Recommended house rules for templates

[Katie Boundary]

Rule 1: You may not stack multiple "half-x" templates on a single creature. If you want to play a half-celestial, half-dragon, half-elemental, half-fey, half-fiend, half-golem, half-illithid, half-troll, then just play a Mongrelfolk, because that's what the result would logically be like

Rule 2: you may not put a "half-x" template on a creature whose race is already half-something, like half-elves and half-orcs.

Rule 3: You may not put a "half-x" or fully x template on a creature that is already a little bit x. That means: (a) you may not put Celestial, Half-Celestial, Fiendish, or Half-Fiend on an Aasimar or Tiefling*; (b) you may not put half-Dragon on any creature with the Dragon type or Dragonblood subtype; (c) you may not put Elemental or Half-Elemental on a Genasi or Mephling*; (d) et cetera. However, you can still put the half-Golem template on a mechanitrix if you change its creature type, since half-Golems are not the result of interspecies boning.

Rule 4: you may not put parentage-related templates on a construct, golem, warforged, automaton, statue, ragamuffin, or other non-biological entity, or on anything else that doesn't have parents. This does not include mechanitrixes, which are the result of mechanical beings interbreeding with organic ones. No, I don't know how that works.


*Putting a fully Celestial or Fiendish template on an Aasimar or Tiefling is already impossible under normal rules, but becomes possible under the Lesser Planetouched rule. Putting a fully elemental template on a Genasi or Mephling is also normally not possible, but can be made possible by effect that alter creature type.

[Elves]

No warforged half dragons is criminal. Why would you object to a draconically stylized warforged who breathes fire? And are you really going to be so harshly realistic as to say you can't inject dragon DNA into a warforged power core or whatever?

[Katie Boundary]

Warforged dragons should be their own playable base race.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

So the offspring of a Dragon and a Half-Elf isn't a Half-Elf with the Half-Dragon template? What would it be instead, either a Human Half-Dragon or an Elf Half-Dragon? How does that even make sense?

[Mike Miller]

I get where you are coming from and wouldn't mind these houserules. I don't really mind the silliness that comes with 5 halves of one creature though. RAW may not care about a creature with 5 halves, either.

[zlefin]

how often does case 4 come up? To my knowledge in most instances its blocked anyways by the type restrictions listed in the template. most templates can't apply to a construct.

[Katie Boundary]

So the offspring of a Dragon and a Half-Elf isn't a Half-Elf with the Half-Dragon template? What would it be instead, either a Human Half-Dragon or an Elf Half-Dragon? How does that even make sense?

It would be only 1/4 elf and 1/4 human.


how often does case 4 come up? To my knowledge in most instances its blocked anyways by the type restrictions listed in the template. most templates can't apply to a construct.

Incarnate Construct can turn any construct into a humanoid. Then madness ensues.

[JNAProductions]

It would be only 1/4 elf and 1/4 human.

Okay. So how is it represented mechanically?

Human, or Elf?

[ExLibrisMortis]

I see no reason to use or recommend any of these houserules. They seem to be based only on an overly literal interpretation of the names of the templates, not their content.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It would be only 1/4 elf and 1/4 human.

Right, but what race would the character be? There's no Half-Dragon base creature, so what would you put the template on to build it?

[FaerieGodfather]

Okay. So how is it represented mechanically?

Human, or Elf?

It's 1/4 Human and 1/4 Elf and 1/2 Dragon. It's more dragon than anything else, so mechanically it's as true dragon.

[JNAProductions]

It's 1/4 Human and 1/4 Elf and 1/2 Dragon. It's more dragon than anything else, so mechanically it's as true dragon.

Isn't this supposed to be a nerf? :P

[Biggus]

I see no reason to use or recommend any of these houserules. They seem to be based only on an overly literal interpretation of the names of the templates, not their content.

...sorry? So are you saying that a half-dragon isn't actually a half-dragon? What the heck is it then?

Personally, I'm all in favour of these house rules. In fact, I've always assumed that no DM would actually allow more than one half-anything template on a single creature, whether or not RAW technically allows it, because that obviously makes no sense.

[False God]

Rule 1: You may not stack multiple "half-x" templates on a single creature. If you want to play a half-celestial, half-dragon, half-elemental, half-fiend, half-golem, then just play a Mongrelfolk, because that's what the result would logically be like.
Ok yes template stacking is bad mmkay.


