D&D 5E Templates in the MM

[Jester David]

Some templates are a lot less necessary. Like just changing the ability scores of a werewolf or taking some abilities onto the PC for the vampire. For many it's just giving the monster another power.

Yes, more would have been cool, but "could have used more" is always a potential complaint.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Veteran Goblins, Goblin Guards, and Goblin priests, too.

Pretty damned easy. Seldom changes much.

Depends if you give them the racial abilties or not. Notably the Hobgoblin' martial advantage spike damage puts the MM hobgoblin at CR 1/2, even though their other stats seem more in line with CR 1/8th Guards or Nobles.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

The generic fiendish template (more useful than celestial) is not particularly urgent but I think it would have been useful. Without summons as you say, its main use is in planar campaigns where you want the PCs to travel to another plane and be threatened by local critters, or in encounters with creatures interloping from their original plane and taking pets with them.

Just describing the critter right out of the MM critters as possessed should be fine. If it is an area where it NEEDS an immunity to survive, just give it that immunity, players will probably know that if it lives in an acid bog, acid won't hurt it.

For similar reasons, elemental templates would have been very useful already in the MM.

Elemental of more sizes might have been enough, just change the descriptions like pathfinder did their bestiary 1 illustrations.

Lycanthropes and vampires templates are the real needed ones. Both of these are acquired conditions, so it is actually very important to have a mechanical tool to represent someone (e.g. a PC) become one of them, on top of whatever the character is... I don't have the MM yet, but I thought there was in fact at least some sidebar to cover these.

There is a sidebar, it shows what upgrades a vamped character gets, but the DM still has to re-chart the CR on their own since STR DEX and CON going to 18 will adjust To Hit, Damage, AC and HP CR parameters.

 

[Demonspell]

I would like to see a Zombie Template, I have a campaign I am running where I wanted to use a Kou-tao zombie, or a shark zombie and the standard zombie with a swim speed just doesn't make sense, there are benefits that a Kou-tao gets that is seems the zombie should get too. A Kou-tao skeleton may be fairly standard, but the zombie certainly not.

Additionally, I have another campaign where I am trying to do a plant based zombie. The myconid spore servant works, but there are just certain options that don't make sense for my plant based zombie idea. Having a zombie template would give me a good idea on a starting point for developing the plant zombie.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=6792769]Demonspell[/MENTION]: The DMG has "racial traits" for zombies that are more or less the same thing as a template.

 

[MostlyDm]

Some templates are a lot less necessary. Like just changing the ability scores of a werewolf or taking some abilities onto the PC for the vampire. For many it's just giving the monster another power.

Yes, more would have been cool, but "could have used more" is always a potential complaint.

Yep, well said. The way "templates" interface with the monster rules in 5e generally renders them unnecessary. Mildly convenient perhaps, but nothing major.

It took me a day to realize that Shadow Dragons, for example, don't have a set CR increase. I was making a Shadow Adult Copper Dragon and trying to figure out what it's XP value would be.

 

[Demonspell]

[MENTION=6792769]Demonspell[/MENTION]: The DMG has "racial traits" for zombies that are more or less the same thing as a template.

Thanks, found it on pg 282 under NPC Features.

 

[Demetrios1453]

1.) Zombies and Skeletons don't differ too significantly from specie to specie. There is little difference mechanically between a human zombie and an orc, or a halfling skeleton and a gnome. The MM has a few odd examples, but really the only difference between most is size and HD, and both of those can be done just by modifiying them with the DMG and recalculating the CR.

But there's a big difference if I want to make a cloud giant zombie or purple worm skeleton, just to give two examples. I, for one, would really like to have a template for skeletons and zombies - the 5e templates so far have been short and sweet, and with a proper template it would be a breeze to create a skeleton or zombie out of any creature I wanted. Or, at the very least, give us more examples to use, not just for themselves, but as a base we can extrapolate other similar creature skeletons/zombies from...

 

[CaptainGemini]

I've found that, even with the lack of templates, it's not been hard at all to make whatever I wanted with how 5E is structured. It's probably one of the better editions for that.

 

[pukunui]

But there's a big difference if I want to make a cloud giant zombie or purple worm skeleton, just to give two examples. I, for one, would really like to have a template for skeletons and zombies - the 5e templates so far have been short and sweet, and with a proper template it would be a breeze to create a skeleton or zombie out of any creature I wanted. Or, at the very least, give us more examples to use, not just for themselves, but as a base we can extrapolate other similar creature skeletons/zombies from...

Are the "racial traits" for zombies and skeletons in the DMG (pg 282) not good enough to use as templates?