I'm playing an Aasimar. They are the type Outsider (Native).
I wanted to find out what impact that has on the game. So I looked up outsiders, and I saw this:
Proficient with all simple and martial weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
Skill points equal to 6 + Int modifier (minimum 1) per Hit Die. The following are class skills for outsiders: Bluff, Craft, Knowledge (planes), Perception, Sense Motive, and Stealth. Due to their varied nature, outsiders also receive 4 additional class skills determined by the creature’s theme.
And a few other cool things.
I'm assuming these don't apply to Aasimar PC's. But my question remains unanswered: what are the ramifications of being a PC that is of the type Outsider (Native)?
Best Answer
The original rules
Pathfinder’s aasimar, and the Outsider type and native subtype, were inherited directly from D&D 3.5e. Aasimar are found in the Pathfinder Bestiary and Outsider and native are found in the Core Rulebook. These rules had a very clear distinction: types offered features, which applied only to racial hit dice you got of that type, and traits, which all creatures of that type got.
So, by those rules...
Outsider type
The “features” are the benefits of Outsider-type racial hit dice—aasimar don’t have any racial hit dice, so those features don’t come into play. You can tell aasimar lack racial hit dice by how the aasimar monster description has a single hit die, and it’s a cleric hit die and not an Outsider-type racial hit die. If you played some Outsider with racial hit dice—more than one hit die in their monster description, which you will note matches the description of Outsider-type hit dice in terms of hp, BAB, saves, and skills—then those features would matter to you. But not for an aasimar.
On the other hand, you do get all of the traits, or you would except for...
Native subtype
This removes some of those traits, specifically the traits that say that Outsiders can’t be raised from the dead but also don’t need to eat or sleep. Aasimar can and do.
In short, the effects of your Outsider (native) typing is
Note that these are the traits of Outsider (native) creatures in general. They can be further modified by more-specific details, such as your actual race. For example, aasimar with the “halo” alternate racial trait don’t have darkvision.1
Advanced Race Guide
The Advanced Race Guide was a later product, which stealth-errata’d this situation, in a most confusing way. Worse, since it wasn’t called out as errata, but—as is Paizo’s wont—pretended it was how the rules always worked, you would never know about the situation until you start working on an aasimar, or similarly-affected race, and notice the contradictions.
Namely, Advanced Race Guide posited the existence of “race types,” which were similar-to-but-distinct-from “creature types.” These had never existed before, and no existing creatures were written with them in mind. These stated that, unlike the clean “features” vs. “traits” split that had previously existed, “race types” only gave proficiency traits if you had at least one racial hit die—in effect, armor and weapon proficiencies listed under “traits” actually became “features.” Worse, this isn’t even spelled out as a special exception—it’s treated as if it were a natural consequence of not having racial hit dice, despite there otherwise being absolutely no reason to think that.
And because Paizo cannot be bothered to admit their mistakes and clarify situations like this, this change in the rules is not explicitly documented anywhere. Worse, later printings of the Core Rulebook and Bestiary make no mention of the change—continuing to suggest the original rules.
In D&D 3.5e, which had specific primacy rules that would handle this situation—and not in Advanced Race Guide’s favor—Paizo has adamantly refused to nail down how contradictions ought to be handled, and instead prefers to use ad hoc FAQ rulings and outright fabrications to pretend their rules always worked in a particular way and that no mistakes were made; they avoid errata in almost all cases, including this one. Now we are left with a situation where Advanced Race Guide contradicts other products, and the only way you can answer your question is by asking your GM for that particular game because the “official” rules are an ambiguous mess that cannot be adjudicated objectively.
Personal ruling
On the surface, full martial weapon proficiency looks like a rather strong racial feature, when you consider that several races get proficiency with a select few martial weapons rather than the complete set. And aasimar are not otherwise weak in a way that would suggest that this extra-strong racial feature is appropriate.
Considering deeper, though... almost everyone who is going to make a weapon attack probably has martial proficiency already from their class. And no one has any particular reason to use different types of weapons, so “all martial weapons” is really the same as “any martial weapon.” Moreover, one martial weapon is much like another—with a few exceptions—so having your choice of martial weapon is only occasionally better than using the fixed proficiencies of some other race. So “any one” isn’t substantially better than “some particular one” most of the time. It is better, no question, but not a lot better. And martial weapon proficiencies are—thanks to the prevalence of full martial weapon proficiency on warrior classes—not that great a racial feature.
Do aasimar need it? No. Is it a better racial feature than they should have? Yeah, probably. Would I actually implement the Advanced Race Guide rule, and not let them have it? No, I would not. Quite simply, it’s an extra complication that isn’t improving things much at all. Humans and half-elves and other races are still dramatically stronger than aasimar are. This advantage of the aasimar isn’t worth causing the headache.