Aasimar 5e DnD
Aasimar—Divine right or divine blight? All about Aasimar in 5e.
“As the child turned her face, all were awash in her strange beauty. She had no choice but to offer them grace…”
DnD’s Aasimar are a race of humans descended from celestials. They are planetouched by Mount Celestia, and their births are viewed as blessed events.
Aasimar typically have striking features that reflect their divine heritage, such as glowing skin, metallic hair, or silver eyes. They are also linked to a celestial being that watches over them, offers prophetic visions, and guides their fate. The name Aasimar derives from Aasimon, another term for Angels in DnD.
What are Aasimar in DnD 5e?
Aasimar are a mirror to Tieflings, except Aasimar are guided by a celestial instead of a fiend. One big difference is that Tieflings retain their free will despite their evil mark, while the divine mark of an Aasimar sets them on a predestined holy path.
The inner battle between free and divine will is a fundamental part of role-playing an Aasimar in DnD 5e. Aasimar might rebel against their celestial, fully embrace it to become holy weapons of divine retribution, or try to find a balance between their mortal and immortal halves.
Aasimar Culture
As a collective group, Aasimar do not have a specific culture. Aasimar are simply a race that have some ancestral lineage with a celestial, similar to the demigods of Greek Mythology.
They are not immortal and are born of regular people. Their ancestral lineage manifests very rarely and only then is an Aasimar born. They can be of any species and of any people group. Any of the playable races can technically be an Aasimar and their culture and species can be whatever they are born into.
This leaves a lot of room for creativity for the players and DM to create a background of where the Aasimar character comes from.
Regardless of species, Aasimar will manifest their celestial lineage in some way. It could be through supernatural physical characteristics like eye, skin, or hair color, an afterimage wherever they walk, glowing halos, or a shadow that moves on its own.
Typically, these traits align with whatever celestial they are related to but have no bearing on gameplay other than cosmetics.
Aasimar Names
Aasimar can have any name depending upon the species and culture that they come from.
When their Aasimar lineage has fully developed, they can take on whatever name suits them or keep their original names.
How common are Aasimar?
Aasimar can’t reproduce like humans and are instead manifested. This means they are created through a divine whim, instead of genetics. Aasimar can have mothers, fathers, or siblings who are normal. This makes Aasimar births rare and momentous occasions.
An Aasimar’s angelic features can frighten or provoke others as well as reveal their divine heritage, so they try to keep it hidden. This tendency also makes them seem more uncommon than they actually are.
Does an Aasimar have wings in 5e?
The all-important question:
Can Aasimar fly in 5e?
Only Protector Aasimar can fly in 5e. The Radiant Soul feature of the Protector Aasimar offers 1 minute of flight at a flying speed of 30 per long rest. Protector Aasimar wings are spectral, so they can be used through armor.
- Fallen Aasimar have skeletal, ruined wings used for Intimidation rather than flight.
- Scourge Aasimar do not have wings, though some might have wing nubs.
- Other Aasimar stats are based on their heritage.
Aasimar 5e Racial Stats
All Aasimar classes have these basic stats and abilities.
- Ability Score Increase. +2 Charisma.
- Age. Up to 160 years.
- Size. Medium.
- Speed. 30 feet.
- Darkvision. 60 feet.
- Celestial Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic damage and radiant damage.
- Healing Hands. As an action, you can touch a creature and cause it to regain a number of hit points equal to your level. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
- Light Bearer. You know the Light cantrip. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it.
- Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Celestial.
Your Aasimar’s subrace alters both your stats and appearance.
Aasimar 5e Subraces
The Aasimar Subraces in 5e are Fallen Aasimar, Scourge Aasimar, and Protector Aasimar. Scourge and Protector Aasimar are generally good-aligned, while Fallen Aasimar can be evil-aligned depending on how far they’ve fallen. The main differences between Aasimar subraces are their appearance, and how they use divine energy to transform.
What are Fallen Aasimar?
Fallen Aasimar
“An aasimar who was touched by dark powers as a youth or who turns to evil in early adulthood can become one of the fallen – a group of aasimar whose inner light has been replaced by shadow.
Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 1.”
