Jack Simth said:
Well.... yes .... but you were applying three different templates which all require that the original be a living being, and then turned it into a non-living being - regardless of which template you apply first, the critter ceases to be a valid subject for the other two. granted, as the DM, you can hand-waive all you like....
<thread jack>
Yeap. No one complained. Just a handy way to do everything it needed to. Manifest. Phylactery. Dominate. Fast Healing. Energy Drain. Gaseous form. Etc.
I'm of the view that until you make the final creature all of the templates are affecting the base creature. So you could not add lich to a bodak but you can an elf. So you can add lich, vampire, zombie, ghost, and skeleton all to a base creature. Altough skeleton and zombie have special rules that make adding them with the other templates complicated. Although a skeletal lich does seem reasonable; sort of like a draco-lich for non-dragons.
I don't think the half-dragon dire rats were technically legal either. Worked for me
You can do all sorts of crazy things as long as it's fun. For an interesting one-off I had our band of heroes fight two space marine dreadnaughts, space marines, imperial guard, a pysker, and an inquisitor in terminator armor. Lots of fun trying to get all of that to work. Flamers, missile launchers, melta guns, flight packs, power armor, las guns, bolters.
For the dreadnaughts they had a special ability "weapons platform" that allowed them to move and make a full attack. No one complained even though that totally breaks the rules. But it was cool when the first one unloaded with an assault cannon and a missile launcher.
<end jack>
The half-dragon elephant sounds interesting. But I do like the wyvern idea with a template. If you can work out half-celestial on something do it. A wyvern can be half-celestial and at 8 HD they are huge. At 11 HD they are gargantuan.