Rule 2: you may not put a "half-x" template on a creature whose race is already half-something, like half-elves and half-orcs.
Well, I guess that's more incentive to play two "races" I don't like anyway.


Rule 3: You may not put a "half-x" or fully x template on a creature that is already a little bit x. That means: (a) you may not put Celestial, Half-Celestial, Fiendish, or Half-Fiend on an Aasimar or Tiefling*; (b) you may not put half-Dragon on any creature with the Dragon type or Dragonblood subtype; (c) you may not put Elemental or Half-Elemental on a Genasi or Mephling*; (d) et cetera.
Everyone is a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. Does that mean they can't play jazz too?

I think this is stretching a little bit since Aasimar and Tiefling is in-direct lineage. You can go multiple generations without celestial or tiefling blood manifesting into someone born as one; unlike Half-Whatever which is literal direct parentage from Whatever.**


Rule 4: you may not put parentage-related templates on a construct, golem, warforged, automaton, statue, ragamuffin, or other non-biological entity, or on anything else that doesn't have parents.
What if I put at least half my cruelty, malice and half my will to dominate all life into it?



*Putting a fully Celestial or Fiendish template on an Aasimar or Tiefling is already impossible under normal rules, but becomes possible under the Lesser Planetouched rule. Putting a fully elemental template on a Genasi or Mephling is also normally not possible, but can be made possible by effect that alter creature type.
It is??


It's 1/4 Human and 1/4 Elf and 1/2 Dragon. It's more dragon than anything else, so mechanically it's as true dragon.

That's not how genetics works. A half-elf breeding with a dragon could produce any less than 50 percentage of human, elf, and 1/2 dragon. Technically, a half-elf could produce a elf-half dragon, depending on the specifics of the genes in play. Though more than likely assuming a maximum 1/2 dragon you'd probably get a "strong elf presenting"-half dragon with 1/3rd elf, 1/2 dragon and 1/6th human, or a "strong human presenting"-half dragon of 1/3rd human, 1/2 dragon and 1/6th elf.


-----
False God's Easy Template Houserules:
You may use 1 template with total LA of 1 level less than the level you're building your character at. (IE: your ECL after the template must be equal to or less than the level cap for new characters).

[Katie Boundary]

It is??

Yup. The fully Celestial and Fiendish templates can't be put on Outsiders. They can only be put on a "aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin". This means that you can't make a fully Celestial Genasi or a fully Celestial Mechanitrix, no matter how much fun that would be. You also can't slap them on a Construct, so that means no fully Celestial Warforged (unless you stack Incarnate Construct on there too)


That's not how genetics works. A half-elf breeding with a dragon could produce any less than 50 percentage of human, elf, and 1/2 dragon. Technically, a half-elf could produce a elf-half dragon, depending on the specifics of the genes in play. Though more than likely assuming a maximum 1/2 dragon you'd probably get a "strong elf presenting"-half dragon with 1/3rd elf, 1/2 dragon and 1/6th human, or a "strong human presenting"-half dragon of 1/3rd human, 1/2 dragon and 1/6th elf.

Uh, no. Faerie had it right. You get EXACTLY half of your chromosomes from your father and EXACTLY half from your mother.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Uh, no. Faerie had it right. You get EXACTLY half of your chromosomes from your father and EXACTLY half from your mother.

Right, one of them was a dragon, so you're half-dragon. The other one of them was half-elf and half-human, but they may have passed on human-dominant genes or elf-dominant genes. The half-elf parent's genetic contribution isn't guaranteed to be exactly 50% elf and 50% human. Siblings from the same parents aren't identical to each other, different genes get passed on, so that half-elf parent could contribute human-dominant genes or elf-dominant genes.

[False God]

Yup. The fully Celestial and Fiendish templates can't be put on Outsiders. They can only be put on a "aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin". This means that you can't make a fully Celestial Genasi or a fully Celestial Mechanitrix, no matter how much fun that would be. You also can't slap them on a Construct, so that means no fully Celestial Warforged (unless you stack Incarnate Construct on there too)
Huh, never noticed that.


