Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition

[Messageboard Golem]

Build a Better Monster!

“The end is upon us, my disciples, for the gates of Hell have opened wide and the Hound has been loosed upon the world! There is nowhere to hide from the beast’s maw or unholy howl. May the Stone protect you in the afterlife if I fail!”
—Favin Mihl, Knight of the Stone God

Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition is not merely a tome of templates, but a versatile toolkit with which you can make your imagination, and the nightmares and dreams of heroes, a gaming-table reality. Using the templates and additional rules content of this tome, any collection of monsters you possess can be revitalized with vigor and possibility! Creatures encountered and defeated dozens of times before will take on new dimensions through alterations ranging from simple to complex to the out-and-out bizarre. You’ll find all of this along with new ideas for building PC races, exploring the cosmology of your world, and introducing never-before-seen options into your game. Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition includes:

• 85 templates and nearly 30 more variants—over 100 ways to make an innovative and inimitable monster
• Over 120 sample creatures, including dozens of unique characters, from Challenge Rating ½ to 56
• Player options counting two-dozen PC races, over 50 spells, 9 feats, and 2 fully-detailed domains
• Complete monster charts showing everything needed for creature construction
• A straightforward ritual magic system and unified construct creation rules
• Easy guidelines for stacking templates, allowing infinite possibilities
• Insights, alternatives, and hints to inspire and inform
• New diseases and treasures for your setting
• Thorough indices for easy use

With Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition, you can create creatures distinctive to your campaign quickly and easily! Need more options? Then come to www.silverthornegames.com and grab enhancements and special expansions for this book, many of which are free! While you’re there, you can share your creations in our forums.

Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons® Third Edition Core Books, published by Wizards of the Coast®.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The Book of Templates Deluxe Edition is the definitive book on templates. It's not perfect, it's not fully illustrated and it doesn't make 100% use of all its pages but it has the goods for those who want to add all manner of templates to their campaign. With the pages not being fully used, it's Siverthorne being wise by allowing you to print off just the material you need, ending each template in it's own section.

The bulk of the book deals with templates. Sure, there are some ideas on how to use templates in the game world. How to acquire them, how to use them, how to stack them. Stuff that many GM's deal with on a regular basis. There are rules for monster advancement, ideas on how to incorporate challenge ratings, and all sorts of little nudges and pushes that help the templates be more than just a statistical list.

The first of these is that there are examples. Some of the monsters have two and often, there are NPC write ups as opposed to a sample monster. There are often feats to augment the template, as well as spells, rituals, racial information, and other goods. The whole template section is done in alphabetical order and have a nice template indices so that if you want to know what page the templates are on by ECL, or where they're at by monster sample, or where they're at by new monster types, you can find them.

One of the other nice features I thought the book boasted was microplates and simplates. These are variations of existing templates that aren't quite full templates, very similar to the quick plates from the Monsternomicon.

There are over 85 templates in this book. That's more than I'll probably ever use, but I like having the option to use them. One of the best things is that some of these can quickly allow your standard creatures to become unique and dangerous entities in their own right. Some can even become epic level entities or have long term campaign roles without the players really being aware of it.

So what, for example, can you do if you're running an epic campaign? Throw an Apocalyptic creature at the party. The two examples here are a titan and hell hound. The former clocks in at a CR of 56 while the latter 22. Now that's adding some power right off the bat. What if you enjoy material like the Elric novels and want to simulate Elric calling on the Beast Lords and other entities of power? Use the Elder Beast and Lord Beast Templates. Very easy to use with examples included. Heck, Kaavaak, Lord of Noble Tigers, a gargantuan outsider, clocks in at a mighty CR of 25 so you can tell that there's no playing with him.

One thing that I enjoyed was that not every template was a power boost. Some, like the Ablative Construct, actual make the creature weaker, in this case, a reflection of the poor quality that went into the construct. Others that add flavor but don't go overboard on power that will see immediate use in my campaign, include the Ebon Servitor. These individuals have literally sold their souls for power and get some minor abilities, and flavor text. My favorite part? The example includes a race of black orcs with full racial traits for black half-orcs. Good stuff. For those who want more ideas of what's here, my original review covered some of the material, all of which is included here Book of Templates.

