Question on Half-Dragon/Half-Drow

[LeifVignirsson]

Yes, you read that right... Yes, I am a glutton for punishment by posting this here, but this is the situation.

IMC, my players are on a large island/small continent that is almost exclusively Elven. The enemy is, of course, a mad necromancer who is the Emperor of a land that none of these characters have seen but have heard about. Eventually, the Emperor (or his clone yet again) will land on the nation's soil and try to take it over.

This time, he is going to have something that thwarts the defenses that they have set up (I am a sneaky DM, aren't I?) by having the main cohort of the Emperor be... shock and surprise... a Half-Dragon (black, of course)/Half-Drow. Hey, they weren't clear when they said "Elves are allowed past the defenses, even Half-Elves".

So, I am going through the prep work to intro this monstrous figure, but I have hit a mini-snag. The MM says "The Half-Dragon has all the special qualities of the base creature..."

Meanwhile, the Races of Faerun have the Half-Drow reading as "Drow Blood: For all special abilities and effects, a half-drow is considered a drow."

So, now that I prattled on for hours, I wanted to know what everyone thought of this? Does this mean that my half-dragon would be affected by the sun like a drow would be? Would he get the same spells to start off with, like a drow? I have a general idea as to what I wanted to do, but I wanted to hear some feedback and see if maybe I am the only one stumped here. Look forward to hearing from everyone! Thanks in advance!

-Leif, a very abusive (but fun) DM...

 

[Dash Dannigan]

The Half-Drow as in the RoF is the base template. As for the Drow Blood it works the same as the Orc Blood for Half-Orcs, and Elf Blood for regular Half-Elves. It simply means that for spells, magic items and such they are considered of that species due to their parental blood. For example a half-elf could wield an elven moonblade or benefit from wearing a cloak made to work only for elves. Same for orcs and the half-drow. That's all. For the Half-Drow template, thats the base creature and you just go from there, that's it. Neat guy, sounds cool and like a good err bad and villanous discovery of the defenses' "loop-hole"!

For some real fun with the PCs have the villain cast enlarge on the half-dragon and watch him go from medium to large and sprout wings!

edit- Also, there are templates for faerunian half-dragons such as the shadow, brown, song, and deep dragons. in the City of the Spider Queen Campaign book that would work great too.

 

[LeifVignirsson]

Thanks Dash!

That is what I was thinking to, but I wanted to make sure that it was just a "Base template", that is what happens when I get tired from writing all night... stoopid writing anyways!

Funny thing is, I was going to start him off as a Large creature... Imagine what will happen when they see THAT enlarged. Now imagine the Large Black Half-Dragon as a fighter in the realm of a 30 STR that has an acidic type greatsword...

And the defenses were something I started off with, the main "Good guy" is my favorite former character. When the DM gave me all of the resources to run it myself, I decided to improve the idea a bit and made a nice little campaign out of it. I gave my players the chance to tweak the defenses and now... look where it got them lol

 

[drnuncheon]

So, I am going through the prep work to intro this monstrous figure, but I have hit a mini-snag. The MM says "The Half-Dragon has all the special qualities of the base creature..."

Meanwhile, the Races of Faerun have the Half-Drow reading as "Drow Blood: For all special abilities and effects, a half-drow is considered a drow."

Er, you realize that what you're making here is a half-dragon/half-half-drow? That is, a half-drow/half-human (presumably) with the half-dragon template added onto it.

(That's assuming that a half-drow is like a half-elf - I don't have Races of Faerun.)

If you want a dragon/drow mix, you just need to apply the half-dragon template to a drow.

J

 

[LeifVignirsson]

Well, the other half HAS to be something, so I was going to make it equal a whole. I have enough Drow IMC and I wanted the players to sweat it out a bit... Of course, that is a good point, it will be something I will have to mull over before tonight when I make this NPC up.

 

[LeifVignirsson]

Maybe I should clear up my thought process here and maybe this can help me out in getting this done...

Emperor takes one of his favorite male Black Dragons (Geez, who would have thought a mad necromancer and a black dragon would get along?) takes a "willing" Drow female from the Elven nation and forces a brooding. Poof, here comes the Emperor's new champion. Add in a bit of the speed growth and even more poof, you have the mature half-dragon/half-drow.

Now, unless I am missing something (which I usually am), that would be the correct set up, right?

 

[drnuncheon]

Maybe I should clear up my thought process here and maybe this can help me out in getting this done...

Emperor takes one of his favorite male Black Dragons (Geez, who would have thought a mad necromancer and a black dragon would get along?) takes a "willing" Drow female from the Elven nation and forces a brooding. Poof, here comes the Emperor's new champion. Add in a bit of the speed growth and even more poof, you have the mature half-dragon/half-drow.

Now, unless I am missing something (which I usually am), that would be the correct set up, right?

That would be a drow (the base creature) with the half-dragon template added to it. The drow would be affected by sunlight, have the drow innate spells, etc.

It sounded to me like you wanted to use a half-drow as the base creature, which would make the resulting character a mix of dragon, drow, and whatever the other half of the half-drow is.

J

 

[Garmorn]

I don't have my Dragonstar books here but that combo is worked out in the Starfarers Handbook. It is also a ELC+5 race for characters so you will need to adjust its CR a bit. I would recomend +2 CR over any class levels you give it.

If you wish I or some else can post the OGL portion of the Drow/Half Dragon latter.

 

[LeifVignirsson]

Doh! I forgot about that, I have the Starfarer's handbook and didn't even THINK on referencing it. And that happens to be one of my favorite settings, stoopid, stoopid Leif!

Thanks for the tips guys, it helps out a lot!

 

[Drasmir]

For some real fun with the PCs have the villain cast enlarge on the half-dragon and watch him go from medium to large and sprout wings!

I'd love for this to work too, but technically enlarge does not change your size catagory. May have to rethink the tactics a bit.