Anyone not using fiendish dire axiomatic half-celestial undead half-pixie owlbears?

[howandwhy99]

I agree that too many templates on a creature can quickly lead to a loss of suspension of disbelief.

OTOH, wasn't Gygax the first to put the Owl Template on a grizzly bear?

 

[Cbas10]

I think templates are the greatest things added to monsters in 3.X D&D. It can become boring and funky if they are used too often or too randomly, but they can really help to drive a plotline home sometimes. I am currently having lots of fun with the Tauric template from Monster Manual 2. Hobgoblins (with plenty of goblin slaves) are using Tauric hobgoblin/griffons as scouts, tauric bugbear/rhinocerouses as a VERY small number of warmachines, and a myriad of "experimental" tauric goblin/other-animals for other types of "shock troops." Depending on how much the players want to get into doing a mass combat/war scenario, I might introduce the handful of tauric ogre/elephants that the hobgoblins' high priest created.

In one of the relatively recent Dragon magazines, templates were given for various undead, such as wraiths, shadows, and ghouls (or something like that). I really liked that, because each undead I used for a certain scenario was special and unique. They were not necessarily more powerful; rather it fit with other themes in the storyline that demanded more than just nameless, faceless undead from...wherever.

Regarding the half-celestial and other half- templates, I try to use them quite sparingly, as there should be a VERY good story behind these rare events. After all, Iuz (one of the gods of Greyhawk) started out as a half-fiend and used that bit of leverage (read: that bit of leverage used HIM) to become a god in his own right. Not to mention how half-fiends might change the "rules" (not D&D mechanics; rather whatever flavor you set forth in your games) on how easy or difficult it is for fiends to travel to or affect the Prime Material Plane. Similarly, half-celestials and half-dragons should really embody the ideals and morals of their celestial or draconic parent.

 

[TiQuinn]

I agree that too many templates on a creature can quickly lead to a loss of suspension of disbelief.

It only leads to a loss of suspension of disbelief if you actually tell your PCs that they're fighting a Two-Headed Fiendish Anarchic Dire Owlbear. If you tell them that they see a looming red-skinned two headed creature that resembles a cross between an owlbear and something from their darkest nightmares, then you got yourself a serious encounter on your hands! Really, reading some of these combinations is worse than the image that such a creature would actually have.

Instead of Fiendish Orcs, you might have the Foul Orcs of Gehenna.
That Tauric, Vampiric medusa would have a name: Mageera the Black Sister.

Sometimes it's a lot dumber sounding on the DM's side of the screen.

 

[Wraith Form]

But I also think the mass of templates is making a mess out of some scenarios. *SNIP*
Just for example, a recent article in Dragon - and I mean no insult to the writer, who did a fine job - built an organization around his character and his mount/companion, an air element pegasus with two ranks of fighter. *SNIP**
At first I just started processing through, in my mind, the mechanics implications of such a creature. **SNIP** Because they are - but that can get lost in the noise if you pile a lot of templates on top of them.

I chopped this up to save space, but....HEAR, HEAR! I agree with your entire post! Well spoken.....(err, typed).

 

[Wraith Form]

I don't use fiendish dire axiomatic half-celestial undead half-pixie owlbears.

Yeah, really. I use fiendish dire axiomatic half-celestial undead half-pixie bipolar owlbears.

 

[hunter1828]

I've used a very few fiendish templates to up some minor animals to make them evil (they probably come from Dr. Evil's Evil Petting Zoo). Other than that, I tend to give goblins, orcs, and other such foes class levels (rogue, warrior or fighter usually...though a goblin ranger was a tough one for the party) to make them tougher.

hunter1828

 

[Jhamin]

It only leads to a loss of suspension of disbelief if you actually tell your PCs that they're fighting a Two-Headed Fiendish Anarchic Dire Owlbear. If you tell them that they see a looming red-skinned two headed creature that resembles a cross between an owlbear and something from their darkest nightmares, then you got yourself a serious encounter on your hands! Really, reading some of these combinations is worse than the image that such a creature would actually have.

