I can't leave well enough alone when it comes to the base races. If a human can breed with an orc or an elf, what's to stop an elf breeding with an orc? (other than mutual disgust, of course) Opinions? I've used the half-humans of the base races as a template to come up with this:
These stats represent the qualities of races that pass on to halfbred children. Choose two races to indicate parentage, and combine the qualities to create your character.
Elf:
+1 dex +1 int -1 con
Low Light Vision
Elf Blood
Elven Immunities: magic sleep effects, +2 save against enchantment
Keen Senses: +2 perception
Weapon Familiarity: Rapier, Longsword, Shortbow, anything ‘Elven’
Languages: Common and Elven.
Orc:
+2 str -1cha
Darkvision: 60 ft
Intimidating: +2 intimidate
Orc Blood
Orc Ferocity 1/day if an orc is brought below 0 hit points but not killed, he can fight one more round as if disabled. After that, he begins dying.
Weapon Familiarity: greataxes, falchions, and anything ‘Orcish’
Languages: Common and Orcish
Human:
+1 any ability
Bonus Feat
Skilled: +1 skill per level
Human Diversity: anything prohibited to your other half-race may still be used
Multitalented: two favored classes
Weapon familiarity: all simple weapons
Language: Common
Halfling:
+1 dex +1 cha -1 str
Small: +1 AC +1 attack -1 Combat Maneuver +4 stealth 20ft speed (does not stack)
Halfling Luck: +1 bonus on saves
Halfling Blood
Sure Footed: +2 acrobatics and Climb
Weapon Familiarity: slings and ‘halfling’
Languages: Common, Halfling
Gnome:
+1 con +1 Cha -1 Str
Small: +1 AC +1 attack -1 Combat Maneuver +4 stealth 20ft speed (does not stack)
Low light vision
Gnome blood
Illusion Resistance: +2 save against illusions
Weapon Familiarity: ‘gnomish’ weapons
Languages: Common, Gnome, Sylvan
Dwarf
+1 Con +1 wis -1 Cha
Darkvision: 60 ft
Hardy: +2 save against poison, spells, spell-like abilities
Dwarf Blood
Stonecunning: +2 perception to notice unusual stonework within 10 ft.
Weapon Familiarity: battleaxes, heavy picks, warhammers, ‘dwarven’
Languages: Common, Dwarven.
+1 Str, +1 Dex
Small: +1 AC +1 attack -1 Combat Maneuver +4 stealth 20ft speed (does not stack)
Darkvision: 60 ft
Halfling Luck: +1 bonus on saves
Sure Footed: +2 acrobatics and Climb
Intimidating: +2 intimidate
Orc Blood
Halfling Blood
Orc Ferocity 1/day if an orc is brought below 0 hit points but not killed, he can fight one more round as if disabled. After that, he begins dying.
Weapon Familiarity: slings and ‘halfling’
Weapon Familiarity: greataxes, falchions, and anything ‘Orcish’
Languages: Common, Halfling, and Orcish
Due to how the point buy and ability bonus systems work, uneven bonuses to stats aren't a good idea. If you want to do half-races, I'd advice just making a feat for the different races, and decide that in most half-combinations, one linage will be dominant and one will be more minor. So if you're a half-dwarf, half-human, you could pick the human race with a "dwarf-blood" feat. Examples:
Elf-blooded
Prerequisite: Level 1
Benefit: The blood of elves run strongly in your veins, and you're probably half-elven or quarter-elven. You take a -1 penalty on fortitude checks due to elves being fragile, but gain a +2 racial bonus to perception checks, a +2 racial bonus on saves against sleep effects, and a +1 bonus to checks to overcome spell resistance
Dwarf-blooded
Prerequisite: Level 1
Benefit: The blood of dwarves run strongly in your veins, and you're probably half-dwarfish or quarter-dwarfish. You come across as gruff, taking a -1 penalty on diplomacy and bluff checks, but you get a +1 bonus to saves against poisons, spells and spell-like abilities. You also gain a +2 bonus to CMD when trying to resist a trip or bull rush.
Genetically, elf and orc genes cannot work together. that is how the gods made them. Basically either one becomes dominant and the other falls away. Physically it is impossible for an elf and a Orc to mate, the love juices do not mix well.
and everyone knows that dwarves have barbed penises.
You can't have half-dwarves. It's disgusting for dwarves themselves to mate with dwarves - none of the other races are prepared to do that.
And gnomes just aren't compatible. Proposing to change that will earn their ire - they are using that circumstance to fool around with other races so they don't have to worry about offspring.
Everyone knows dwarves reproduce by spores!
Wouldn't that be Orcs, Umbral?
Or should I say... Orkz?
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As long as no one considers breeding gnomes with humans and going into gnoman's land, we are good.
Races of Destiny in 3.5 has the Mongrelfolk race, a group descended from orcs, humans, dwarves, halflings, and more. They have rubbish stats and are ugly as sin.
I am a bit surprised you never see a gnome/halfling hybrid though.
In Dragonlance, the mentally challenged Gully Dwarves were supposedly what happened when gnomes and dwarves got too friendly with each other...
thegreenteagamer, for the win!
