Crossbreed Dragons? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Crossbreed Dragons? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Darion Fenix
11-22-04, 04:51 PM I admit that I've read the Draconomicon cover to cover like a good novel but I do have one question. Are the different colors of dragons different species or just different races?

...not that it really matters because we all know the big lizards can mate with anything and produce draconic offspring, but can a silver dragon mate with a bronze?

I'm inclined to think that they're separate species because the differences aren't just on color but in bone and muscle configuration. But, even if they're separate species, the big scaly buggers can have half-human children! So crossbreeding with another kind of dragon should be easy compared to producing a half-primate...

It may just be me...but if I was a dragon, I certainly wouldn't want to have a dip in the ape's gene pool. Ew!

One last thing, where can I get some information on the Gem Dragons? The idea of an "All Dragon PC" campaign is just too tempting, but we'd like to have more options than the 10 dragon species.
Sucineri
11-22-04, 05:50 PM Well, you can look at elves and orcs for example.

Human + Elf = Half-Elf
Human + Orc = Half-Orc
Elf + Orc = ERROR! ERROR! ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!

Basically it is HUMANS that can get it on with anything and make offspring, not everything else.

But then again, Dragons are crazy, so it might be possible, I dunno really. :)
Darion Fenix
11-22-04, 06:13 PM Well, the "Draconic" and "Half Dragon" templates can be applied to any base race so the big lizards must be getting it on with humans, orcs, giants, everybody. So...a few of them have to kindoodle with their own kind ^_^

Of course...planting the idea of "hey! wouldn't a half red/half black dragon be cool?" might not be very bright...
obrysii
11-22-04, 06:32 PM Why not just apply the half-dragon template to a dragon?
Sucineri
11-22-04, 07:47 PM I could have sworn a half-dragon template could only be applied to a non-dragon creature since it CHANGES the base creature to dragon type.
obrysii
11-22-04, 08:01 PM I could have sworn a half-dragon template could only be applied to a non-dragon creature since it CHANGES the base creature to dragon type.

What's your point?

If he's the DM, he can do as he wants. If he wants to apply the half-dragon template to a dragon, so be it.
Sarig the Genie
11-22-04, 09:01 PM On the old Draconomicon boards I'm rather sure there was a lot of threads dedicated to dragons of mixed races. Lime dragons for example *g*

Those threads are probably all gone now though.
green_yawgmoth
11-22-04, 10:54 PM I could have sworn a half-dragon template could only be applied to a non-dragon creature since it CHANGES the base creature to dragon type."...can be added to any corporeal creature..." Emphasis mine.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Zar Niln
11-23-04, 01:16 AM Basically here's the dilemma. Applying the half-dragon template gives too much to the offspring to of the dragon. A boost in charisma, strength...etc. Now, there's something to be said for a crossbreed of the differing colors of dragon would be stronger than the original, but that remains up to the DM. I say that between the crossbreed, the child retains scales from both parents, but retains all the stats of the father's side. On a side note, the child gets a secondary breath weapon 3/day of his mother's breathweapon, using the same breathweapon progression/damage as the child would have according to the mother's color.

This is a high DM's perogative issue, eh?
green_yawgmoth
11-23-04, 01:27 AM Basically here's the dilemma. Applying the half-dragon template gives too much to the offspring to of the dragon. A boost in charisma, strength...etc. Now, there's something to be said for a crossbreed of the differing colors of dragon would be stronger than the original, but that remains up to the DM. I say that between the crossbreed, the child retains scales from both parents, but retains all the stats of the father's side. On a side note, the child gets a secondary breath weapon 3/day of his mother's breathweapon, using the same breathweapon progression/damage as the child would have according to the mother's color.

This is a high DM's perogative issue, eh?Sounds pretty good. if I were to go fiddling around with it, I'd say average the parents' stats together, and give the spawn 2 breath weapons, each one age catagory lower than normal. It get the SLAs of both parents.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Sucineri
11-23-04, 02:14 AM I would also personally lose the immunities based on the dragons..so if it is a red/white (pink, hehe) dragon then hey lose the immunity to fire and the immunity to cold..but they keep really high resistances to both of them.
The Vorpal Tribble
11-23-04, 02:44 AM I still have in my head the vision of a half-dragon thri-kreen... man would that be vicious.
Derren S.
11-23-04, 04:14 AM Basically here's the dilemma. Applying the half-dragon template gives too much to the offspring to of the dragon. A boost in charisma, strength...etc. Now, there's something to be said for a crossbreed of the differing colors of dragon would be stronger than the original, but that remains up to the DM.

