I was flipping through the book "Wrath & Rage: A Guidebook to Orcs and Half-Orcs" by Green Ronin, and noticed they had an interesting and at first glance decently effective take on Half-Orcs - use a template. What struck me curious about this is that I had already considered using templates for half-races in my own campaigns, but I then dropped my idea, because I gauged it would be too difficult to implement.
Green Ronin took something like the Half-Orc, built a template around the differences between the Half-Orc and Human racial traits, and opened it up so that the template can be applied to as many or few races as the GM desires - and it works fairly well. They give some suggested limitations to it (like if you have orcs be corrupted versions of elves that cannot crossbreed any more [ala LotR], then don't allow for a half-orc/elf combo).
This concept has once again fired up the idea in my head that Half-Races should be templates. Ones that are unique racial crossbreeds (like Muls) could still remain as a regular race, and just make the appropriate template inable to be applied to the races in question. On a world like Athas, that has dozens of races, but most are rare in the extreme, and many end up breeding together, single templates for each race might prove effective to give the feel of diversity across the board.
Something like this? Real Ork is STR+4, INT-2, WIS-2, CHA-2 and Darkvision. Half-Ork applies STR+2, INT-2, CHA-2, Orc Blood, ECL+0 and Darkvision as a template. What about favored classes? This could be complicated. Changes to Barbarian? Or changes only to Barbarian if there is no favored class, like with a human. What about the additional starting feat for the human and the additional skill point each level? How and why do they vanish upon taking the half-ork template?
How is min-maxing prevented? An Ork/Dwarf could easily unbalance things...
How do you get from the ork race to the half-ork template? Or from elf to half-elf? Why is there an attribute shift for the half-ork and none for the half-elf?
Idea sounds very cool and very complicated to balance.
Oh, and forgive the example with the ork. Of course there are no orks on Athas. :embarrass
And yet another thing: you would not want to make half-giant a template, would you?
However, let's take an athasian example:
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Half Elf
Half-Elf is an inherited template that can be added to any living, corporeal humanoid that does not have the elf subtype (referred to hereafter ss the "base creature"). The base creature remains unaffected except where noted below.
Special Qualities:
* Low-light vision - If the base creature does not already have low-light vision, it gains low-light vision as described in the Player's Handbook.
* Favored Terrain: The half-elf is an expert in one particular terrain type. Half-elves gain a +2 bonus to Hide, Move Silently, Search and Survival checks made within a single terrain type.
* Animal Empathy: Half-elves can use the Animal Empathy skill untrained, and receive a +2 racial bonus to their Animal Empathy and Handle Animal skills.
* Half-elves gain a +2 racial bonus to Disguise checks when impersonating either of their parent's races.
* Animal Cohorts: The half-elf may begin play with an animal companion. (complete description is in the DS3 document)
* Elven Blood: For all special abilities and effects, a half-elf is considered an elf. Half-elves can use elven weapons and magic items with race-specific elven powers.
* Automatic Languages: As base creature + elven.
* Favored class: As base creature. Generally elves ignore their half-children, and leave them behind to be taken care of by their non-elven family.
* Abilities: +2 Dex, -2 Charisma
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It can be improved upon, like further restricting it by listing what other races cannot become half-elves, or perhaps having the ability score changes exaggerate based off of the base creatures' size.
In DS3, the half-elf takes more after the elven side. At least attribute wise. The 3.5 PHB differs here. Same with the half-ork. In the PHB he gains an attribute shift, but not as big as a "real" ork. An attribute shift is a real gain. A big one. Since building an "effective" character starts (for most people) with minmaxing attributes, I would suggest being very careful with attribute shifts in half-race templates.
Imagine there were a half-dwarf and a half-elf template. What would a dwarf-elf (dwelf?) be like? Should it be irrelevant if you either take an elf and apply the half-dwarf template or take a dwarf and apply the half-elf template? Or should the "base-race" have more impact, with the template adding some finishing touches?
The PHP half-races seem to follow the second option. Humans without their special human benefit (feat+skill), but most of the gains from the other race and a reduced attribute shift. In case of the half-elf, the shift got reduced to nil, since it was not a big one to start with. Both also gain "race-blood".
What happens when the base-race is not human? There is no special human benefit to take away. What options would there be besides pushing up the ECL?
under the "Special Qualities:" line add:
A half-elf gets only the below listed Special Qualities.
As (according to WotC in their 3.5 FAQ) "racial features" are considered "Special Qualities".
I'd say that a half-dwarf/elf (a templated elf) doesn't necessarily need to be just like a half-elf/dwarf (a templated dwarf), and it can be used as a further definition, if so desired, to separate the differences between having a male or female parent of one of the races, taking the idea (purely as a suggestion) that the base creature is the mother's race, and the templated race is the father's maybe.
