This week I present two templates for 3.5 D&D, the bipedal animal and the incandescent. While originally created for different projects, both have a home in my Planescape campaign – incandescents are linked to the Positive Energy Plane, and bipedal animals are native to the Beastlands, as they exemplify Nature’s evolutionary progress. Enjoy!
Bipedal Animal
For countless ages druids have used the awaken spell to create guardians and allies. Such creatures breed true, and communities of “talking” animals are known to exist in regions where druids hold sway. Nature has duplicated this miracle of magic, albeit at a much slower rate.
Bipedal animals are the next step in evolution. They resemble animal-humanoid hybrids and have developed key mental and physical advantages that bridge the gap between animals and humanoids. While still children of nature, bipedal animals can adapt to civilization through patience and instruction.
Sample Bipedal Animal
Bipedal Boar
Medium Monstrous Humanoid
Hit Dice: 3d8+12 (25 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 40 ft
Armor Class: 16 (+6 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+4
Attack: Club +4 melee (1d6+3) or gore +4 melee (1d8+3)
Full Attack: Club +4 melee (1d6+3 and gore -1 melee (1d8+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft/5 ft
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft, low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +2
Abilities: Str 15, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 9, Wis 13, Cha 5
Skills: Listen +7 Spot +5
Feats: Alertness, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Toughness
Environment: Temperate forests
Organization: Solitary or herd (3-5 plus 1d4 boars)
Challenge Rating: 2
Advancement: 4-5 HD (Medium) or by class
Level Adjustment: +2
Combat
A bipedal boar wades into combat swinging its weapon and gouging opponents with its gore attack. More intelligent than its mundane brethren, it lacks the mindless ferocity that washes over boars whenever they are wounded.
Creating a Bipedal Animal
“Bipedal” is an inherited template that can be added to any Small or Medium anima (referred to hereafter as the base creature) that does not already walk on two legs.
A bipedal creature uses all of the base creature’s statistics and abilities except as noted here. Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saves, or skill points.
Size and Type: An animal with this template becomes a monstrous humanoid. Size is unchanged.
Speed: The base creature’s normal mode of movement is unchanged, but the speed for any special forms of movement (burrowing, swimming, etc) is halved. Flying speed and maneuverability remains the same. If the base creature does not have limbs, the bipedal animal now has legs with a base speed of 20 feet.
Attacks: One pair of the base creature’s limbs develops hands, allowing it to wield weapons. If the base creature does not have limbs, the bipedal animal now has arms but does not gain any additional attacks.
A bipedal animal keeps all the natural attacks of the base creature. If the bipedal animal uses the full attack action, it can attack with a weapon at its full attack bonus and also use its natural attacks as secondary attacks with a -5 penalty to hit.
Special Attacks: A bipedal animal loses all extraordinary special attacks of the base creature. What it loses of its animalistic instincts, it makes up for with increased intelligence and versatility.
Special Qualities: A bipedal animal loses all the extraordinary special qualities of the base creature except for low-light vision and scent (if it has them), but gains darkvision out to 60 feet.
Abilities: A bipedal animal gets +2d6 Intelligence and +1d3 Charisma.
Skills: A bipedal animal gets skill points as a monstrous humanoid and has skill points equal to (2 + Intelligence modifier) x (HD + 3). Do not include Hit Dice from class levels in this calculation – the bipedal animal gains monstrous humanoid skill points only for its racial Hit Dice, and gains the normal amount of skill points for its class levels. Treat skills from the base creature’s list as class skills, and other skills as cross-class.
A bipedal animal is able to learn languages by spending the requisite skill points but does not gain any bonus languages for its increased Intelligence. However, it does retain the ability to communicate with animals that are the same base creature.
Feats: A bipedal animal gains the Simple Weapon Proficiency feat.
Environment: Same as the base creature.
Organization: Same as the base creature, but animals are usually included as pets or guards.
Challenge Rating: Hit Dice 3 or less, as base creature; Hit Dice 4 to 7, as base creature +1; Hit Dice 8 or more, as base creature +2.
Alignment: Usually neutral.
Advancement: Same as the base creature or by class. Bipedal animals straddle the line between wild and civilized, and they can choose to embrace their capacity for learning or cling to their animalistic heritage.