I don't see a dilemma here.
For example a red mates with a white dragon, the offspring should be stronger than a normal white dragon as reds are much more powerful than whites.
It only depends on which dragon you use as base creature.

The only problem arrises when dragons of (nearly) similar strength mate.
Slagger the Chuul
11-23-04, 04:31 AM I do remember trying to work out what you'd call some of the crossbreed metallic dragons.

Electrum is pretty easy for silver/gold crossbreeds, but the others get more complicated, although billon appears quite commonly for silver/copper alloys, and there are quite a few different names for various mixes of copper and gold.

There's also the inevitable question:

If we have bronze dragons and brass dragons, why don't we have tin dragons and zinc dragons?

If we never had them at all, what did all those copper dragons breed with? :)
RavinRay
11-23-04, 04:41 AM As mentioned above, there are old threads addressing this topic (and I've posted in all of them); a quick search should reveal them.

Let me put in what I wrote before.

Dragon genetics is not necessarily the same as real-world genetics. If you want your dragons to cross-breed with non-dragons then that is your call.

Various books have used the word "species" to designate the different varieties. If you are in the habit of applying Linnean dichotomy to your dragons, then all true dragons would have the same genus name (say Draco) but different species names. Again by analogy, this poses no problems for cross-breeding, as lion and tigers have spawned fertile hybrid offspring on occasion (but not always).

The half-dragon template can be applied to lesser dragons (see the half-brass dragon/half-wyvern in the Half-Dragon Web Enhancement for the Draconomicon). Applying the half-dragon template to another true dragon poses problems for some folks: is it the mother's species being template or the father's, or is it the "stronger" over the "weaker"? Personally, what I've done is to put all the stats of all true dragons in an Excel spreadsheet. Then to make a cross-breed of any two species, I simply average out all the independent stats, and presto! a cross-breed dragon. Spell-like and supernatural abilities have to be worked out, though. So far, I've done gold-silver (electrum), and silver-mercury (amalgam).

I agree with Sucineri in reducing energy immunities to resistances for such hybrids, but that's our call.

The gem dragons have been discussed in the Psionics forum as well. I've done the task of updating their psionics and abilities to 3.5 psionics, and you can check my work at Gem Dragon Psionics (http://www.geocities.com/originalravinray/dnd/psionics/main.html). I discovered a few typos recently, but not enough to nerf the info.
KangsRegiment
11-23-04, 08:58 AM I agree with what everyone's been saying, as cross-bred dragons should either be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, or perhaps created as a new kind of dragon entirely, because of how uncommon they are (in Council of Wyrms, dragons of the same family only had a 35% chance of fertizilation, and dragons of different familiies had only a 10% chance).
green_yawgmoth
11-23-04, 12:56 PM If we have bronze dragons and brass dragons, why don't we have tin dragons and zinc dragons?I would love to see someone make a zinc dragon. :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Mithral Icesilver
11-23-04, 04:29 PM People have posted templates for breeding between any two living, corporeal creatures now and again ... here's NightScreamer20's template:

