mortal parent is human. Base Human (not V. Human) gets almost nothing of particular note (no real racial abilities or powers), so it makes sense that the "special" parent provides basically all of the racial abilities. Also, I believe the background options presented in Xanathar's only give humans as valid mortal parents for tielfings.

This is actually why I'm not crazy about how these races work in 5e or 3.X (though I like the races themselves). There are examples in every edition of D&D of other humanoids having different types of celestial, fiendish, or elemental offspring, but these ones are all human descended? I'm sure 5e doesn't want to use templates for PCs, but it leaves a lot of questions.