A Fallen Aasimar’s inner light is corrupted by dark powers. The struggle between light and dark forms the basis of their character. The origin or nature of the corruption is up to the interpretation of the player or DM. It could be an evil family member, a magical object, an ancient curse, their celestial forsaking them, or something else. Fallen Aasimar can redeem themselves through good deeds and recommitting to their deity of choice.
Fallen Aasimar are strong and can sprout flightless, featherless wings to frighten others and drain life, among their other abilities.
Fallen Aasimar abilities
- Strength +1.
- Necrotic Shroud. From 3rd level – Unleash divine energy within yourself. Your eyes turn into pools of darkness and two skeletal, ghostly, flightless wings sprout from your back.
- Other creatures within 10 feet of you that can see you must each succeed on a Charisma saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or become frightened until the end of your next turn.
- Your transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During it, once on each of your turns, you can deal extra necrotic damage to one target when you deal damage to it with an attack or a spell. The extra necrotic damage equals your level.
- Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
What are Scourge Aasimar?
Scourge Aasimar descend from celestial archons, giving them an unstable, intense divine energy that thirsts to destroy evil. Many scourge Aasimar wear masks to contain the overpowering light and only unmask in battle.
Scourge Aasimar are avengers. They are merciless versions of Fallen Aasimar. Scourge Aasimar are bent on destroying evil by any means necessary, including a fearsome ability to damage everyone around you, including yourself, with overflowing, holy, burning light.
Scourge Aasimar abilities
- Ability Score Increase: Constitution +1.
- Radiant Consumption. From 3rd level – Use your action to unleash divine energy within yourself. A searing light radiates from you, pours out of your eyes and mouth, and threatens to char you.
- Your transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During it, you shed bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet, and at the end of each of your turns, you and each creature within 10 feet of you take radiant damage equal to half your level (rounded up).
- In addition, once on each of your turns, you can deal extra radiant damage to one target when you deal damage to it with an attack or a spell. The extra radiant damage equals your level.
- Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
What are Protector Aasimar?
Protector Aasimar are wiser and more stable than Fallen and Scourge Aasimar. They flow with light energy and are duty-bound to protect the weak, combat eveul, and keep watchful of dark forces. Protector Aasimar have a strong link to a mentor angel that directs them and compels them to stand against evil. Protector Assimar can also use divine energy to fly.
- +1 Wisdom.
- Radiant Soul. From 3rd level – Use your action to unleash divine energy within yourself. Your eyes glimmer and two luminous, incorporeal wings sprout from your back.
- Transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During it, you have a flying speed of 30 feet, and once on each of your turns, you can deal extra radiant damage to one target when you deal damage with an attack or a spell. The extra radiant damage equals your level.
- Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
What is the best class for an Aasimar?
Paladin is the best class for Aasimar. You get +2 Charisma, extra healing, a handy light cantrip, and damage resistance.
The best classes for Aasimar are those that use their celestial powers to their advantage. It’s important to keep your Aasimar’s subrace in mind when choosing a class.
Best Aasimar class by subrace:
Fallen Aasimar. Great for classes that are sometimes in melee, but aren’t built to be a front-line defender, like the Rogue. A level 7, a Paladin can also take an Oath of Conquest that freezes opponents who are frightened, which goes great with Necrotic Shroud.
Scourge Aasimar. Great for tank classes like the Barbarian or the Fighter, or classes that can heal themselves like the Cleric and the Paladin. Barbarians with Bear Totem can take half damage with Radiant Consumption, which rocks. In general, tank classes mitigate the damage you do to yourself with Radiant Consumption and let you unleash holy damage without fear.
Protector Aasimar. Great for spellcasters and ranged attackers. Flying attacks from afar are annoying and versatile. You can also fly without Concentration, so you can stay in the air even when hit to be a menace.
Aasimar Builds
Aasimar are regular people that woke up one day and realized that someone along the line in their family mixed with the higher celestial planes. That’s a really cool idea and there are a lot of fun different builds that can go along with that.
One of the first things to decide is what your character did after they realized that they were tied to the Celestials. Did they accept it and strive to become a champion of the Celestials? Did they reject it and go into hiding to avoid their ancestral duty? Did they rebel entirely and seek revenge on those that altered the path of their life?
Although the manuals say that Celestials are typically good-aligned, you can go any which way when creating your character.
