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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cbas10" data-source="post: 1258685" data-attributes="member: 6459">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.</blockquote>

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