Hybrid Overkill Avoidance: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
[[File:Hybrid_Horror_77Hybrid Horror 77.png|link=Rusty and Co.|frame|Don't do this. Ever.]]
 
 
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This is especially true when an author wants to conserve as much [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]] as possible, believe it or not, readers might have trouble swallowing a half [[Elemental Embodiment|fire elemental]] / half [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampire]].
 
In a game setting, this trope is used to avoid the presence of [[Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot]] [[Game Breaker|throwing]] [[Competitive Balance]] [[Game Breaker|right out the window]] when you can, within the rules, get any power listed on [[Five Races|any species]]' charts with limited or no [[Necessary Drawback|Necessary Drawbacks]]s. It's essentially a way for the designers or [[Game Master|Game masters]] to avoid someone making an overpowered [[The Red Mage|Red Mage]]. Smart game designers (or ones that have had experience like White Wolf, makers of'' [[The World of Darkness]]'') have gone the extra mile to explain why such hybrids can't exist.
 
Inside the story, this is usually [[Justified Trope|justified]] (or at least given a half decent [[Hand Wave]]) by having one supernatural/technological/biological "monster" or race be naturally [[The Immune|immune]] (or [[Made of Explodium|violently]] [[Weaksauce Weakness|allergic]]) to being hybridized with another. For example, a character who's been [[Viral Transformation|changed]] into a werewolf can't be [[Mutant|mutated]] with [[The Virus]] since their [[Healing Factor]] protects them further mutation. Robots won't become [[Our Ghosts Are Different|ghosts]] because, y'know, no [[Soul]].<ref>([[Virtual Ghost|Virtual Ghosts]]s are doable, though)</ref>. For whatever reason, in some settings characters can only change into one kind of supernatural critter, or only be one ''"at a time".''
 
Sometimes, the "immunity" is due to the idea that the character can't be changed from one type of their common category to another, such as zombies and vampires, which are different types of their common category of [[The Undead|undead.]] And sometimes the offspring only inherits one of their parents types, or a few, but not all, of either's traits.
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== [[Live Action Television]] ==
* In ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' {{spoiler|this has been imposed on Klaus, who is a werewolf vampire. Because the resulting hybrid would be too powerful, witches cursed him to suppress his werewolf side, preventing him from transforming at the full moon. His goal is to break the curse, allowing him to create his own master race.}}
* Vampires in [[Being Human (UK)]] are unable to feed on and, by extension, turn werewolves because werewolf blood is toxic to them. Werewolves who attack vampires while transformed are more inclined to kill them outright rather than turn them. No explanation has so far been offered as to why vampires and werewolves don't become ghosts, although one ghost has dismissed the idea of werewolf-ghosts as 'ridiculous' without further explanation.
* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', the eponymous Slayer is considered a human monster (having been infected with demonic blood by the Shadowmen, the first Watchers). In one episode, while Sunnydale is caught inside a boysboy's psychic nightmares, Buffy is temporarily turned into a vampire, making her a Slayer/Vampire hybrid and more than twice as strong as either is shown to be separately. However it's left unsure if this could happen in the "normal" course of events in the Slayer 'verse, as most vampires would prefer to kill a Slayer than turn her.
 