This book is primarily aimed at the GM and that's fine. It's a book of monsters in essence. However, it's important for players to realize that there is a lot of potential use for them there. Take wizards for example. If you're playing a summoner, many of your conjuration spells deal with creatures with templates. How about things like Mutators from Path of the Magi from Troll Lord Games? If you're going to be mixing genetics from two different species, isn't it handy to have a book that does a lot of the mechanical game work for you? Lastly, there are those players like myself, who enjoy the idea of a human with dragon blood, but not a full half dragon with greater abilities than a man, but less than a full half dragon and its high ECL modifcation.

The art in the book ranges from average to good. One of my favorite pieces is relentless chuul and the greater zombie owlbear. Both terrifying looking creatures. Editing is good and mechanics seem sound. Much more playtesting will be needed and as I've noted before, my idea of balanced isn't going to be everyone's. Still, a lot of this material has seen print before so it's got history behind it already.

Now this is one of the things I'm always talking about in terms of value. It's got templates, what it covers, sure, but it's got variants of templates, rules for templates, feats, lots of sample monsters, useful bookmarks, a huge selection of material at 260 pages, and is only $10 but is on sale now for $8. I mean think about that. Some companies are charging $10 for 50 page PDF products and here's one for $8. That's what like three cents a page?

For me, I hope that this book comes out in a hardcover for 3.5 real soon. The sheer amount of variety, utility and advice on template and their use, makes this book a must have for any serious GM and for any player looking to add that little extra something to his library.

 

[der_kluge]

reviewer bias: I am a freelance writer for Mystic Eye Games, but I have no affiliation with Silverthorne Games, nor was responsible for any of the OGC content in this work.

Also, this is my first review,ever, and hereby throw down the gauntlet for others to review products!

__________________

This is a review of the "Book of Templates" - deluxe edition PDF. Currently, this work is (to my knowledge) only available as a .pdf. It retails for $12, which may sound steep for a pdf, but is actually fairly priced given the work's massive size of 259 pages. The zip file comes with two versions - a regular version, and a printer-friendly version. The latter has no border, so it's much easier on the printer. The cover art is mediocre, and could suck a ink-cartridge printer bone dry since the page is mostly black. This is a minor complaint, however, and I've never let the cover art detract me from lauding a book's interior contents.

The book opens with the title page, and the table of contents. One thing that is severely lacking on the table of contents is which page each template is on. Instead, we get "Templates (12-233)". Nice. All the templates are listed in alphabetical order in the book, so if you know which template it is you are looking for, it's not terribly difficult to find them, but still a detailed ToC would have been extremely helpful.

The Introduction details some fairly standard stuff, and anyone already familiar with how to read template entries in the Monster Manual can just skip this section. Still, this section is quite useful as stacking template upon template on a creature can get ridiculously complex, not to mention illogical. "Half-humanoid, Half-Orc, Half-Nymph - what?!" Fortunately, the Book of Templates has got these things covered nicely, and applies a certain level of common sense to something that could otherwise get silly. It's clear to me, both as a freelance writer, and as a gamer, that the author(s) really took the work to heart and spend a good deal of time just thinking about templates and commenting on various aspects of the oddities that arise when template creatures are constructed. These efforts are not wasted on me.

Finally in this section are ritual rules, and several new spells which can be used to bring a set of rules to the table for NPCs and PCs to actually create templated creatures. I fully suspect that most GMs will simply overlook these rules, but they are nice nonetheless. In fact, there are a number of new spells peppered throughout the book, as well as magic items and other crunchy tidbits, but certainly the bulk of this work is just templates.

Now, on to the templates themselves. This work features an enourmous amount of Templates (from Aberrant to Zombie, Greater). Firstly, each template is laid out in a typical pattern. First, the template is described in layperson terms, then the rules for how to apply the template to a creature are given, and then sample templated creatures are given. In some cases, multiple creatures are included.

A few of the more interesting, and unique templates are "Hypermitotic" - a creature that splits when attacked (think hypermitosist, a term you learned in biology to describe a single-celled organism). Now thing "hypermitotic Fire Giant". *shiver* Nasty.
Another of my favorites is Non-Euclidian - a non-euclidian creature essentially exists in 4-dimensions and anyone looking upon one has a chance to go insane. There are also a few short, sweet templates like Heightened, Abyssal, and Fey-kissed that can be easily applied.