Uh, no. Faerie had it right. You get EXACTLY half of your chromosomes from your father and EXACTLY half from your mother.
Yes, but the "1/2" creature in question is made up of mixed elements already. Those previous elements do not perfectly divide in half when going to the new child. This is why two people of different ethnicities can have children with vastly different appearances, they do not "average out" to always create a certain blend.

This becomes especially problematic when you bring in dominant and recessive chromosomes, but discounting that, lets take some examples.

Lets say elves are made of Candy Chromosomes, which look like this:
CCCCCCCCCC
Candy + Candy = more Candy.
Lets say humans are made of Ketchup Chromosomes, which look like this:
KKKKKKKKKK
Ketchup + Ketchup = more Ketchup.
Combined, they look like this:
CCCCCKKKKK
Dragons are of course, made of Dragon Chromosomes, which look like this:
DDDDDDDDDD
The dragon chromosomes could replace any 5 of our existing hybrid's chromosomes.
Resulting in CCCCCDDDDD, KKKKKDDDDD or CCCKKDDDDD or CCCCKDDDDD or KKKCCDDDDD among other options. Further the specific "half" of the dragon genes could result in generating everything from "sexy dragon babe" to "hunched lizard man" depending on the dominant and recessive nature of each of the provided genes.

Yes, you do get half, but it is not necessarily an even slice of 1/4th of the base human chromosomes and 1/4th of the base elf.

[FaerieGodfather]

That's not how genetics works. A half-elf breeding with a dragon could produce any less than 50 percentage of human, elf, and 1/2 dragon. Technically, a half-elf could produce a elf-half dragon, depending on the specifics of the genes in play. Though more than likely assuming a maximum 1/2 dragon you'd probably get a "strong elf presenting"-half dragon with 1/3rd elf, 1/2 dragon and 1/6th human, or a "strong human presenting"-half dragon of 1/3rd human, 1/2 dragon and 1/6th elf.

Genetics? Which school of magic is that from?

[Katie Boundary]

they may have passed on human-dominant genes or elf-dominant genes.


Lets say elves are made of Candy Chromosomes, which look like this:
CCCCCCCCCC
Candy + Candy = more Candy.
Lets say humans are made of Ketchup Chromosomes


LOLWUT? Now you guys are making up a new kind of genetics that has no basis in real genetics OR D&D...

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

LOLWUT? Now you guys are making up a new kind of genetics that has no basis in real genetics OR D&D...

You get on-half of each gene from each parent, everything comes in pairs. You get 50% of your eye color from both parents, 50% of your hair color from both parents, etc. but some genes are dominant and others are recessive. Brown eyes is a dominant gene, blue eyes is recessive. If you have one of each, your eyes are brown, you need to receive the blue eyes gene from both parents to have blue eyes.

Two parents with brown eyes can have a child that has blue eyes, because each of them has one of each gene. They each only pass on one or the other of those genes, so they each happened to pass on the blue eyes gene to one child. Their other children are passed a brown eyes gene from one or the other parent, thus they all have brown eyes like both parents. But one has blue eyes, even though neither parent and none of their siblings do.

Now let's say a half-elf received a brown eyes gene from their human parent, and a blue eyes gene from their elf parent. They have one of each gene, but they only pass on one or the other. If they pass on the blue eyes gene, that's an elf gene they're passing. If they pass on the brown eyes gene, that's the human gene they're passing. Every gene that half-elf passes to its offspring could be either elf or human, it's not guaranteed to be 50/50. So the offspring of a Half-Elf and a Dragon is 50% dragon, and the other 50% is some kind of human/elf mix, but it's just as likely to be 25% elf and 25% human as it is to be 0% elf and 50% human, as it is to be 50% elf and 0% human.

[hamishspence]

If you toss 100 balanced coins, "all heads" and "all tails" will be vastly rarer than a very roughly even match. Not exactly 50/50, but everything from 45/55, to 55/45.

That's how probability distribution works

[ExLibrisMortis]

...sorry? So are you saying that a half-dragon isn't actually a half-dragon? What the heck is it then?
Whatever can be represented by the content of the template, that is, its actual statistical modifications. Half-dragons, yes, but also three-quarter dragons, quarter dragons who take after one grandparent, warforged from dragonfire-powered creation forges, hell, even half-behir, in a pinch (medium base creature + blue half-dragon + Obah-blessed).