And - the half-elf template I built there were pulled directly from the DS3 Half-Elf. I left it as-is, since humans have no racial attribute shifts.
As I said, it was only an idea. check out what Green Ronin did - I haven't seen their Bastards & Bloodlines yet, but it's supposed to be chalked full of halfbreed races.
Something like this:
Half Breed (template)
Half-Breed is a template that can only be applied to creatures with a Level Adjustment of 0, and creatures with no supernatural, or spell-like abilities inherent in their racial description.
This template is based around two races, one of them human, and the other a humanoid creature.
Special Qualities:
- Favoured Classes: The half-breed can choose any favoured class they wish, as the human quality.
- Racial abilty
... and that's all I had time for.
Originally posted by taotad
How 'bout a half-breed template?
If there should be a difference between race A with half-B template and race B with half-A template, then we would also need a half-human template. Is that what you intended?
As I understand it, most intelligent races are "changed" halflings. So if a race is compatible with any other races, it should also be compatible with halflings. Or perhaps not. I don't like the idea of templates that lead to more possibilities for minmaxing. On the other hand, it could be useful for adding extra flair to PCs and NPCs. But where does it end? What if the dwelf and the quarterling want to have a baby?
If half-race template are to happen, there have to be some serious restrictions. For game-balancing reasons and so that the feeling of Athas doesn't change too much. Like a list of compatible races for every template. And generally, it would be easiest if all half-breeds were sterile. Sad for the half-elves. Or if they could only interbreed with themselves, or something like that.
One thing is true at least: if there is one place where this all makes some sense, it is on Athas. In theory, new races could be created anytime. And all races descended from one progenitor race, so they should be related somehow. But please don't let it get out of hand. I don't want quartergiants or half-kreens in my campaign. ;)
The templates should only add some touches to the base-race. More like the half-elf from the PHB than the DS half-elf. The templates should not change attributes, or at least not as much as the race it is derived from. Again, look at the difference between orc and half-orc.
Originally posted by trotzflocke
Difficult question. If humans & dwarfs are compatible, and humans & elfves are compatible, this leads to the question why dwarfs & elfves shouldn't be. But something doesn't sound right about a cross between pterrans and humans, or thri-kreen and halflings...
Humans and dwarves are not compatible. Only races who spawn fertile offspring are considered compatible.
Humans and elves are compatible, but since humans and dwarves aren't, it's unlikely that dwarves and elves are compatible.
But if you just consider crossbreeding, I assume elflings, dwelves and other icky combos are possible, I just wouldn't make them fertile.
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
You assume all races are genetically compatible. Do others share that opinion, or are there other views?
Actually, I didn't assume that. you can limit based off the template just how compatable or incompatable each one is to specific races - and for unique halfbreeds, like the Mul, the template might not be useable for a cross between human and dwarf, the race itself is pre-defined (after all, Muls are steril and all).
Now if you were referring to the other poster's idea.... yea, that was the apparent assumption.
Also - remember, Thir-Kreen and Aaracokra aren't of the Humanoid type. they are of the Monsterous Humanoid type, and thus a template that specifies "Humanoid" doesn't work for them.
Originally posted by xlorepdarkhelm
I had assumed that it was already included when defined as an "inherited" template.
I didn't see the word inherited in toad's write up, which was why I made the comment.
Proper usage of nouns & pronouns can really help clear that up. :DAnd there is no reason to think that every child born from one elven parent and one dwarven parent would be the same. But the differences generally don't follow which parent was which race. They are more likely to follow the gender of the character. BUT, I do realize this puts a new limit on character choice during creation, so I won't go into it.
Just let the differences between dwarf/elves and elf/dwarves be "one of those things" Different gene combos, and all that.
And judging by people I know who are siblings who look ABSOLUTELY nothing alike, you could even have a dwarf/elf and an elf/dwarf be from the same parents.
Originally posted by Mach2.5
Then consider each template to have an ECL, one based on the abilities of the template itself. The half-elf example looks like a +1 on the fly, but it would be a solid +1 if it had at least one attribute bonus (say +2 Dex).
This template is definitely ECL+1. It only adds special abilities, and races get ECL+1 for less. And it is very open to min-maxing, because you can throw together those attribute bonuses you want.
But generally the template idea might work, but it requires a lot of fine tuning. The question is if that work is necessary, or if anyone would like to do it.
Elf/dwarf and dwarf/elf could be different, there is no reason why not. Sometimes people take more after one of their parents then the other, at least when it comes to visible stuff, which the traits would reflect.