Introduction

Aasimars are a race for players who want to have a bit of celestial power flowing through their blood. Though aasimars are classically the offspring of angels, a narrative advantage of Pathfinder that aasimars benefit from is the number of good-aligned outsiders that characters could be descended from.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

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RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Aasimar Racial Traits

Ability Scores: Gaining a +2 to two stats without a racial penalty to a third stat is rare in Pathfinder. Wisdom is always good, but a charisma bonus encourages specific class choices.

Native Outsider: As outsiders with the native subtype, Aasimars are immune to a number of punishing effects that only target humanoids, but also can not be the recipient of a number of buffs.

Medium: Medium size is the size that most things are and offers no real benefits or penalties.

Normal Speed: A movement of 30 feet. Not special, but not bad either.

Senses: 60 feet of darkvision is fantastic on any character, but it’s best if you pick a class where you expect to scout in darkness.

Skilled: A +2 in perception is great regardless of your stats, but it’s even better combined with the wisdom bonus from your racial ability modifiers. You also get a +2 to diplomacy, which is fun if you plan on being the party face.

Spell-Like Ability: Daylight is a situational spell that is most useful for countering magical darkness and imposing penalties on enemies with light sensitivity. However, it lasts a long time and you can slap it on your weapon long before you get into a fight.

Celestial Resistance: A broad range of resistances against commonly-encountered damage types. This is great, but it doesn’t scale well so there are better options in the Alternate Traits.

Languages: Common and Celestial. Celestial comes up often enough that it’s nice to have.

Alternate Racial Traits

Celestial Crusader: Replaces Celestial Resistance and Skilled. A +1 insight bonus to attack rolls against a commonly-encountered enemy type is useful, but you’re giving up some incredible defensive options for a situationally useful bonus that’s not all that great even when it matters.

Deathless Spirit: Replaces Celestial Resistance. This trait is exceptionally useful in an undead-themed campaign. Negative levels are one of the most punishing effects in the game. With this trait you don’t lose hit points when you are subject to negative levels, which applies even when you are resurrected. A +2 to saves against an entire school of magic stays useful forever.

Exalted Resistance: Replaces Celestial Resistance. While the spell resistance only applies to spell effects with the evil descriptor and to spells cast by evil outsiders, this is a benefit as it won’t apply to your friends’ spells along with your enemies. Pick this if you expect to fight evil outsiders in your campaign, especially if you expect to fight them at low levels when spell resistance is exceptionally hard to come by.

Halo: Replaces Darkvision. If you’re not planning on scouting in the dark, and you’re going to be the party face, the light cantrip and an intimidate bonus is a good trade for darkvision. Plus, you can always get Darkvision from a spell or an item if you do need it.

Immortal Spark: Replaces Skilled and Spell-like Ability. Lesser Age Resistance lasts all day, so if you play a middle-aged aasimar you can get a +1 ability score increase to all your mental scores without suffering any of the physical score penalties, which is a huge benefit if you’re playing a spellcaster.

Incorruptible: Replaces Spell-like Ability. Corruption Resistance is a bad spell.

Heavenborn: Replaces Skilled and Spell-like Ability. There are very few spells which would benefit from this in a noticeable way so it mostly affects spell duration for spells like Daylight, which ironically you longer get to cast.

Scion of Humanity: Replaces Languages and alters Native Outsider. If there are buffs that you’d like to be able to be able to benefit from, this is worth taking. Additionally, if you take the Racial heritage feat, you can count as an aasimar, human and one other race, which is neat if you have a build in mind that requires race specific archetypes or feats.

Truespeaker: Replaces Skilled. Learning twice the amount of languages per rank invested in linguistics can result in a huge number of languages known, but you could also buy a Wand of Tongues and keep the ranks and +2 bonus to Perception.

Aasimar Feats

Angel Wings: You should have regular access to fly by now, but it’s nice to gain a class skill and a flight speed without bothering the party caster, using an action, or spending money on items.

Angelic Blood: This is a feat tax towards gaining Angel/Metallic Wings, but the ability to deal bleed to yourself to cause evil creatures to take damage is so funny that it’s almost worth it.

