I think this might actually be a conscious choice to move away from "dragon everything" that was so common in D&D. They don't use true dragons in a lot of products and are still fairly even handed with other dragons compared to WotC or TSR. Of course, this is all speculation.
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Despite half-dragon being as iconic a template as half-fiend or half-celestial, they never got a planetouched equivlent, either in D&D or PF. The only reason I know what to call them is one buried in d20 Modern's Urban Arcana called "Dragonblooded Human" (they're OGL). It seems like a easy design space, yet has gone untouched. Anybody know why?
(I'm aware of the Dragon Magic races and Spellscale. They're truebreeding races. Planetouched aren't.)
Actually that race was also in 3.5s Dragonomicon
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@name violation
What page? I can't find it. Indeed, as far as I can tell that book has zero new races and zero templates that can be applied to non-dragons. You may be thinking of the Dragonblood subtype from Races of the Dragon, for creatures with dragon ancestry but non-dragon type, or something else from that book but that race isn't in .
Page 149. DRACONIC creature
CREATING ADRACONIC CREATURE“Draconic” is an inheritedtemplate that can be added toany living corporeal creature(referred to hereafter as thebase creature) except a dragon.A draconic creature uses all thebase creature’s statistics and specialabilities except as noted here.Size and Type:Animals with this template becomemagical beasts, but otherwise the creature type isunchanged. Size is unchanged.Armor Class:Natural armor improvesby 1.Damage:Draconic creatures have twoclaw attacks. If the base creature does nothave this attack form, use the damagevalues in the table below. Otherwise, usethe values below or the base creature’s damage, whicheveris greater.SizeClaw DamageUp to Tiny1Small1d2Medium1d3Large1d4Huge1d6Gargantuan1d8Colossal1d10Special Qualities:A draconic creature has all the specialqualities of the base creature, plus darkvision out to 60 feetand low-light vision.Saves:A draconic creature has a +4 racial bonus onsaves against magic sleep effects and paralysis, thanks toits heritage.Abilities:Increase from the base creature as follows: Str+2, Dex +0, Con +2, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +2.Skills:Draconic creatures have a +2 racial bonus on In-timidate and Spot checks.Organization:Solitary or as base creature.Challenge Rating:Same as base creature +1.Level Adjustment:Same as base creature +1.
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The 3.5 book Dragon Magic also had alternate racial features for all the core races like fireblood dwarves
—Dragonblood Subtype: Fireblood dwarves are of the dragonblood subtype (see page 4).
—Dragon Dodge: Fireblood dwarves gain a +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against creatures of the dragon type. In memory of their ancestors, fireblood dwarves train from an early age to avoid surprise attacks from treacherous dragons. Any time a fireblood dwarf loses his Dexterity bonus (if any) to Armor Class, such as when he is caught flat-footed, he loses this dodge bonus, too.
—Resistance to Fire 5: Fireblood dwarves have an excep-tional tolerance for heat and fi re, inherited from their enslaved forefathers.
—Fireblood dwarves do not have the standard dwarf +2 racial bonus on saving throws against poison. The environ-ment of their ancestors was free of such subtle means of attack, so fireblood dwarves are no more resistant to poison than other races.
—Fireblood dwarves do not have the standard dwarf’s +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against creatures of the giant type.
I suppose the fact that planetouched are not true breeding races is one of the reasons why they are easier to use. You might turn into a tiefling because some relative 10 generations back or so decided that they REALLY wanted a boyfriend their parents wouldn't approve of during their rebellious teen goth phase. There is not necessarily a need for baggage of an immediate relative with the race.
Additionally, the plane touched races are relatively easy to write off as "influenced by an otherworldly power" before they were born. So while the standard rule is "the outsider is the grandfather at earliest", that rule can be thrown out for story purposes when the plot needs it.
In comparison, dragon related creatures play by more mortal rules. When someone get the influence of dragonblood from 10 generations ago, they usually just become a dragon based sorcerer or something. Anything thicker than that either needs a fairly recent additions- so that would mean that there would be a dragon be in fairly close relation (and given the strong power and personalities of dragons, that drags them into a major part of the plot). That, or you need an entire village of dragon people (which is its own baggage).
Overall... planetouches just seem like they can write the rules as they go along, and you can just decided "I want to simply be a person with fire for hair" without strings attached.
It also could be for balance reasons. Dragons are a powerful race and all dragons that are not killed become powerful creatures. A black dragon wyrmling may only be a CR 3 encounter, but a black dragon wyrm is a CR 17 encounter. The plane touched races are playable races that are for the most part about equivalent to the standard races. While you could easily write up a dragon based race similarly it would probably seem like a letdown.
There is one race if pathfinder that does claim to be descendant from dragons. But I don’t think playing a kobold is what you had in mind. I believe they even have some racial feats that give them some draconic abilities.
