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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Viktyr Gehrig" data-source="post: 1288739" data-attributes="member: 9249">The way I see it, there are two basic categories of hybrid creatures in D&D-- those that are half human, and those that are half something else. Half Humans, like the Half Elf and Half Orc, gain some of their non-Human parent's characteristics, like Elvensight or Orcish brute strength, but lose some of their human versatility-- reflected in the loss of the bonus feat and the bonus skill point. Because Humans are prolific and versatile, I believe there should be a hybrid form of most Humanoid races, to represent their incredible flexibility. (Non-mammalian Humanoids strike me as a good exception.) Half Something-Else races tend to be templates, and these hybrids involve as much magic as procreation, and their template-source is highly magical in nature. Half Outsiders, Half Dragons, and Half Elementals all function in this way. The reason they are templates, unlike the hybrid races, is that their offspring lose none of the features of their more mundane parent-- which is why templated Humans, unlike half-Human hybrids, maintain their Human flexibility. (Similarly, templated non-Humans retain their racial characteristics.) Where this breaks down for me are the Planetouched, as it strikes me as quite peculiar that the dilution of the bloodline of a templated creature (such as a Half Celestial or Half Elemental) would cause the offspring to lose their Human qualities-- aren't they becoming closer to their Human ancestry? It is for this reason that I have adapted the various Planetouched races into templates, to differentiate between a Genasi Human or a Tiefling Elf. (This precedent is also established by the various Draconic or Dragon-blooded templates I have seen.)</blockquote>

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