Half-Breed
A Half-Breed is just that, a creature whose parents are two completely different species. Though in untouched nature this rarely occurs, magic can force these beings into existance.
Creating a Half-Breed
Half-Breed is a template that really isn't a template at all, it is more of a creature in itself. To create a half-breed you need two different creatures that can reproduce, therefore there can be no Construct, Ooze, or Undead half-breeds. Creatures that already have a template for breeding with creatures not of their kind such as Celestials, Dragons, and Fiends do not apply this template to their kin.
You need two different creatures in order to create this template. One must be the Mother creature and one must be the Father creature. This does not imply that one has to be female and one has to be male, in asexual species or creatures that don't have an indentifiable gender, just choose one to be the Mother and one to be considered the Father.
Hit Dice: The half-breed has the Hit Dice type of it's Mother but has the number of Hit Die equal to the average Hit Dice of the Mother and the Father rounded down to the nearest whole number.
Type: The half-breed's type is the same as the mother creature, but gains the Augmented subtype in according to it's Father's creature type. It also gains all other sub-types of both it's parents.
Size: The half-breed's size is determined by the size of it's parents. If the parents are one size category apart, the same size category, or the Father is smaller than the Mother, use the Mother's size as the size of the half-breed. Otherwise use one size category up from the Mother's size.
Speed: The half-breed gains the fastest base speed of his parents. If the parents have different modes of movement, he gains all modes of movement and all speeds.
Armor Class: The half-breed gains the average natural armor rating between the Mother creature and the Father creature rounded up to the nearest whole number.
Attack and Full Attack: The half-breed gains all attack modes of it's Mother and Father creatures. When creating the creature who choose which natural attack would be considered it's Primary attack.
Damage: The damage for the half-breed's attacks are as on the table below.
Size_______Bite_Claw/Sting_Slam/Tentacle_Gore/Tail
Fine_______1____-_________-____________-
Diminutive_1d2__1_________1____________1
Tiny_______1d3_1d2_______1d2__________1d 2
Small_____1d4__1d3_______1d3__________1d 4
Medium____1d6_1d4_______1d4__________1d6
Large______1d8_1d6_______1d6__________1d 8
Huge______2d6_1d8_______1d8__________2d6
Gargantuan_2d8_2d6_______2d6__________2d 8
Colossal____4d6_2d8_______2d8__________2 d6
Special Attacks: The half-breed retains only a few special attacks of each parent. It only gets 1 special attack for each Hit Die it possesses. A half-breed chooses it's special attacks from those of it's parents, and makes changes to their power and DCs depending on its own Hit Die, Size, and Ability scores.
Spell-Like Abilities: The half-breed gains Spell-Like abilities only if one or both of it's parents have them. If both parents have spell-like abilities, it gains either the Spell-Like Abilities of it's Mother or Father creature. There's a 50% chance of each, roll a d% to determine the results. Otherwise it gains the spell-like abilities of the parent who has them.
Special Qualities: Since a half-breed is treated as being two creature types it gains the special qualities and racial traits of both. If both parents have the same special quality the half-breed gains the greater of the two.
Abilities: Being a mixture of two beings the half-breed is usually stronger than the weaker of the two but no more powerful than the strongest. The half-breed starts of with a 10 for each ability score. Then use the ability score modifiers of each of the parents ability scores as an inherent bonus to the half-breeds scores, rounded up to the nearest even number.
Feats: The half-breed gains the bonus feats of both the Mother creatures and the Father creatures.
Skills: The half-breed gains skills as a creature of its Mother's type. It gains racial bonuses to skills from both parents, these bonuses stack.
Challenge Rating: 1/2 Mother CR + 1/2 Father CR + HD
Alignment: As Mother creature.
Level Adjustment: 1/2 Mother LA + 1/2 Father LA + 1

So you apply this template, or another half-n-half template of your choice, to the two dragons at each age category. This might mean quite a bit of work, but it shouldn't be to horribly difficult.
kliate
11-23-04, 05:47 PM I see no reason not to apply the half-dragon template to a mixed breed - it could very well be that mixing two breeds of dragons results in something far more powerful than the previous two (Red and White have been suggested before)

I instead propose that draconic lore encompasses the ferocious power of wyrmlings from mixed breeds of parents, and that with that knowledge such breeding is heavily discouraged among dragonkin. The very idea that a mixed wyrmling could tear apart a similar dragon a full age category over it would seem to be abhorant to most dragons, and the fact that two dragons of different types mating results in a litter of these powerful buggers is reason enough for the potential parents to avoid creating such monstrosities.

For further flavor, I would suggest giving such dragons an insanity based on the competing parts of their two natures. A red and white dragon would resolve to live in mountains - but what mountains would comfort the red half with heat and the white half with cold? The more opposed the two types, the greater the strain on their existence. If a dragon's vulnerability is overpowered by an immunity, then it's most likely that it's mixed cravings will result in a broken mind.
digoraccoon
11-23-04, 05:53 PM I have the older 2nd edition Draconomicon and it had a section about offspring of two different dragon types (Metallics and Chromatics). I think the general idea was that the offspring would have the base stats and appearance of one of the parents and have a few abilities replaced with that of the other dragon parent.

