[3.5] Illumians

[Tetsubo]

   I did a review of the 3.5 book Races of Destiny today. Which has me thinking of the Illumians. I was rather unimpressed by this race. It just seemed to fall flat. The idea of a race of humans with glowing letters floating around their heads seems kind of silly. Has anyone ever built a really good Illumian character? Are they actually useful for any particular builds?

[Sinfire Titan]

   I did a review of the 3.5 book Races of Destiny today. Which has me thinking of the Illumians. I was rather unimpressed by this race. It just seemed to fall flat. The idea of a race of humans with glowing letters floating around their heads seems kind of silly. Has anyone ever built a really good Illumian character? Are they actually useful for any particular builds?

They have a few early-entry uses for Caster builds, but aren't used for much else.

[PhaedrusXY]

They are quite good for certain builds, but I do hate the flavor. If they'd had weird, shifting shadows following them around (because of their Plane of Shadow ties), instead of stupid glowing runes on their heads, I'd have liked them. But that would be an entirely different racial write-up fluff-wise. Basically, I wish they had the fluff for something like the FR Shade template, which sucks mechanically (due to the high LA), but is awesome flavor-wise.

For a shadowcraft mage, the Improved Sigil (Krau) feat is amazing. It's a free +1 heighten, which is like a free +1 higher level to all of your spellslots for a SCM.

Using transparency, the Krau sigil is also very nice for ardents, as the max power they can know is determined solely by their manifester level. So it lets you multiclass for free for one level without having to take Practiced Manifester. Or you can make up for up to 5 lost progression levels if you take that feat and play an illumian.

The free Divine Metamagic-like ability (twice per day) with the Naen Hoon sigil combination is also great.

[kurashu]

In my campaign world they served the goddess of music, poetry & beauty until she went all ape shit and tried to kill the pantheon. The Ao-like god then erased her existence but forgot to tie up loose ends, so the illumian became quell. Though, I do like the idea of the illumian; however, I think an Illumian template would be cooler than just the race. I'm starting to reconsider the wholesale genocide of the illumian though.

@PXY: Why not just take the shade fluff and apply that to Illumian? Changing the sigils to shadows only affects a small part of the mechanics and two feats (which are suboptimal anyways).

[The_Mad_Linguist]

They could still be shadows, given how 3.5 darkness works.

[kurashu]

They could still be shadows, given how 3.5 darkness works.

I live in a world where a spell called darkness can't make an area brighter. 

[RobbyPants]

   I did a review of the 3.5 book Races of Destiny today. Which has me thinking of the Illumians. I was rather unimpressed by this race. It just seemed to fall flat. The idea of a race of humans with glowing letters floating around their heads seems kind of silly. Has anyone ever built a really good Illumian character? Are they actually useful for any particular builds?

They have a few early-entry uses for Caster builds, but aren't used for much else.

That, and I remember them being used with the Practiced Spellcaster trick to only ever have to give up one Wizard level when taking Ultimate Magus.