Last but not least there is the prestige class Dragon Disciple. It may be fairly limited on who can qualify for it, but in all honestly it fits the dragon blood idea fairly well. In addition to dragon being power they are also very similar. It makes sense that someone descendant from a dragon would be pretty similar to another person who is descendant from another dragon type. The plane touched have a much wider selection of ancestors with a huge amount of variance.
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The primary reason is that Paizo's rules are written to work with Golarion first and foremost, and Golarion is a setting where dragons and their offspring are intentionally downplayed. As a result, the amount of "dragon-something" races is lower as well.
But I'm sure that there's 3PP or two who covered that angle already.
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I have never liked half-dragons, or dragontouched, or dragonblood, or dragonborn, or whatever and I do not miss them.
So, do people's mental images of like "high fantasy cosmopolitan cities" have a bunch of big scaly dragonesque people running around? Since mine really don't. Like I can imagine it, sure, but it seems like a forced variant to me.
Like I imagine a bunch of centaurs or octopus-centaur people more readily than a bunch of dragon-people.
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Though to be honest, we might eventually get some form of pseudo humanoid dragon race anyway(unless wyvaran already covers that niche) since everyone keeps requesting it :pI'm not requesting it, so why the "everyone"?
I know you are actually a lawyer, but you DO have heard of "exaggeration" and that lot of people tend to say "everyone" when they actually mean "hear it every so often that it feels like there are lot of people when there is in fact small group of people who never shut up about it"? :D
(I was trying to be humorous there, so sorry if that came across as harsh. I'm about to go to sleep and I seriously can't tell if tiredom is making me too grumpy)
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If the "dragons are rare, so are their offsprings" reason isn't enough, the "half-dragon template is OP beyond repair" might be...
Still, a Medium Kobold variant (like Hobgoblins) that is based on true dragons (and not wyverns like Wyvarans) wouldn't have broken the game either...
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^Actually, even just a regular (Small) sized Kobold that doesn't have -4 to Strenth wouldn't have broken the game either . . . .
Half dragon isn't op though...If the "dragons are rare, so are their offsprings" reason isn't enough, the "half-dragon template is OP beyond repair" might be...
Still, a Medium Kobold variant (like Hobgoblins) that is based on true dragons (and not wyverns like Wyvarans) wouldn't have broken the game either...
They changed the breath weapon mecanic from "6 dices regardless of HD" to "1d6 damage per racial HD", meaning that any 0HD race cannot have a breath weapon at all. Furthermore, that was backed up by the devs when they revealed that the half-dragon template was overused in many campaigns. Finally, many templates from B1 are "converted" into 0HD races, except the half-dragon. Aasimars, tieflings, ganzis, aphorites, dustwalkers, geniekins, dhampirs, skinwalkers and wyrwoods are essentially options to mimic templates, but for half-dragons, we have kobolds and wyvarans... and yeah, these aren't what people wanted.
I don't thing you understand what op means op means overpowered and the half dragon template is perfectly in line with being a +2cr template.They changed the breath weapon mecanic from "6 dices regardless of HD" to "1d6 damage per racial HD", meaning that any 0HD race cannot have a breath weapon at all. Furthermore, that was backed up by the devs when they revealed that the half-dragon template was overused in many campaigns. Finally, many templates from B1 are "converted" into 0HD races, except the half-dragon. Aasimars, tieflings, ganzis, aphorites, dustwalkers, geniekins, dhampirs, skinwalkers and wyrwoods are essentially options to mimic templates, but for half-dragons, we have kobolds and wyvarans... and yeah, these aren't what people wanted.Half dragon isn't op though...If the "dragons are rare, so are their offsprings" reason isn't enough, the "half-dragon template is OP beyond repair" might be...
Still, a Medium Kobold variant (like Hobgoblins) that is based on true dragons (and not wyverns like Wyvarans) wouldn't have broken the game either...
It's fine for a monster template, but not for a PC template, but even then the breath weapon was changed from D&D 3.5 to P1.
I do not have the exact wording, but I do recall Mr. Jacobs saying that they have limited the usage of the half-dragon template, because everyone kept using it in their own campaigns, to the point of saturation.
My other point I wanted to point out is that aasimars and tieflings received several abilities that mimic their respective templates, leading me to believe that if you ever wanted to play a half-celestial or half-fiend, you could go with these races instead.
We could have gotten a dragonborn-like race, with racial feats to emulate the half-dragon template, with various heritages to represent the true dragons' families and so forth... but we didn't.
It's perfectly fine as a pc template since the player has to give up 2 levels to even have it. Yes you could also play an aasimar or teifling instead of a half celestial or half fiend but it wont work for some concepts especially if the character needs to have a different race or more closely wants to embrace their outsider heritage which aasimar and teifing can not do.
Are you sure that CR adjustments work like this for PC races? I keep thinking that it's more complex than trading class levels for CR.
Still, it would have been much easier to simply give us a new dragon-like race, or expand the kobolds and wyvarans. The kobolds could have gotten a Medium variant as well as Chromatic and Metallic heritages, while the wyvarans could have been modified from wyverns to drakes, pseudodragons or linnorms.
Because they knew you wanted it.