Don't ever mistake the name or label of a thing for the content of that thing.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If you toss 100 balanced coins, "all heads" and "all tails" will be vastly rarer than a very roughly even match. Not exactly 50/50, but everything from 45/55, to 55/45.

That's how probability distribution works

Exactly, but Coin 1 is just as likely to land on heads as it is to land on tails. A 50/50 distribution could have Coin 1 on either heads or tails, as with the other 99 coins, as long as the sum total comes up 50/50.

However, you also have dominant and recessive genes. What if the offspring of the half-elf and dragon got a lot of recessive genes from the dragon parent, and a lot of dominant genes from the half-elf parent? They would look like some kind of half-elf catgirl but with dragon features instead of cat features. What if they got a lot of dominant genes from the dragon parent, and a lot of recessive genes from the half-elf parent? They would look like some kind of bipedal reptile that doesn't really resemble the non-dragon parent at all.

[hamishspence]

That's consistent with the way art tends to portray them - with considerable variance in the degree of "dragon-ness".

[Silvercrys]

If we're using psuedo-real genetics to determine template stacking, Biffoniacus_Furiou has it closest from what I remember from college level genetics.

Basically a half elf would have two sets of chromosomes (assuming elves and humans have the same number, anyway, since they can truly breed) - a full set of 23 human ones and a full set of 23 elf ones.

During the production of gametes these chromosomes would become disconnected from each other, but the human ones and elf ones don't necessarily stay together so you might have anywhere from zero to 23 chromosomes from either side in a particular gamete (and there's also crossing over where parts of the chromosomes swap places, so you could even have something like 10.25 elf chromosomes and 12.75 human ones).

Anyway, a half-elf who has a child with a dragon, then, would have a complete set of chromosomes from the dragon parent and some mixture of 23 chromosomes that are either Elven or Human, so the child could be a Half-Dragon Elf, and Half-Dragon Human, or a Half-Dragon Half-Elf if roughly half of the chromosomes from the half-elf parent are elven and half are human, with the Half-Dragon Half-Elf being the most common result.

That said, I kind of disagree with most of these template stacking rules if the point is "realism" and not versimilitude. No reason you couldn't have, say, a half-celestial lesser tiefling or a half-water elemental lesser fire genasi -- it's essentially what you'd expect to get if e.g. a Celestial Human and a Lesser Tiefling mated or a Lesser Fire Genasi mated with a water mephit or something.

Even stacking half templates isn't really that big of a deal, though it does begin to strain credulity a bit if you stack more than two or three. But if a half-celestial human mated with a half-silver dragon human I'd probably expect a half-silver dragon half-celestial human child (though a half-dragon Aasimar, half-dragon celestial human, and even a half-celestial true dragon would also be, albeit extremely uncommon, possible results from this pairing).

TL;DR biology is magic, and if DnD creatures even have chromosomes those are magic too, so let the people stack their templates. The LA isn't worth it anyway.

[Katie Boundary]

You get on-half of each gene from each parent, everything comes in pairs. You get 50% of your eye color from both parents, 50% of your hair color from both parents, etc. but some genes are dominant and others are recessive. Brown eyes is a dominant gene, blue eyes is recessive. If you have one of each, your eyes are brown, you need to receive the blue eyes gene from both parents to have blue eyes.

Two parents with brown eyes can have a child that has blue eyes, because each of them has one of each gene. They each only pass on one or the other of those genes, so they each happened to pass on the blue eyes gene to one child. Their other children are passed a brown eyes gene from one or the other parent, thus they all have brown eyes like both parents. But one has blue eyes, even though neither parent and none of their siblings do.

Yes, that's all stuff I've known since I was eight. But congratulations on breaking the mold by not using Mendel's peas as your go-to example.


Now let's say a half-elf received ...

And this right here is where those first two paragraphs go out the window.


If you toss 100 balanced coins, "all heads" and "all tails" will be vastly rarer than a very roughly even match. Not exactly 50/50, but everything from 45/55, to 55/45.

That's how probability distribution works

Yes but that has nothing to do with genetics, where you get exactly 50% of your chromosomes from your mom and exactly 50% from your dad.


