[RPG] Can a Dragon really also be Half-Dragon

character-templatesdnd-3.5edragons

I was playing D&D 3.5 when it was pointed out to me that the half-dragon template can be added to any living corporeal creature which includes dragons. That seems really weird — how can a creature be half of something it already is?

Can a dragon really have the half-dragon template applied? Is there any official errata saying it can't?

Best Answer

There's no specific prohibition against applying the half-dragon template to a dragon.

However, applying templates to monsters is DM business. It's not something that will happen just randomly out of nowhere, or by a player's initiation — templates are tools, and most exist only to get a job done as needed by a DM. A DM who needs to make a half-dragon dragon has the template available to do so, and presumably has an excellent reason for such a strange operation. However, it can be expected that most DMs will never have need for such a combination, and as such the combination will never appear in majority of real games.

The game is, in many ways, stupid. A stupid tool is an obedient and flexible tool. In such matters it doesn't try to be smarter than the people who use it, leaving such discrimination up to the DM's intelligent choices regarding a given campaign's needs.

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