Favorite Template?

[johnnype]

The WotC website lists over 90 templates that have appeared in their various books since 3.0 came out. Third party publishers have created several times that amount (Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary and Goodman Games' Book of Templates are good examples). Which is your favorite?

It's difficult for me to choose especially since I haven't even seen them all but a few stick in my mind:

Shadow Creature - (FRCS and Races of Faerun) Great concept. Adds so much flavor to a game.
Mineral Warrior - (FR Underdark) I saw this template used in a storyhour and it really added a lot of color to the character.
Amalgam - (GR's Advanced Bestiary) Diffucult to use but it allows you to combine any two creatures.

Between classes, races, prestige classes and templates it's mind boggling the variety of combinations possible.

 

[Land Outcast]

Vampire template from dicefreaks, the way to make for the fearsome classic enemy. (on a certain type of game)
(I've been told that Ravenloft's better, but I don't have access to Ravenloft)

 

[Shade]

Running an epic-level campaign, the paragon template is by far my favorite lately. It is a quick way of reusing nearly any nonepic creature and still posing a challenge. I also like the pseudonatural creature template (epic version) for similar reasons, although that one is a bit more specific.

Of non-epic templates, I use the fiendish and half-fiend templates regularly.

 

[Psion]

The lich was one of my favorite creatures in prior editions; it remains so in 3e. I think that the DR changes return it to being scary again.

Other favorites:
Psionic / Spellpowered from Book of Templates Deluxe - simple little templates that add psi or spell like abilities to creatures.
Amalgam - a flexible template to combine any two creatures in Adanced Bestiary
Creatre Swarm - make your favorite creature into a hivemind and preturb fighters

 

[Croesus]

It's impossible to choose just one favorite, but the most memorable is easily the original Ebon Servitor from Book of Templates. We were ambushed by about a dozen dark-skinned orcs ("black orcs") and the fighters rushed to attack them. On the first hit, the barbarian did a ton of damage...and promptly took half of it in return. Ouch! That was a tough, fun battle that the GM and I were reminiscing about just the other day.

 

[Land Outcast]

Maybe someone feels like taking a look at the ODT.
Lich, Ghost, Vampire, and others, witht heir abilities improving by age

 

[paradox42]

Beyond a doubt, my favorite is the Pseudonatural (epic version) template. I've used that one more than any other, probably by an order of magnitude. My players are quite familiar with Far Realm ickiness by now. Secondary favorites include the non-epic Pseudonatural template (I sometimes use that on an especially powerful creature that doesn't need a huge boost in power to challenge my PCs, just to make it Far-Realmy), and the Fiendish template- it's an old standard, but I still find uses for it now and then.

I like the concept of the various undead templates (particularly various Lich and Vampire versions), but rarely get a decent opportunity to use them in my game, as my game world is very undead-hostile (and undead themselves are exceptionally rare as a result). It's a regret, but a small one, as "Madness-Inducing Outer Realm Horrors" have largely supplanted the role undead would traditionally play. To that end, I've collected many other helpful templates to produce such beasts, like the Non-Euclidean template from the Book of Templates (GREAT book BTW), but I don't often use them. The Pseudonatural templates are usually enough for my needs.

 

[Soel]

MindWarped/Non-Euclidean by far. Combine with Psudonatural to get some really "Oh, no!!!" creatures.

There are a lot of really good templates out there, though.

 

[the Jester]

My favorite is the paragon creature from the Epic Level HB. It's one of the only templates I have seen that, in play, really elevates a creature by more than 2 challenge ratings. A paragon creature really earns its CR.

 

[TroyXavier]

Psionic and SpellPowered are very nice

I also love the Four Horsemen template from the Advanced Bestiary. The WotC favorite is Half-Fey.