How do you feel about monster templates?

[Crazy Jerome]

Even in 3E, I avoided templates in favor of "themes"--thematic abilities, goals, and methods tied to a particular monster "faction". I think I even used the word "thematic" a few times when talking to other people, though primarily I thought of it as faction-driven. Until you asked, I had not even made the loose connection to what I did with 4E themes for PCs!

In 4E, I continue to develop factions, and thus have very little use for mechanical templates as written, except occasionally as a source of inspiration.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks guys! Alternatively, @S'mon , @Scribble , and @the Jester , do you ever consider the alternate powers presented in the back of certain splat books like Open Grave and Draconomicon? Or Scribs, if the template did not affect the monster's standing, or even changed its role, would you be interested then?

I don't mean to be cryptic, but we're working on Dark Roads and Golden Hells over at the KQ forums, and I want to be ready to provide 4e conversion and support. As Jester mentioned, templates are huge for Pathfinder, I'm working out what the 4e equivalent really is, if it isn't just a monster block DMs reskin.

I really have only used one or two templates personally, and even then I didn't really use them as they were designed, I just picked a couple ideas from an appropriate template. Monster themes generally work better, as they provide a lot of ideas and some easily adopted mechanics without excess structure you probably don't really need that much.

I think themes could be taken another step forward with something like 'factions' where you actually suggest specific monsters, organizational roles for those monsters, specific theme powers they might use, sample encounter groups, and some leader NPC write ups that can be used with them. This kind of information all exists in various places in 4e, but I haven't generally seen it all pulled together into one package. You can find organizations in various DDI articles for instance, often with a PP for organizations PCs could belong to. NPC type organizations generally have a leader or two and maybe a couple of monster stat blocks. MM1 had typical encounter groups, which were nice, but those were dropped in later books and haven't really shown up anywhere else. And then you have themes in DMG2 and a few other places, which generally lack much else in the way of details on the organization they depict.

So, that would be my vote for what would be most useful, an organization, leader NPCs, possibly a PP if appropriate, a monster theme, and typical encounter groups and encounter building guidelines.

 

[Xyrlove Woodsoul]

I like them, and I wish there were more of them. A lot need to be tweeked here and there (but what in the hell in this game doesn't? Especially, monsters.), and a lot of times their powers have to be given new names and such to fit the type of monster- but I think that part is fun. And the templates come in handy for me, being that, given the lack of epic monsters, I have to turn a lot of standard monsters into elites, and I often don't have the time to sort through 1, 000 powers in monster blocks to find exactly what i want, homebrew-style.
A lot of people think the templates are underpowered (and a bunch are, as is), but sometimes they can be deadly; recenty i gave some oni thunderers and marut castigator icons the grizzled veteran template from DMG II and they pushed the party to the limit.
The problem I always have when I'm done making an elite, is I always ask myself; is it too weak? Is it too powerful? I like making sure they can make two attacks every round, except, it sometimes can become a problem when an elite has a double attack, i.e., "make two MBA's," and then it spends an action point, and can whail on some poor character four times in one turn. In general, I like giving elites a couple multi attack encounter and/or recharge powers, and then some sort of immediate attack. I try to stay away from allowing the possibility of one being able to make four attacks against one enemy on a turn (via an action point). *frankly, I really don't see where an Elite's action point fits into the equation really, so long as it has the proper powers*
The real curfuffle is trying to give a monster a class template, namely, class powers. That's the biggest headache in the world, methinks (and looking for insight into that is exactly how I stumbled upon this thread).