Rulings on conflicting templates


Rules Questions


A passing thought came to mind. If a character inherits two separate templates, such as Half-Dragon and Half-Celestial, how do you deal with one certain trait that both templates alter.

To be specific, both those templates change the type to something else: Dragon for Half-Dragon, and Outsider (native) for Half Celestial.

Since some may be confused on how this situation would arise, keep in mind that for this example; I'm working on the assumption that a template can be passed on from someone with the same template (being literally grandfathered in). In this case, either the mother being Half-Dragon and the father being Half-Celestial. Or a Half-Celestial Dragon being the father and (lets say) an Elf or Human as the mother.

Currently I've just decided I may as well go with "Dragon (extraplanar)" for the type in this case. But I'm wondering if there's a RAW, or possibly RAI interpretation that makes a more concrete ruling.

Silver Crusade

I don't believe there is a RAW as to my knowledge there's never been a monster with more than one template published so it's never officially come up. Could be wrong though.


Extraplanar isn't something a creature can be at all times. The extraplanar subtype is simply applied to any creature not on its home plane. So humans have the extraplanar subtype when not on the material plane.

3.0 D&D had a type pyramid for just this purpose. If I remember right, outsider was higher than dragon, so the creature would of been considered an Outsider in D&D. That doesn't necessarily hold true for Pathfinder, however.


I would go with Outsider (native, augmented dragon) and allow it to retain dragon immunities/vulnerabilities.

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