I have a werewolf adventure coming up and I'm going to apply the dire template to the alpha in his hybrid form. I used other things that don't normally go with one creature or another, as well. Right now I just can't recall all of them.
Yes, but usually in the type of circumstance I would allow a player to as well.
Like: I just had an ancient white dragon using the feat "winter's grasp", normally that feat reuires the ability to cast druid spells, but white dragon, winter theme, yeah works for me.
I have used skeletal and zombie swarms (not sure if that is technically legal, don't care.)
I will have to look into that template, thanks! I was talking about swarms of skeletal rats or zombie roaches, but now you have me thinking of whole other things....
Sometimes I combine templates entirely, or decide templates have features that aren't listed in the entry, or give monsters a unique ability. Paizo does it frequently in their adventures and just put "variant" or "unique" on the description of the monster to show that it's non-standard, so seems legit.
CR is open to interpretation and is not a perfect system so sometimes after I template a creature, I'll look at it, think it looks weak for its new CR, and give it a few racial hitdice so it's more in-line with its new CR, or I'll give something a template and not change its CR at all, working from the idea that the base creature was under-CRed. (That's mostly with third-party creatures, to be fair.) There's a table in the Bestiary that can be consulted for making new monsters and assigning CR. It's also useful for figuring out if your templated creature is in the right ballpark for its supposed CR.
I do avoid giving creatures feats they're not eligible for, but if it's a new "standard" monster that will appear throughout the campaign, I'll sometimes give it a feat as a "racial bonus feat," such that all creatures of that type have the feat. I recently decided that all my dread ghasts (Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary) with ghoul distemper (Horror Adventures) have a +2 racial bonus to the save DC. Ghoul distemper has a high base DC in the book, so it seemed weird that their DCs were so much lower when it was put on creatures. (Dread ghasts do not normally carry ghoul fever as they have a create spawn ability, but I wanted them to have both since I find ghouls without disease weird.)
I don't use dread ghouls (also Green Ronin Advanced Bestiary --GRAB) in my campaign, only dread ghasts (GRAB), standard ghasts, and standard ghouls, so I combined the elements of the dread ghoul and dread ghast into a single template with the benefits of both. (Basically, dread ghasts don't get the Scent ability of dread ghouls normally, but I wanted my dread ghasts to have the scent ability.)
Speaking of dread ghasts, they have an unnatural aura in addition to their stench aura. I allow the Civilized Ghoulishness feat to suppress the unnatural aura of dread ghasts in addition to the stench aura, even though that's not actually a listed benefit of the feat.
I felt like the Vampiric Ooze (from Tome of Horrors Complete) was too weak, so I gave it some of the abilities of vampire spawn since it seemed on-theme.
All that having been said, my players still tend to steam-roll my monsters. (But I have smart and cowardly PCs in my campaign. They run away from stuff that can kill them.)
Thinking about it, I do try to make sure they qualify for their templates though, even the heavily modified ones. To make sure they qualify, I'm not above tinkering with the base creature.
Holy Water elemental (celestial)
Hellfire elemental (infernal)
Still Earth elemental (resolute)
Wild Wind elemental (entropic)
When I'm the GM, there is no such thing as my choices being ineligible. I'll give them anything I want.
That said, it is important to understand as best one can why designers put in limitations and know what you might break before you do it. Often though the limitations are just for thematic reasons, and if you want Vampire Cows, mechanically they work out fine.
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As a GM, I apply anything that thematically fits the scenario.
The Pathfinder universe is full of exceptions, and I'll not let something this inconvenient ruin an otherwise good scenario.
Vampire Succubus servant of Zura... I'm not 100% sure of how legal it is, but damn am I not sad that I have never got to use it.
Strangely? No.
Strangely because I'm strange. I'll jump through a half dozen hoops, replace feat, arbitrarily change an outsider's class skills, and make rulings of questionable legality to get some wizard shmuck's familiar to a decent UMD instead of just taking Evolved Familiar: Skilled: UMD, because the wizard doesn't have enough wisdom to qualify for the feat.
All the time.
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Before the feat Dirty Fighting came out I cheated out combat maneuver feats all the time for Animals. Since it has been printed though, I no longer need to go "The Wolf that auto-trips with its bite somehow cannot try to trip normally without provoking nor ever take Greater Trip/other trip related feats"
Because thats dumb.
Probably 70% of creatures (or more?) that I run have at least some modification compared to their original stat-block/abilities/etc.; and many have size changes, subtype changes, feat-chains that have been swapped, or synergies with how I want them to play
Often an un-edited creature has useless feats or are just regular beatsticks; but I want each creature to feel unique enough that players go "Ah s##~, not these things again." Look at the Red Dragons for instance; they have like 7 attacks base; but also have a full feat-chain for vital strike; all of this on a creature that would rather fly around using a breath-weapon and spells. Not on my watch :p
Even stock creatures I choose tend to be of the annoying variety; a good example being Darkmantles for low-levels.
Yup. Take a second look to make sure that CR doesn't go all wonky, but other than that go nuts. GMs can make monsters from whole cloth; an unusual template/creature combination is peanuts.
More than just templates, I give monsters stats arbitrarily that have no relation to their CR or HD.
But this only comes after years of experience, knowing how to manipulate the system, and knowing what kinds of enemies will make for enjoyable encounters for my players.
I have no compunction about giving a monster extra hit points for no reason, other than I want it to live longer and be a harder fight. I don't bump it's Constitution. I don't give it a template, feat, HD, or anything else. I just cross out the original number and write a new one.
When I'm the GM, there is no such thing as my choices being ineligible. I'll give them anything I want.
That said, it is important to understand as best one can why designers put in limitations and know what you might break before you do it. Often though the limitations are just for thematic reasons, and if you want Vampire Cows, mechanically they work out fine.
This is as well put a response as you're going to get. The GM is god and can really do whatever they want, but it is important to remember that it is your responsibility to try and challenge the players and create fun and engaging encounters, not just try to create an unearthly monstrosity to wipe them out.
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I would absolutely add something that is not technically allowed. I do always try to do it in a manner that makes sense. I may give a subterranean goblin tribe access to dwarf only feats, but I'm not going to give them dragon mounts.