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[ShinQuickMan]

That's really more of a worldbuilding question, then. You can add certain reasons for people to be prejudiced against tieflings in-setting for that. Like being very good conduits for demon summoning (or devil summoning, for that matter) and other fiendish rituals, or just the way they can naturally perform shitty demon pranks on anyone they like, which is ample grounds for being chased out of a village for sure.

It just kind of feels like a lost opportunity to have a race with natural dark impulses and inclination towards evil that they have to fight against (though not overwhelming, so a tendency towards Chaotic Neutral).

Half-Orcs have that "evil impulse" thing going for them in 5E.

[Neonivek]

Ehh Half-orcs have Super Puberty

Tieflings, could've had, dark impulses.

[scriver]

It's funny because Tieflings have never been so obviously nonhuman and fiendish as now yet they're at theory least expected to be treated as such. As if nobody is supposed to look at this visually identical to the stereotypical demon person and still not go "hey I don't feel very comfortable with that thing around, I don't think we should trust it and also have you noticed how Old Grumpleton's cows got stopped giving milk just after it got here?" whenever a Tiefling rolls into town.

[Rolan7]

Agh, so basically the big bad Gangrel decided not to literally *eat my soul* for now, contingent on us working for him and his mysterious diablerizing brood.

The Prince and Camarilla have been blood hunting him for about a week and are having no luck.  He leaves messages in our haven while we're asleep.  My sire is old and wise, but not especially powerful.  More a teacher.  And our Ventrue is completely nuts, with 2 violent psychotic personalities plus a cowardly sociopath.  Her sire committed suicide, her step-sire communicates exclusively by carrier pigeon.

And frankly our Gangrel is pretty monstrous herself at this point, and is mostly onboard with her sire.  Totally fair, just something for my character to consider.  Fortunately Juan doesn't give us any assignments right off.

Oh, the next night we get... this message.

Yes. We Are For You Now. Yes? You Help Us Now. We Like You. We Help You Later. Yes? We Need Item From The God Monsters. They Stole It. It Was Ours And They Killed Us. We Want It Back. Cup Of Judas They Call It. To Us It Is Chalise Of Ages. Gives Us It. Jaun Vouched For You. DO NOT DISSAPOINT OR IGNORE. -TheOneInTheWell

We're supposed to steal Judas's cup.  From the Lancea Sanctum.  fuckin hell
But okay, this is kinda funny.  My character is Jewish, and this is basically the Vampire Catholics faction.  So, he figures it's worth investigating at least...

Turns out the Lancea Sanctum in this city meet in the sewers.  Mekhets... are professional, somewhat uptight and graceful, Egyptian-themed infiltrators.  And here Jake is literally wading in sewage.  To visit a Catholic mass.  He regrets everything and promises to waste some vitae to digest an *expensive* meal later.  Finally we reach the chapel, which is actually pretty nice, and pass through a mystic cleansing waterfall.

That was the cliffhanger of last session.  This session starts, and our GM has... lost the sermon he wrote.  Thinking quickly, I claim my character faded into the shadows and used Touch of Shadow on the clergyman's sermon.  This is pretty silly, but the GM just woke up and is rather addled...  I make some rolls and he allows it.

Here's the crazy thing:  It *never* should have worked.  This congregation of Nosferatu *mostly* have auspex, a skill that gives them a chance of seeing through my invisibility.  Fortunately the other characters are making a bit of a scene.  Kayla is doing some weird Gangrel meditation, and Amanda is currently Lilith - Mistress of the Night, supposedly from several thousand years before this "Christ".  So, Jake gets away with it.

During the ceremony we see a cup which is pretty definitely the one we're after (they do a special blood ritual with it).  Cool, we just need to sneak in sometime and steal it right?  Well, NO.  Nosferatu can be:
Be invisible like I do
See invisible like I do
Boost their melee power to absurd degrees which I can't do

And this chapel is the core of one of the city's 3 main factions.  Security is going to be tight...  For example, when we left (they have a non-sewage exit, the sewage path is a penance thing) the hatch disappeared behind us.  And I *have* auspex, it was just massively better hidden than my neonate senses could detect.

And yet we're expected to steal this thing.  At least the nosferatu will probably kill me (or lock me in endless, feverish torpor by staking and burying).  Juan (and his buddies) are threatening to consume and absorb my immortal soul.

It's kinda a tough situation...  I'm tumbling some ideas (glad I'm sober atm) but we have a little time I think.  Maybe.
I think I have until next session, basically.

[BlackHeartKabal]

Feel free to PM me if you want input, I'm fairly familiar with Pathfinder's system and I'm happy to make suggestions.

Sent.

[NullForceOmega]

big story that could have been prevented with adequate tanks and guns

The fundamental problem here is the basic lack of OP player characters (or more accurately, PCs who could hypothetically gain access to nearly unlimited firepower with just a bit of imagination).  /jk

Really tho', some prep work couldn't hurt here, you've already cased the joint and you know that you don't have the gear to tackle the job, so get creative, most explosives won't kill a vamp, but it hurts and it's still disorienting as hell to have ringing ears and a concussion, even if it only lasts for a few seconds.