According to the OGL license in the back, *some* of these templates come from other d20 sources. Now, keep in mind this is perfectly legal (for those not versed in the intracacies of the d20 license). Given the diverse origins of some of these templates, it seems quite handy to have all of these in one source, though it does seem theoreticalyl plausible to acquire them all through each of the various sources (though you would pay far more than $12 in doing so). But the majority of the templates in this book can not be found anywhere else.

Finally, in the back of the book, numerous appendices detail handy charts. All the templates are listed in various sorted order, by Name, by CR, and by ECL. All the new monsters and NPCs are included, and all the original authors of all the templates are listed. There is an additional appendix detailing stacking templates, and the first appendix details a lot of the creature construction charts that are found in the back of the 3.5 MM

Summary:
This book is templates. Templates can be added to monsters, or PCs for that matter. If you like toying around with monsters as much as I do, this book is for you. With it, I was able to drive one of my PCs insane with Advanced Non-Euclidian Phase Spiders, and I really put a look of fear and uncertainty as my players witnessed a horde of heightened abyssal hypermitotic spiders wreak havoc.

My only real complaints about this book are few. I want more templates (I can never have enough), and a few of the templates just seem kind of silly, or would never get used (apocalyptic comes to mind). There are very few layout/grammatical errors in the work (which is impressive considering its size). If you like templates, you're bound to find use with this book.

 

[Crothian]

Book of Templates Deluxe edition

How does one get the most out of their Monster Manual? There are many d20 monster books out there, but I still see many people mostly using the core monster book. But after a while players and DMs can get a bit bored with using the same creatures over and over again. So, instead of just switching to another monster book, DMs have always had the option to alter the creatures in there. The Book of Templates Deluxe Edition allows for such alteration in the form of many, many templates.

This is a revision of a past product, the Book of Templates. It is a large revision. They added templates and greatly expanded the ones they had. This pdf is two hundred and sixty pages in length compared to the sixty nine pages of the original. That is a lot of new material. It is good to see Silverthorne Games take a popular product and make it better. So, if one has the first one and really liked it this new and improved one is much better and well worth acquiring.

The Books of Templates Deluxe version is as I said a two hundred and sixty page pdf. It comes in a zip file a little over eight megs and inside are two versions of the book. The smaller one is designed for print and is under four megs and the big one is designed for use on the computer screen and it comes in at under six megs. So, this is not going to take up much hard drive space at all. The on screen version is well book marked making it easy to go from template to template. And in a book of this size it is needed. The layout is nicely done with table and pictures inserted well. The art is also well done depicted various creatures with the templates. There is not a lot of art in the book, but it doe not feel sparse.

There are about eighty five templates in this book. That’s some monster variety. There are templates for undead creatures, for constructs, for legendry type monsters, and for half races. There are templates that can make some very odd creatures, so interesting encounters, good allies, and ferocious monsters. It might be impossible to have a template for everything in a single book, but I would have to say the Book of Templates Deluxe Version comes close.

Each template is presented in the same manner. It starts with a definition of what the template is. It then gives a description change of what a creature with the template looks like. The n it goes into the game mechanics, what parts of the stat block are altered by the template. This includes what types of creature the template may be added to, new abilities and defenses, alterations to attributes and skills, hit dice modifications, etc. Some templates include a level advancement for them as well. Each template has at least one sample creature using the template. The creatures presented here are fully stated out and described making them ready to use in any campaign.

Apocalyptic: This Template is just nasty. Any template that multiples the HD of a creature by 10, increases them to a d12 and give max hit points for them is looking for trouble. This template represents creating a single creature that can possible end the world. There are two examples of this template used, one on a titan and the other on a hell hound. Campaigns can be created around such a creature.

Beast, Elder: This is used to create an animal or beast that is intelligent and possible of an age long past. I like the use of this template over legendary creatures except these are not going to be as powerful as legendary ones can be.

Blind Oracle: This template is pretty self explanatory. It is one of those that lists a level adjustment and could make a for a very interesting character.

Dragon Blooded: This is a much more subdued template adding more character then abilities. It is a good mix of character and few, but well suited abilities.

Half Gnome: I include this one as an example to just show that they are willing to do something that not many people would think to do.

Heighten: This is a very flexible template that has many options. IT represents just a better version of a race but also allows for many choices so each heightened creature can be very different.

Immortal: This is another not so obvious looking template that can be used to create an interesting NPC. They have the immortality defined as being given from a deity.