I don't remember the specifics, but I used a loose variation to create an NPC that was the offspring of a Gold mother and a Red father. She looks like the red parent, but has the two breath weapons of the gold and gold's WIS and CHA stats. I think the offspring had a few other stats and skills blended, but you get the idea. I'd just keep the ideas loose and roll with it. :)
Obscure One
11-23-04, 07:40 PM I actually did make a crossbred dragon in a campaign I ran about a year ago, if I remember correctly I blended a Red Dragon and Gold Dragon. The noteworthy similarities between the two dragons was the basis to justify such a union. However the way I did it was to take a "poetic licence" with my own idea of what the two would produce. In that same mentality I don't know how I'd justify a White/Red mix or any other cross that would contradict the nature of the dragons. Considering a white dragon doesn't settle down in an area any where near a red dragon, arrangeing a meeting between the two dragons alone would be a reach, and even if it did occur an end result that would generate anything other than a White Dragon beat down is difficult to justify. Altogether it is up to the DM if by some act of god two completely unrelated dragons decide to mate.
kdyal
12-05-04, 04:34 PM Another angle to approach it from is that of hybrid vigor (the results of widely disparate genetic combinations tend to be very hearty). I would apply the half-dragon template to the MORE POWERFUL of the two dragons - but 90% of all hybrid eggs simply do not hatch. This is why there are so few hybrid dragons - no one wants stillborn children...
premier666
12-05-04, 04:46 PM anyway, comingh back to zinc dragons, they would be stronger cause they dont get rusty. :D
(no I dont have nothing more useful to add)
RavinRay
12-05-04, 05:04 PM anyway, comingh back to zinc dragons, they would be stronger cause they dont get rusty. :D

Actually, some of the abilities of the metallic dragons don't correspond to the real-world properties of the metals they're based on. For instance, silver dragons have, aside from cold immunity, acid immunity, but in the RW silver is tarnished by sulfur. Plus, silver has about the highest conductivity of electricity among metals, so you would expect a silver dragon to have an electricity breath weapon.