What if the offspring of the half-elf and dragon got a lot of recessive genes from the dragon parent, and a lot of dominant genes from the half-elf parent? They would look like some kind of half-elf catgirl but with dragon features instead of cat features.

I assume you know this because you've done a lot of experiments in the real world that involved using dragon DNA to create genetically engineered catgirls? :smallbiggrin:

[Jack_Simth]

Rule 1: You may not stack multiple "half-x" templates on a single creature. If you want to play a half-celestial, half-dragon, half-elemental, half-fey, half-fiend, half-golem, half-illithid, half-troll, then just play a Mongrelfolk, because that's what the result would logically be like

Rule 2: you may not put a "half-x" template on a creature whose race is already half-something, like half-elves and half-orcs.

Rule 3: You may not put a "half-x" or fully x template on a creature that is already a little bit x. That means: (a) you may not put Celestial, Half-Celestial, Fiendish, or Half-Fiend on an Aasimar or Tiefling*; (b) you may not put half-Dragon on any creature with the Dragon type or Dragonblood subtype; (c) you may not put Elemental or Half-Elemental on a Genasi or Mephling*; (d) et cetera. However, you can still put the half-Golem template on a mechanitrix if you change its creature type, since half-Golems are not the result of interspecies boning.

Rule 4: you may not put parentage-related templates on a construct, golem, warforged, automaton, statue, ragamuffin, or other non-biological entity, or on anything else that doesn't have parents. This does not include mechanitrixes, which are the result of mechanical beings interbreeding with organic ones. No, I don't know how that works.


*Putting a fully Celestial or Fiendish template on an Aasimar or Tiefling is already impossible under normal rules, but becomes possible under the Lesser Planetouched rule. Putting a fully elemental template on a Genasi or Mephling is also normally not possible, but can be made possible by effect that alter creature type.
Causes some weirdness with things like Dragon Disciple; what happens when a Half-elf or half-orc takes the class, and reaches 10th level?

Don't see why you'd want them. This is really only going to be a mechanical problem in games where you're able to ignore the biggest downsides of Level Adjustment (Gestalt games where LA takes up one track, perhaps).

I suppose it makes an amount of sense from a fluff standpoint, but that presupposes that fluff is fixed - that, say, Wizards don't do various experiments that'd lead to things getting infused with planar stuff, or that one couldn't engineer a construct to be better than it's fellows by various means.

[Elves]

OP: what do you think the offspring of a half-fey dragon and a half-elemental lesser aasimar would be? What if their offspring mated with a celestial half-elf?

[ZamielVanWeber]

1) What do you hope to accomplish with these house rules? A half-dragon, half-fiend fighter would be an 8th level character and borderline unplayable.
2) Your genetics is off. Your non-mitochondrial DNA is 49.98% mother and 49.98% father, with the rest being mutations that neither possess. Mitochondrial DNA is 100% mother. If magical creatures' magical mitochondria equivalents pass differently, then genetics has just shifted wildly for humanoids. I would not use real world genetics to remotely map to the half- templates and just recommend you stick to their thematics (a life form with a strong x heritage gets the half x template).
3) No really, why these house rules? Is it a problem in your games? Have people tried to break your world? Remember, Xagyg is the CN god of zany magical nonsense, so you can blame virtually anything on him.

[hamishspence]

OP: what do you think the offspring of a half-fey dragon and a half-elemental lesser aasimar would be?
Feytouched half-dragon genasi maybe? The genasi bit is a good way to represent quarter-elementals, the feytouched bit is a good way to represent quarter-fey.

The problem being that feytouched is a race rather than a template. Unseelie Court Fey from Dragon Compendium, might do better as a "1/4 fey template"




What if their offspring mated with a celestial half-elf?

Draconic (good way to represent quarter-dragons) celestial half-elf might work, since the elemental blood and the fey blood are down to 1/8 or so.

[Elves]

Eh. My advice to OP re their rules 1&2 would just be to homebrew 1/4th and perhaps 1/8th templates (possibly with fractional level adjustment) with reduced amounts of the source template's powers if this is the kind of thing they care about. Rules 3 and 4 are just unnecessary. Besides, if you cut 2 of the 4 rules you'll just be half-draconian about templates, instead of fully draconian. With the rules I suggested, you could also be a quarter fun as well.