Grenades, plastique, C4, TNT, whatever, it's all available in stupendous quantities in the modern world.  With some basic high-school chemistry you can rig up all kinds of improvised tools to help with a situation like this.  Don't feel beholden to your 'superhuman' abilities, there's a reason that vamps only influence the world from the shadows, humans vastly outnumber them and are creative as hell.

Intelligent thought and creative problem solving are the bread and butter of tabletop gamers, I've had a small team of players obliterate an entire undead army in RIFTS (this is stupendously harder in RIFTS than in D&D, undead are immune to almost all conventional weapons), and snipe the nearly immortal necromancer leading it in the head from three miles away (with a truly massive -15 to hit, but nat 20 is nat 20.)

[Rolan7]

That is some good advice, and I am considering equipment-based solutions...  My character has 3 dots of resources, IE "able to afford" a pretty snazzy range of spy tech.  And our ventrue has some black market contacts-

Oh nevermind.  I had to afk for 50 minutes, and came back to their characters buying bread for a pigeon.
The gangrel tried to do a controlled frenzy to bust a wall (not sure why they attacked the clerk this time lol, they're seriously insane (er, sure, I mean their characters)).  She failed to retain control.  She ran down our (handcuffed, the police are dead) ventrue, transforming into a wolf.

Our malky Ventrue, currently as "Franky" the 30's gangster, looked the raging beast in the eye and told it to "CHILL."  It was a decent roll...  But Kayla's beast is kiiiinda out of control at this point.  By chance or lingering humanity she managed to swing wide, then swing again - supernaturally sharp claw-blades cleanly removing Franky's arm.  Handcuffs removed!

Malky player: "Maybe I'll use... Dementation!" 
Gangrel player: "I have no idea what that does"
Me: "It'll make you both crazy... Oh wait "
Gangrel player: "I have no idea what you mean~"
Me: "I have no idea how you got the police involved buying bread!"
GM: "YOU HAD THREE RESOURCE DOTS!  THIS WASN'T NECESSARY!"

[My Name is Immaterial]

Apperantly 5e agrees with you and made Tieflings completely unaffected by their devil/demon heritage thus they are just humans with tails. Since heaven forbid that there be some nuance with that race.
Though 3.5 probably did the same thing.

[rant]I've never liked Tieflings as they are, especially in 4e and 5e. They just don't make a whole lot of sense: I don't really buy your average person being okay with doing business with someone with giant horns and tails. At the same time, making them all having an actual evil tendency runs into the same problem of making all orcs naturally evil, but this is getting into alignment discussion, so I'll stop.

You know what was awesome?
Sigil.
[copyandpastedrantfromsomeoneelse]
Back in the wild world of AD&D 2nd Edition we had a thing called Planescape and it was good. Well, it wasn’t good. But it was better than most. And Planescape introduced a nice place called Sigil that was full of kind people who liked to stab — each other, other people, you know, in general, stab. Stabbing was a thing in Sigil. In Sigil were these people called Tieflings. Since Sigil was the center of all the Planes all based on the 9 D&D alignments it made sense that the occasional Demon or Devil or Fiend would wander on through, leave a couple of babies with the local whores and barmaids, and wander on their way. Could the demons help it if they were good looking? No, probably not.
Tieflings were the closest thing that Sigil had to a native population. Each one was weird in their own way. Grandpa was a Cambian and Mom was some sort of nasty half-fiend so you’re just this freak with giant bulging red eyeballs and vestigial wings that go fwip fwip fwip and your poker buddy has 6 foot tall curving horns and hooves. But no one cared because over infinite time in Sigil everyone was a damned Tiefling. One assumed any Tiefling sorcerer who fell through a Door and ended up in someone’s campaign was only adventuring to get back to their goddamn poker game where they had a full flush high they swear and they leaned back in their chair and now here they are fighting goddamn orcs what the hell is this garbage. Old Tieflings were guys who had fireballs in one hand and cigarettes in the other and weren’t interested in that sword in that magical horde because they could do a thing. They were cool guys.
Tieflings were like this in 3rd edition and survived that way through the patch but then were watered down into non-existence. Instead of an interesting background of some demon passing through town now it is a Mysterious Ancestor who Tainted a Bloodline and now all Tieflings are Generically the Same. They were gutted of all their interestingness into bland sameness with a Spooky and Mysterious Past that was Spooky and Mysterious. And they are all weird in the exact same way and have absolutely no knowledge about plains or Evil Grandpa George the Demon or extra-planar games of chance.
[/copyandpastedrantfromsomeoneelse]

I like my fantasy weird as shit. I like vile encounters, unspeakable rituals, and sick and twisted foes played against lighthearted mundanity. In the D&D game I DM here, the players recently had to deal with a camp of cultists. One of them got into a theological argument with a kobold, who challenged the PC to 'take the worm', which was like a duel of faith. They both would have injested a dragon larva, which would lay eggs in the stomach of PC and the kobold, which would quickly grow into juvenile kobolds who would chestburst their way out.
The point of the story is weird stuff is engaging. 1d6 orcs isn't, but 1d4 orcs and 1d2 orc hair witches grabbed your attention, hasn't it? Tieflings are too normal now; "I'm from an ancient bloodline who sold their souls to demons", boring, "One of my ancestors boned a devil", heard it already, "I have to live in penance to my infernal bloodline", yawn.
I think that the problem is exacerbated by their look; there's no real room for customization. If every tiefling looks and plays the same, there's no way to make your tiefling stand out, except by going overboard.

