Rules for Making Hybrid Monsters

[dougmander]

So we have been told that creatures such as the owlbear and bulette are the creation of wizards crossing various other creatures. Has anyone ever seen rules, either WotC or third-party, for creating hybrid monsters of this sort? A high-level spell, maybe? How would one go about adjudicating a PC who wanted to play Frankenstein with existing monsters?

 

[rowport]

I am not sure about "monsters" in the sense that (I think) you mean it, but there are lots of ways to get funky monster abilities in a playable character. Starting with nearly any base race, you could add a "half-etc." template. Then you could use the Graft feats to add arms, tentacles, etc. with funky aberration abilities.

If you wanted a character who creates these monstrosities, there is a PrC in Complete Arcane that specializes in Grafts; using that combined with the above ideas you could easily have a Dr. Frankenstein PC.

 

[dougmander]

If you wanted a character who creates these monstrosities, there is a PrC in Complete Arcane that specializes in Grafts; using that combined with the above ideas you could easily have a Dr. Frankenstein PC.

Thanks, that's just the sort of thing I was looking for. Note to self: pick up Complete Arcane.

 

[demiurge1138]

I think he's thinking of Lords of Madness, actually. That has the fleshwarper prestige class, which specializes in crafting grafts. And the Advanced Bestiary from Green Ronin has a lot of templates for species alteration, especially the amalgam template, which essentially fuses two creatures into one. Possibly a high-level spell could be created to create amalgams.

Demiurge out.

 

[Dog Moon]

Originally posted by demiurge1138
I think he's thinking of Lords of Madness, actually. That has the fleshwarper prestige class, which specializes in crafting grafts.

Aw, you beat me to it. I was JUST going to say that.

Though not one hundred percent what you're looking for, the Tauric Creature template in Savage Species or MMII is cool, giving the bottom of one creature the the torso/head of another.

I don't know of any spells which allow a person to create these, however.

 

[Lord Wyrm]

I saw a book a while back, I think it was Mongoose or a pdf but it did let you look at rules for combining two monsters like a giant owl and brown bear to form the owlbear. They used those three as a base to work from and extrapolated from there. I'll see if I can find it for you.

 

[Scharlata]

So we have been told that creatures such as the owlbear and bulette are the creation of wizards crossing various other creatures. Has anyone ever seen rules, either WotC or third-party, for creating hybrid monsters of this sort? A high-level spell, maybe? How would one go about adjudicating a PC who wanted to play Frankenstein with existing monsters?

Try to lay your fingers on a copy of the MM 2, skip to page 216 and apply the TAURIC template. Maybe you get what you're looking for...

Errata: Base Speed: As base creature.

Enjoy!

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Mongoose had a Complete Guide to Crossbreeding book, and Green Ronin has the Almagram template in their Advanced Beastary Guide (from their advanced line). I don't know if the Mongoose book is still in print or PDF, but I do know that the Green Ronin book is.

 

[frankthedm]

Dragon magazine had a 2e article about a mage specialist called the Merlane [sp] .

Included amoung those "Outrages from those Mages"

Duckbunny [ first experiments of those not yet insane tend to be on non lethal critters]
Scorpion tailed Dogs {eventually became 3e chaimail abyssal ravagers]
Poisonous Snake headed dogs
Horse with spider legs and abdomen
Armadillophant
Dragon fly winged turtle [IIRC]

 

[Enamel_32]

In which book can more information on grafts be found?