[Blue Jay]

Yes but that has nothing to do with genetics, where you get exactly 50% of your chromosomes from your mom and exactly 50% from your dad.

I'm a professional biologist, so hopefully you'll take my word as someone who can at least accurately represent what the consensus in the scientific community is; even though I only rarely work with actual genetics.

And what everyone is telling you is exactly right. Your chromosomes split exactly 50-50 from your parents, but not from your grandparents.

Biologists use the term "independent assortment" for this phenomenon: it basically means your chromosomes are chosen semi-randomly, and there's no process that maintains a perfect 50-50 split at each generation. So, what hamishspace said about coin-flipping applies (to some extent) to genetics.

You know that 23 of your chromosomes came from your mother, and the other 23 came from your father. But, where did your mother get the 23 that she gave you?

They came from her parents, right? So, how many came from her mother, and how many came from her father? Half and half, of course.

Now ask yourself: what's half of 23?

See, 23 is an odd number, so a 50-50 split isn't exactly in the cards, is it? You could get 12 from one grandparent and 11 from the other, but that's about the closest you'll get to an even split. And, it's also possible for you to get 13 from one and 10 from the other, or even 16 from one and 7 from the other.

So it's pretty much guaranteed that your grandparents are unevenly represented in your DNA. So, a half-elf with the half-dragon template likely does not have equal parts human and elf: assuming we're still talking 46 chromosomes here, this hypothetical character has 23 dragon chromosomes, and another 23 that are split in some probabilistic way between human and elf (maybe 12 elf / 11 human, or 14 human / 9 elf, or etc).

And as you trace your ancestry further back in time, the differences get even more pronounced. For example, if you go back 6 generations, you've got 64 direct ancestors. That's more ancestors than chromosomes. So, it's mathematically impossible for you to have chromosomes from all of your ancestors: some of them are going to be left out.

There are plenty of other ways to muddy the waters here, to pass on fragments of chromosomes, to create new mutations, not to mention the possibility of differential fitness, but what I've said here is a pretty good representation of the basic principle.

[Katie Boundary]

stuff

THERE you go. That's the more or less correct explanation. I have a feeling that it's what some people here were trying to get at, but the way they were phrasing things was nonsensical and wrong, and the comment about "human-dominant genes or elf-dominant genes" was just hilarious, so I had to let my autistic troll tendencies take over :)

Nonetheless, with the human genome consisting of something like 200,000 genes, we're looking at a mix that would be comparable to flipping 200,000 coins. The result will be indistinguishable from perfectly 50/50.

[hamishspence]

What if their offspring mated with a celestial half-elf?

The Celestial template has more to do with environment than inheritance. Take a city of humanoids, drop it on an Upper Plane, and let them interbreed among themselves without any actual "celestial blood" entering the gene pool, and they will still gain the celestial template over generations - because the environment results in them doing so. I think this is the actual backstory for one Forgotten Realms city in the Outer Planes.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

THERE you go. That's the more or less correct explanation. I have a feeling that it's what some people here were trying to get at, but the way they were phrasing things was nonsensical and wrong, and the comment about "human-dominant genes or elf-dominant genes" was just hilarious, so I had to let my autistic troll tendencies take over :)

Nonetheless, with the human genome consisting of something like 200,000 genes, we're looking at a mix that would be comparable to flipping 200,000 coins. The result will be indistinguishable from perfectly 50/50.

Dominant and recessive traits are a thing. Your half-elf got 23 chromosomes from the human and 23 from the elf. It's possible that 16 of those human chromosomes were dominant traits versus recessive (or just less dominant) traits from the elf. So that half-elf has brown eyes instead of blue. Such a character is still a half-elf, but could likely easily pass for a human.

Now you mix that half-elf with a dragon, so as above, who's to say he didn't get more dominant traits from one parent or the other? That means he displays more human or elf traits than dragon traits, or more dragon traits than human or elf traits.

[Blue Jay]

THERE you go. That's the more or less correct explanation. I have a feeling that it's what some people here were trying to get at, but the way they were phrasing things was nonsensical and wrong, and the comment about "human-dominant genes or elf-dominant genes" was just hilarious, so I had to let my autistic troll tendencies take over :)

With the exception of a few details and word choices, I feel like the explanations you were given before mine were quite accurate. Based on what I've read here, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some of those posters understand genetics better than I do.

