Most freakish template creatures?

[NiTessine]

Well, there was that one Cthulhu-style Sunless Citadel that I ran. The basic idea was that kobolds were Cthulhu cultists and goblins followed Hastur. They were pretty surprised when Meepo nearly bit the wizard's hand off and the swarm of evil kobolds carried off the dwarf paladin to be sacrificed to Great Cthulhu. I think that in the end, Yusdrayl ate either the paladin's or the half-orc barbarian's brain.

Your basic kobolds had the fiendish and feral (from Savage Species templates added). Basic goblins were corrupted (Book of Vile Darkness). Yusdrayl, the kobold leader, was fiendish, feral half-illithid (Fiend Folio) kobold. The goblin boss was corrupted, pseudonatural (Complete Arcane) Chosen of Hastur (Call of Cthulhu) goblin. There were also a couple of gelatinous (Savage Species) goblins.

 

[Drowbane]

*Feral - Stony (Mineral Warrior from Underdark) - Thri Kreen Barbarian 1 / Fi 2: This was a PC of mine in Talath's RttToEE. This was my 3rd character in the campaign... basic backstory is he was an escaped "Weapon" experiment being researched by "Evil Earth" cultists. DR 8/Adamantine + Fast Healing 2 + 4 claws and a bite... and a Jump in the mid 50s...

*1/2 Fiend - 1/2 Dragon - Pseudonatural (epic version ) Leviathan: Basicly a tentacled-covered uber whale with two sets of wings, a slew of spell-like abilities and the ability to breathe Lightning.

*1/2 Fiend - 1/2 Dragon Troll with levels: Epic villain the party had to run from twice... before the Troll finally failed a save vs Disintegrate.

*(4) 1/2 Dragon Warhorses, each with 3 lvls of 1/2 Dragon Paragon: (1) Black, (1) Red, (1) Blue, (1) White. The party kept hearing about these strange dragons ravaging the county side (The Red was even named Trogdor) for about 6 levels. They eventually faced them in an attempt to save the village (small city) of Corryn's Crossing. Near TPK...

Corrupted Nosferatu**: Vile template on my homebrew version of Vampire.

*The Monkey King ~ Paragon (epic) Monkey: Ran by a friend in his Wuxia gestalt mini-campaign. We were 10th lvl, and one of our Gestalt classes had to be Monk. I was playing a Monk | Psion... it was a tough fight... Hard to hit that lil bastard.

**Nosferatu are like Vampires is most respects. Off the top of my head...
Differences: They're constantly Hasted. They're dont have Level Drain. Immunity to alot of Vampire weaknesses: Garlic, Running Water, need for Coffin. They're vulnerable vs Fire.

 

[Solauren]

Mulit-Headed (6) Half Red Dragon Brontosaurus

 

[Muaythaidaddy]

The ones that I have gotten the biggest bang for my buck have been:

Corrupted Fiendish Manticore, Advanced to 18 HD - used as a steed for a blackguard NPC.

Two-Headed, Fiendish Ape of Legend, Advanced to 32 HD - used in a "King Kong" type of adventure that also echoed "The Isle of Bonjo Tombo" from "Dead Man's Chest".

Mind Flayer Lich - I used a cabal of these guys as the main nemesis in a campaign centered around mind flayers.

Gelatinous Gibbering Mouther - a low level horror that I referred to as "The Thing That Should Not Be".

Swarm Shifter Lich, Druid 18 - this was a huge villain in my ongoing campaign.

 

[Muaythaidaddy]

Oh, and I also added the feral and dire templates to a number of "wild" monsters, making them absolutely deadly at mid-levels.

 

[Imruphel]

I love using templates and I'm not a stickler for the prohibitions on type etc....

Some of my favourites:

- Zhentarim experiments: corrupted feral mountain orc barbarians
- harbinger of Bane's return: corrupted feral fiendish advanced worg beast of Bane (I seem to recall that this one averaged over 200 hit points of damage per round)
- the Black Lord's Cloak: vampire cloaker lord sorcerer/cleric beast of Bane
- (can't recall name): tauric giant octopus sea hag cleric of Umberlee
- Imruphel, Lord Shadowhorn: shadow pit fiend sorcerer lich (a powerful minion of Shar)

 

[Three_Haligonians]

- (can't recall name): tauric giant octopus sea hag cleric of Umberlee

Was it.... Ursula?

Seriously though, that's a real cool use of the tauric template (one of my favourites).

Let's see what I have (though I must admit, I'm prone to break a few templating rules now and again):

Solar Guardian: (A Saintly Radiant Advanced Quesar of Legend)
Found in an ancient sun temple guarding an artifact. Since he was just a construct programmed for guard duty, the players didn't want to destroy him and spent a long time trying to find ways to avoid him.

The Wendigo: (A Feral Satyr Wendigo Bard/Icesinger)
A major antagonist for one of the PCs. Basically, I took the "dark" aspects of nature; violence, death, lust, and winter, and put them together into one force.

The Antediluvian: (A Paragon Vampire/Vampire Lord Wizard)
A proverbial "first vampire" which was fun since the paragon template was actually applied to the vampire template (yay for meta-templating!)

The Ladies of Flame: (A group of Nymphs with the Fire template)
I also changed their druid spells known to include every [Fire] spell they could have. One of my players during this game was playing a treant. This encounter was the only time I ever took him down.

The Desert Ghost: (A Half-Iron Golem/Half-Warforged Fighter/Ghost-Faced Killer)
A professional assassin who was hired to take out one of the party members by his nemesis from his thieves guild days.

The Rock Monster: (An Advanced, Spellwarped Avalancher of Legend)
What can I say? I needed a tough, random encounter in the mountains and I had just got the MMIII.

The Hornless Efreeti: (An Advanced, Barbarian/Firestorm Beserker Efreeti Revenant)
Through a funny set of circumstances, one of my players ended up with the severed horn of an Efreeti - who subsequently vowed revenge. Then, through another set of funny circumstances (connected I assure you), the same player ended up with the same Efreeti's other horn. I figured since this made the Efreeti really angry, he'd come back as a revenant for one last round against that PC.

I have others that I'm forgetting, and still others I haven't made yet that I'd love to share but my players lurk these boards and I don't want to give them away yet.

Oh, I should also mention that in my gaming circle - the art of adding templates is usually referred to as "Vampiric Iron Golems" (and I can't really remember why...). Does anybody else have a such a name, or have you never really thought of it before?

J from Three Haligonians

 

[kirinke]

Seven headed, half-celestial silver dragon of legend with an adamintum symbiont. The symbiont is alive and can act as armour and create living chains, complete with any sharp pointy object the dragon can think of. Never really statted out.

 

[Blackthorne]

If you want templates that are randomly slapped together, look no further than your average Living Greyhawk Core Module. Advanced Half-Fiend Two-Headed Ice-Touched Remorhaz, anyone?

Also gotta love them Dire Bats Of Legend hanging around in a nondescript cave.

To be fair, I usually like templates very much. But they should make some sense. YMMV.

 

[Imruphel]

Was it.... Ursula? Seriously though, that's a real cool use of the tauric template (one of my favourites). (snip)

Two weeks ago I was visiting my nieces in Oz and had to read the a bedtime story... and there she was: my NPC was a character in some Disney story! I hadn't seen or heard of her before then and I statted the NPC up over a year ago.

My other favourite templated critter was a stony (mineral warrior) deep dragon representing an avatar of Ibrandul. There's nothing like a gargantuan tunnelling antimagic field-shrouded dragon to scare the living daylights out of a bunch of over-confident PCs....