DM's word is final... and illogical?

So I have a character in a friend's campaign. He had some sort of magical amnesia, which made him forget who his parents were. Later on, it was revealed to my character that his dad was a Half-dragon (Black) and his mom was a Half-dragon (Bronze)...

Now, I know that D&D isn't based on logic, but, logically speaking that would make my character 1/4 Black dragon 1/4 Bronze dragon and 1/2 Human. By my understanding, this would make my character either a Half-dragon, or he would have the Draconic template.

If he had the Draconic template, then that would be an easy fix. However, even though he is descended from 2 different Half-dragons, that should still make him a Half-dragon... just, not an ordinary Half-dragon. I even thought of things for him to have (like a breath weapon that is a line of green electricity that does half acid damage and half electricity damage, and resistance 10 to acid and electricity). Although even after bringing all this up to him, he won't give me a straight answer on anything.

Now my questions for you:
Which do you think my character should have, the Draconic template, some kind of Half-dragon template, or no template at all?
Do you think it's right for a DM to "assign" a potentially race changing background to a character?
And if the DM does, does the DM have the right to just ignore the questions of the player, or should the DM accept his mistakes and come up with a solution to the problem?

A phrase answers the "DM's Rights" question perfectly:

"The DM is god of the universe, but my, what a lonely universe in can be."

As for the potentially race changing background....ya, a DM can do that. Sounds fun.

As to what I think your character should have....roll a d%. 1-50, you're a half-dragon. 51-75, you're human, 76-100, you're a dragon. Of course, as you apparently started out human, the DM has already made up the outcome of said roll either without rolling or with his/her own roll.

I have had my recent experiences with an a-hole DM, who more or less forced me to leave the group by banning my homebrews without proper explanations and even telling the whole group to go against them (the group itself had nothing against my works before, so I am sure he deliberately made them look bad)

Also, I would go with syber's suggestion of rolling the dice. And if you ask me, the DM has no right to neglect a player, especially when they have questions that would really need answers. And yes, a DM should admit his faults as well. That is where my DM failed, since my perfectly balanced homebrews (which didn't go against the campaign setting) were rejected with the sole reasoning of "because I am DM/because I can."

The DM's ruling is final. If he wants you to play a Human with two Half Dragon parents and no template, then that is what you should play. Accept that he might have something up his sleeve as a part of his story that will make you happy you went along with it. Maybe an interested party figures out your heritage and tries to exploit it by bringing both bloods to conflict and setting you off on a fiery rage against the nearby countryside.

This is all assuming the two dragon types have similar enough DNA to actually produce a child, aside from the obvious reasons a Black and a Bronze would never mate, of course.

Huh? Did this template just spring on you out of nowhere? Were you tricked into some sort of magical effect that awoke your hidden lineage?

If either of those are the case, it sounds awful heavy handed. If the DM didn't have some way for you to stay human, I'd say the DM was being grossly unfair.

Zesty Gordita said:

Later on, it was revealed to my character that his dad was a Half-dragon (Black) and his mom was a Half-dragon (Bronze)...

Click to expand...

Does sound like half dragon.

If he had the Draconic template, then that would be an easy fix.

Click to expand...

Help me understand your position here...

Do you not want the half dragon template because it is an intrusion on your character?

or

Do you not want half dragon template because it isn't numerically effective?

Zesty Gordita said:

If he had the Draconic template, then that would be an easy fix. However, even though he is descended from 2 different Half-dragons, that should still make him a Half-dragon...

Click to expand...

Ah, no.
The Half-whatever templates are only used for direct descendents of a creature type, i.e. if either your mother or your father was a true dragon. Anything farther removed from a true dragon will just be draconic (or maybe just dragon-blooded). In D&D dragon blood gets thinner with every generation.

I'd also be fine with ruling that you're just a normal human.

If you'd prefer your character to be more 'dragon-like' you could take levels in an appropriate class, like dragon shaman or dragon adept, or one of the plentiful draconic prestige classes.

Edit: What I don't get about this thread: Did your DM decide what your background was? That's not the kind of thing I'd like my DM to decide for me. My pc is mine alone. _I_ decide what his background is.
Now, if the DM had some cool idea for something to integrate into my background, I'd listen to him, but the decision will be mine.

Otherwise I'd demand to have a say in adventure design, too!

Did you ask the DM if he had a plan for how your character's heritage should develop?

There is a difference between asking him for everything all at once and asking if there is a plan. It sounds like part of the a story arc to me.

You can provide him with suggestions for how to handle things if he didn't have them developed on his own already.

Here is one.

The Savage Progressions articles on the WotC site have a method for handling gaining a template mid-campaign without a sudden change in ECL.

the half-dragon link is here

Savage Progressions: Half-Dragon and Wererat Template Classes

Another is bloodlines from Unearthed Arcana.

You also might suggest the draconic heritage feats from Complete Arcane. As a DM fiat he could grant you the applicable draconic heritage feat to refelct your racial background. Since this seems to be in serious house-rule territory already.

