Monster Manual: Appendix 3: Templates, Conclusion

God, I hate being sick. It just sucks the life out of you and makes getting things done nearly impossible. But I'm going to plow through and finish this off, because I'm running out of October to work with, and there's still more stuff to post about for this month. So, let's finish off the Monster Manual once and for all, and then the core rules are DONE.

So, Appendix 3 introduces the new Templates. This is a very neat idea that sidesteps the problem that earlier editions had where all members of a certain monster class were basically the same. You could have a 6th-level fighter, a 9th-level wizard, and an 8th-level rogue get bit by a werewolf, and if they all contracted lycanthropy, they would all end up as a 4 HD werewolf, period. That kind of takes away from the believability of the situation. I know, talking about believability with werewolves and vampires running around. I'm talking about the in-game believability. Why would someone who used a sword for most of his life end up being the exact same werewolf as the guy who threw fireballs?

Templates cure that problem. Instead of changing all three into the same werewolf, a template is added on to their pre-existing statistics, modifying them so that each is still a werewolf, but they are also still a fighter, wizard, or rogue. So, let's see how these work, shall we?

First of all, some terminology. The 'base creature' refers to the creature that the template is being added to; all of the template changes are modifiers to the creature's original stats, be it a monster or a character. So, when the entry says 'Same as the base creature', there's no change. If it says 'as base creature +1', add 1 to whatever stat is referred to. So, every templated creature starts out as whatever it was in the first place. Also, note that an ability will not be lowered by a template unless specifically directed otherwise.

First up are the Celestial creatures. These are creatures from the Upper Planes. The good ones, not the Abyss and stuff. This template can be added to pretty much any non-evil, corporeal creature. Usually, this gets added to animals and the like, and these are what your good summon monster spells are conjuring up. Celestial creatures add a smite evil ability (like a paladin), as well as darkvision, damage reduction, spell resistance, and resistance to acid, cold and electricity (these are based on the creature's hit dice). Their Intelligence is, if necessary, bumped up to 3 (never down), and their CR may be adjusted up +1 or +2, again depending on their hit dice. The example Celestial creature given is a celestial lion. It's a regular lion with the additions mentioned above.

Next, we have the counterpart to the celestial creature: The Fiendish creature. It's basically the same thing as the celestial: Take the base creature, and add smite good, darkvision, damage reduction, spell resistance, and resistance to cold and fire. Again, the number of Hit Dice will determine the exact bonuses. They also get the minimum Int of 3, and the same CR bonuses as the celestial. Our sample creature here is the Abyssal Dire Bat, which I must admit does sound a lot more metal than 'celestial lion'. It has all the normal abilities of a dire bat, plus the fiendish additions. These sorts of creatures are what the evil casters get with their summon monster spells.

The next template is the Ghost. This one is a lot more complicated than the first two. Plenty of changes happen when you become a ghost. First of all, the template is limited to certain creature types; you will not get a gray ooze ghost. The allowable creature types are aberration, animal, beast, dragon, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, and shapechanger. A ghost dragon sounds scary as hell. In this case, the template replaces the creature's type with 'undead' and the 'incorporeal' subtype. Which should be fairly obvious. Hit dice become d12s, and the ghost can fly if it couldn't already. Several of the changes are linked to the Ethereal Plane, and I'm not going to go through each and every one of them. Suffice to say that their AC, attacks, damage, and special attacks and qualities dependent on the creature's physical form are all modified to suit the ghost's ties to the Ethereal plane.

They also get the Manifestation special ability, which allows them to affect physical things, as well as a few (1d3) additional powers from a list. I like this, since it means ghosts won't always be the same. A ghost might have a corrupting touch, a frightful moan, a horrific appearance, a corrupting gaze, malevolence, or telekinesis. Poltergeists! Ghosts also end up with a null Constitution score (not 0, it's just not there) and a +4 to their Charisma, and they also get a +2 to their CR. Any equipment the ghost was carrying before becoming undead comes with them, as do some of the ghost's favorite items that are laid to rest somewhere.

