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

[Goblyns Hoard]

Personally I've never liked the half-orc and half-elf being viable - i.e. capable of having children.... but then I'm a geneticist. So my world not only are these cross-breeds very rare, but they are also the end of their line. Not had any characters play either yet - so far it's just been halflings and humans.

However on the half-dragon front I take the other side.

1- It's not a dragon reverting to beastiality.... ok the human/elf/dwarf/whatever is less intelligent than most dragons, but that doesn't make it animal intelligence. 2 intelligent creatures of different races that meet up and establish a relationship are just as likely to fall in love as 2 from the same race. As they both have minds why would one view it as beastiality. Also whose to say that the chromatics don't force themselves on women?

2- It's a magical systemand dragons are magical creatures - therefore I can suspend my disbelief and argue that half-dragons are viable, and can produce offspring. The result is that one of the 5 noble houses of Hern are the descendents of that countries 2nd most famous dragon (a silver), and the bloodline rules (as per Unearthed Arcana) is available for anyone from that house.

That said - I have not had any requests for half-dragon PCs yet, and anyone wanting one would need a very good story. I also would not allow the half-dragon, half-werewolf, half-celestial, all-munchkin options... you want a template you can have ONE and that's it!

 

[hong]

Or oozes - why would a wizard waste his time doing that.

Are you trolling?

Except the half-dragon is all about the numbers whereas the draconian is cool and has a neat backstory. Something better than a wizard with too much time on his hands or a drunk dragon.

The idea appears not to be sinking in. A template is a means to give a DM greater flexibility in coming up with creatures to populate their world with, while also retaining more consistency than if they made up new monsters from scratch every time.

A template can be used to represent a creature concept, not necessarily a specific backstory. The details are left vague, because not every campaign must be the same: in the case of half-dragons, one DM might use the "born of dragon parents" idea, another might say it's due to a draconic spirit being reborn in a mortal vessel, another might use the magical experimentation thing, and so on. "Draconic heritage" is a loosely defined concept, and doesn't need to be tied down to one particular interpretation.

So, yes, to a certain extent a template is "all about the numbers". That's because a template is a metagame tool, not a finished creature; as such, complaints about backstories being lacking in detail completely miss the point. If you're happy with the base concept being left vaguely defined, then that's all there is to it. Alternatively, if you want the underlying processes to be more tightly specified, nothing stops you from doing it. In particular, when it comes to half-dragons, there's nothing stopping you from using the draconian backstory and using it in conjunction with the template.


Hong "why am I being nice?" Ooi

 

[Napftor]

Maybe the dragonkin non-users will change their minds after seeing this: http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=14071&mode=thread&order=0

Hasn't been much about half-dragons so it's good to see Goodman doing a book on them.

 

[Gez]

in the case of half-dragons, one DM might use the "born of dragon parents" idea

Actually, if it's born of dragon parents, then it's not a half-dragon, but a full-blooded one.


G "Half-human/half-human" Z

 

[hong]

Actually, if it's born of dragon parents, then it's not a half-dragon, but a full-blooded one.

Idiot. Everyone knows that the plural of parents is parentses.


Hong "I think it's French" Ooi

 

[BryonD]

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.

Dead on.

There are lots of ways to come up with creatures that are dragon natured without being classical dragons.

 

[BryonD]

Idiot. Everyone knows that the plural of parents is parentses.


Hong "I think it's French" Ooi

Gollum? Is that you?

 

[Desdichado]

Or oozes - why would a wizard waste his time doing that.

Except the half-dragon is all about the numbers whereas the draconian is cool and has a neat backstory. Something better than a wizard with too much time on his hands or a drunk dragon.

Who said anything about wizards with too much time on their hands? You're still missing the point: templates are mechanical. All they are about is changing the characteristics of the base creature. What you get as the result is entirely up to you. Your insistence that a half-dragon must be the result of a wizard experiment or a dragon/humanoid coupling is completely missing the point; you can add whatever background you want to to the result of a templated creature.

EDIT: Although hong beat me to it and already explained better than I did. Damn time zone differences; I have to sleep sometime, y'know!

 

[Aeolius]

Actually, if it's born of dragon parents, then it's not a half-dragon, but a full-blooded one.

Unless it's the offspring of two different dragon types, such as a half-black red dragon, as was detailed in Savage Species.

 

[DragonLancer]

I have used the Half-Dragon template before. I quite like the whole half-this and that idea but folks do seem to get caught up in it. Heres a couple examples of how I used it.

1. In my Dragonlance TT game, I applied half silver dragon template to a Sivak Draconian with the idea that it was one of the early more viable creations. However it still retained a lot of the heritage from the dragon embryo it was created from, so it had proper flight and a cold breath weapon (both of which freaked the players who thought they knew draconians)

2. On the the IceHaven online chat game I help run (see sig link), there is a player who plays a wizard with lots of fire spells (Setting is ice age style so lots of cold creatures). During an adventure he and some companions went on they encountered a Half Red Dragon Behir. Not normally a creature that would have anything to do with dragons, but in this case it made the encounter more challenging for the party because the party had to come up with other ideas to slay the beast due to its resistence to fire.

So basically, use templates to create nice backstories or challenge rather than just thinking that a creature has a dragon parent. Look beyond that box.