Anti-Paladin
An Oathbreaker Paladin would be a really cool build for an Aasimar. Not only would they swear allegiance to a god and then break it, but it would go against their actual bloodline.
The Charisma modifiers of the Aasimar work well with the Paladin’s abilities and they would gain some strong attack magics as well.
This would be a prime character example of an Aasimar that rejected their celestial heritage and wishes to forge their own path in the world.
Aasimar Bard
The Bard is another good choice for the Aasimar. They get the bonus resistances from the race abilities, and the bonuses to Charimsa will buff the Bard abilities.
The Bard is a great choice for Aasimar and can choose to follow their celestial lineage or not. It’s a great choice both stats-wise and from an RP perspective.
What is the difference between Aasimar and Variant Aasimar?
The main difference between Aasimar and Variant Aasimar is the lack of subraces, and therefore lack of transformations. The Variant Aasimar is the original Aasimar first published in the 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide and is sometimes referred to as the DMG Aasimar. The most popular Aasimar version today is from Volo’s Guide to Monsters, which was published afterward.
Some DMs like to use Variant Aasimar, depending on their campaign. Variant Aasimar abilities are more subdued than Aasimar from Volo’s Guide.
Variant Aasimar Abilities
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
- Wisdom +1
- Charisma +2
- Speed. 30 feet.
- Darkvision. Thanks to your celestial heritage, you have superior vision in dim and dark conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
- Celestial Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic and radiant damage.
- Celestial Legacy. You know the Light cantrip. Once you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Lesser Restoration spell once using this trait, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Once you reach 5th level, you can cast the Daylight spell once with this trait as a 3rd level spell, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
- Languages. You can speak, read and write Common and Celestial.
Later Aasimar versions appeared in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, and Monsters of the Multiverse, so you may also see reference to TCE Aasimar, or MM Aasimar. The different Aasimar builds all have different characteristics and can be quite dramatic, so be sure which Aasimar build you want to play with.
For example, Monsters of the Multiverse is the most “current” version of Aasimar, and gets rid of subraces entirely!
Monsters of the Multiverse changes to Aasimar:
- No longer has subraces.
- Size. Can now be Medium or Small.
- Healing Hands. Instead of your level, HP recovered is the number of d4 equal to your Proficiency Bonus.
- Celestial Revelation. When you reach 3rd level, choose a transformation. The transformations can now be entered as a bonus action.
- Necrotic Shroud. No longer affects your allies. The extra necrotic damage is now equal to your Proficiency Bonus.
- Radiant Consumption. Both sources of radiant damage are now equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and the feature no longer hurts yourself.
- Radiant Soul. The gained flying speed is now equal to your walking speed. The extra radiant damage is now equal to your Proficiency Bonus.
Aasimar 5e FAQs
Can a human turn into an Aasimar?
No. Humans can not be turned into an Aasimar. Aasimar are chosen by celestials at birth, not death.
What are the best Aasimar names?
Aasimar don’t have naming norms since their births are so unpredictable and hard to trace. They may have simple names or complex names depending on their culture and family. Aasimar might take on a different name as they learn of their heritage or fulfill their destiny.
Why should you play an Aasimar?
Aasimar are open-ended character, which offers lots of input for the player. They are also tied to a fundamental part of the DnD 5e universe and can command a lot of attention and respect.
The tension between an Aasimar’s celestial and their own conscience makes for many memorable scenarios. You can use your looks to both charm or intimidate people. Having an extra pair of healing hands, or wings, in your crew is always helpful too.
Can Fallen Aasimar fly?
No. Fallen Aasimar cannot fly. They instead gain the Necrotic Shroud ability.
Can Aasimar fly with heavy armor?
As the rules are currently written, Aasimar can fly with heavy armor. They have no restrictions specifying that they cannot.
Can Aasimar be neutral?
Yes. Although most Aasimar are good-aligned they can choose their own path in life and can choose to be neutral or evil.
What is the best class for Aasimar?
The best classes for Aasimar are Bard, Paladin, Warlock, and Sorcerer.
What sourcebook is the Aasimar in?
The most complete information about the Aasimar can be found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters on page 104.
Good or evil, fight or flight, divine salvation or divine wrath–whatever path you choose, make sure to listen to your inner DnD voice! The same voice telling you to check out our articles on Harengon 5e and Eldritch Invocations.