Our sample ghost is formed from a 5th-level fighter, so this is an excellent example to show how a template can change a character. The ghost still has 5 HD, but they are now d12s and get rerolled (or you just keep the average of 32). On the ethereal plane, he still gets to use his full plate armor and shield, as well as his bastard sword and even shortbow. His abilities are corrupting touch and malevolence, and he keeps all his fighter feats from when he was alive. Note that alignment is unaffected by being ghosted, and his CR is now 7 (a character class gets a CR of 1 per level).

Alright, now that we've seen what a more dramatic transformation is like, let's continue on. Next we have...the half-celestial. So...an aasimar, basically? Technically, an aasimar has celestial ancestry further back in its lineage than a direct parent, so half-celestials are where aasimar get their start, I suppose. Celestials are such bed-hoppers. And quite indiscriminate, too. I wonder if a celestial lion meeting a normal lion might get busy and have a half-celestial lion. I can't see why not, if the celestial critter can stick around long enough. I mean, if it's a male, it shouldn't take much longer than their normal summoning duration, right?

My wife would appreciate that joke.

So, a half-celestial template takes the base creature (which can be anything corporeal and non-evil, with an Int of at least 4) and turns it into an Outsider. There's a chance they get wings, and their natural AC improves by +1. They get to keep all of their normal special attacks, and some additional spell-like abilities if their Int or Wis is at least 8. There's a handy table for that, of course. They also get low-light vision and immunity to acid, cold, disease, and electricity, plus a +4 save vs. poison. And their ability scores get bumped up across the board, too. They also get feats and skills based on hit dice, and a CR of +1. Quite the collection of goodies, isn't it?

So, our sample half-celestial is...a unicorn. They mark it as a half-unicorn, half-celestial, but that's cumbersome; I'm just going to say unicorn, and assume you are following along. Its spell-like abilities are what unicorns usually have, plus protection from evil as a 4th-level cleric 3/day, plus bless and aid. Note that the save bonus vs. poison is overridden since unicorns are already immune to poison.

Next, one of those things that so many players love to see: Half-Dragons. Dragons are just as indiscriminate as celestials, apparently. If it's got a body, they're good to go with the mating procedure. Half-dragons have their creature type changed to Dragon, and their HD increases by one level (so a half-dragon/half-dryad would have an 8-sided HD since dryads, as Fey, have d6s). If they are at least Large size, they get wings; smaller creatures get to keep wings they have, but otherwise don't get any. Their AC is improved by +4, and they get bite and claw attacks if they don't already have them. They also get breath weapons based on the type of dragon that sired them, as well as low-light vision and darkvision, plus immunity to sleep and paralysis, as well as an additional immunity based on their dragon parent's color/type. Finally, they get a big +8 to their Strength, and pluses to most of their other ability scores as well. They can also take dragon-specific feats from this book, and their CR is +2.

Got all that? Half-dragons with high Charisma often take levels in sorcerer, too. Our sample is a half-ogre/half-red dragon. He's Large size, so he gets wings, and he also gets to smash you with his greatclub or gnaw on you with his great teeth. He breathes fire, of course, and he's immune to fire, also of course. His CR is 4, and he has a Str of 29. Damn.

And now we get the counterpart to the half-celestial, the half-fiend. This is the proto-tiefling. Pretty much the same rules as a half-celestial, except they also get a bite and claw attacks if they don't already have them, and they have a different set of special abilities based on their general naughtiness. They get immunity to poison, acid, cold, and electricity, as well as fire resistance 20, and they also get lots of ability score bonuses as well as a CR of +2.

Our sample half-fiend is...a medusa. Okay, that's a scary combo; medusae are nasty enough on their own. So, this lovely lady has 6 HD and a CR of 9, and gets the usual medusa abilities plus the spell-like abilities (cast as a 6th-level cleric) of darkness (3/day), desecrate, and unholy blight. On the plus side, if it's dark, you can't look at her eyes. Actually, scratch that; she gets darkvision, so she can see you, and maneuver so you are looking into her eyes even though you can't see her. Yeah, good luck.