I would say that this automatically granted you access to any feat/class that had draconic race or draconic heritage as a prerequisite - but again check with your DM there might be something else lurking in the background that he doesn't want to reveal at this time.

What class/level is your PC?

Reproduction in DnD doesn't run off of genetics, so I wouldn't be surprised if two half dragons could produce a human.

Sekhmet said:

The DM's ruling is final. If he wants you to play a Human with two Half Dragon parents and no template, then that is what you should play.

Click to expand...

Or leave due to the DM being a control freak, which is the vibe I'm getting.

Accept that he might have something up his sleeve as a part of his story that will make you happy you went along with it. Maybe an interested party figures out your heritage and tries to exploit it by bringing both bloods to conflict and setting you off on a fiery rage against the nearby countryside.

Click to expand...

In DnD, like in BDSM, trust is a key issue. If it were a good DM, this would be more acceptable, but not all DMs are that good.

This is all assuming the two dragon types have similar enough DNA to actually produce a child, aside from the obvious reasons a Black and a Bronze would never mate, of course.

Click to expand...

Dragons are susceptible to alcohol, you know.

Zesty Gordita said:

So I have a character in a friend's campaign. He had some sort of magical amnesia, which made him forget who his parents were. Later on, it was revealed to my character that his dad was a Half-dragon (Black) and his mom was a Half-dragon (Bronze)...

Click to expand...

Ok. Not my thing, but at least something is going on.

Now, I know that D&D isn't based on logic, but, logically speaking that would make my character 1/4 Black dragon 1/4 Bronze dragon and 1/2 Human.

Click to expand...

Logically, yes.

By my understanding, this would make my character either a Half-dragon, or he would have the Draconic template.

Click to expand...

No. Logically, this background would make your character eligible for the those things, but it would not force your character to have those things. I have some guesses of my own about what is going on here based on what I would do with the story he seems to be introducing, and I would suggest relaxing and going with it.

Although even after bringing all this up to him, he won't give me a straight answer on anything.

Click to expand...

Of course not. He's the story teller. He doesn't want to spoil his twists and explaining to you why you don't have wings and a breath weapon might spoil his story even if he has a logical explanation beyond - "Dude, I'm trying to make your character's family life more interesting, not increase your ECL. You want to talk fair, how fair is it to the rest of the party that I just go ahead an apply some +4 LA template to you?"

Now my questions for you:
Which do you think my character should have, the Draconic template, some kind of Half-dragon template, or no template at all?

Click to expand...

If this is the question, then my answer is "No template at all." You didn't pay for it and there isn't anything about the background that suggests you have to have a template, so there is no reason for you to have one. I might could be induced to write up some sort of 5 level PrC for your character where you'd slowly morph into a draconic creature if you had your heart set on it, but frankly I think that what the DM could be doing here might be even more interesting than that. I'm rather liking the whole idea of a monsterous character who doesn't look like one to the extent that he never knows he's one to the point he grows up identifying himself as something he turns out he isn't. I think that has story in it.

Do you think it's right for a DM to "assign" a potentially race changing background to a character?

Click to expand...

Depends. If you left your background completely mysterious, then yes, I think it is. It raises interesting story questions, gives your character interesting relationships with NPC's, and gives you personal story arcs to explore. I think it's perfectly fine.

And if the DM does, does the DM have the right to just ignore the questions of the player, or should the DM accept his mistakes and come up with a solution to the problem?

Click to expand...

Yes, yes he does. The DM never has to explain how something works to a player if the character himself doesn't have the information to know why something happened. And so far as I can tell, the DM has not made a mistake here. I haven't been a party to any of the conversations you've had, so I'm not in much room to judge based on having heard only one side of this, but I think you aren't being very fair to your friend. I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I think that your position in this is borderline anti-social, and when it comes right down to it you are simply arguing for mechanical advantage on the basis of a creative back story.

Granted, the problem here may be that you didn't create the back story. If you had no input over the concept, "You are playing a character with magical amnesia.", I'm a bit uncomfortable with that. Nonetheless, if you agreed to play that character then you agreed to whatever happened as a result of it and you should stop griefing your DM.

Let me ask you two questions:

1) Is your DM normally a good DM?
2) Is your character a sorcerer?

As another character in the same campaign i can attempt to clear up some of the questions at hand.

He's playing a level 10 Dragon Shaman and his whole character concept is based around trying to be more like a dragon and what i know about Zesty Gordita he doesn't mind playing LA races especially since were using the LA buy out from Unearthed Arcana.

As for whether the DM is a good DM, i would say this is technically his first attempt at DMing is his second over all experince with the game so there are a few kinks but he seems overall despite a few grating problems (such as poor distrabution of wealth and slight favoratism) to a decent DM.

Backgroundwise i do beleive that in general most of the player's just gave the DM details to incorperate into our background and let him create as he will.

I hope that help clear up any issues for people.