hy huys, i don't know if there is already a thread like this, but i'd like to ask you: which templates you like?
to me, templates are among the best things in the game when you're a GM, they're varied, they allow you to unleash your creativity and make monsters more interesting, and if you know how to mix them you can create moments of pure crazy awesome, plus they're a good antidote against metagamer munchkins since they'll learn memorizing the Bestiary/Monster Manual will prove uneffective. in my gaming i use both 3.5 D&D and Pathfinder RPG monsters, races and templates, and they work pretty well, my favourite are
-Chameleon Creature(+1) from Underdark: makes a creature reptilian and capable of camouflage. the auhtors of the Underdark splatbook deserve a medal for saying that chameleon creatures are the offspring of chameleons and other creatures...the sample creature was a chameleon bugbear. hot bugbear-on-chameleon erotica FTW!
-Aquatic Creature(+0) from Stormwrack: make a creature amphibious, pretty good.
-Multiheaded Creature(+Varies) from Savage Species: not only this gives a creature more heads, it can also give them hydra powers(Learnean, Pyro and Cryo). send a Learnean(cut one head off, two grow back) multiheaded troll for maximum trolling!
-well, EVERY SINGLE TEMPLATE from Savage Species actually.
-Half-Illithid(+2): take a big bad monster and implant a mind flayer tadpole in it, now THIS is gonna be funny!
-Tauric Creature(+2): a centaur-like fusion of a humanoid and a quadrupedal beast, how about a Tauric Manticore-Dragonborn? Spike Volley AND Breath Weapon!
-Undead as Templates(+Varies): undead are already varied, and you can create them from any creature, AND have variants! one of the best i got was a Ettin Mudra(four armed) Skeleton, upgrading Two-Weapon Mastery into Multiweapon Mastery this undead is going to be a nasty surprise.
-Abomination(+Varies) from the Tome of Horrors: simply put, if you like the Owlbear or the Armadillephant, now you can create YOUR OWN wacky animal/vermin/humanoid hybrid! the possibilities are unlimited, for example i created the Honey Dragon(Komodo Dragon+Honey Badger, with an Advanced Dire Badger as the Honey Badger and a Giant Monitor Lizard as the Komodo Dragon) and the Thundercoil(Anaconda+Electric Eel). if you step into homebrewing, you can use any kind of creature, and then the doors for glorious(or simply idiotic) mixes open...
so, which are your favourite templates? what was your wackiest template monster?