Angelic Flesh: You choose one option that changes your skin and grants you some kind of defense. Gaining fire resistance 5 from Brazen, or +1 natural armor from Steel are both nice, but not so good that it’s worth the investment unless you’re attempting to pick up Metallic Wings.

Celestial Servant: Spell resistance on a familiar or animal companion is wonderful, and smite evil on it increases their damage output a great deal. However, you’ll want to look for an animal companion with more than 11 charisma to really make use of it, and few regular animals meet that criteria.

Channel Force: This is a great addition to a build centered around Channel Energy. Gain the benefits of a bull rush or drag without having to go through an enemy’s CMD. Area control is always worth your time.

  • Improved Channel Force: Forced movement in an AoE cone or line is incredible.
  • Greater Channel Force: You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a situation where Improved Channel Force won’t be sufficient, but if you find that situation, it’s nice to have.

Consecrate Spell (Metamagic): If you’re regularly fighting evil creatures, which you likely will be, this is great. If you are in an evil campaign or have an evil party member, this is ironically also good for healing.

Heavenly Radiance: Flare burst and Wake of Light are situational at best, but Searing Light, Wandering Star Motes and Sunbeam are all reliable spell-like abilities.

Metallic Wings: This takes a huge feat investment just to increase your damage output by a fraction. If you have smite, sneak attack, or some other way to add a lot of damage to every attack in a round, this feat is green.

Aasimar Classes

If you do decide to swap out the Skilled trait and the daylight spell-like ability for Immortal Spark and play as a middle-aged character, you have the combined ability score bonuses of a +1 to intelligence, +3 to wisdom and a +3 to charisma with no real penalties unless you’re hit by a dispelling effect. This method of play lends itself to full casters, but every class can make use of it with a little risk involved.

Alchemist

With a +2 to wisdom and charisma and no favored class bonuses, the best case I can make for an aasimar alchemist is that they can lessen the impact of the alchemical penalty to your will saves for consuming a mutagen.

Antipaladin

As an alternate version of the paladin, this is very similar to its companion class. While the aasimar’s charisma increase improves a few more offensive options with the antipaladin, there are a number of features that you are no longer able to benefit from. Unlike with the paladin, there is no favored class bonus. Additionally, you do not get the option of an animal companion, so you cannot apply the celestial template to it with the Celestial Servant feat.

Arcanist

A +2 to wisdom helps your will saves, a +2 to charisma helps raise the DC of your arcanist exploits, as well as increases the number of times per day you can consume spells. If you take Immortal Spark and play a middle-aged character, the arcanist is blue as you gain ability score increases to both of your requisite class abilities.

Barbarian

Don’t build an aasimar barbarian without a real plan in mind. Otherwise, your barbarian is just a little harder to mind control.

Barbarian, Unchained

See above.

Bard

Aasimars make for an excellent bard, gaining a very useful +2 to charisma for nearly all their features, and the +2 to wisdom improves their will saving throw a bit. The favored class bonus additionally lets you pick one bardic performance and make it a bit better every 6 levels.

For flavor I suggest being the descendant of an azata, chaotic-good outsiders who live to support freedom and the arts.

Bloodrager

With a +2 to charisma, you have a nice little bump to your spellcasting stat which increases an otherwise small pool of spells per day. Try to find a nice middle ground with how much you invest in charisma, as bloodragers generally shouldn’t be casting spells that require saves.

Brawler

+2 wisdom and charisma don’t give the brawler a lot to work with.

Cavalier

The wisdom and charisma bonuses don’t directly make for a good cavalier, but the Celestial Servant feat gives your mount a bit more oomph, and the favored class bonus allows you to deal extra damage to the target of your challenge, which is the primary way you’ll be dishing out damage.

Cleric

The most classic aasimar class next to paladin, and there’s a reason for that: It’s good. The wisdom bonus is necessary for a full wisdom caster, and the favored class bonus lets you smack a little extra damage when channeling energy against evil outsiders and undead. If you grab yourself the Channel Force feat chain, you can really bully them by literally pushing them around. Be sure to read our Practical Guide to Channel Energy.