So, when designing new metallic dragons, I won't strictly adhere to the RW properties of the metals they're based on. ;)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Darion Fenix 11-22-04, 04:51 PM	I admit that I've read the Draconomicon cover to cover like a good novel but I do have one question. Are the different colors of dragons different species or just different races? ...not that it really matters because we all know the big lizards can mate with anything and produce draconic offspring, but can a silver dragon mate with a bronze? I'm inclined to think that they're separate species because the differences aren't just on color but in bone and muscle configuration. But, even if they're separate species, the big scaly buggers can have half-human children! So crossbreeding with another kind of dragon should be easy compared to producing a half-primate... It may just be me...but if I was a dragon, I certainly wouldn't want to have a dip in the ape's gene pool. Ew! One last thing, where can I get some information on the Gem Dragons? The idea of an "All Dragon PC" campaign is just too tempting, but we'd like to have more options than the 10 dragon species.
Sucineri 11-22-04, 05:50 PM	Well, you can look at elves and orcs for example. Human + Elf = Half-Elf Human + Orc = Half-Orc Elf + Orc = ERROR! ERROR! ERROR! ERROR! ERROR! Basically it is HUMANS that can get it on with anything and make offspring, not everything else. But then again, Dragons are crazy, so it might be possible, I dunno really. :)
Darion Fenix 11-22-04, 06:13 PM	Well, the "Draconic" and "Half Dragon" templates can be applied to any base race so the big lizards must be getting it on with humans, orcs, giants, everybody. So...a few of them have to kindoodle with their own kind ^_^ Of course...planting the idea of "hey! wouldn't a half red/half black dragon be cool?" might not be very bright...
obrysii 11-22-04, 06:32 PM	Why not just apply the half-dragon template to a dragon?
Sucineri 11-22-04, 07:47 PM	I could have sworn a half-dragon template could only be applied to a non-dragon creature since it CHANGES the base creature to dragon type.
obrysii 11-22-04, 08:01 PM	I could have sworn a half-dragon template could only be applied to a non-dragon creature since it CHANGES the base creature to dragon type. What's your point? If he's the DM, he can do as he wants. If he wants to apply the half-dragon template to a dragon, so be it.
Sarig the Genie 11-22-04, 09:01 PM	On the old Draconomicon boards I'm rather sure there was a lot of threads dedicated to dragons of mixed races. Lime dragons for example g Those threads are probably all gone now though.
green_yawgmoth 11-22-04, 10:54 PM	I could have sworn a half-dragon template could only be applied to a non-dragon creature since it CHANGES the base creature to dragon type."...can be added to any corporeal creature..." Emphasis mine. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Zar Niln 11-23-04, 01:16 AM	Basically here's the dilemma. Applying the half-dragon template gives too much to the offspring to of the dragon. A boost in charisma, strength...etc. Now, there's something to be said for a crossbreed of the differing colors of dragon would be stronger than the original, but that remains up to the DM. I say that between the crossbreed, the child retains scales from both parents, but retains all the stats of the father's side. On a side note, the child gets a secondary breath weapon 3/day of his mother's breathweapon, using the same breathweapon progression/damage as the child would have according to the mother's color. This is a high DM's perogative issue, eh?
green_yawgmoth 11-23-04, 01:27 AM	Basically here's the dilemma. Applying the half-dragon template gives too much to the offspring to of the dragon. A boost in charisma, strength...etc. Now, there's something to be said for a crossbreed of the differing colors of dragon would be stronger than the original, but that remains up to the DM. I say that between the crossbreed, the child retains scales from both parents, but retains all the stats of the father's side. On a side note, the child gets a secondary breath weapon 3/day of his mother's breathweapon, using the same breathweapon progression/damage as the child would have according to the mother's color. This is a high DM's perogative issue, eh?Sounds pretty good. if I were to go fiddling around with it, I'd say average the parents' stats together, and give the spawn 2 breath weapons, each one age catagory lower than normal. It get the SLAs of both parents. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Sucineri 11-23-04, 02:14 AM	I would also personally lose the immunities based on the dragons..so if it is a red/white (pink, hehe) dragon then hey lose the immunity to fire and the immunity to cold..but they keep really high resistances to both of them.
The Vorpal Tribble 11-23-04, 02:44 AM	I still have in my head the vision of a half-dragon thri-kreen... man would that be vicious.
Derren S. 11-23-04, 04:14 AM	Basically here's the dilemma. Applying the half-dragon template gives too much to the offspring to of the dragon. A boost in charisma, strength...etc. Now, there's something to be said for a crossbreed of the differing colors of dragon would be stronger than the original, but that remains up to the DM. I don't see a dilemma here. For example a red mates with a white dragon, the offspring should be stronger than a normal white dragon as reds are much more powerful than whites. It only depends on which dragon you use as base creature. The only problem arrises when dragons of (nearly) similar strength mate.
