Is this legal?

[Story]

Note: This isn't for an actual game. I'm just curious if this template stacking is legal by RAW. I'm especially unsure of whether inherited templates can be applied on top of the Half Giant racial class.

Necropolitan Unseelie Fey Spark Primordial Half Giant (CPsi racial class) with Human Heritage feat

According to my calculations, this gives -6 STR, +4 INT, -2 WIS, +8 CHA, all for the low, low price of LA 0.

Note that Unseelie Fey is applied after Primordial, since Primordial requires Giant type and Unseelie Fey changes type to Fey.

Unseelie Fey normally can't be combined with Necropolitan, since it changes type to Fey and Necropolitan requires Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid. However, Half Giant is a human descended race, so this qualifies to take the Human Heritage feat at 1st level, which changes type back to Humanoid. Necropolitan is an acquired template (and in fact can't be taken until level 3), so that works out.


P.S. Thanks to Necropolitan, there's no reason not to be Venerable if you're starting at level 3+, which would result in final ability adjustments of -12 STR, -6 DEX, +7 INT, +1 WIS, +11 CHA

[Xuldarinar]

I'll just be leaving this (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20060407a), as well as this (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20070401a), right here.

[FocusWolf413]

There's a stickied thread for all RAW questions.

Personally, I never allow two "half x" templates. Unseelie fey is half fey and half giant is half giant. You can't have three halves. Therefore, by my ruling, it doesn't qualify. Doesn't make it RAW.

[Story]

Not only is it not RAW, but Unseelie Fey is not Half Fey. That's a completely different template.

[FocusWolf413]

They aren't half unseelie fey and half base race?

[Xuldarinar]

There is a distinct half-fey template, if memory serves, but the Unseelie Fey template is typically describing half-fey. To be accurate, unless I am mistaken, it is half-fey in the same manner has half-elves are half elves. It might be half and half, or it is just as often if not more so to be a few generations removed.

[Cerefel]

So then couldn't you just use an unseelie fey human with human heritage and then apply necropolitan?

[Story]

Yeah, but then you don't get all the ability bonuses and SLAs of a Primordial Half Giant.

It might also be possible to use Menta Cyclopean here, since the fluff implies that Menta Cyclopeans are human descended, but Half Giant is more clear-cut and doesn't stick you with a -2 to ranged attacks. Also, having one eye will make you look weird, whereas half giants can pass for a really tall human.

[Debihuman]

An inherited template can only be put on a character at character generation. So take a first level half-giant with apply inherited templates. Sometimes the order which you apply the template matters. Primordial Template from Secrets of Xen'Drik is okay. So is the Spark template from Dragon Magazine 306. Unseelie Fey from Dragon 304 -- now you are a Fey creature not a Giant. This still stacks. Note, this template can be added to any living creature. This is where it gets tricky because at this point you do not qualify for the Necropolitan Template. You are not a Humanoid or a Monstrous Humanoid. However this is not an inherited template, so you pick a class and your feats first (so you would be a Primordial Spark Unseelie Half-Giant X class with Human Heritage Feat (which now makes you a Humanoid with the Human Subtype), and then you can take the Necropolitan Template. Congrats you are now Undead and since you only advance by class, you lose your only racial HD as a first level whichever class X you picked.

Being an Undead creature kinda sucks for players because once they die, they can't be raised or reincarnated, but they can be resurrected. Also, they are immediately destroyed at 0 hit points not -10 and you can be turned by clerics. If you are resurrected, you lose the Necropolitan Template and would have to take it again.

Debby

[Soranar]

half giant is LA +1 though

[ZamielVanWeber]

half giant is LA +1 though

He is using the half-giant racial class to try to avoid the LA.

[MisterKaws]

There's a stickied thread for all RAW questions.

Personally, I never allow two "half x" templates. Unseelie fey is half fey and half giant is half giant. You can't have three halves. Therefore, by my ruling, it doesn't qualify. Doesn't make it RAW.

This is not real world math, it's D&D math, therefore, you can have as many halves as you want.

Why shouldn't a dragon be allowed to have children with a Half-Celestial Half-Giant? That's racist!

[FocusWolf413]

This is not real world math, it's D&D math, therefore, you can have as many halves as you want.

Why shouldn't a dragon be allowed to have children with a Half-Celestial Half-Giant? That's racist!

But then you have half dragon and one quarter celestial and giant. You no longer qualify for the most basic prerequisite of the half x template: being half x.

[Psyren]

This is not real world math, it's D&D math, therefore, you can have as many halves as you want.

http://shawntionary.com/chainmailbikini/comics/2009-10-23-010-2b71a442.jpg

:smallbiggrin:



Being an Undead creature kinda sucks for players because once they die, they can't be raised or reincarnated, but they can be resurrected. Also, they are immediately destroyed at 0 hit points not -10 and you can be turned by clerics.