Mephit Lord: Quite simply, the rules of the mephitis. They aren’t hugely powerful, but a nice increase from the normal mephitis. While a general template is used for all mephitis, there are specific powers listed for the individual types.

Moon Wildling: Natures answer to evil Lycanthropes. I really like the idea here and the template. I found it nice and creatively done.

Puppeteer Ooze: This has a template for the ooze and the creature the ooze controls. There is lots of potential and creepiness here.

Quickened: This is simply template that increases the speed of a creature. One of the sample creatures they have for this is a Quickened Treant. That is something the players will not be expecting.

Obviously, that is a short list of just some of the great templates that this book has to offer. This book is equal to the Monster’s Handbook in terms of getting the most of ones monster book. The only thing I would have liked to see was template levels. That would have been a lot of extra work and I do not fault them for not including them. But it would make a great web enhancement for some of the templates that are more player oriented.

 

[John Cooper]

Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition
By Ian S. Johnston and Chris S. Sims
Silverthorne Games product number STG 1006
260-page PDF, $12.00

Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition was released late last year and is apparently a much larger, greatly improved version of the original Book of Templates (which I must admit to never having seen). At 260 pages for only $12.00 (and the occasional sale price lowering it even more), this is a must-have for DMs wanting to add some variety to the monsters they throw at their players' PCs.

The cover, as I'm learning is pretty typical for Silverthorne Games, is a simple pattern on a swirly background - in this case, a Celtic design. There's nothing really wrong with this approach, and I suppose it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to pay big bucks to commission a more appropriate piece of artwork for a PDF product when the author (in this case Ian Johnston, who's credited with the cover art) can just whip something up on his computer. I will question the appropriateness of using green lettering when the background is red, but then that's all the time I'll dedicate to the cover art.

The interior artwork consists of 36 black-and-white illustrations by three different artists: Cara Mitten, Jeremy Mohler, and V. Shane. I'm not familiar with either of them, and the artwork they provide here is nothing spectacular, but it gets the job done and in each case is appropriate to the templated creature in question, which is a plus. All in all, I'd put the artwork at about average, with occasional pieces dipping a bit below the average mark. (In some cases, as in the amorphous hill giant on page 21, it isn't poor art so much as a poor scanning job that pixilates the artwork in question.)

As for the material itself, much of it is very well thought out and useful, although I was disappointed by the large quantity of "Half-Whatever" templates. Still, with over 85 templates (I say "over 85" because even though there are 85 listed, many of them have additional variances listed at the end, some of them "simplates" - "simple templates" that make a very few changes to the existing creature or standard version of the template - and some of them "microplates" - quick and easy "micro-templates" that don't warrant a separate entry from the existing template), there is plenty of useful material here.

Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition is laid out as follows:

