Half-Dragons. Do you used them? (And WotC's half-breed fetish)

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Just a quick comment before I discuss the nature of the thead: redmetal, that is a damn cool avatar image.

The existence of a half-dragon (or half-anything else) template does not imply that dragons (or what have you) are into what must amount to their version of bestiality. You think it pointed that DragonLance does not have half-dragon templates, but on the other hand, aren't the draconians pretty much the same concept?

No, they're not.

For starters, some dragons in Dragonlance have mated with humans... or elves (like Silvara) but this happened like what, twice? A dragon descendent in Dragonlance, should such creatures even appear, just looks like a human or elf.

Second, draconians are not the result of dragons banging humans, and quite frankly are a lot cooler. Half-dragons look, to me, to be all about mondo Strength and a minor breath weapon. Draconians don't have the ridiculous stats and are a lot cooler. Even the different types of draconians have that coolness factor, even though they're not fresh anymore.

There are other ideas and other explanations for how those templates come about; I'd say it's in your case, tell the player that he needs to come up with a better backstory than papa dwarf "made it" with a polymorphed gold dragon.

With the number of half-dragons being seen, you would think wizards create these experiments during mage school - see, it says here on your academic record that you have to create at least one half-dragon, or you flunk!

 

[Hanuman]

Having played a half-dragon (red) all the way thru to 21st level over the past two years I have to say that it was one of the best characters I have ever had. I think any Dm worth his salt should have no problems letting a player use the template, when I think of all the negative reactions that my characters features produced.....Ai Yi Yi. Also that ecl 3 really hurts at the upper levels.

When in doubt err on the side of fun.

 

[Desdichado]

No, they're not.

Yes they are. You're completely missing the point. The half-dragon template isn't about dragons banging someone else and having monstrosity bastards, it's about giving draconian qualities to some other creature, in this case humanoid.

By applying the half-dragon template to a humanoid, you end up with something that is very much like like a draconian. Whether your explanation for that critter is "papa was a randy dragon" or something else entirely is up to you. But the template itself doesn't have to be used so restrictively.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm. I prefer to see half-dragons as a human who develops his draconic heritage, similar to the Dragon Disciple class and the Sovereign Stone concept of dragons.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Mmmmm. Dragons. Gripping me strongly. Their large scaly bodies pounding with muscle and throbbing with power. Their firey breath burning passion in my soul...

The half-dragon template isn't about dragons banging someone else and having monstrosity bastards, it's about giving draconian qualities to some other creature, in this case humanoid.

AHEM! Right! Right! Quite right. Yep! That's what I was going to say! Heh. Yeah. Who'd want to get jiggy with a reptile anyway? Not me! No siree Bob! I ... um ... gotta go now ... I have to go check out
the igunana exhibit at the zoo things and stuff.

 

[Desdichado]

BG, your sig is so on the money.

 

[Aeolius]

I suppose I'm from the other camp. One PC in my campaign is a half-dragon (topaz) succubus, using monster level progression from Savage Species and additional information from Draconomicon.

D&D has a proud history of crossbreeding. From the humble half-orc and half-elf to the ogrillon, half-demons, and half-ogres of First Edition. I got on the bandwagon with Nigel Findley's "Ecology of the Greenhag" in DRAGON #125, where he asserted that the greenhag was a human/night hag hybrid while the annis was the daughter of a greenhag and either an ogre or hill giant. I built upon that information, deciding that the succubi and erinyes were also daughters of night hags, by demonic and diabolic fathers respectively. The night hag family tree has many branches, now, as my night hags may have children by demon, devil, daemon, demodand, human, elven, and derro fathers; each union producing a unique new hag subspecies.

In my undersea campaign I added half-locathah, half-kraken, and half-sahuagin to name a few. Half-trolls make too much sense to ignore, so I added the trogre (troll-ogre) and gnort (gnoll-troll). The aquatic kresh is the trogre offspring of a merrow and scrag. Then there are the opinaku, children of human weresharks and sea elves.

Then third edition D&D came along and simplified everything through the means of templates. Granted, I did have to decide issues such as whether my half-dragon (turtle) / half-troll (scrag) deserved the half-dragon template (dragon turtles are "true" dragons with age categories in my campaign), the half-troll template, or was simply a unique amalgam of both. I added half-hag templates and a "hag-touched" category, of course.

Half-breeds occur in nature all the time. Mate a jenday and sun conure and you get a sunday conure. Mix a scarlet and blue&gold macaw and you get a catalina. Tigons (lion/tiger hybrids) and zorses (zebra/horse hybrids) are also possible, though it takes man to introduce the parents to one another. And let's not even get into the discussion of dog crossbreeds.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I think some half-templates make sense. Certain creatures (orcs, trolls, etc) are prone to cross-breeding. Fiends are the most plentiful since there are several temptor/temptresses for willing partners and more than enough power to force the unwilling. Celestials should be less so, given their easily offended moral/ethical standards.

I have one half-dragon in my game (and yes, it's DL). It took a while for me to come up with a valid motivation, but the short story is his multi-great-grandfather was a red dragon who lost an eye during the War of the Lance. The evil clerics were scattered so he hid as a human to get it healed. The first few clerics he approached refused, thinking he was a war criminal or normal criminal, based on the wealth he was throwing around, total lack of references, and evil aura.

He figured out he should settle down in a community long enough to become "Good old Bob the smith. Lost his eye in the war and works like a dog to earn enough to get it fixed." To not seem unnatural, he took a wife and gave birth to a son. He put a permanent AlterSelf/Nystul's Undetectable Aura on his son so he would look normal.

When the next war arrived & killed his wife, he left his son with friends and went out for vengeance. The son grew up never knowing his true heritage and it wasn't until the dragon's magic faded over multiple generations and the character started using magic that he started evolving.

To the best of his knowledge he is unique, or nearly so since dragons tend to kill half-breeds not of their lineage, excluding metallic dragons and good-aligned metallic half-dragons.

Grandsire "programmed" some knowledge into his son and the player is now heir to fragments, including the fact there is a "starter hoard" waiting for him somewhere. Ooooh, that makes his scales itch!

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Grandsire "programmed" some knowledge into his son and the player is now heir to fragments, including the fact there is a "starter hoard" waiting for him somewhere. Ooooh, that makes his scales itch!

Oooo...that sounds really cool.

In our Birthright game, half-dragons were fairly common, as the last known female dragon had died before Deismaar. So, the remaining dragons, all Ancient and male, made themselves little broods of half-dragon servitors after getting, well, you know.

We ran around with a half-dragon werewolf for an adventure, which was really, really freaky. Actually, despite his strength, he wasn't especially effective.

Brad

 

[BOZ]

when i ran my brief 3.0 campaign, i allowed one 1/2 dragon PC, and i made a couple (one an orge, the other a centaur) unused NPCs. that's all i've seen of 1/2 dragons in 3E play so far.