Instead of Fiendish Orcs, you might have the Foul Orcs of Gehenna.
That Tauric, Vampiric medusa would have a name: Mageera the Black Sister.

Sometimes it's a lot dumber sounding on the DM's side of the screen.

This pretty much sums up the way I use templates.

There are Orcs, then there are the Orcs that worhip gods best forgotten whose bodies have become corrupted by the darkness (IE Fiendish). Even other Orcs don't like them.

There are Flesh Golems, then there are the Freakish experiments that the good Doctor performed on a lone trapper he came across (IE, Half-Golem Ranger).

It's all about where they got the template from and how you describe it. I know I don't tell my players they are throwing down with a ftr6/wpnmaster7, I tell them they are fighting "one of the finest swordsmen in the western Kingdoms."

Why would templates be any different?

 

[Aaron L]

My hooved, grey trolls that sprout tentacles when enraged are legendary in my game. What does it matter how many templates they have?

Or am I not understanding what you mean by "tougher critters?" Are you saying that instead of taking a troll and giving it levels, or templates, I should use an umber hulk instead? If so, then your missing a large part of the point of 3rd edition. Not all humans are 1st level commoners, neither are all orcs 1st level warriors. My fiendish 8th level ranger orcs with double bladed axes qualify quite nicely as tougher critters to me. But to my players, they are just the "scary orcs in black cloaks."

Limiting myslef to only the standard monsters in the book is far too boring for my taste, and I don't actually WANT some of the high CR monsters in my world.

Heck, sometimes i use a template just to make a new monster. I took the dire tiger and added the half-dragon template. Are they half-dragon dire tigers? NO! They're Scourgecats, the terror of the Cold Waste.

 

[Henry]

I think templates can get silly if overused (Half-celestial gargantuan myconid ninja of legend, anyone?) but it doesn't mean one shouldn't use them; they are simply a way to change things up without having to come up with rules on the fly for doing so.

A half-fiend troll provides a very scary challenge for a group of PC's; so does a troll who you said was simply "immune to fire and had acid resistance", but the other powers fit in accordance with whatever the DM has for a concept. In some cases, templates can spur whole backstories, and can give the DM ideas he would not have otherwise come up with!

 

[Aeolius]

It only leads to a loss of suspension of disbelief if you actually tell your PCs that they're fighting a Two-Headed Fiendish Anarchic Dire Owlbear. If you tell them that they see a looming red-skinned two headed creature that resembles a cross between an owlbear and something from their darkest nightmares, then you got yourself a serious encounter on your hands! Really, reading some of these combinations is worse than the image that such a creature would actually have.

Or perhaps my half-fiend (descended from a myrmyxicus) vampiric ixitxachitl... The vampyrmyrmyxitxachitl

The PC roster in my current campaign includes:

1. A tiefling mermaid - her mermaid traits coming from a bond with an artifact not unlike Ariel's "voice shell" in "The Little Mermaid".

2. A hagtouched oceanid - daughter of a salt hag and triton. Salt hags are the daughters of night hags and sea elves. Hagtouched is a template of my own design, to describe the descendants of my half-hags.

3. A Sea Haggle - a fine damselfish hivemind (swarm, aquatic) formed from a hag's eye talisman when it's covey is simultaneously destroyed.

4. A modified human - Altered with fish hag grafts. A fish hag is a pseudonatural hag, the original shellycoats, now extinct on Oerth.

5. A half-dragon (topaz) succubus - technically she is a half-fiend/half-dragon, but I am attempting to see how it goes, playing by the rules for a change and using the succubus levels in Savage Species. I did add the ability for the half-topaz to breath underwater, as the OA half-dragons can do in Draconomicon.

6. A triton prince - half-brother to the oceanid.

So, what's the problem slapping a few templates onto their opponents?