Gnome + Halfling = Gnomeling
It's funny this is even brought up because in one of my friend's homebrew campaigns he did exactly this because he didn't like the fact there were two "small" races.
Also, what do you get when you combine an Aasimar with a Tiefling?
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The Gnomes of Golarion book makes the nice mention that Gnomes are fond of coupling with other races because such unions do not produce children, and thus no commitment.
Gnomes are from another plane so it makes sense they can't interbreed (though apparently devils can interbreed so that doesn't not entirely follow).
It's almost impossible to tell dwarf men from the women, it takes years of subtle questioning even for a dwarf to figure it out. Other races don't quite understand and attempts to court dwarves usually wind up in awkward questions and hurt feelings.
Halflings that breed with humans are either tall halflings or short humans.
The Gnomes of Golarion book makes the nice mention that Gnomes are fond of coupling with other races because such unions do not produce children, and thus no commitment.
Given that gnomes are physically only the same size as halflings, the fact that this description does not narrow it down to only them as mating partners outside of their own race raises some very humorous questions regarding copulation habits that a lesser man would get into the specifics of...
...then again, Dragonlance also had half-kender (such as Scrounger), which by their very definition is proof that fantasy has pedophiles.
Wouldn't that be Orcs, Umbral?
Or should I say... Orkz?
Dwarf Fortress has a few things to say about the topic. :P
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Also, what do you get when you combine an Aasimar with a Tiefling?
Either a matter/antimatter explosion or an assling, whichever you think is funnier.
The Forgotten Realms missed the boat when they made their Tanarruk or whatever. Obviously, a planetouched Orc should be called a pork.
And since humans call themselves human beings, naturally, porks would refer to themselves as porken beings.
Also, what do you get when you combine an Aasimar with a Tiefling?Either a matter/antimatter explosion or an assling, whichever you think is funnier.
Oooo, so that's how gnomes search for the Higg's Boson.
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Also, what do you get when you combine an Aasimar with a Tiefling?Either a matter/antimatter explosion or an assling, whichever you think is funnier.
The Forgotten Realms missed the boat when they made their Tanarruk or whatever. Obviously, a planetouched Orc should be called a pork.
And since humans call themselves human beings, naturally, porks would refer to themselves as porken beings.
I think the politically correct term is Tiefimars.
And yes, I asked that question just to get someone to make an assling joke.
There was actually an open-content "mongrelman" write-up in one of the White Wolf bestiaries. However, IIRC, it was actually worse than the Races of Destiny version.
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I experimented with this idea in my homebrew through a combination of a feat and racial traits. Many of the racial abilities (individually or in small bundles) approximate the power of a feat, so this seemed to work ok.
For example, the feat goblin blooded made your character mixed with one of the goblinoid races, giving you some of the basic racial abilities. you could then take a racial traits (hobgoblin scion, bugbear whelp, etc...) that differentiated you from other goblin blooded characters.
It seemed to work pretty well and several players tried it while we tested the Beta rules.
In the book by Louis porter game design Obsidian Twilght their is a race of half demon half angel Called a Gensai.
Humans are half-elf/half-dwarves. That’s why the races don’t get along: each blames the other for creating the pestilential infestation that’s spread across the globe.
I actually have a thread about an elf-orc race. Thread
What I came up with was this:
Size: Medium
Speed: 30
Type: Humanoid
Subtypes: Elf and Orc
Racial Stats: +2 Str, +2 Int, -2 Cha (Look like orcs but are smart like elves.)
Alternate Racial Stats: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Int (Look like elves but have orc brains.)
Starting Languages: Common, Elf, Orc.
Languages from Int: Celestial, Gnome, Dwarven, Goblin, Halfling, and Giant.
Low-Light Vision
Keen Senses
Dual-Minded
Orc Ferocity
Quick Reactions
Weapon Familiarity: Proficient with bows and greataxes. Weapons with Orc and Elf in their names are considered Martial.
Alternate traits:
Swordtrained: Replaces Weapon Familiarity and Orc Ferocity.
Focused Study: Replaces Quick Reactions and Keen Senses.
All the traits were based on the assumption of an elf and an orc having a kid together. A half-elf having a kid with a half-orc would have different features due to the human heritage.
For the most part interspecies breeding falls into one of three categories. The first and most common is a human mating with another humanoid race. The second is when a powerful magic being mates with another race. The last is where a humanoid had a nonhuman ancestor, which usually results in a sorcerer.
In the case of the powerful magic creatures it stands to reason that the reason they are able to mate with other species is their magic. The offspring of these mattings never seem to produce children except for with the base species which usually leads to sorcerers down the line.
Humans on the other hand seem to be able to mate with just about anything and produce viable offspring that are also capable of having children with other races. This is also supported by the human only Racial Heritage feat. Since half orcs, and half elves are allowed to take human only feats it is pretty apparent that you could have a character that is descendant from multiple races.
This leads me to speculate that there is something about the human genetic structure that allows it to crossbreed with any other humanoid race. That would explain why an elf and an orc are unable to crossbreed, but a half orc and a half elf could. The resulting child would either be human, half elf, or half orc with some traits of the other race.