But whatever the case, they certainly didn't do so poorly as to warrant being trolled over it.


Nonetheless, with the human genome consisting of something like 200,000 genes, we're looking at a mix that would be comparable to flipping 200,000 coins. The result will be indistinguishable from perfectly 50/50.

The number I've heard cited most often is 22,000 genes in the human genome. But, remember that those genes are bundled into 46 packages called chromosomes. Genes on the same chromosome (especially genes that are close together on the same chromosome) are most likely going to come as a package deal. There are ways for Mom's two copies of chromosome A to exchange portions of themselves with each other, such that the chromosome she ultimately passes on to you is a mosaic of "grandma genes" and "grandpa genes"; but generally, if you inherit a given gene from grandma, chances are that all the genes close to that one also came from grandma.

It's overall a fairly messy mathematical problem, but I think you'd get closest by just flipping one coin for each chromosome. I don't really know what typical rates of "crossing-over" are, but a lot of people, like Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/classical-genetics/chromosomal-basis-of-genetics/a/linkage-mapping), seem to think it's common enough that maybe you should flip two coins for each chromosome. You'd probably be better off taking their advice over mine, but I'm at least confident enough to say that it wouldn't be like flipping a single coin for each individual gene.


Dominant and recessive traits are a thing. Your half-elf got 23 chromosomes from the human and 23 from the elf. It's possible that 16 of those human chromosomes were dominant traits versus recessive (or just less dominant) traits from the elf. So that half-elf has brown eyes instead of blue. Such a character is still a half-elf, but could likely easily pass for a human.

Now you mix that half-elf with a dragon, so as above, who's to say he didn't get more dominant traits from one parent or the other? That means he displays more human or elf traits than dragon traits, or more dragon traits than human or elf traits.

Close, but dominance and recessiveness are characteristics of genes (actually alleles), not chromosomes. Each individual gene has its own patterns of dominance and recessiveness, independent of other genes on the same chromosome. It has to do with the actual chemical function of the proteins produced by those genes. Like, one allele (copy of a gene) produces a blue pigment, but the other produces the same pigment, but adds one more bit that causes it to fold over and turn brown. So, in that context, brown is likely dominant over blue.

Of course, there's no guarantee that inheritance in a fantasy setting follows a Mendelian paradigm. Before Mendel's work was widely known, scientists had tried to explain inheritance with different mechanisms. Here is the hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangenesis) that Darwin preferred. There's no rule that says people in a fantasy world can't have that kind of inheritance mechanism.

So, humans in a fantasy world may not even have genes, as we understand them: they might inherit their traits in the form of "gemmules," which might hypothetically obey some very different rules of inheritance and admixture. This alternate biochemistry would need to provide for the possibility of hybridization between very different sorts of creatures (dragons and humans, for example), and in that case, it's not difficult to imagine how it might diverge from real-world inheritance.

Imagine a system where you inherit all the "gemmules" from each parent. So, you end up with twice as many as they had, but then the gemmules all have to sort of compete with one another for dominance inside your body, and by the time you mature, the number has been winnowed down to a number similar to your parents' starting complement. In that system, maybe elf gemmules usually outcompete human gemmules, so half-elves end up being more elf than human.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a fantasy setting based around this kind of bizarro genetics before. I kind of want to do this now.


The Celestial template has more to do with environment than inheritance. Take a city of humanoids, drop it on an Upper Plane, and let them interbreed among themselves without any actual "celestial blood" entering the gene pool, and they will still gain the celestial template over generations - because the environment results in them doing so. I think this is the actual backstory for one Forgotten Realms city in the Outer Planes.

I didn't know this: I always thought that Celestial creatures were just analogous to Material-Plane creatures, and I never really considered the idea that Celestial creatures are Material creatures that have been modified or adapted to the Celestial realm. Maybe I should read more setting material more closely.

But, templates don't necessarily have to be tied to a specific fluff, so the bottom line is that you don't have to marry yourself to things like "half-dragon means 50% dragon DNA, period": fantasy realms allow for all kinds of non-genetic influences and non-Mendelian processes that can explain a creature's characteristics.