 
== Tabletop RPG ==
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*** Vampires, werewolves, Prometheans, changelings and ghosts can't Awaken as mages because they're not human and/or not alive. Mages who become vampires or ghosts lose their mage-ness in the process.
*** Technically, you ''can'' make a Promethean out of anything's ''corpse'' (if it wasn't a straight-up human, though, it's kind of tricky). But that's exactly what you get - a Promethean. Not a Promethean-werewolf, not a Promethean-mage, not a Promethean-changeling - a Promethean. None of the other powers carry over, because they all went away the first time the body died.
*** Prometheans who complete the Pilgrimage can theoretically become vampires or mages. The books advise that you only do this for a ''very good'' reason -- andreason—and the [[Rule of Cool]] doesn't qualify. Also, they lose nearly all Promethean abilities upon attaining humanity.
**** This is quite a good way to add on a bittersweet ending, a Promethean becomes a human again? Oh, but wait...he's cursed to live among the undead for the rest of his days. Its the sort of thing that should only really be used for the most grimdark of chronicles.
*** Also theoretically averted in a sense by any supernaturals who could turn into [[Hunter: The Vigil|Hunters]] and become members of a Conspiracy, where they could then gain Endowments. Of course, if the ''other'' Hunters found out who they were, in many groups they'd be on fire in seconds. This only works if A: the DM [[Loophole Abuse|accepts the letter of the rules]] and not [[Screw the Rules I Have Plot|the spirit invoked by the flavor-and-backstory text]], or B: [[Million-to-One Chance|the character has a very short conscription into becoming a Hunter and a somewhat-to-very long transformation into a supernatural which reached the point of no return before the full-fledged-Hunter immunities kicked in]].
** The ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' has similar rules to the above to prevent gratuitous crossover:
*** Only humans have avatars, so only humans can Awaken to become Mages. Becoming undead of any kind gets rid of the avatar, nixing that option. Shapeshifters were born as shapeshifters, even if they resemble humans or animals at birth, so they lack avatars. When they die they can't go to the same afterlife as human dead, so they can't become wraiths, zombies, or [[Kindred of the East]].
*** One exception is a [[Vampire: The Masquerade|vampire]]-[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|werewolf]] hybrid "abomination," extremely tricky but possible. Werevolves are violently allergic to vampire blood so if you try to 'embrace' one, he gets a roll to see if he died peacefully or in horrible pain. Unless they're out of all Willpower, they get to die automatically. A hybrid is created only if you [[Critical Failure|botch]] that roll. A hybrid does have access to all the powers but has to watch the [[Karma Meter]] very carefully - from spiritual point of view, werewolves and vampires are pretty much opposites (one being a nature spirit that just happens to have flesh while the other is a dead shell with barely any spiritual presence) so straining too far will be detrimental to all spirit-related powers. This can be used offensively (and werewolves destroy vampires in combat bad enough this isn't your worst option), but may only be [[Taking You with Me]].
*** Several other Changing-Breeds either can't be embraced, or can't stay that way for long afterwards. Kitsune were-foxes explode in fire if embraced as kind of a [[Take That]] to players' obsession with making abominations. [[Ravens and Crows|Corax were-ravens?]] They explode come dawn no matter WHERE they are. [[Dragons Are Dinosaurs|Mokolé were-dinosaurs?]] They go BALLISTIC the second the embrace starts, and their war form? A dragon/dinosaur which may very well breathe fire and/or glow with sunlight. ''Then'' they die. Rokea were-sharks? No vampire has been dumb enough to try it (they also are mostly aquatic, making it hard for vampires to even know they EXIST, much less find and capture one). Bastet werecats can be embraced but immediately start losing their Gnosis stat, which cripples their supernatural abilities.
*** The one accepted hybrid is anyone except an [[Hunter: The Reckoning|imbued hunter]] can drink a vampire's blood and become their ghoul, which is generally a bad thing since it makes them the vampire's bitch (or for the handful of independent ghouls that bleed and kill vampires to drink their blood bond free, renders them essentially a junkie serial killer). For a Mage the blood addiction slowly kills their avatar and ability to do magic along with it. There's mention the Rafastio family of Revenants <ref>ghouls bred with other ghouls (and possibly magically mutated) so much the offspring are born ghouls with their own vitae production.</ref> has some members that are also mages.
*** Also averted by the infamous [[Canon Sue|Canon]] [[Villain Sue]] Samuel Haight who was a ghoul-werewolf-true mage. Until he died, became a ghost, and was soulforged into an ashtray.
* Some templates in the 3rd Edition [[Dungeons and Dragons|D&D]] game can only be applied to specified creature types, or to creatures with specified traits. This restricts some abuses, but an imaginative DM can still do some crazy things.
** Only living things can become undead, so no [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]] (flesh golems are constructs, not undead).
** Constructs cannot breed, and thus cannot be half-dragons or any other inherited type.
** Undead are immune to disease, and thus cannot become lycanthropes. You ''can'' make an undead from a lycanthrope, but it tends to be pretty pointless since they revert to their human form upon death and none of the bonuses they get from being an untransformed lycanthrope are maintained by the transformation into typical undead. The result is just a human.
** Undead are immune to disease, and thus cannot become lycanthropes.
** Undead flesh may not retain all the natural abilities it had in life, and skeletons have no flesh at all.
** Lycanthropes and vampires can only convert humanoids, not animals, constructs, [[Eldritch Abomination|abberations]], [[The Fair Folk|fey]] or any variety of dragon (draconic or mind flayer vampires use a different template).
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*** It is therefore possible to create a vampire werewolf, but only if you apply the templates in the right order.
** Dragons, celestials, and fiends can breed with just about anything, but only if it's living, and the results of such breeding may not convert well into useful undead.
*** Only one crossbreed half-dragons is known to have occurred in [[Eberron]], and she considered an abomination worth destroying her entire bloodline over. Half-dragon as a template is applied exclusively to fiends "blessed" by Tiamat.
** It is possible to graft construct parts onto a living creature, but the result becomes a construct and thus no longer counts as living, which restricts the ability to apply other templates, and they do not breed true, if they can breed at all.
*** This makes possible the [[Game Breaker|Half-black-dragon, half-iron-golem troll]], which is immune to damn near everything, but would require a black dragon (acid-breathing) to breed with a troll (vulnerable only to fire and acid), and the offspring to be converted to a half-golem at great difficulty and expense, probably against its will. Neither the victim nor its parents are likely to be pleased. Also the trollbane item makes what it's applied to bypasses regeneration regardless of damage type.
** For player characters, the main mitigator is Level Adjustment, a virtual inflation of the character's effective level imposed by most beneficial templates. For example, a half-dragon has an effective level adjustment of +3. Thus a 1st level half-dragon character is theoretically as powerful as a 4th level character, and as such not legally playable in a group starting out at any level below 4th (and s/he would start out at only 1st level in one that was). The level adjustments of all templates on a character are additive. Only a max of +1 or +2 level adjustment is ever practical (since this can be removed entirely at high levels) and the sources of level adjustment are worth the level adjustment can be counted on your fingers.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' has rules to prevent most forms of supernatural mix-and-match. Not only were most non-human races genocided in the Primordial War, but all mortal races have distinctly different souls. Exaltation only works on humans. The main non-human races, [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons|Dragon Kings]] and Mountain Folk, reincarnate upon death, so they can't become ghosts either. On the other hand, ''Exalted'' has a remarkably lax definition of "human," so most Wyld Mutants and half-animal Beastmen count and can exalt. God-blooded (people with one human parent and one parent who's a god, elemental, demon, fae, exalt, or ghost) are likewise human enough to exalt, but half-exalts become normal exalted with no special traits, and the other kinds gain new powers painfully slowly after exalting.
 
