Tiefling: Variant
Tieflings are the descendants of pacts made long ago with Asmodeus, overlord of the Nine Hells, his pact deciding their lives by their appearance and forcing them into the outskirts of the world. Their appearance and their nature are not their fault but the result of an ancient sin, for which they and their children and their children's children will always be held accountable.
Tiefling often have a devilish appearance, skin that colors much of the rainbow, largely darker colors such as crimson or dark green. Tiefling also have horns of all types, often taking the appearance of the horns of devils or animals, depending on heritage.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Dexterity increases by 1.
Age. Tieflings mature at the same rate as humans, but stay middle-aged for a longer period, and often live longer lives because of it.
Alignment. Tieflings might not have an innate tendency toward evil, but many of them end up there. Evil or not, an independent nature inclines many tieflings towards a chaotic alignment.
Size. Tieflings are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 35 feet.
Devilish Charisma. Your connections to the manipulative devils of the Nine Hells has enhanced your charismatic charm. You are proficient in Persuasion and Deception.
Hellish Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage.
Infernal Legacy. You know the Thaumaturgy cantrip. Once you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Hellish Rebuke spell once as a 2nd-level spell once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Infernal.
Explanation of Changes
I personally always found the Tiefling as a good race, but one that didn't support the aesthetic it wanted very well. Darkness never really fit in to me, and Darkvision felt like an afterthought used to boost the class up a bit.
Additionally, the original race didn't really work well for the whole "charming devil" idea it went for. I tried to overhaul that for this variant, with Devilish Charisma and a slight increase to speed and more dexterous charm idea. Intelligence always seemed like an odd choice to me.
Testing it on Detect Balance, it measures nearly exactly the same as the original race, but takes a more non-caster take on it.
If people really like this, I may make revisions for the subraces as well, which would change Devilish Charosma, Hellish Resistance, and Infernal Legacy to new versions.
Credits
Art: Tibalt the Fiend Blooded by Peter Mohrbacher
Like what you see?
I'm Cthulhu, and I've been making homebrew for nearly a year now. I'm still getting better, but I'm gonna start releasing new homebrew every few weeks starting soon. If you're interested, check out some of my previous work:
Changelog
1.0.0
- Original Release
1.0.1
- Added Tibalt image and credits section for it
- Added onto Devilish Charisma to help Deception (which I somehow forgot originally)
- Revised Explanation
