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Thrawn183
2009-04-17, 03:41 PM
So as a DM I occaisionally break the rules on monsters such as what creature types may have a template applied to them. Generally I only do this with plot related monsters, but occaisionally I do it just for fun and to throw off the unintentional metagamers in the party.

As an example, I recently applied the vampire template to a succubus. Why? So that I can used the Evolved Undead template from Libris Mortis to advance her to CR 20 giving her a Charisma score of 52, fitting I think for the Queen of the Undead (which she is in my campaign world.) Now, I'm careful not to do this in a way that is grossly unfair to my players, I mean the Queen of the Undead has a grand total of 39 HP and 6 HD, she isn't really going to fare well against even a couple of fireballs.

Do you guys and gals do this frequently and if so, what are some of your favorite creations?

The Gilded Duke
2009-04-17, 03:56 PM
Usually there is so many fun things you can do with unusual but viable combinations of existing templates, however I do break the rules or homebrew templates from time to time.

The next session of a game I'm planning features among other things:
A Half-Fey Tyrannosaurus Rex (Legal use of templates!)
An Aquatic Bullete (Had to make up an aquatic template)
and a Were-Rat Umber Hulk (Doesn't technically work)

During the course of the adventure they are going to rescue a wererat who is going to help them out in some of the encounters. The wererat might occasionally mention horrible things, horrible twisted things but refuse to give many details.

And then the Were-Rat Umber Hulk shows up. "Oops"

Count Chumleigh
2009-04-17, 03:59 PM
As a DM, I do more than just slap together monster templates that aren't strictly allowed by the rules, sometimes I just make monsters the hell up. Granted, this was a lot harder before 4E came along, so usually I just resorted to templates and/or class levels to make for more interesting monsters.

As for examples, well, my proudest was when I had the PCs--a special branch of the town guard dedicated to keeping adventurers out of town, on account of all the trouble they cause--run afoul of a horsepire (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/02/01/). I just made it an Awakened, Magebred heavy warhorse with the Vampire template thrown on. The look on the players' faces was priceless, especially since some of them don't read Penny Arcade. And when they found an enormous, horse-shaped coffin in the innkeeper's basement later on ...

Cheers,
--Count Chumleigh

Ent
2009-04-17, 04:01 PM
2 cents: As long as you have a vaguely suitable reason to break the rules (as a DM), go for it. Just have some idea of why (not necessarily how) the creature exists that way. Anything that's supposed to be old or scary should have had one hell of an existence.

If they're supposed to triumph against something though, just be willing to bend the rules in the opposite direction.

Zincorium
2009-04-17, 04:47 PM
CR, CR, CR.

I make up a lot of stuff, I put monsters into costumes (looks like one kind of monster, stats of another), I template things, etc. But always they have the most precise CR that I can give them, and I'm not afraid to alter that number depending on how it performs in combat.

As a DM, you owe it to your players to properly reward them for the challenges that they are facing.

BlueWizard
2009-04-17, 04:53 PM
No problem with some tweaks. The rules were just guidelines, and the players need some surprise, especially with so many knowing the rules.

Fizban
2009-04-17, 07:03 PM
Usually there is so many fun things you can do with unusual but viable combinations of existing templates, however I do break the rules or homebrew templates from time to time.

The next session of a game I'm planning features among other things:
A Half-Fey Tyrannosaurus Rex (Legal use of templates!)
An Aquatic Bullete (Had to make up an aquatic template)
and a Were-Rat Umber Hulk (Doesn't technically work)

During the course of the adventure they are going to rescue a wererat who is going to help them out in some of the encounters. The wererat might occasionally mention horrible things, horrible twisted things but refuse to give many details.

And then the Were-Rat Umber Hulk shows up. "Oops"
Water Elemental from Manual of the Planes: it's a water-land-shark. Or Air for an ATM (all terrain monster) air-land-shark with fly, burrow, and swim speeds all at once.

Or slap Earth on one of the flying sharks from MMII or Fiend Folio or wherever.

Or one of my favorites: winged whale. That's right, a whale with extraordinary flight capability. Big enough to function as airships too. Ooh, and I could apply monstrous beat to give it a breath weapon too! I love templates, and these are all legal.