Level Adjustment: Same as the base creature +2.
Incandescent
An incandescent is the life force of a creature unable to depart for the afterlife. It is a luminous, translucent version of its material self driven to seek out other living creatures in an attempt to sever its connection to the material world.
When a creature dies, its spirit attempts to leave its body. In rare cases where a creature was especially hearty in life, the departure of the spirit opens a conduit to the Positive Energy Plane, much like removing a stone from a dike. The sudden flow of life-giving energy prevents the spirit from departing but cannot bind the spirit to the body, and so the conduit never closes.
Incandescents know instinctively that a backwash of positive energy would close the conduit and allow their spirits to depart, so they seek out living creatures and employ their energy drain ability to “short circuit” the energy flow and free themselves. Driven insane by their inability to move on to the afterlife, incandescents cannot properly communicate their intentions, and so their actions are almost universally considered hostile.
Sample Incandescent
Incandescent Wolf
Medium Undead
Hit Dice: 2d12+3 (16 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: Fly 30 feet (perfect)
Armor Class: 13/13/11
Attacks: Incorporeal touch +3 melee
Damage: Energy drain
Face/Reach: 5 ft/5 ft
Special Attacks: Energy drain
Special Qualities: Scent, energy flux, equilibrium, regeneration 2, incorporeal, turn resistance -4/+4, undead
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +1
Abilities: Str --, Dex 15, Con --, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +3, Listen +6, Spot +4, Survival +1*
Feats: Toughness
Climate/Terrain: Any forest, hill, plains, and mountains
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (7-16).
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 3 HD (Medium); 4-5 HD (Large)
Combat
An incandescent wolf attacks the nearest creature, seeking to stem the flow of positive energy into its spirit. It has no sense of self-preservation.
Energy Drain (Su): Anyone hit by the incandescent wolf’s incorporeal touch attack receives 1 negative level (DC 11).
Equilibrium (Su): If an incandescent wolf reaches 0 hit points, it explodes in a burst of positive energy, healing all corporeal creatures within 60 feet.
Scent (Ex): Able to detect approaching enemies, detect hidden foes, and track by sense of smell.
Skills: *Incandescent wolves receive a +4 racial bonus to Survival checks when tracking by scent.
Creating an Incandescent
“Incandescent” is a template that can be added to any corporeal creature with the Toughness feat (referred to hereafter as the “base creature”). Certain other conditions may qualify a creature for this template, at the DM’s discretion. The creature’s type changes to “undead.” It otherwise uses all of the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Size: Same as the base creature.
Hit Dice: Increase to d12.
Speed: Incandescents have a fly speed of 30 feet, unless the base creature has a higher fly speed, with perfect maneuverability.
Armor Class: The incandescent does not benefit from the natural armor of the base creature, nor can it use armor or shields that do not have the ghost touch quality. Instead, it gains a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma modifier or +1, whichever is greater.
Attacks: The incandescent retains all the attacks of the base creature, but those requiring physical contact become incorporeal touch attacks using the incandescent’s Dexterity modifier.
Damage: A creature hit by an incandescent’s incorporeal touch attack suffers an energy drain.
Special Attacks: The incandescent retains all the special attacks of the base creature, although those that require physical contact do not function against corporeal creatures. Incandescents also have an energy drain attack.
Energy Drain (Su): Any living creature hit by an incandescent’s incorporeal touch attack suffers 1 negative level. The creature loses 5 hit points and suffers a -1 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks; it also loses 1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level).
If the victim casts spells, she loses access to one spell as if she had cast her highest-level, currently available spell. (If she has more than one spell at her highest level, she chooses which she loses.) In addition, when she next prepares spells or regains spell slots, she gets one less spell slot at her highest spell level.
Negative levels remain for 24 hours or until removed with a spell, such as restoration. After 24 hours, the afflicted creature must attempt a Fortitude save. The DC is 10 + one-half the incandescent’s Hit Dice + the incandescent’s Charisma modifier. If the saving throw succeeds, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. If the save fails, the negative level goes away, but the creature’s level is also reduced by 1. The afflicted creature makes a separate saving throw for each negative level it has gained.
Any creature that acquires negative levels equal to its current levels or Hit Dice dies.
