Creature Templates

Template List

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Acquired Templates

Adding a template gives a monster or character a suite of abilities its kind does not normally have. This increases the creature's Challenge Rating and provides players and characters with unexpected challenges.

As long as the DM is part of the decision to add a template to a player character, she should be ready for that character's new abilities. In fact, a player character with a template is little different from any other character, and anyone reading this is ready for the challenges they present.

Some templates can be added to monsters or characters at almost any time. Lycanthropy can afflict anyone allowed by the lycanthrope template at any point. A monster or character might become a ghost in death. A spellcaster of at least 11th level can become a lich. Those with 5 or more HD killed by vampires might become vampires. These are acquired templates. Other templates assume the creature or character was born that way. Celestial, fiendish, half-celestial, half-dragon, and half-fiend all assume the creature or character was born with the respective template. These are inherited templates. All of the templates presented in this article are acquired templates.

A character desiring an acquired template can add it when the character meets the qualifications of the template. For instance, a character can acquire the lycanthrope template when bitten by a lycanthrope. In such a case, add the template on top of class levels, monster Hit Dice, and so forth.

Adding a Template - Step-by-Step

The process of adding a template can sometimes be confusing. Use these guidelines if you get stuck.

• If the template changes the base creature's size, use the Size Increases chart in the Introduction of the Monster Manual to calculate changes to natural armor, Armor Class, and attack rolls. Check the text of the template to see if you apply size modifiers to Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.
• Add all ability score modifiers from the creature size and the Abilities line from the template to the base creature's ability scores.
• When you have the new Constitution modifier and any change to Hit Die size, recalculate the templated monster's hit points.
• The new Constitution modifier also modifies the Fortitude saving throw modifier and any skill bonus for Concentration. Check for Great Fortitude or any other feat that affects the Fortitude saving throw modifier and apply them now.
• When you have the new Dexterity modifier, recalculate the Initiative bonus and Armor Class bonus. Apply modifiers for size and natural armor at this time. Check for Improved Initiative and any other feat that affects Initiative and apply them now.
• Check to see if either the base creature or the templated creature uses the Weapon Finesse feat with one or more of its attacks. If it does, use the new Dexterity modifier to recalculate the attack bonus. Apply any size modifiers at the same time.
• The new Dexterity modifier also modifies the Reflex saving throw modifier and any skill with Dexterity as a key ability. Check for Lightning Reflexes or any other feat that affects the Reflex saving throw modifier and apply them now.
• When you have the new Strength modifier, check to see if either the base creature or the templated creature uses Weapon Finesse. For all attacks that do not use Weapon Finesse, use the new Strength modifier to recalculate attack bonus. Apply any size modifiers at the same time.
• The new Strength modifier affects damage and any skills with Strength as the key ability.
• When you have the new Intelligence modifier recalculate skill bonuses for any skills that use Intelligence as the key ability. Note that a creature does not gain new skill ranks for an increased Intelligence score unless it later gains levels.
• When you have the new Wisdom modifier, recalculate the Will saving throw modifiers and the skill bonuses for any skills that use Wisdom as the key ability. Check for Iron Will or any other feat that affects the Will saving throw modifier and apply them now.
• For all special abilities of the base creature that remain, Calculate saving throw DCs (special abilities from the template tell you how to calculate their DC). The formula for most save DCs is 10 + 1/2 the creature's Hit Dice the relevant ability score modifier from the creature using the attack. The relevant abilities are:
  • Strength: Any application of force, crushing, binding, or constriction.
  • Dexterity: Movement, movement restrictions, hitting with a missile, entanglement, webs.
  • Constitution: Almost anything that comes from the creature's body; poison, breath weapon.
  • Intelligence: Illusion effects.
  • Wisdom: Mental or perception effects (except charms and compulsions, see Charisma).
  • Charisma: The creature's Charisma modifier effects the save DC for any spell-like abilities it has. Use Charisma for pitting the creature's will against an opponent: fear, gaze attacks, charms, compulsions, and energy drains. Also use Charisma for any DC that normally would ne based on a ability the creature does not have. For example, undead creatures have no constitution scores, so any poison attacks they have would use Charisma to determine DC. Always use Charisma for spell-like abilities.
• Add any new special abilities granted by the template.
• Add any feats given by the template not already taken into account.
• Update the Challenge Rating as instructed by the template.