I thought the Tiefling Paladin that one game had all those effects. Like, a Tiefling racial feat or something?
Maybe you can homebrew them to be more demon-y or something.

I think you're talking about one of my characters. Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (which I cannot send you a PDF of, so don't PM me and ask me for it, if you understand what I'm saying, wink wink) introduced variants for Tiefling racial traits, like no shadow/reflection, cloven hooves, or the smell of brimstone, which is badass, because it made the idea of a tiefling fresh again. You didn't have to have giant horns, you could just be a normal person who's just a little off. I used it to create a giant buff Tiefling who was mostly normal, but just tweaked a little. It was the first time I'd ever actually enjoyed playing a Tiefling.

[Amperzand]

Yeah. It's like, if you're playing something that's half-demon or whatever, you shouldn't just get some generic bits of goat glued to you. If you go for something weird, if you're not just playing a human with X training, it seems like the point is to be something else.

[Neonivek]

They just don't make a whole lot of sense: I don't really buy your average person being okay with doing business with someone with giant horns and tails.

Typically they aren't, but they have been around long enough that they are just an accepted part of life rather then an ill omen.

Also I have to hand it to one book I read... which actually, to my utter surprise, was heaven (or rather Angels/Divas) actually doing something to fix the major plot. I mean sure they failed (mostly because it couldn't be so easily resolved... and even then they were winning twice, one of those which could have succeeded), but it is so rare that they will raise a finger to help.

It is why I am driven mad by Solars which there are literally 24 of them so you would think they would be extremely powerful right? But while ok they ARE powerful... They aren't all that strong in the grand scheme of things AND are more then happy to sit on their butts and not do anything.

and Solars are as high up as they go "supposedly" and are equal to Balors who are two rungs down from their peak.

MAYBE if there "could only be 24 at anytime" and not "only 24"... If Evil wasn't so self-defeating then good wouldn't stand a chance.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Where did you see "only 24"? The source I found had said

There are at least 24 solars.

[Neonivek]

Ok to admit the EXACT words the monster manual gives is that it is known that there are only 24 or specifically "It is said that only 24 solars exist". So there COULD be more.

But if there are more then 24 then they are secret Solars no one knows about, sort of a DM fiat.

[BlackFlyme]

Forgot how long it took to retrain a character. Goodbye, matchstick. Hello Druid. You'll be here for quite a while in in-game time. At least the Paladin/Ranger didn't attend this session. Always went first, and always ended up solo-ing most encounters before anyone else gets to act because everything is Evil and his Favoured Enemy. Also because he paces his shots in a way I don't feel he should be allowed to. After every attack roll, he rolls damage, asks if the damage dealt would kill the enemy, and if so he would switch targets for the next attack roll. I don't feel that that makes sense.

Anyways. Enter cave. Half-Fiend Minotaurs. Then more of them. Then weird Aberration Crab-Spider-Spellcaster things. Nearly ended us because we all stood in a line as they cast lightning bolts on us.

Get to last room. An Elvish looking woman asks us to kill the master of the dungeon so that she doesn't have to keep working for Demons. Says she'll reward us with a single Wish to be shared amongst the whole party if we agree. So we did. And as she is casting the Wish, our Oracle blurts out that he wished that the lady would be Chaotic Good. She was pissed, as it turns out she was a Demon in disguise. And failed her save against the Wish.

Kek.

[TheBiggerFish]

Oh wow, heh.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Forgot how long it took to retrain a character. Goodbye, matchstick. Hello Druid. You'll be here for quite a while in in-game time. At least the Paladin/Ranger didn't attend this session. Always went first, and always ended up solo-ing most encounters before anyone else gets to act because everything is Evil and his Favoured Enemy. Also because he paces his shots in a way I don't feel he should be allowed to. After every attack roll, he rolls damage, asks if the damage dealt would kill the enemy, and if so he would switch targets for the next attack roll. I don't feel that that makes sense.

Anyways. Enter cave. Half-Fiend Minotaurs. Then more of them. Then weird Aberration Crab-Spider-Spellcaster things. Nearly ended us because we all stood in a line as they cast lightning bolts on us.

Get to last room. An Elvish looking woman asks us to kill the master of the dungeon so that she doesn't have to keep working for Demons. Says she'll reward us with a single Wish to be shared amongst the whole party if we agree. So we did. And as she is casting the Wish, our Oracle blurts out that he wished that the lady would be Chaotic Good. She was pissed, as it turns out she was a Demon in disguise. And failed her save against the Wish.

Kek.

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