When a Dragon and an Angel fall in love...

[Cremator]

So an interesting question came up in a game I'm playing in recently. One of my fellow players is playing a character who is the child of a solar and a dragon. How would you handle that when applying templates? Would he be a half-dragon/half-celestial (gaining both templates)? If so, what would you use as the base creature?

Or would he be a solar with the half-dragon template, or vice-versa? My assumption would be one of the two as the base creature, with half-(the other one) as the template, but I've been wrong before.

Or, another thought that struck me, would he possibly not gain a template, and instead just be purely one or the other, despite his dual-heritage?

Thanks!

 

[Zesty Gordita]

Giving him both templates (1/3 Dragon 1/3 Celestial 1/3 Other race(probably human)) would make him pretty powerful, giving him a +7 lvl adjustment.

And making him either a Half-dragon Solar (1/3 Dragon 2/3 Celestial??), or (what I assume you mean) a Half-celestial Dragon (1/3 Celestial 2/3 Dragon??) would again be, very powerful, giving him another very high lvl adjustment.

I personally am playing a Draconic Aasimar currently, which, as my understanding of it is, more or less a 1/4 Dragon 1/4 Celestial 1/2 Human. Probably something more like 1/6 Dragon 1/6 Celestial 2/3 Human.

But regardless, a better choice for him would probably be to change his origins a little bit and be a Half-dragon Aasimar or a Draconic Half-celestial and then have him choose a base race such as human making him effectively either a 1/2 Dragon 1/4 Celestial 1/4 Base Race or a 1/2 Celestial 1/4 Dragon 1/4 Base Race.

Hope this isn't confusing and helps somewhat.

 

[Cremator]

I'm not entirely certain that you understood the intent of my question. All I'm wondering is which way the gene pool would have spat him out, really. I'm not concerned with how powerful it would be or how it would balance etc.

More simply, my question (at its core) is this: What is his race?

 

[Zesty Gordita]

Well... in that case it would really be up to the DM or to him (at the DM's discretion). Does he want to be a dragon with celestial blood? Or does he want to be a celestial with dragon blood? It can only be one or the other since there is no other blood in his character; since it seems it was just...
"Hey mister/miss Celestial, wanna mate?"
"Why sure mister/miss dragon under the guise of a celestial by using a polymorph spell."

Bam, two races. As such, there can't really be a base creature other than the dragon or celestial. One would have to dominate. And there isn't really anything that says which would.

So again, does he want to be a Half-celestial Dragon (dragon being the base) or a Half-dragon Celestial (celestial being the base)? It would all be up to him.
Unless of course there's a book somewhere that labels this all out besides those dirty dirty 3.0 books.

 

[frankthedm]

He's a Half Dragon Solar, not playable outside of epic, or a half celestial wyrmling, somewhat more playable but crippled due to ECL.

 

[Cremator]

Yeah, this is all pretty much what I thought it would be, but it always pays to get a second or third opinion. Thanks a lot for the input!

 

[ValhallaGH]

Unless I was running an epic campaign, the PCs parentage would be a plot point.
Mechanically, I'd make him roll cleric with the Strength and Travel domains.
The parentage would show up in boxed-text moments and quest / item interactions.

As an Epic game, I'd probably slap half-celestial and half-dragon on a human, and call it "good enough". If he's really bent out of shape about that then he chooses one of the two to favor and gets that as the base for the other "half-" template. And sucks up the ECL.

Good luck.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd probably slap half-celestial <snip> on a human

Or Kobold, Lizard-man or other sentient reptilian...

I'd probably slap <snip> half-dragon on a human

Or assimar, tiefling or other Planetouched...

 

[Dandu]

It's probably best to figure out some way of keeping the LA low otherwise it ends up crippling the character.

 

[Umbran]

All I'm wondering is which way the gene pool would have spat him out, really.

Celestials don't archetypally come into being through biological means, so "gene pool" really need not apply. Dragons are so magical they can mate with nearly anything, so again, maybe genetics are a bad model for them. The template system is a tool for the GM to make cool monsters quickly, not a rule of genetics that you need to follow.

My suggestion is to stop thinking genes, and start thinking themes! Don't worry about biology. What's appropriate for your world's mythology?

For example, if you were playing in something that follows the patterns of Greek mythology, when a monster gives rise to another monster (through mating or other means) the child doesn't necessarily have much in common with the parent. You can have medusae giving rise to pegasi, and so on.