 
== Video Games ==
* Averted in ''[[PaladinsPaladin's Quest]]'' (and the sequel, [[Lennus II]].) There are [[Loads and Loads of Races]], and they can all interbreed. Hybrids are called Lubbots, and are considered a race of their own because interbreeding is taboo in most societies. There's an entire village of hybrids in one part of the world.
* Becoming a werewolf in ''[[Skyrim]]'' will cure you of vampirism, and give you an immunity to disease that will stop you catching it again.
* In ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' interactions that turn a creature into werebeast, vampire or "disturbed dead" all are made explicitly unappliable to the targets already afflicted by any of them, as well as a few broader classes.
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* The vampires in ''[http://lastblood.keenspot.com/ Last Blood]'' are immune to zombie bites, making them unlikely defenders of the remnants of humanity. Of course, that has to do with {{spoiler|zombies being created from a starved vampire's bite}}.
* ''[[Rusty and Co.]]'' [http://rustyandco.com/missives/critical-missives-4/ warns] about consequences of allowing to multiclass freely in the system that got "monster classes", as the picture above shows. Later [http://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-16/ he got worse].
** Everything is weirder with... [[http://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-12/ Templates]]!
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]
[[Category:Tabletop GamesGame Tropes]]
[[Category:Hybrid Overkill Avoidance]]