If you want your "half-" templates to represent specific, Mendelian fluff for your setting, you can always put in some effort to make "quarter-" templates to account for the decreased degree of inheritance from a given source. But, some people really just want a mix of human and dragon characteristics without worrying about genetics, so that's perfectly acceptable too.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Imagine a system where you inherit all the "gemmules" from each parent. So, you end up with twice as many as they had, but then the gemmules all have to sort of compete with one another for dominance inside your body, and by the time you mature, the number has been winnowed down to a number similar to your parents' starting complement. In that system, maybe elf gemmules usually outcompete human gemmules, so half-elves end up being more elf than human.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a fantasy setting based around this kind of bizarro genetics before. I kind of want to do this now.
This goes a very long way towards explaining why a half-blue dragon half-red dragon human is more powerful than a simple half-blue dragon human or half-red dragon human. I like it!

[Katie Boundary]

Dominant and recessive traits are a thing.

But elf-dominant and dragon-dominant ones, or any other kind of "(insert race)-dominant" ones, are not.


With the exception of a few details and word choices, I feel like the explanations you were given before mine were quite accurate. Based on what I've read here, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some of those posters understand genetics better than I do.

But whatever the case, they certainly didn't do so poorly as to warrant being trolled over it.

When people try to explain things in terms of "candy chromosomes" and "ketchup chromosomes", I'm going to act like they're bat-guano insane even if I think I understand what they're trying to say.


The number I've heard cited most often is 22,000 genes in the human genome.

I had to check Wikipedia, which gave numbers ranging from 154,484 (Refseq database) to 328,827 (CHESS database) total transcripts.

[ShurikVch]

But elf-dominant and dragon-dominant ones, or any other kind of "(insert race)-dominant" ones, are not.Note: Half-Dragon Troll and Half-Troll Dragon are very different...


Rule 3: You may not put a "half-x" or fully x template on a creature that is already a little bit x. That means: (a) you may not put Celestial, Half-Celestial, Fiendish, or Half-Fiend on an Aasimar or Tiefling*; (b) you may not put half-Dragon on any creature with the Dragon type or Dragonblood subtype; (c) you may not put Elemental or Half-Elemental on a Genasi or Mephling*; (d) et cetera. However, you can still put the half-Golem template on a mechanitrix if you change its creature type, since half-Golems are not the result of interspecies boning.[/SIZE]How about the Half-Fiend Fiend?
I mean, with the (Half)-Fiendish Variety (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a) and More (Half-)Fiendish Variety (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20070209a), we can easy get unique combinations, and Cathezar from Bastion of Broken Souls is half-demon/half-devil (picture (https://logs.ur-dnd.ru/images/f/f6/Cathezar.JPG))

[Katie Boundary]

Note: Half-Dragon Troll and Half-Troll Dragon are very different...

True. Unfortunately, rectifying that mistake would require banning templates entirely.

[hamishspence]

True. Unfortunately, rectifying that mistake would require banning templates entirely.

Why does it have to be a mistake? It's not unheard of, to "on the surface, take more after one parent".

I could easily imagine a troll/dragon pairing, with a clutch of hatchlings, some of which are statted as half-troll dragons, and some of which are statted as half-dragon trolls.

[Katie Boundary]

The most logical way I can think of to handwave that away would be to say that the template was from a parent who contributed nothing but DNA, while the base creature represents both DNA and the culture that the creature grew up in (so a half-dragon dwarf would have stonecunning just because they grew up around dwarves, a half-dragon gnome would have +4 dodge vs. giants because of their gnome training, etc). I think this is even the canon explanation for why half-human elves and half-elf humans are different playable races.

[hamishspence]

The most logical way I can think of to handwave that away would be to say that the template was from a parent who contributed nothing but DNA, while the base creature represents both DNA and the culture that the creature grew up in (so a half-dragon dwarf would have stonecunning just because they grew up around dwarves, a half-dragon gnome would have +4 dodge vs. giants because of their gnome training, etc).

A half-dragon troll is physically very different from a half-troll dragon. Much smaller at maximum size, for one thing.

One way of handling that might be:

"If the mother's the troll and the father the dragon, the offspring is a troll with the half-dragon template, if the mother's the dragon, and the father the troll, the offspring is a dragon with the half-troll template."

Just like, in real life, tigons tending to have somewhat different traits from ligers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger

For one, the mother's the tiger. For the other, the mother's the lion.