How to Read Dragonbred Breeding Odds: Punnett Squares for Dragons

Breeding odds in Dragonbred are per egg. When the Breed tab shows an Albino card with 25% over it, every egg in that clutch has its own 25% chance of hatching Albino, rolled separately. The cards are worked out from what you know about the two parents, the same way a breeder fills in a Punnett square.

Once you can read a Punnett square, you can check any card the game shows you and predict pairings before you make them.

Where the odds live on the Breed tab

Put a female and a male in the pairing boxes and the right side of the Breed tab fills in. The odds appear as pictured baby cards, one for each look the pair can make, with the chance printed over each. Below them sits the breeding slip with four numbers:

The cards answer "what will the babies look like." The slip answers "how many babies will there be." Read both before you breed. A pairing with great cards and a poor slip, usually because the parents are related, can cost you more eggs than it's worth. Inbreeding in Dragonbred covers why.

The Punnett square behind every card

A Punnett square is a small grid that lists every way two parents' genes can combine. Each parent has two copies of a gene and passes one at random, so there are four equally likely combinations.

Take two proven het Albinos. Each carries one normal copy and one Albino copy.

Four boxes, one Albino. That is the 25% on the Albino card. The other three boxes all look Normal, so the game shows them as one Normal card at 75%. Two of those three boxes are hets, which is why the Normal babies hatch as 67% het Albino. Hets and possible hets explained takes that number further.

The same grid works for incomplete dominant genes, where one copy shows. Golden × Golden fills in as one Normal box, two Golden boxes and one Pale Gold box: 25%, 50% and 25%.

Common single-gene odds

You won't need to draw a square for most pairings once you know the usual results. These are the ones keepers use every day:

The Golden rows work for every incomplete dominant gene in the game: Dark, Red, Spotted, Sparse, Blue Dots, Tiger and Twilight Wings, with their own super forms. Dragon genetics 101 lists them all.

Two genes at once: multiply

When a pair differs in more than one gene, each gene rolls separately, so you multiply the chances.

Say you pair a Golden that is a proven het Albino with a proven het Albino that looks Normal. For Golden, it's Golden × Normal: 50%. For Albino, it's het × het: 25%. Combine them:

The four cards add to 100%. The game labels a baby showing several genes with all of them joined by ×, so the top card reads "Albino × Golden."

Three genes work the same way: multiply three numbers. That's why combination looks get rare quickly, and why the Planner exists.

How possible hets change the odds

The odds are computed from what you know, never from a dragon's true genes. So when a parent is only a possible het, the card shrinks to match.

The 67% het × proven het line is simply two thirds of 25%. If the first dragon really is a het, its eggs are 25% Albino; if it isn't, they're 0%. The card blends the two by how likely each is.

Wild imports from crates work the same way. Their het percentages come from the crate's odds, and those flow straight into the cards. A plain-looking import might carry something the cards can only hint at, and the clutch is how you find out.

Per egg, not per clutch

Every egg rolls on its own. A 25% card does not mean one egg in four is guaranteed Albino, and the game has no pity timer: a clutch of four Normals doesn't make the next clutch any luckier.

What it does mean is that more eggs give you more chances. Clutches run from 1 to 6 eggs, about 4 on average. Here is the chance of at least one visual from a 25% pairing, by clutch size:

Those figures count eggs, not hatchlings. The slip's Hatch and Infertile numbers trim them a little, which is why keepers raise their hatch level in the skill tree and avoid pairing relatives.

Tools that read the odds for you

You don't have to do this math by hand for every pairing. Dragonbred has several tools that help:

• Planner. Pick a target look and it ranks every pairing in your pen by how likely each is to make it.
• Pairs to try. Suggests looks your pen can make but doesn't have yet. Resting dragons are left out.
• Simulator. The morph simulator, in the desktop header, lets you combine morphs and see the finished dragon before you plan for it.
• Breed with my… On the market, this previews the odds of a listed dragon paired with one of yours before you buy.

The Planner is the best starting point for a long project, and planning a breeding project shows how to chain those pairings over several generations. When the cards look right, breed the pair in Dragonbred and let the clutch tell you how close you came.

Frequently asked questions

Are Dragonbred breeding odds per egg or per clutch?

Per egg. Each egg rolls separately against the chances on the cards, so a clutch can have more or fewer visuals than the percentages suggest.

What is a Punnett square?

A grid that shows every way two parents' copies of a gene can combine. For one gene it has four equally likely boxes, and each box is 25% of the odds.

Why does my pairing show 17% instead of 25%?

One parent is a possible het rather than proven. The game multiplies the chance it carries the gene by the 25% a proven pair would have.

Is there a pity timer for rare morphs?

No. Every egg rolls independently, and past clutches never change the odds of the next one.