Half Race Rules

[cmbarona]

I've long wondered about the half races in D&D. Are humans the only species capable of interbreeding, as in the case of half-elves, half-orcs, etc.? What about eladrin and elves in 4e?

So I'm thinking about making some house rules regarding making half-races. Basically, it works like this:

Each race comes with a half-race template. Whenever two different races breed, both templates combine to make the resulting offspring.

What all do you think each half-race template should entail?

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

I've long wondered about the half races in D&D. Are humans the only species capable of interbreeding, as in the case of half-elves, half-orcs, etc.? What about eladrin and elves in 4e?

So I'm thinking about making some house rules regarding making half-races. Basically, it works like this:

Each race comes with a half-race template. Whenever two different races breed, both templates combine to make the resulting offspring.

What all do you think each half-race template should entail?

I'd say split each race in half so you get two templates, ensuring that each has a coherent theme:

Template A gets one ability boost, one skill boost, either vision or speed, and specified abilities. (Any abilities related to origin/type, or powers-as-abilities, are shared)

Template B gets one ability boost, one skill boost, either vision or speed, and the power.

For instance, splitting the elf might give you a "nature elf" template and a "sneaky elf" template: (A) gets the +2 Wis, +2 Nature, low-light vision, Weapon Training, Group Accuracy, and Wild Step; (B) gets the +2 Dex, +2 Perception, speed 7, and Elven Accuracy.

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Players pick one template from each of their races. If they pick the A from one and the B from the other, everything's fine. Picking two As or two Bs should be fine, but that might require some fiddling around based on the power's or abilities' balance.

Thoughts?

 

[DanChops]

I'd say split each race in half so you get two templates, ensuring that each has a coherent theme:

Template A gets one ability boost, one skill boost, either vision or speed, and specified abilities. (Any abilities related to origin/type, or powers-as-abilities, are shared)

Template B gets one ability boost, one skill boost, either vision or speed, and the power.

For instance, splitting the elf might give you a "nature elf" template and a "sneaky elf" template: (A) gets the +2 Wis, +2 Nature, low-light vision, Weapon Training, Group Accuracy, and Wild Step; (B) gets the +2 Dex, +2 Perception, speed 7, and Elven Accuracy.

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Players pick one template from each of their races. If they pick the A from one and the B from the other, everything's fine. Picking two As or two Bs should be fine, but that might require some fiddling around based on the power's or abilities' balance.

Thoughts?

That's an interesting way to go about doing. One problem though - how would you deal with Humans?

 

[cmbarona]

Yeah, humans are certainly the oddballs of the bunch. I really like what Eldritch_Lord proposes, with an A and B template for each race. I think for humans it might take a similar path, e.g., you can choose a +2 to an ability score of your choice (getting the same total score as other races), or grab the other racial features. So a human racial template means choosing the choices you get to make.

I also noticed that this would make 4e half-elves into something completely different, but I'm not too worried about that, since I so rarely find anyone playing them.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

That's an interesting way to go about doing. One problem though - how would you deal with Humans?

I'd say split up the ability bonus. Remember, you want to have a theme for each template, so let's say you want "adventurous humans" and "diplomatic humans," the first to represent the "humans can adapt to anything" trope and the latter to represent "humans are everyone's best friend." The adventurous humans could get +2 to their choice of Strength, Constitution, and Intelligence, and the diplomatic humans could get +2 to their choice of Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma.

To ensure that other races with +2 to any are somewhat unique, and that the spread is balanced, you probably want to make sure that each template gets 2 defense abilities, like I did above: the adventurous humans can get abilities keyed to Fort and Ref, and the diplomatic humans can get abilities keyed to Ref and Will.

How's that sound?