Scurvy_Platypus
Explorer
I've recently started looking back through templates for several reasons and I've been struck by the apparent lack of... anything... regarding them for some time.
Sure, you can pick up the Book of Templates Deluxe from Silverthorne Games and there's the Advanced Bestiary from Green Ronin; both of these were put out 6 years ago too.
I do get that in the application of templates, there's cascading effects and they can take a bit of time in some cases. But still... given how folks love playing with and tweaking monsters, the lack of template love is kinda surprising to me.
Especially as it presents an opportunity not just for changing up player's expectations of the monster they're up against, but also theming critters in the first place.
Maybe it's just me and my willingness to reskin critters, but given the number of monster books that already exist, I'd think there'd be more folks grabbing a critter, reskinning it, and then slapping a template on it to help unify a group of monsters.
I mean, let's take a somewhat unpopular premise and ramble for a second: 4E. See, 4E has this whole thing with monster roles. Strikers, defenders, etc. And certain monsters are tossed into a role and that's that. But if we wanted to mix things up a bit, we could take that idea, play with it slightly, and produce a potentially interesting thing.
To make this a bit easier (and remember I'm just going off the top of my head here, without access to any of my books since I'm at work) I'm going to rely on the soveliorsage SRD here:
System Reference Document v3.5
Just for giggles, we take a quick look at Formians. They've got a whole little division of types there; or you could call them roles if you wanted. Worker, Warrior, Taskmaster, Myrmarch, Queen. They've got a Hive Mind, some immunities, poision, and then misc abilities.
I don't have the time, but it seems like there's really not a whole lot stopping someone from reworking the Formians slightly into a template; then, rather than having to worry about 1/2, 3,7,10,17 CRs, you could simply grab some _other_ critter and apply the formian template to them instead. Like say... I dunno, Kobold, Dark Mantle, Griffon, and Troll.
Now you've got a rather different sort of insectoid thing going on; you don't just make it a Kobold with the Formian template. Heck no. That formian template is the Xil'tak, a hivemind race of insects that resembles a cross between spiders and wasps. Then you reskin the stat bases of the respective critters. You don't worry really about _changing_ stuff; why bother changing it when the work is already done for you? Nah, you look and see what the different abilities of the critter in question is and then provide an explanation for that.
Griffons: fly, and come with a pounce and rake. Yeah, these are perfect for combat mounts for the Xil'tak. There's spiders out there with a set of enlarged front legs, so that's going to cover the pounce/rake: you're dealing with a giant wasp that's got an ability to cruise around quickly on the ground thanks to it's extra legs.
Kobolds: they're boring. These are now the workers, cruising the underground webnests. They look something like micro-driders.
Darkmantle: Oh yeah, these are nest defenders. Hardcore. Kinda like trapdoor spiders. They pop out, grab a victim, and disappear back into where they came. Think of cruising around a Xenomorph nest in the movies. In fact, it might not be terribly original, but we could use the Xil'tak as a take on the whole Xenomorph thing. That'll help us unify the look slightly as well. So that gives us a slick spidery looking thing, with some wasp-like characteristic, tends to be a uniform color to blend with their surroundings, and their webbing is a smooth and hard sort of substance once it dries. Xil'Tak produce a couple of different types of webs, depending on the intended use of them; maybe have it set by the type of Xil'tak, which would make sense. Worker webs tend to be structural, combat Xil'Tak are more...combaty (dropping from ceilings, grabbing people, etc).
Dang, we've almost got a good thing going here...
Troll: Oh yeah, these are the frontlines, the assault troops. If having them be Large and riding griffons bugs you... *shrug*... cheat it. Keep the troll stats and just change the size to medium. I'm picturing a largish thing though, with 2 a set of spider-like limbs above and below a humanoid set of arms. Give it a pair of regular legs too, why not. Or maybe the troll-base here isn't a frontline trooper, but a taskmaster; controlling 7 warriors. Or maybe you want a more impressive critter to be the taskmasters. Whatever.
Now it may not be the most terribly original thing, but I created it pretty much out of thin air and it'd take a rather minimal amount of effort to do it all up; really the biggest bit would be figuring out the template in the first place and I'd be awfully surprised if there wasn't at least one template already out there that I could hijack and reskin too.
So.... what happened? All I ever seem to see about monsters is this or that book of monsters or people trying to create a monster whole cloth from scratch. No templating, no theming... nothing. If someone's messing with an already existing monster, they're adding freaking class levels to it, which kinda strikes me as the hard way to go about getting most of what they're after.
Am I just a wild-eyed lunatic in the desert here? Have folks sorta forgotten and gotten swept up in the whole "class levels" craze? Or was templating and reskinning abandonded for some reason I missed?