Special Qualities: The incandescent has all the special qualities of the base creature and those listed below, and gains the undead type and incorporeal subtype.
Energy Flux (Ex): Because of the constant stream of positive energy into its system, the incandescent is immune to all necromancy spells. However, positive energy from an outside source (such as healing spells or holy water) actually interrupts the positive energy flow that sustains the incandescent, effectively causing it damage just as it does to normal undead creatures.
Whenever an incandescent inflicts a negative level through its energy drain attack, it loses 5 hit points instead of gaining them.
Equilibrium (Su): Whenever an incandescent is reduced to 0 hit points through normal damage, it explodes in a burst of positive energy with a radius of 60 feet. All living creatures within the burst are restored to their maximum hit point total. Undead and those creatures that take damage from positive energy receive a Will save (DC equals 10 + one-half the incandescent’s Hit Dice + the incandescent’s Charisma modifier) for half damage.
Regeneration (Ex): At the beginning of each of the incandescent’s turns, it regenerates 2 hit points. Healing spells and other positive energy sources cause normal damage (see energy flux).
Incorporeal: Incorporeal creatures can only be harmed by other incorporeal creatures, by +1 or better weapons, or by spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects. They are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when struck by magic or magic weapons, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source, except a force effect.
The physical attacks of incorporeal creatures ignore material armor, even magic armor unless it is made of force or has the ghost touch ability.
Incorporeal creatures are inaudible unless they decide to make noise.
Turn Resistance (Ex): The incandescent has -4 turn resistance against clerics channeling positive energy, and +4 turn resistance against clerics channeling negative energy.
Undead: Undead are immune to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromantic effects, and they ignore mind-influencing effects. Undead are not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, or energy drain. They have no Constitution scores and are therefore immune to any effect requiring a Fortitude save (unless it affects objects). An undead spellcaster uses its Charisma modifier when making Concentration checks.
Saves: Same as the base creature.
Abilities: Same as the base creature, except the incandescent has no Strength or Constitution score, and its Charisma increases by +4.
Skills: Same as the base creature.
Feats: Same as the base creature.
Climate/Terrain: Any.
Organization: Same as the base creature.
Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +1.
Treasure: None.
Alignment: Any.
Advancement: Same as the base creature.
Bipedal Animal
For countless ages druids have used the awaken spell to create guardians and allies. Such creatures breed true, and communities of “talking” animals are known to exist in regions where druids hold sway. Nature has duplicated this miracle of magic, albeit at a much slower rate.
Bipedal animals are the next step in evolution. They resemble animal-humanoid hybrids and have developed key mental and physical advantages that bridge the gap between animals and humanoids. While still children of nature, bipedal animals can adapt to civilization through patience and instruction.
Sample Bipedal Animal
Bipedal Boar
Medium Monstrous Humanoid
Hit Dice: 3d8+12 (25 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 40 ft
Armor Class: 16 (+6 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 16
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+4
Attack: Club +4 melee (1d6+3) or gore +4 melee (1d8+3)
Full Attack: Club +4 melee (1d6+3 and gore -1 melee (1d8+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft/5 ft
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft, low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +2
Abilities: Str 15, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 9, Wis 13, Cha 5
Skills: Listen +7 Spot +5
Feats: Alertness, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Toughness
Environment: Temperate forests
Organization: Solitary or herd (3-5 plus 1d4 boars)
Challenge Rating: 2
Advancement: 4-5 HD (Medium) or by class
Level Adjustment: +2
Combat
A bipedal boar wades into combat swinging its weapon and gouging opponents with its gore attack. More intelligent than its mundane brethren, it lacks the mindless ferocity that washes over boars whenever they are wounded.
Creating a Bipedal Animal
“Bipedal” is an inherited template that can be added to any Small or Medium anima (referred to hereafter as the base creature) that does not already walk on two legs.
A bipedal creature uses all of the base creature’s statistics and abilities except as noted here. Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saves, or skill points.
Size and Type: An animal with this template becomes a monstrous humanoid. Size is unchanged.
Speed: The base creature’s normal mode of movement is unchanged, but the speed for any special forms of movement (burrowing, swimming, etc) is halved. Flying speed and maneuverability remains the same. If the base creature does not have limbs, the bipedal animal now has legs with a base speed of 20 feet.