Savage Progressions

Gaining a Template Midcampaign

By Sean K Reynolds

The D&D game offers a very powerful tool for customizing characters and monsters: templates. Who hasn't wanted to play a half-dragon, werewolf, or vampire? Templates make it easy to create such a character, and the Monster Manual provides a level adjustment for most templates that tells the Dungeon Master approximately what level of power a templated character has. With this information, the DM can decide whether an incoming character with that template is too powerful or too weak to join an existing adventuring party.

But what if an established character gains a template in the middle of the campaign? Many of the templates presented in the Monster Manual are acquired, which means a character can gain them during the course of a game. What happens when your 10th-level ranger is attacked by a lycanthrope, gains the wereboar template, and thereby jumps from ECL 10 to ECL 12? Suddenly your ranger is more powerful than the other PCs, and balancing encounters becomes much more difficult for the DM. An encounter that's challenging for the ranger's allies is easy for him, and one that's challenging for him can be deadly for his allies. Such an imbalance can also make the other players jealous or resentful of the templated character. Fortunately, there is a solution.

Savage Species takes dozens of existing monsters from the Monster Manual and presents them as though they were character classes -- that is, it breaks down the monster's benefits into levels and presents them as advancement tables. Thus, a young ogre (ECL 1) could join a 1st-level adventuring party and gain levels along with his friends. Upon reaching his full growth (at an ogre's base ECL of 6), he begins gaining class levels like the rest of the characters.

The Savage Progressions article series does the same with templates, breaking each into a number of class levels equal to its level adjustment. Such a treatment allows a character who acquires a template to progress through these template "class levels" just as she would normal character levels, thereby maintaining the same relative level of power as the other PCs in her party. The player of the templated character gets to gain abilities at every level, just as the other PCs do, and her presence doesn't cause balance problems for the DM.

This series of articles will cover all the templates presented in the Monster Manual -- inherited as well as acquired. After all, cases might also arise in which inherited templates, which are meant to be present from a character's birth, could nevertheless be acquired midgame. For example, a fighter might submit to a magical process that imbues him with the essence of a dragon, thereby allowing him to gain levels in the half-dragon template class of his choice. Or a cleric could perform a quest for his church in order to gain levels in the celestial template class. The same balance problems can occur in cases like these, since inherited templates also have level adjustments, so the same process is applicable.

General Rules for Template Classes

The following rules apply to the "class version" of any template.

A character may take a level in a template class as long as the DM approves and the character has earned enough XP to gain a level.

The DM may wish to require an appropriate ceremony, quest, ritual, or experience before allowing a character to gain levels in an inherited template class. This same option also applies if a character wants to gain levels in an acquired template class without the appropriate trigger (such as an attack by a wereboar to acquire the afflicted wereboar template).

Template classes follow the normal rules for template acquisition according to creature type. For example, the wereboar template can be added only to a humanoid or giant. Thus, a half-dragon character (whose inherited template has already changed his type to dragon) could not take levels in the wereboar class.

Unlike the regular template rules as given in the Monster Manual (see Adding More Than One Template, Monster Manual page 293), this variant rules system allows a character to gain levels in a desired inherited template class after gaining levels in an acquired template, if desired. (In effect, these rules turn all inherited templates into acquired templates that have special circumstances for acquisition later in a character's life.)

The DM should disallow certain redundant combinations of monsters and templates. For example, it makes no sense for a hound archon to gain the celestial or half-celestial template, since it is already a kind of celestial.

A character cannot take levels in a template class if she already has that template or has taken all the levels in that template class. For example, a natural wereboar (a character who already has "wereboar" as an inherited template) cannot take levels in the wereboar template class.

Characters are not required to complete all the levels of a given template class in uninterrupted succession. For example, a character who takes a level of wereboar could then take a level of fighter and a level of rogue (or any other combination of other class levels) before taking another level of wereboar. A character must still take the first level of wereboar before taking the second, just as with a normal class.

Each level in a template class increases the character's level adjustment by +1, just as would a level of any other character class.

Template class levels can be lost due to any effect or circumstance that would normally cause a character to lose a level.

Levels in a template class do not count when determining whether a character takes an XP penalty for multiclassing.

In some cases, a certain monster ability presented in the Monster Manual for a given template is split over two or more class levels in a template class (often by limiting how often an ability can be used at the start). Alternatively, variant abilities may be introduced to build toward an ability that is too powerful for a lower-level character. In these situations, the template class features section explains how the ability works at each level. By the time a character has acquired all possible levels in a template class, the completed set of abilities relating to that particular function works exactly like the normal ability described in the Monster Manual.

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