Druid

Perhaps not what you think of when you envision an aasimar, but a great option regardless. There’s no favored class bonus for aasimar druids, but the wisdom increase and the ability to gain a celestial animal companion with Celestial Servant make up for that. The charisma increase helps with using the handle animal skill to control your companion and on wild empathy checks.

Fighter

Aasimar doesn’t offer a lot to the fighter that makes it especially exciting, and fighters traditionally need decent scores across their physical stats. However, with the Scion of Humanity trait and the Racial Heritage feat, you may be able to assemble some chimeric hybrid of racial feats and archetypes that benefit from the extra combat feats you gain.

Gunslinger

Gaining a wisdom increase means you’ll have an extra use of grit to use in your fights. With a d10 hit die on a ranged character, you can survive through most fights with only a few scratches, but a dexterity increase is too crucial for the gunslinger to merit a green.

Hunter

A great wisdom increase for the hunter, and if you build a ranged character you can focus on dexterity otherwise. The charisma is useful for the handle animal skill and wild empathy ability. Additionally you can buff your animal companion with the Celestial Servant feat.

Investigator

With the investigator’s inspiration dice, you can build a shockingly adept face, but it will likely suffer in combat.

Inquisitor

As a martial with wisdom-based spellcasting, this is a solid choice. The build will be quite MAD so you’ll want to pick up heavy armor proficiency. The favored class bonus gives you an increase to intimidate, knowledge, and sense motive checks against outsiders, which stacks nicely with the intimidate bonus gained from the alternate Halo trait.

Kineticist

You shouldn’t play a kineticist with any race that doesn’t have a racial constitution increase.

Magus

An intelligence spellcaster and martial hybrid isn’t going to benefit that much from wisdom and charisma racial bonuses, other than slightly better will saves.

Medium

Medium is normally a pretty weird class, as it sort of revels in its MADness. However, with the Immortal Spark trait and being middle aged, you can really lean into the jack of all trades aspect of the class.

Mesmerist

Invest heavily into charisma. Never miss a feint, have great will saves, and high spell DCs. A solid choice for the aasimar, but a shame that there’s no favored class bonus for it.

Monk

Monks are a notoriously MAD class, and aasimars don’t fix that issue. However, the racial wisdom score bonus is good on a monk, and you can make up the damage loss from a mediocre or bad strength score by using ki to take additional attacks. Your stunning strike will have a decent DC, so you should use it often.

Monk, Unchained

Like the “chained” version of the monk, except it’s better in nearly every way. Ki powers like qinggong power and elemental fury let you focus even less on strength in favor of wisdom.

Ninja

An aasimar ninja does nearly all the things an aasimar rogue does, but your charisma score governs your ki pool, which means you can gain extra attacks from it. The +2 to diplomacy and perception synthesizes nicely with a wisdom and charisma focused skill monkey.

If you are willing to invest the feats to get Metallic Wings and take a -2 penalty from stealth from Angelic Flesh, you can dish out some serious damage at 11th level by adding sneak attack to your natural attacks on a full attack.

Occultist

A +2 to wisdom and charisma doesn’t do a lot for the occultist, other than having slightly better will saves.

Oracle

As a charisma caster, the oracle shines from the aasimar’s ability score bonuses. The favored class bonus is incredible, allowing you access to higher level revelation abilities sooner. This was heavily nerfed by errata (adding 1/2 to the oracle’s level for the purposes of determining the effects of one revelation became 1/6 to the oracle’s level instead), but gaining revelation features early is still so good that this is entirely worth it. You can, for example, apply this bonus to the Ancestor mystery revelation Spirit of the Warrior and get a BAB that is higher than your level for a few rounds a day.

Additionally, there’s an Aasimar-specific archetype for the oracle called the Purifier, which grants you alignment channel as if you were a cleric. You can also turn evil outsiders, and command good outsiders as if they were undead, which are exceptionally cool abilities.