Attacks: One pair of the base creature’s limbs develops hands, allowing it to wield weapons. If the base creature does not have limbs, the bipedal animal now has arms but does not gain any additional attacks.
A bipedal animal keeps all the natural attacks of the base creature. If the bipedal animal uses the full attack action, it can attack with a weapon at its full attack bonus and also use its natural attacks as secondary attacks with a -5 penalty to hit.
Special Attacks: A bipedal animal loses all extraordinary special attacks of the base creature. What it loses of its animalistic instincts, it makes up for with increased intelligence and versatility.
Special Qualities: A bipedal animal loses all the extraordinary special qualities of the base creature except for low-light vision and scent (if it has them), but gains darkvision out to 60 feet.
Abilities: A bipedal animal gets +2d6 Intelligence and +1d3 Charisma.
Skills: A bipedal animal gets skill points as a monstrous humanoid and has skill points equal to (2 + Intelligence modifier) x (HD + 3). Do not include Hit Dice from class levels in this calculation – the bipedal animal gains monstrous humanoid skill points only for its racial Hit Dice, and gains the normal amount of skill points for its class levels. Treat skills from the base creature’s list as class skills, and other skills as cross-class.
A bipedal animal is able to learn languages by spending the requisite skill points but does not gain any bonus languages for its increased Intelligence. However, it does retain the ability to communicate with animals that are the same base creature.
Feats: A bipedal animal gains the Simple Weapon Proficiency feat.
Environment: Same as the base creature.
Organization: Same as the base creature, but animals are usually included as pets or guards.
Challenge Rating: Hit Dice 3 or less, as base creature; Hit Dice 4 to 7, as base creature +1; Hit Dice 8 or more, as base creature +2.
Alignment: Usually neutral.
Advancement: Same as the base creature or by class. Bipedal animals straddle the line between wild and civilized, and they can choose to embrace their capacity for learning or cling to their animalistic heritage.
Level Adjustment: Same as the base creature +2.
Incandescent
An incandescent is the life force of a creature unable to depart for the afterlife. It is a luminous, translucent version of its material self driven to seek out other living creatures in an attempt to sever its connection to the material world.
When a creature dies, its spirit attempts to leave its body. In rare cases where a creature was especially hearty in life, the departure of the spirit opens a conduit to the Positive Energy Plane, much like removing a stone from a dike. The sudden flow of life-giving energy prevents the spirit from departing but cannot bind the spirit to the body, and so the conduit never closes.
Incandescents know instinctively that a backwash of positive energy would close the conduit and allow their spirits to depart, so they seek out living creatures and employ their energy drain ability to “short circuit” the energy flow and free themselves. Driven insane by their inability to move on to the afterlife, incandescents cannot properly communicate their intentions, and so their actions are almost universally considered hostile.
Sample Incandescent
Incandescent Wolf
Medium Undead
Hit Dice: 2d12+3 (16 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: Fly 30 feet (perfect)
Armor Class: 13/13/11
Attacks: Incorporeal touch +3 melee
Damage: Energy drain
Face/Reach: 5 ft/5 ft
Special Attacks: Energy drain
Special Qualities: Scent, energy flux, equilibrium, regeneration 2, incorporeal, turn resistance -4/+4, undead
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +1
Abilities: Str --, Dex 15, Con --, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +3, Listen +6, Spot +4, Survival +1*
Feats: Toughness
Climate/Terrain: Any forest, hill, plains, and mountains
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (7-16).
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 3 HD (Medium); 4-5 HD (Large)
Combat
An incandescent wolf attacks the nearest creature, seeking to stem the flow of positive energy into its spirit. It has no sense of self-preservation.
Energy Drain (Su): Anyone hit by the incandescent wolf’s incorporeal touch attack receives 1 negative level (DC 11).
Equilibrium (Su): If an incandescent wolf reaches 0 hit points, it explodes in a burst of positive energy, healing all corporeal creatures within 60 feet.
Scent (Ex): Able to detect approaching enemies, detect hidden foes, and track by sense of smell.
Skills: *Incandescent wolves receive a +4 racial bonus to Survival checks when tracking by scent.
