Giant Template Concern / Questions

[scaryhat]

I located one other thread on the Giant Template:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/rules/giantTemplateHowMuchSTR
but it didn't seem conclusive and left some lingering doubts/questions.

I'm looking to apply the Giant Template to a Huge creature. If I follow the concept that the only changes that get made to the stats are those in the template but that the size modifiers still apply then some/many of the benefits of the template self-cancel.

For example... the increase in Str doesn't help the attack bonus because of the size penalty, the increase in natural armor is negated by the decrease in Dex and the size penalty.

(An in my particular case, I'm applying this to a construct so the Con increase is useless. But I know that's case-specific)

At this point I ask myself why use the Giant template when I could use the Advanced Template instead? The loss of the increased damage die and reach seems more than made up for by the increase in AC from better natural armor and Dex and the increase in attack bonus from Str (not to mention any added benefit from the increase in the other stats).

So, what I guess I'm asking is this... it is possible that when the Template says "increase size" it really does mean to use the "Size Changes" table AS WELL AS the size bonuses that are listed in the template??

[James Jacobs]

The Giant template (all the simple templates, really) work best when you're in the middle of the game and need to adjust a stat block quickly and on the fly. When the simple template says "increase size" that just means it takes up the correspondingly larger space and reach, really—the streamlined stat changes that come with the Giant simple template replace the more accurate ones you'd use if you were rebuilding from scratch.

If you're building a creature beforehand, you should manually increase the creature's size by just rebuilding the creature and applying all the size changes by hand, as described on pages 295–296 for "adding Racial Hit Dice." The result is not only a lot more accurate stat wise, but it also allows you to adjust the CR a lot more accurately based specifically on the monster's actual stats and how they line up with table 1–1.

[scaryhat]

OK... that makes sense.

Thanks!