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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 9610626" data-attributes="member: 710">I haven't been playing 3.x since forever, basically, but CR 11 doesn't sound that outlandish. DR, fast healing and energy resistance aren't that impressive against a Level 11 (moderate challenge) party or Level 8 party (serious challenge). They will have magic weapons, and a fireball will deal 8 to 11d6 which will regularly overcome D 10. Also without the template, its attack bonus is already +16 at CR 7, so increasing it to +19 is only 3 points better - which is about what a Rogue or Cleric gets automatically from base attack bonus over 4 levels (without accounting for ability increases from leveling and gear). I don't know the details of the template, but if the summons are regular summoning spells, the short duration would require the Hill Giant to cast them during combat, which costs valauble actions. Is the spell good enough to cast a Dire Bear (CR 7 creature?). Unless the template makes it particularly powerful version of the spell, it might not be as significant as you'd hope it to be.Wild Shape could be useful, if it's limited by his hit dice, he could become a Dire Bear which might be an overall improvement. Not sure if he gets to keep his Vampire special benefits in bear shape, but if, it would be good for Improved Grab and being able to presumably reliablye drain blood once he grabbed something. Of course, then you have to do with the Grapple rules. And the awkward thing with Wild Shape is how all your stats change and you need to look careful which ones apply and which don't. I played a Druid/Shifter in a long-lasting campaign and I basically had a double sided paper with matrixes to determine my attack bonus in various forms (with various buff spells and gear benefits that might apply or not apply.) That's definitely something that could be headache inducing for a GM.I think one of the nastiest things is probably the energy drain, but energy drain in 3E was so nasty that the party Cleric at that level would usually prepare a Death Ward (even if the campaign at that time isn't very undead-heavy, we had encountered too many save or die death effects and energy drain over several campaigns that we knew it to be almost mandatory. Maybe your group is different, though).I still wouldn't want to meet it in a dark alley, but I am just some low level Commoner/Expert my Level 3 at best wouldn't want to meet most D&D monsters in any dark alleys.Templates were a pretty intersting concept in 3E, some were more broken than others, I guess. But the hardest part of 3E was that there was a lot of math to get right when applying templates and their abilities. And god forbid you had a spellcasting NPC or monster.</blockquote>

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