• Introduction: an explanation on how to read the templates in the PDF
• Templates in the Game World: possible explanations as to how creatures could have acquired these templates in the campaign world, with an explanation of the rituals involved
• Aberrant: a hodgepodge template, basically slapping together a whole bunch of special attacks and special qualities from other monsters in the SRD and compiling a couple of charts out of them; overall a pretty disappointing entry (pity it's the first one, too, but the templates were wisely alphabetized)
• Abyssal: chaotic evil versions of normal creatures as they exist on the planes of the Abyss
• Amorphous: normal-looking creatures that can flow through small openings in the manner of oozes and stretch their appendages like Plastic Man
• Angel, Fallen: celestial beings that have fallen from grace
• Angel, War: celestial beings whose existence is geared toward combating evil
• Apocalyptic: enormous, powerful versions of the base creature, often powerful enough to destroy entire civilizations (this one is best reserved for epic rules play)
• Arcane Servitor: creatures that have tapped into the magical energies residing inside themselves
• Argent Servitor: defenders of the good, imbued with holy might to combat evil
• Beast, Elder: sentient animals from the dawning of time
• Beast Lord: the guiding spirits of entire animal races
• Bladed Horror: creatures whose limbs were replaced with steel blades (kind of a generic "hook horror" template)
• Blighted Thrall: those who have failed the tests of deities, and now are twisted, misshapen creatures who follow the will of any clerics they meet
• Blind Oracle: seers of the future who have been blinded
• Construct, Ablative: a weaker version of a construct, created by taking "shortcuts" in the construction process
• Construct, Kith: automatons constructed to resemble living beings
• Construct, Necromantic: golem-like constructs crafted of flesh and bone
• Construct, Skinrug Guardian: animated skins (like a bearskin rug)
• Construct, Verminshell: the animated husk of a vermin
• Construct, Woundmender: self-repairing constructs
• Demi-Gorgon: a half-gorgon, using this term only for its pun value (Demigorgon being a powerful extraplanar being in D&D)
• Denizen of the Deep: aquatic versions of the base creature
• Desiccated: undead creatures created from the remains of those who perished in the desert
• Dragon-Blooded: creatures with a dragon ancestor, but not quite a half-dragon
• Dreadnaught: larger, hardier, and stronger versions of the base creature
• Drider: a generic template for fusing a humanoid torso onto a spider's body, so not all driders need be from drow stock
• Ebon Servitor: those who have sold their souls to a powerful extraplanar being in exchange for power
• Elemental: versions of standard creatures that exist on the elemental planes
• Elemental, Thermic: earth elementals infused with fire energy
• Enchanted: creatures infused with magical energy
• Ethereal: creatures capable of shifting back and forth between the Prime Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane
• Exoskeleton: animated husks of invertebrates
• Fey-Kissed: creatures with magical powers through having spent time in the "faerie realms" (or equivalent)
• Fiend, Redeemed: the opposite of a fallen angel (something not out of place in a Joss Whedon "Buffyverse" TV show)
• Ghoul: making ghouls out of more than just humanoids
• Gigantic: extra-large versions of the base creature
• Half-Drow: pretty self-explanatory
• Half-Genie: ditto
• Half-Gnome: ditto again
• Half-Humanoid: this one can use some further explanation: it's a way to "water down" a creature so it can be used with a different "Half-Whatever" template
• Half-Kobold: pretty self-explanatory
• Half-Medusa: ditto
• Half-Nymph: ditto again
• Half-Orc: ditto yet again
• Half-Sidhe: a "sidhe" being a magical elf
• Half-Troll: pretty self-explanatory
• Heightened: a more powerful member of the base creature
• Hiveling: a group of creatures that develops a hivemind
• Hypermitotic: a creature that splits into two identical copies
• Immortal: a creature given the opportunity to live forever to further its service to a deity
• Lekassi: a living creature born of an undead parent
• Lycanthrope, Wereworg: a more powerful form of werewolf
• Mephit Lord: rulers of the mephits
• Metallivore: a creature designed to eat and digest metal
• Miniature: smaller-than-normal versions of the base creature
• Mohrg: making a mohrg of other creatures besides humanoids
• Moon Wildling: a sort of natural, good version of a lycanthrope
• Mummy, True: a sentient undead, more powerful than the standard mummy and more like a lich
• Necrovore: hunters (and eaters) of undead
• Nettlecloud Spider: a spider (or spiderlike creature, like a drider or aranea) that can rub a cloud of tiny spikes from its body as a defense mechanism
• Non-Euclidian: a creature that defies the very laws of nature, capable of driving those who look at it insane (think of it as a normal creature whose body has been drawn by Escher)
• Paleoskeleton: an animated fossil skeleton
• Phantasmal: illusory creatures
• Plantform: a plant in the form of the base creature
• Puppeteer Ooze: an ooze that can control a host body
• Puppeteer Ooze Host: the host body controlled by a puppeteer ooze (together, these two are rather like the old olive slime and olive slime zombie)
• Quickened: a much faster version of the base creature
• Relentless: a creature that can only be slain by its special "Achilles' heel" weakness
• Savage: a wilder, more feral version of the base creature
• Scryling: a normal-looking animal used as a scrying device by a wizard
• Shadowborne: creatures suffused with the essence of shadow
• Siphon Beast: creatures able to absorb a type of energy (or sometimes more than one) and then discharge it back at their foes
• Skeleton, Greater: a more powerful version of the standard skeleton
• Skinhusk: the hollow, animated remains of a slain creature's skin and muscles, often filled with a variety of unpleasant mixtures
• Spirit: the nature spirit version of the base creature
• Two-Headed Mutant: how to "ettin-ize" a creature that normally only has one head
• Vampire, Corpse: zombie-like vampires
• Vampire, Dread: powerful vampires that feed on fear rather than blood
• Vampire, Fleshbound: more humanlike vampires, capable of reproducing normally with the living
• Vampire, Half-: the offspring of a living creature and a (fleshbound, usually) vampire
• Vampiric: bloodsucking versions of the base creature (note that these are not undead)
• Vampiric Thrall: those who drink the (often addictive) blood of vampires for a measure of power
• Voidspawn: creatures infused with the power of utter destruction
• Wight: making wights from other than just humanoid stock
• Wretched: hideous creatures, the remains of failed experiments
• Zombie, Greater: more powerful version of the standard zombie
• Appendix I - Creature Construction Charts: helpful charts on a monster's physical attributes and attacks by creature type and Hit Dice
• Appendix II - Stacking Templates: useful notes on how to give a single creature more than one template
• Appendix III - Template Indices: templates organized by name, CR adjustment, and Effective Character Level (ECL)
• Appendix IV - Other Indices: Templates by originator, microplates and simplates, new monsters (by name and by CR), new PC races (by name and by ECL), unique creatures (by name and by CR), new spells and rituals (by name and by school of magic), new diseases, new domains, new magic items, and new feats
• Appendix V - Licenses and Legal Information: the stuff required by the d20 license