To be fair, past low levels the difference between 0 and -10 becomes pretty small. General consensus seems to be that the boatload of immunities undead get compensate for this minor deficiency.

[Ruethgar]

For those saying you can't have more than one half, the half templates and races are not required to be first generation. In the case of half dragons and elves this is specifically called out as such that they can be multiple generations removed from their dragon/Elven ancestors and presumably holds true for other magical and quasi-magical creatures such as Giants and fey.

It should also be noted that the rituals of Savage Speices are still in play letting most anything be applied without being called out as needing to meet the prerequisites and making every inherited template able to be added post character creation in whatever order you like.

So half giant with human heritage starts off primordial and ritually adds unseelie before necro is perfectly fine even if your DM rightfully rules that you need to meet the prerequisites.

AFB atm so can't look at all of them, but it should be noted that race comes before feats in character creation. This is why a Dragonspawn Abomination or Dragonborn DWK is possible RAWfully though not logically. So any race/template requiring human/humanoid at level one could not be taken RAWfully by that same token, though logically could because your type does not chance until after your race is applied.

[Flickerdart]

Half-giants are not the offspring of one human and one giant, but rather a true-breeding race of its own that has been deliberately engineered over many generations.

[Psyren]

Half-giants are not the offspring of one human and one giant, but rather a true-breeding race of its own that has been deliberately engineered over many generations.

He covered that though - Human Heritage is available to any "human-descended" race (RoD 152), which half-giants explicitly are (XPH 12.) You don't have to have a human parent and a giant parent.

Note that half-elves and half-orcs also breed true, and the feat can even be taken by planetouched.

[Flickerdart]

He covered that though - Human Heritage is available to any "human-descended" race (RoD 152), which half-giants explicitly are (XPH 12.) You don't have to have a human parent and a giant parent.
Well duh. I am addressing the complaint that you cannot have that many halves.

[Psyren]

Well duh. I am addressing the complaint that you cannot have that many halves.

On that one we agree, but RAW cares not for our "logic" and "reasoning" :smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

On that one we agree, but RAW cares not for our "logic" and "reasoning" :smalltongue:
But half-something half-giant (with an implied half-human) is both RAW legal and logical, given that half-giants are not straight up half-human half-giant offspring but their own race. That's the entire point of what I'm saying here.

[Psyren]

But half-something half-giant (with an implied half-human) is both RAW legal and logical, given that half-giants are not straight up half-human half-giant offspring but their own race. That's the entire point of what I'm saying here.

Oh I follow you now - you're saying he's okay to crossbreed multiple things with half-giant because the "human" part can be far back. Is that right?

[Flickerdart]

Oh I follow you now - you're saying he's okay to crossbreed multiple things with half-giant because the "human" part can be far back. Is that right?
Pretty much - since a half-giant is not human + giant, there is no reason one cannot have a half-giant half-fey (the offspring of a half-giant and a fey, with no requirements for a human).

However, unseelie fey also has fey ancestry somewhere up the family tree, explicitly mentioning that they are produced "after several generations" of a fey breeding into a general population. So a half-giant unseelie fey can have human, giant, and fey great-great-great....great-grandparents, and have plenty of room in its family tree for even more templates.

[Xuldarinar]

In all this, there is a question I think ultimately is important;

If you have the human heritage feat, and you acquire a template that would change your type, do you remain a humanoid?

[MisterKaws]

In all this, there is a question I think ultimately is important;

If you have the human heritage feat, and you acquire a template that would change your type, do you remain a humanoid?

Yes for acquired, no for inherited.

[Story]

Yes for acquired, no for inherited.

Shouldn't it be the other way around? Inherited comes first and gets overriden since Human Heritage is a feat, but acquired templates taken after level 1 (like Necropolitan) override the type change of the feat.

[Debihuman]

You work in the order in which you acquire either the template or the feat. See my post above.

Debby

[Rakoa]

From the sounds of things, it is rather amazing that in some settings, the world population isn't composed entirely of "Half-Giant Half-Dragon Half-Fey Half-Drow Half-Ogre" horrors.

[OldTrees1]

Nope, that +1 LA resurfaces at 2nd level in the racial class (your 2nd HD comes at ECL 3). So by the time you are a Necropolitian you will have a +1 LA.

[Flickerdart]

From the sounds of things, it is rather amazing that in some settings, the world population isn't composed entirely of "Half-Giant Half-Dragon Half-Fey Half-Drow Half-Ogre" horrors.
There are a few reasons why this is not so.

Monstrous creatures are rarely welcome in human lands and vice-versa. The bloodlines never have an opportunity to cross.
Few individuals are willing to breed with another race, especially a monstrous one.
Half-breeds are considered every bit as bad as their monstrous parent (see half-orcs) but since they start out as babies, they are easier to get rid of.
Most races' blood is weak and diluted within one or two generations. The results - beings like aasimar - are mostly human and people don't realize they are living next to a 1/32nd angel.