Okay, next we have...the Lich! Well, then. This is a Humanoids-only template, and it has to be a spellcaster. Most are wizards and sorcerers (Xykon, represent!), but there are also cleric liches out there. The creature type changes to Undead, so they get d12 HD now, and they get a touch attack that does negative energy damage. They also have a fear aura and a paralyzing touch, and of course they can still cast all their spells. They get turn resistance, damager reduction, and several immunities, too, and their CR is +2. Needless to say, they are evil. And would you look at that? They don't always travel alone; sometimes they have friends with them. Specifically, vampires and vampire spawn. Note the plural 'vampires'. Their phylactery is very important, since that's where their life force is stored; if the phylactery is destroyed, the lich can be permanently destroyed as well. The sample lich is a mere 11th-level wizard who lichified. His spells aren't listed, but he's got some sweet magic items, and a CR of 13.

Now we get to the lycanthropes. There are five of these, but they share common characteristics. If you've been a gamer for any length of time, you know what they are: werebear, wereboar, wererat, weretiger, and werewolf. Only humanoids can become lycanthropes (it used to be only humans; lycanthropy would kill the demihumans, so this is a nice change). The lycanthrope's hit points are the same as whichever produces the most hit points: The humanoid, or the animal. Basically, you take the best features of both types and mix them up. The wereform gives additional ability score bonuses, as well as some feats based on the animal type. And there is a skill here, Control Shape, which allows the lycanthrope to control their transformations. The lycanthrope template seems to be the most complicated one so far, since it's using two separate base creatures as well as additional abilities on top of it all.

As for lycanthrope characters, they can have any character class; their favored class doesn't change from whatever race they already were. We also get rules for how to deal with lycanthropic affliction, as well as how to cure it. All lycanthropes advance as character classes, too. Our five sample werebeasts are all based on the good old 1st-level commoner. So, I'll list them off the way I did the animals and vermin last time. The size is for the humanoid, then the animal:

Werebear (Medium/Large, 6 HD, CR 5, Str 27)
Wereboar (Medium/Medium, 3 HD, CR 3)
Wererat (Medium/Small, 1 HD, CR 2)
Weretiger (Medium/Large, 6 HD, CR 5, Str 23)
Werewolf (Medium/Medium, 2 HD, CR 3)

Our last template is the mighty Vampire. This is what makes a vampire spawn. And this template can be applied not only to Humanoids, but to Monstrous Humanoids as well, and that means you could have a minotaur vampire or even a yuan-ti vampire. How's that for a way to keep you up at night?

The base creature's type becomes Undead, and their HD become d12. Base creatures that can swim get to ignore that whole 'running water kills vamps' thing. Sweet! They get to add several special abilities and attacks to their repertoire, and you know what they are: Domination, energy drain, blood drain, summon rats, bats or wolves, spawn more vampires, damage reduction, turn resistance, cold and electricity resistance, gaseous form, spider climb, shapeshift, and fast healing. And they get a bunch of feats, too, as well as ability score bumps. Their CR is +2. All the usual vampire weaknesses are listed, of course. And vamps will advance by their character class, so you can still have cleric or wizard vampires as well.

Our sample is a basic 5th-level fighter vampire with a CR of 7. He's got a Str of 22 and an AC of 25, since he still gets to wear his chain shirt and carry his shield. Now I'm visualizing Dracula in plate mail and it's funny as hell. Then I remember that he was doing exactly that in the Bram Stoker's Dracula movie starring Gary Oldman, and I'm not laughing anymore.

So, that's it. That's everything. There are 13 sample creatures here, which means we have a final total of 481 monsters. I'm not sure where they got 500+ from, because by my math, 481 is 500-. The book closes out with a listing of all the monsters according to their challenge ratings. In case you're wondering, the lowest CR is 1/10, which bats and toads have. The highest is a great wyrm gold dragon with a 26. The dragons get a separate table because dragons are special. And because it would take a lot more space in the book to list them as 'Dragon, white wyrmling...1', etc. Now, if you include each dragon type as twelve different dragons because of the different age categories, then yes, you'll get well over 500. And I suppose I already cheated with the extra hydras, so why not? There are 120 dragons now, and I've already accounted for ten, so that's 110 more to add to the 481, giving us 591, which is indeed more than 500. But that really feels like cheating to me.

Anyway, that's it for the core rules! Let me know your thoughts, and after I get through the next Map-a-Week tomorrow, I'll get the rest of the products for October done before Halloween. I hope. Until then, game on!