While Ian Johnston and Chris Sims were responsible for the majority of these templates, several of them were taken from other OGL sources, so some were written by Devon Apple, Erica Balsley, Robert Blezard, Andy Collins, Gregory W. Ragland, and Sean K. Reynolds. In each case, the two main authors edited and updated the templates (according to the information presented in Appendix IV), but what I found inexplicable - and downright disappointing - was that none of the templates in this PDF were updated to the 3.5 rules. I'm not sure why this is - the PDF was released in late 2003, with more than enough time to do the necessary conversions - but for whatever reason, all of the material present is in 3.0 format. Fortunately, there isn't a whole lot that requires converting, but that only makes it more puzzling why the authors didn't do the conversions for us. (Plus, I would have liked to have the 3.5 versions of the creature statistics, with helpful bits like touch and flatfooted AC and Base Attack and Grapple entries.)

As far as positive aspects of the PDF, however, there are fortunately quite a few. I fully expected each template to have a sample templated creature, but I was very impressed when I realized that many of them had more than one. (The kith construct template had five, one each of the clay, glass, iron, stone, and wood kith constructs.) Furthermore, I was pleased to see that there was very little repetition as far as the base creatures went; with over 85 templated creatures, very few of them used the same base creature that showed up in a different template. Furthermore, the inclusion of so many examples means that in many ways this PDF serves as a ready-to-use mini-Monster Manual.

I was also impressed by the liberal sprinkling of new spells, feats, and magic items scattered throughout the PDF. There are even a couple of new cleric domains. I especially liked the new diseases, which make perfectly logical sense as to how certain templates can be applied. (For example, the ooze spore rot is a perfect way for a creature to gain the amorphous template, and the vein rot fungus explains how a creature might become a metallivore.)

However, I had a few problems with Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition besides the lack of updates to the 3.5 rules. The font used in the header uses a "V" instead of a "U" (I suppose it's supposed to look Roman, for whatever reason), so we get words like "INTRODVCTION," "CONSTRVCT," "MVMMY," and so on. (Picky, I know, but I found it irritating.) There were also a slew of editing mistakes, mostly of the types "extra word in a sentence," apostrophe misuse, formatting errors (sometimes a whole section will be one font size bigger than the rest of the words on the page, or half a sentence will be italicized for no reason, or there will be a missing carriage return such that a new section begins at the end of the last sentence of the previous section), and typos/misspellings ("loose" instead of "lose," "effect" instead of "affect," "ar" instead of "are," " and" instead of "an," "a" instead of "an," "Seven" instead of "Sven," etc.). On the plus side, there weren't all that many for a book of this size (260 pages; I've seen a similar number of errors in books a quarter of the size as this PDF). However, the overall editing job left me with a feeling that the editors could have done a better job had they tried a bit harder. (The fact that the editors were the same two individuals who wrote the majority of the PDF is probably an excellent example of how it's easy to overlook your own mistakes. Perhaps in future products they'll have somebody else look over their work.)