Paladin

The most iconic class for the aasimar, and it holds up to the hype. The racial charisma bonus interacts positively with a number of paladin features, and the aasimar doesn’t need to worry about constitution too strictly because of lay on hands. The favored class bonus grants the aasimar stronger morale effects from their aura. If the paladin selects an animal companion as their divine bond they can get the celestial template six levels early with Celestial Servant, which they can retrain into another feat at 11th level.

Additionally, building towards metallic wings with a paladin is a solid option, as it grants you two additional attacks to deliver smite damage without cutting into a paladin’s normal full attack.

Psychic

Aside from slightly better will saves, the aasimar doesn’t do anything for the psychic.

Ranger

As a primarily ranged martial and wisdom caster, the ranger lends itself well to the aasimar, and, a ranger with an animal companion as their hunter’s bond can pick Celestial Servant to make their companion a good deal stronger. The charisma increase is useful for handle animal checks to persuade your animal companion to follow your commands.

Rogue

The rogue is a tempting option, but without a racial bonus to strength or dexterity it’s an uphill battle for an optimizer. As a skill monkey, the wisdom and charisma bonuses are nice. The +2 to perception and diplomacy from the skilled trait synergizes nicely.

You can also get a pretty dramatic damage increase at 11th level with the extra natural attacks gained via the metallic wings feat tree, however, you will have to invest four feats to get it, taking a -2 penalty to stealth with the Angelic Flesh feat. If you really want to play a sneaky aasimar who attacks with bladed wings, try the ninja.

Rogue, Unchained

Almost the same as the base rogue, except marginally better. You receive weapon finesse for free, so it’s a little easier to justify the metallic wings feat tree.

Samurai

Even though the samurai shares many features with the cavalier, without the favored class bonus it is a much less appealing option. You can still apply the celestial template to your mount with the Celestial Servant feat, which makes them tankier.

Shaman

As a wisdom-based full caster, the shaman is a solid choice for the aasimar. The shaman’s spirit animal counts as a wizard’s familiar for the purposes of feats, which means an aasimar can take the Celestial Servant feat and buff their little friend.

Skald

The aasimar works perfectly fine as a skald, with their racial charisma bonus benefitting their spellcasting and raging songs. They struggle with physical attacks, but that’s true of skalds generally.

Slayer

The same logic that applies to the aasimar rogue applies to aasimar slayers, except they get fewer skills.

Sorcerer

An aasimar makes for a competent sorcerer. Your will saves are better with the +2 wisdom bonus and the +2 charisma bonus obviously great for a full charisma caster. Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of sorcerer spells that benefit from the favored class option.

It’s worth noting that with the Scion of Humanity trait you can select the imperious bloodline, which can normally only be chosen by human characters.

Spiritualist

The racial charisma bonus doesn’t do a lot, and there’s no favored class bonus, but as a wisdom caster, the aasimar is a fine racial choice.

Swashbuckler

Though it’s a bit disappointing that there isn’t a favored class option for an aasimar swashbuckler, this is perhaps the best choice for a melee martial class without spellcasting. With the charisma increase, you’ll have plenty of panache to carry you through a fight. You’ll want to go for a build that is entirely dexterity-based, picking up the fencing grace (which is outside of our usual content coverage guidelines) or slashing grace feat.

Summoner

The summoner is a charisma caster, so the aasimar makes for a great one. The favored class bonus gives the summoner’s familiar DR -/Evil, which is both flavorful and a fantastic defensive buff, dramatically improving your eidolon’s durability.

Summoner, Unchained

Same as above.

Warpriest

Even though the aasimar grants a wisdom bonus, the warpriest disappointingly lacks a favored class bonus for the aasimar, and it makes for a fairly MAD build without careful consideration. Lean hard into strength and heavy armor, or hard into dexterity and grab slashing grace, just make sure you pick a sacred weapon that works well with your stat array.

Wizard

The +2 to Wisdom and Charisma doesn’t give a lot for the wizard to sink their teeth into, though you can get Celestial Servant to make your familiar stronger.

Witch

As an intelligence caster, the witch doesn’t directly benefit from the aasimar in any real ways, though as with the wizard, you can take the Celestial Servant feat to make your familiar stronger.