Creating an Incandescent
“Incandescent” is a template that can be added to any corporeal creature with the Toughness feat (referred to hereafter as the “base creature”). Certain other conditions may qualify a creature for this template, at the DM’s discretion. The creature’s type changes to “undead.” It otherwise uses all of the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Size: Same as the base creature.
Hit Dice: Increase to d12.
Speed: Incandescents have a fly speed of 30 feet, unless the base creature has a higher fly speed, with perfect maneuverability.
Armor Class: The incandescent does not benefit from the natural armor of the base creature, nor can it use armor or shields that do not have the ghost touch quality. Instead, it gains a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma modifier or +1, whichever is greater.
Attacks: The incandescent retains all the attacks of the base creature, but those requiring physical contact become incorporeal touch attacks using the incandescent’s Dexterity modifier.
Damage: A creature hit by an incandescent’s incorporeal touch attack suffers an energy drain.
Special Attacks: The incandescent retains all the special attacks of the base creature, although those that require physical contact do not function against corporeal creatures. Incandescents also have an energy drain attack.
Energy Drain (Su): Any living creature hit by an incandescent’s incorporeal touch attack suffers 1 negative level. The creature loses 5 hit points and suffers a -1 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks; it also loses 1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level).
If the victim casts spells, she loses access to one spell as if she had cast her highest-level, currently available spell. (If she has more than one spell at her highest level, she chooses which she loses.) In addition, when she next prepares spells or regains spell slots, she gets one less spell slot at her highest spell level.
Negative levels remain for 24 hours or until removed with a spell, such as restoration. After 24 hours, the afflicted creature must attempt a Fortitude save. The DC is 10 + one-half the incandescent’s Hit Dice + the incandescent’s Charisma modifier. If the saving throw succeeds, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. If the save fails, the negative level goes away, but the creature’s level is also reduced by 1. The afflicted creature makes a separate saving throw for each negative level it has gained.
Any creature that acquires negative levels equal to its current levels or Hit Dice dies.
Special Qualities: The incandescent has all the special qualities of the base creature and those listed below, and gains the undead type and incorporeal subtype.
Energy Flux (Ex): Because of the constant stream of positive energy into its system, the incandescent is immune to all necromancy spells. However, positive energy from an outside source (such as healing spells or holy water) actually interrupts the positive energy flow that sustains the incandescent, effectively causing it damage just as it does to normal undead creatures.
Whenever an incandescent inflicts a negative level through its energy drain attack, it loses 5 hit points instead of gaining them.
Equilibrium (Su): Whenever an incandescent is reduced to 0 hit points through normal damage, it explodes in a burst of positive energy with a radius of 60 feet. All living creatures within the burst are restored to their maximum hit point total. Undead and those creatures that take damage from positive energy receive a Will save (DC equals 10 + one-half the incandescent’s Hit Dice + the incandescent’s Charisma modifier) for half damage.
Regeneration (Ex): At the beginning of each of the incandescent’s turns, it regenerates 2 hit points. Healing spells and other positive energy sources cause normal damage (see energy flux).
Incorporeal: Incorporeal creatures can only be harmed by other incorporeal creatures, by +1 or better weapons, or by spells, spell-like effects, or supernatural effects. They are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when struck by magic or magic weapons, an incorporeal creature has a 50% chance to ignore any damage from a corporeal source, except a force effect.
The physical attacks of incorporeal creatures ignore material armor, even magic armor unless it is made of force or has the ghost touch ability.
Incorporeal creatures are inaudible unless they decide to make noise.
Turn Resistance (Ex): The incandescent has -4 turn resistance against clerics channeling positive energy, and +4 turn resistance against clerics channeling negative energy.
Undead: Undead are immune to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, and necromantic effects, and they ignore mind-influencing effects. Undead are not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, or energy drain. They have no Constitution scores and are therefore immune to any effect requiring a Fortitude save (unless it affects objects). An undead spellcaster uses its Charisma modifier when making Concentration checks.
Saves: Same as the base creature.
Abilities: Same as the base creature, except the incandescent has no Strength or Constitution score, and its Charisma increases by +4.
Skills: Same as the base creature.
Feats: Same as the base creature.
Climate/Terrain: Any.
Organization: Same as the base creature.
Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature +1.
Treasure: None.
Alignment: Any.
Advancement: Same as the base creature.