Sure, you can pick up the Book of Templates Deluxe from Silverthorne Games and there's the Advanced Bestiary from Green Ronin; both of these were put out 6 years ago too.
I do get that in the application of templates, there's cascading effects and they can take a bit of time in some cases. But still... given how folks love playing with and tweaking monsters, the lack of template love is kinda surprising to me.
Especially as it presents an opportunity not just for changing up player's expectations of the monster they're up against, but also theming critters in the first place.
Maybe it's just me and my willingness to reskin critters, but given the number of monster books that already exist, I'd think there'd be more folks grabbing a critter, reskinning it, and then slapping a template on it to help unify a group of monsters.
I mean, let's take a somewhat unpopular premise and ramble for a second: 4E. See, 4E has this whole thing with monster roles. Strikers, defenders, etc. And certain monsters are tossed into a role and that's that. But if we wanted to mix things up a bit, we could take that idea, play with it slightly, and produce a potentially interesting thing.
To make this a bit easier (and remember I'm just going off the top of my head here, without access to any of my books since I'm at work) I'm going to rely on the soveliorsage SRD here:
System Reference Document v3.5
Just for giggles, we take a quick look at Formians. They've got a whole little division of types there; or you could call them roles if you wanted. Worker, Warrior, Taskmaster, Myrmarch, Queen. They've got a Hive Mind, some immunities, poision, and then misc abilities.
I don't have the time, but it seems like there's really not a whole lot stopping someone from reworking the Formians slightly into a template; then, rather than having to worry about 1/2, 3,7,10,17 CRs, you could simply grab some _other_ critter and apply the formian template to them instead. Like say... I dunno, Kobold, Dark Mantle, Griffon, and Troll.
Now you've got a rather different sort of insectoid thing going on; you don't just make it a Kobold with the Formian template. Heck no. That formian template is the Xil'tak, a hivemind race of insects that resembles a cross between spiders and wasps. Then you reskin the stat bases of the respective critters. You don't worry really about _changing_ stuff; why bother changing it when the work is already done for you? Nah, you look and see what the different abilities of the critter in question is and then provide an explanation for that.
Griffons: fly, and come with a pounce and rake. Yeah, these are perfect for combat mounts for the Xil'tak. There's spiders out there with a set of enlarged front legs, so that's going to cover the pounce/rake: you're dealing with a giant wasp that's got an ability to cruise around quickly on the ground thanks to it's extra legs.
Kobolds: they're boring. These are now the workers, cruising the underground webnests. They look something like micro-driders.
Darkmantle: Oh yeah, these are nest defenders. Hardcore. Kinda like trapdoor spiders. They pop out, grab a victim, and disappear back into where they came. Think of cruising around a Xenomorph nest in the movies. In fact, it might not be terribly original, but we could use the Xil'tak as a take on the whole Xenomorph thing. That'll help us unify the look slightly as well. So that gives us a slick spidery looking thing, with some wasp-like characteristic, tends to be a uniform color to blend with their surroundings, and their webbing is a smooth and hard sort of substance once it dries. Xil'Tak produce a couple of different types of webs, depending on the intended use of them; maybe have it set by the type of Xil'tak, which would make sense. Worker webs tend to be structural, combat Xil'Tak are more...combaty (dropping from ceilings, grabbing people, etc).
Dang, we've almost got a good thing going here...
Troll: Oh yeah, these are the frontlines, the assault troops. If having them be Large and riding griffons bugs you... *shrug*... cheat it. Keep the troll stats and just change the size to medium. I'm picturing a largish thing though, with 2 a set of spider-like limbs above and below a humanoid set of arms. Give it a pair of regular legs too, why not. Or maybe the troll-base here isn't a frontline trooper, but a taskmaster; controlling 7 warriors. Or maybe you want a more impressive critter to be the taskmasters. Whatever.
Now it may not be the most terribly original thing, but I created it pretty much out of thin air and it'd take a rather minimal amount of effort to do it all up; really the biggest bit would be figuring out the template in the first place and I'd be awfully surprised if there wasn't at least one template already out there that I could hijack and reskin too.
So.... what happened? All I ever seem to see about monsters is this or that book of monsters or people trying to create a monster whole cloth from scratch. No templating, no theming... nothing. If someone's messing with an already existing monster, they're adding freaking class levels to it, which kinda strikes me as the hard way to go about getting most of what they're after.
Am I just a wild-eyed lunatic in the desert here? Have folks sorta forgotten and gotten swept up in the whole "class levels" craze? Or was templating and reskinning abandonded for some reason I missed?