Slagger the Chuul 11-23-04, 04:31 AM	I do remember trying to work out what you'd call some of the crossbreed metallic dragons. Electrum is pretty easy for silver/gold crossbreeds, but the others get more complicated, although billon appears quite commonly for silver/copper alloys, and there are quite a few different names for various mixes of copper and gold. There's also the inevitable question: If we have bronze dragons and brass dragons, why don't we have tin dragons and zinc dragons? If we never had them at all, what did all those copper dragons breed with? :)
RavinRay 11-23-04, 04:41 AM	As mentioned above, there are old threads addressing this topic (and I've posted in all of them); a quick search should reveal them. Let me put in what I wrote before. Dragon genetics is not necessarily the same as real-world genetics. If you want your dragons to cross-breed with non-dragons then that is your call. Various books have used the word "species" to designate the different varieties. If you are in the habit of applying Linnean dichotomy to your dragons, then all true dragons would have the same genus name (say Draco) but different species names. Again by analogy, this poses no problems for cross-breeding, as lion and tigers have spawned fertile hybrid offspring on occasion (but not always). The half-dragon template can be applied to lesser dragons (see the half-brass dragon/half-wyvern in the Half-Dragon Web Enhancement for the Draconomicon). Applying the half-dragon template to another true dragon poses problems for some folks: is it the mother's species being template or the father's, or is it the "stronger" over the "weaker"? Personally, what I've done is to put all the stats of all true dragons in an Excel spreadsheet. Then to make a cross-breed of any two species, I simply average out all the independent stats, and presto! a cross-breed dragon. Spell-like and supernatural abilities have to be worked out, though. So far, I've done gold-silver (electrum), and silver-mercury (amalgam). I agree with Sucineri in reducing energy immunities to resistances for such hybrids, but that's our call. The gem dragons have been discussed in the Psionics forum as well. I've done the task of updating their psionics and abilities to 3.5 psionics, and you can check my work at Gem Dragon Psionics (http://www.geocities.com/originalravinray/dnd/psionics/main.html). I discovered a few typos recently, but not enough to nerf the info.
KangsRegiment 11-23-04, 08:58 AM	I agree with what everyone's been saying, as cross-bred dragons should either be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, or perhaps created as a new kind of dragon entirely, because of how uncommon they are (in Council of Wyrms, dragons of the same family only had a 35% chance of fertizilation, and dragons of different familiies had only a 10% chance).
green_yawgmoth 11-23-04, 12:56 PM	If we have bronze dragons and brass dragons, why don't we have tin dragons and zinc dragons?I would love to see someone make a zinc dragon. :D http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Mithral Icesilver 11-23-04, 04:29 PM	People have posted templates for breeding between any two living, corporeal creatures now and again ... here's NightScreamer20's template: Half-Breed A Half-Breed is just that, a creature whose parents are two completely different species. Though in untouched nature this rarely occurs, magic can force these beings into existance. Creating a Half-Breed Half-Breed is a template that really isn't a template at all, it is more of a creature in itself. To create a half-breed you need two different creatures that can reproduce, therefore there can be no Construct, Ooze, or Undead half-breeds. Creatures that already have a template for breeding with creatures not of their kind such as Celestials, Dragons, and Fiends do not apply this template to their kin. You need two different creatures in order to create this template. One must be the Mother creature and one must be the Father creature. This does not imply that one has to be female and one has to be male, in asexual species or creatures that don't have an indentifiable gender, just choose one to be the Mother and one to be considered the Father. Hit Dice: The half-breed has the Hit Dice type of it's Mother but has the number of Hit Die equal to the average Hit Dice of the Mother and the Father rounded down to the nearest whole number. Type: The half-breed's type is the same as the mother creature, but gains the Augmented subtype in according to it's Father's creature type. It also gains all other sub-types of both it's parents. Size: The half-breed's size is determined by the size of it's parents. If the parents are one size category apart, the same size category, or the Father is smaller than the Mother, use the Mother's size as the size of the half-breed. Otherwise use one size category up from the Mother's size. Speed: The half-breed gains the fastest base speed of his parents. If the parents have different modes of movement, he gains all modes of movement and all speeds. Armor Class: The half-breed gains the average natural armor rating between the Mother creature and the Father creature rounded up to the nearest whole number. Attack and Full Attack: The half-breed gains all attack modes of it's Mother and Father creatures. When creating the creature who choose which natural attack would be considered it's Primary attack. Damage: The damage for the half-breed's attacks are as on the table below. Size_______Bite_Claw/Sting_Slam/Tentacle_Gore/Tail Fine_______1____-_________-____________- Diminutive_1d2__1_________1____________1 Tiny_______1d3_1d2_______1d2__________1d 2 Small_____1d4__1d3_______1d3__________1d 4 Medium____1d6_1d4_______1d4__________1d6 Large______1d8_1d6_______1d6__________1d 8 Huge______2d6_1d8_______1d8__________2d6 Gargantuan_2d8_2d6_______2d6__________2d 8 Colossal____4d6_2d8_______2d8__________2 d6 Special Attacks: The half-breed retains only a few special attacks of