Two different species of dragons having eggs together.

[Gavinfoxx]

Are there any good rules for when two different species of dragons mate and produce offspring? I mean, I know 'Half-Dragon Dragon' is rules legal, but it seems a little, uh, clunky. Is there any better way to handle it? Some homebrew somewhere? Some alternate rules? Anything?

For example, what happens when a female Nickel Dragon and a male Bronze dragon mate? Are the wyrmlings half-nickel bronze dragons or half-bronze nickel dragons or a mix or what?

Edit: maybe I can get this thread to work better by editing it!

[Blackhawk748]

Pick the dragon that you want the child to primarily look like, and then apply Half Dragon to that. It would make sense that the offspring would more heavily favor one parent over another for traits as they are elemental creatures.

Feel free to splash on more traits though if you want. Like a White/Black Dragon looks primarily like a White dragon except a bit more grey with the Black Dragon horns.

[Tvtyrant]

All I know is it would have a really sweet belt.

[Nifft]

1 - Make up something new. This can be fun.

2 - Decide that there's only one race of dragons, and since these two "color species" were able to interbreed then you've even got some evidence to back you up. Why are there so many different colors? Maybe each dragon adapts to its environment and turns that color upon achieving "lair attunement".

3 - Flip a coin, and the children are one or the other. Reasonable but potentially too borning.

4 - Tiamat avatar gets born.

5 - Degenerate non-true dragons get born (wyverns or hydras or whatever), or degenerate ambiguously-true dragons get born (kobolds).

[Gavinfoxx]

Anyone else having trouble seeing this thread when the actual words for the title are in the url?

edit: And I can edit posts, but that doesn't help, and I get a weird error after I edit the posts, but it still shows up once I go back to check it?

[afroakuma]

I did this (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610658-Draconic-Hybrids-(3-5)) up the last time this question was posted. Hopefully it helps.

And yes, something about the thread title being in the URL appears to make it go 403. Might be worth opening a new thread and just calling it "Hybrid Dragons" or something.

[Gavinfoxx]

I did this (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610658-Draconic-Hybrids-(3-5)) up the last time this question was posted. Hopefully it helps.

Neat! Could you perhaps talk about unique quirks of mixes between different categories of dragons? Gem, Chromatic, Metallic, Lung, Ferrous, Planar, etc.? Or specifically what a metallic/ferrous mix would likely do as a 'special' thing?

[Gruftzwerg]

Anyone else having trouble seeing this thread when the actual words for the title are in the url?

edit: And I can edit posts, but that doesn't help, and I get a weird error after I edit the posts, but it still shows up once I go back to check it?

same problem here. I also tried to report this issue, but nothing changed so far.

[flat_footed]

The Fullmetal Mod: This is being looked into.

[dancrilis]

If it helps it seems to be a character limit issue:
Works: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?614694-Two-different-species-of-dragons-having-eggs
Does not work: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?614694-Two-different-species-of-dragons-having-eggs-

Edit: or not a character limit issue - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?614694-Two-different-species-of-dragons-having-eggstogetherHalfDragonDragons also works so it seems to have something to do with '-' characters.

[Thurbane]

I don't think this has been linked yet, but here's an interesting article snippet from Wizards: Half-Dragon Dragon (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20070401a)

[137beth]

My personal way of doing it is that I roll to decide which base dragon species, and then I apply the half-dragon template for the other parent.

Also, in my headcanon/house-fluff, chromatic and metallic dragons which share the same energy type are actually the same species. So Red and Gold dragons are the same species but with different scale tones (and there can be fire dragons with scale shades in between red and gold). White and Silver dragons are also the same species, but they are distinct from fire dragons. When the Monster Manual gives two different sets of stats for fire dragons of the same age category (one for red, and one for gold), those are just two examples of the variation of stats that a single species can have, just as two humans of the same age category won't necessarily have the same stats.

[Blue Jay]

I wrote my own template for Hybrid Dragons. I took a slightly different approach from Afroakuma. It's posted on Myth-Weavers, but not on the Playground. Here it is, for convenience:

"Hybrid Dragon" is a template that can be added to any two true dragons of the same age category. Only dragons with the standard progression of 11 age categories can be combined with this template.

Size and Type
The hybrid dragon is the same size as the larger of the two parent dragons. It gains the subtypes of both parents.

Hit Dice
The hybrid dragon's Hit Dice are equal to the greater of the two parent dragons' Hit Dice.

Speed
The hybrid dragon retains the movement modes and speeds of both parent dragons. If both parents have the same movement mode, the hybrid dragon retains the higher speed. If both parents have a Fly speed, the hybrid also retains the higher maneuverability rating of the two parents.

Armor Class
The hybrid dragon's natural armor bonus to Armor Class is equal to the average of the parent dragons' natural armor bonuses.

Attacks
The hybrid dragon retains all the natural attacks of both parent dragons. Damage is determined by the dragon's size, as shown on the "Dragon Space/Reach, Attacks, and Damage" table in the True Dragon section of the Monster Manual.

Special Attacks
The hybrid dragon retains all the special attacks of both parent dragons. The hybrid dragon's breath weapon has special rules, as described below.

Breath Weapons
If both parent dragons have breath weapons, the hybrid dragon can choose, each time it breathes, which of the parent dragons' breath weapons to use. If either parent must wait between uses of its breath weapon, the hybrid dragon uses the longer wait period among its parent dragons for its breath weapon. If the dragon's size differs from the size of one of the parent dragons, make sure to adjust the corresponding breath weapon's area of effect accordingly.

The hybrid dragon also has a second option for its breath weapon. Each time it uses one of the parent dragons' breath weapons, it may choose to infuse the chosen breath weapon with the essence of the other parent's breath weapon. When it does this, the weapon takes on the shape and properties of the chosen breath weapon, but half the damage dealt is of the type of damage dealt by the other breath weapon. This option can only be used with breath weapons that deal hit-point damage, not with breath weapons that inflict negative levels, deal ability damage, inflict status conditions or other effects.

For example, when a juvenile hybrid blue/red dragon uses its breath weapon, it can choose to deal 8d10 fire damage in a 40-ft cone of fire (as a juvenile red dragon) or 8d8 electricity damage in an 80-ft line (as a juvenile blue dragon). Alternately, it can choose to deal 8d10 damage (half electricity, half fire) in a 40-ft cone, or 8d8 damage (half electricity, half fire) in an 80-ft line.

Ability Scores
For each ability score, take the average of the parent dragons' racial modifiers, rounding up to the nearest even number. For example, a wyrmling dragon that is a hybrid of white (+2 con, -4 Int, -4 Cha) and green (+2 Str, +2 Con) dragons will have the following ability modifiers: Str +2, Dex +0, Con +2, Int -2, Wis +0, Cha -2.

Skills
A hybrid dragon counts all the class skills of both parents as class skills.

Level Adjustment
Same as the higher of the two base dragons, +1. If using Inevitability's Reassigned LAs, and both parent dragons were assigned LA -0, this template's LA is +0.

[Gavinfoxx]

@137Ben, but there are other types of dragons than Chromatic and Metallic. What about Gem, Lung, Ferrous, or Planar dragons? How do those fit in?