I also understand that creating templates can be difficult to do, and for the most part I think the authors did a fine job of it, but there were numerous occasions (enough that it stuck out and caught my eye) where the DM is just told to "use his best judgment" or to do this or that "if it makes sense" or "seems logical." While this certainly adds to the flexibility, it does seem like somewhat of a copout. (Some templates, however, have a list of possible special attacks/qualities, any or all of which could be present in any particular templated creature, and I was pleased to see that those generally had an indicator whether their inclusion in a particular creature's template altered the CR any.)

There are also a few things that puzzled me about some of the templates. Wouldn't it make sense for a Quickened creature to gain the Improved Initiative feat? I was surprised that this wasn't the case. How does an Aberrant creature go about having the amorphous/indiscernible anatomy special quality if it still looks pretty much like the base creature? I would think if you no longer have a "front" or "back," you no longer look very much like your original base creature. Why do Denizens of the Deep have an insatiable hunger for life energy, when all they are is an aquatic version of the base creature? (Was that supposed to make them more sharklike or something?) Would a Skinhusk (made from the skin and muscles of the original creature) even have a bite or claw attack - wouldn't the teeth and claws be part of the skeleton, not the skinhusk? Also, I notice that "by the book," you could make a Greater Zombie out of a creature of the Plant type; that seems like an oversight. Finally, why are there so many vampire templates? There seems like an overabundance.

Still, lest I nitpick this work to death, let me just say that overall this is a fine product that more than passes the "value for the money" test. I found a lot of the little touches really nice, like the fact that the Ablative Construct actually makes the base creature weaker than normal, by taking shortcuts in its construction. (The 9 spells accompanying that particular template were also very well thought out, and would be indispensable to any wizard looking to craft constructs.) I also like the fact that the Miniature template works so well in creating a particular creature's young: this is a great way to come up with the stats for, say, a young owlbear or a behir hatchling. I also found it interesting that the Plantform's favored class is dependent upon its Wisdom score, with those of lower Wisdom favoring barbarian, those with high Wisdom becoming druids, and those in between favoring ranger. That was a very clever way to go about it! I also like that not all of these templates are about making super-powerful creatures (although the PDF has its share of those as well: just check out the Apocalyptic template!); some of my favorites were some of the low-level ones like the Scryling, which is generally added onto animals like a simple cat or rat, and the Skinhusk and Skinrug Guardian, both of which make animated bearskin rugs and the like.

Overall, I found the Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition to be a quality product that will give the DM more templates than he'll probably ever use in any given campaign. (I should point out that this PDF might be useful to some players as well, either those looking for a unique PC or those running spellcasters who summon unusual creatures via their spells.) This would have been a much better (and useful) product had it been converted to the 3.5 rules, and I could have done with a fewer number of "Half-Whatever" templates (13 out of 85 were "half-something," and that's counting the Demi-Gorgon and Lekassi (half-undead) templates besides those whose names start with "Half-"), and another round of proofreading/editing wouldn't have been amiss, but overall this is well worth the money. You even get two versions of the PDF, one without the fancy border artwork to give your printer a break if you choose to print it out (as I did). Book of Templates, Deluxe Edition comes out as a high "4 (Good)."

 

[Frilf]

Thanks for the review, John! I'll pass the word along to Chris Sims and perhaps he'll comment here as well. As you mention, the Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition (BOTDE) is 3.0 and not 3.5. We ran into numerous production delays and, as a PDF-only publisher, were not privy to the updated 3.5 rules until after they were officially released. Thus, with so much of the work already completed and many fans of the original BOT patiently waiting for this upgrade, we thought it best to proceed with the 3.0 rules version. That being said, a 3.5 revision is coming this year and it will be made available to those who have the BOTDE now.

The rules updates will be coupled with another editing pass and a completely new layout in which many of the issues you mention regarding formatting/typesetting will be addressed and fixed, so no worries there. As you say, it's hard to catch everything yourself - even when using several proofreaders - in a work this size. Add to that fact that we compiled/updated/tweaked several OGC templates as well and...

Anyway, we're glad you enjoyed the product and I thank you for your kind and fair review. We shall send you the update when it is available for your perusal.

Cheers!
Ian Johnston

 

[cats_claw]

I love this book. I use it all the time with my players to add a twist to the creatures that they encounter. But a 3.5 version is VERY needed. How soon is the 3.5 version expected to be here?

 

[Khur]

Chris Sims here. Thanks for the review, John. I think that this book was a great lesson in how to do a few things, which will help out in the revision. Reviews like this are valuable as well.