each parent. It only gets 1 special attack for each Hit Die it possesses. A half-breed chooses it's special attacks from those of it's parents, and makes changes to their power and DCs depending on its own Hit Die, Size, and Ability scores. Spell-Like Abilities: The half-breed gains Spell-Like abilities only if one or both of it's parents have them. If both parents have spell-like abilities, it gains either the Spell-Like Abilities of it's Mother or Father creature. There's a 50% chance of each, roll a d% to determine the results. Otherwise it gains the spell-like abilities of the parent who has them. Special Qualities: Since a half-breed is treated as being two creature types it gains the special qualities and racial traits of both. If both parents have the same special quality the half-breed gains the greater of the two. Abilities: Being a mixture of two beings the half-breed is usually stronger than the weaker of the two but no more powerful than the strongest. The half-breed starts of with a 10 for each ability score. Then use the ability score modifiers of each of the parents ability scores as an inherent bonus to the half-breeds scores, rounded up to the nearest even number. Feats: The half-breed gains the bonus feats of both the Mother creatures and the Father creatures. Skills: The half-breed gains skills as a creature of its Mother's type. It gains racial bonuses to skills from both parents, these bonuses stack. Challenge Rating: 1/2 Mother CR + 1/2 Father CR + HD Alignment: As Mother creature. Level Adjustment: 1/2 Mother LA + 1/2 Father LA + 1 So you apply this template, or another half-n-half template of your choice, to the two dragons at each age category. This might mean quite a bit of work, but it shouldn't be to horribly difficult.
kliate 11-23-04, 05:47 PM	I see no reason not to apply the half-dragon template to a mixed breed - it could very well be that mixing two breeds of dragons results in something far more powerful than the previous two (Red and White have been suggested before) I instead propose that draconic lore encompasses the ferocious power of wyrmlings from mixed breeds of parents, and that with that knowledge such breeding is heavily discouraged among dragonkin. The very idea that a mixed wyrmling could tear apart a similar dragon a full age category over it would seem to be abhorant to most dragons, and the fact that two dragons of different types mating results in a litter of these powerful buggers is reason enough for the potential parents to avoid creating such monstrosities. For further flavor, I would suggest giving such dragons an insanity based on the competing parts of their two natures. A red and white dragon would resolve to live in mountains - but what mountains would comfort the red half with heat and the white half with cold? The more opposed the two types, the greater the strain on their existence. If a dragon's vulnerability is overpowered by an immunity, then it's most likely that it's mixed cravings will result in a broken mind.
digoraccoon 11-23-04, 05:53 PM	I have the older 2nd edition Draconomicon and it had a section about offspring of two different dragon types (Metallics and Chromatics). I think the general idea was that the offspring would have the base stats and appearance of one of the parents and have a few abilities replaced with that of the other dragon parent. I don't remember the specifics, but I used a loose variation to create an NPC that was the offspring of a Gold mother and a Red father. She looks like the red parent, but has the two breath weapons of the gold and gold's WIS and CHA stats. I think the offspring had a few other stats and skills blended, but you get the idea. I'd just keep the ideas loose and roll with it. :)
Obscure One 11-23-04, 07:40 PM	I actually did make a crossbred dragon in a campaign I ran about a year ago, if I remember correctly I blended a Red Dragon and Gold Dragon. The noteworthy similarities between the two dragons was the basis to justify such a union. However the way I did it was to take a "poetic licence" with my own idea of what the two would produce. In that same mentality I don't know how I'd justify a White/Red mix or any other cross that would contradict the nature of the dragons. Considering a white dragon doesn't settle down in an area any where near a red dragon, arrangeing a meeting between the two dragons alone would be a reach, and even if it did occur an end result that would generate anything other than a White Dragon beat down is difficult to justify. Altogether it is up to the DM if by some act of god two completely unrelated dragons decide to mate.
kdyal 12-05-04, 04:34 PM	Another angle to approach it from is that of hybrid vigor (the results of widely disparate genetic combinations tend to be very hearty). I would apply the half-dragon template to the MORE POWERFUL of the two dragons - but 90% of all hybrid eggs simply do not hatch. This is why there are so few hybrid dragons - no one wants stillborn children...
premier666 12-05-04, 04:46 PM	anyway, comingh back to zinc dragons, they would be stronger cause they dont get rusty. :D (no I dont have nothing more useful to add)
RavinRay 12-05-04, 05:04 PM	anyway, comingh back to zinc dragons, they would be stronger cause they dont get rusty. :D Actually, some of the abilities of the metallic dragons don't correspond to the real-world properties of the metals they're based on. For instance, silver dragons have, aside from cold immunity, acid immunity, but in the RW silver is tarnished by sulfur. Plus, silver has about the highest conductivity of electricity among metals, so you would expect a silver dragon to have an electricity breath weapon. So, when designing new metallic dragons, I won't strictly adhere to the RW properties of the metals they're based on. ;)