Choco
2009-04-17, 07:15 PM
Hmm.. with NPC's that have levels in PC classes, I sometimes make them Gestalt to really throw off the metagamers... like a wizard/monk for instance. A Fighter royally losing a grapple to a "Wizard" and then being knocked into the negative Hp from his unarmed strike does have a lasting effect.

In my current campaign, I completely mess up the metagamers by making my own monsters. And by "making my own monsters" I mean using the stats and abilities of monsters in the MM and just changing their appearance. It is amazing the fear this causes in the PC's.

Berserk Monk
2009-04-17, 07:21 PM
Now, I'm careful not to do this in a way that is grossly unfair to my players

See, that's your problem. You're the DM. Screw the rules all you like so long as the PC don't catch you and when they do, threaten to take away XP.

Also, I don't do this too much because I don't DM too much. In all the years I've been playing, I'm DM'd less than a dozen times.

Zhalath
2009-04-17, 07:49 PM
What I did once was not that the monster itself was broken, but the battle. I had the Mega Krenshar, with this ability that I made up:
Call Horde (Su): Every turn, 1d4 krenshars appear within 1d10 feet of the mega krenshar. Every turn. Even when it's dead.

I also had the Shadow Panther, which was just the panther with the shadow template, except it could teleport and had a fear effect. I used it to scare the party Ranger, who thought he could shoot anything.

I also took the damage reduction away from a Plague Blight, from Libris Mortis, and made it flammable, mostly because there was no way they could have beaten at that level. Also, they loved fire. The following battle went from scary to hilarious.

And then there was that demigod...

FMArthur
2009-04-17, 08:36 PM
Usually I make up magic items, not monsters. I honestly almost never use monsters. The PCs are usually pitted against playable races (which are sometimes monsters, yes) or occasionally monsters with class levels. I'm lucky no one's ever tried to exploit it in some way, really. I can't help that I love building characters but am forced to DM (and only by process of elimination).

Coplantor
2009-04-17, 09:39 PM
Is a pirate ninja zombie an illegal monster?:smalltongue:

Grommen
2009-04-17, 09:44 PM
If I brake a rule or guideline, it's normaly cause the existing rule made no sense or because what I'm doing makes sense to me. And normally if I brake a rule it's for role playing purposes. I try to keep most rules in place cause I've found the game is generally better balanced when I do so.

Zocelot
2009-04-17, 09:57 PM
I completely ignore all the restrictions of the applications of templates. If the abilities of the original monster are balanced, and the abilities of the template are balanced, then why should the sum be unbalanced. I understand that there is a possibility huge synergy, but since I'm the one playing the creature, I can choose not to use their synergistic abilities together.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-04-17, 10:04 PM
I completely ignore all the restrictions of the applications of templates. If the abilities of the original monster are balanced, and the abilities of the template are balanced, then why should the sum be unbalanced. I understand that there is a possibility huge synergy, but since I'm the one playing the creature, I can choose not to use their synergistic abilities together.

How do you say "You took the words right out of my mouth" in Ancient Greek?

Skaroq
2009-04-17, 10:06 PM
I've made a super-mega-hyper-epic level Tarrasque with a breath weapon, Colossal+ size, huge damage reduction, mind control, fiend summoning, etcetera. And a master-ultra-giga-epic level Leviathan to fight it, with a ton of cool abilities, too. Well, maybe they don't have ALL of that stuff...

Thajocoth
2009-04-17, 10:19 PM
The players found an altar that merges a sentient creature with an ooze. The result is the shape of the sentient creature, but made of the ooze. (It costs a feat too.) There are stat effects, like a stealth bonus and some feats you can take. It was right next to an underground city of people who've all used this altar.

Later, they come across a Young Ooze Dragon. They were a Young Black Dragon that used the altar. I had all sorts of modifications to the dragon initially, but it turns out they were all either really unfair to the dragon or really unfair to the players... So it wound up meaning, simply... +2 Stealth for the dragon, nothing more. And... They rolled JUST enough to see it before the battle began.

Now, if the MM had an Elite version of a dragon instead of a Solo, I could've applied this as a template to make them solo... But it doesn't seem like something they allow. I did make a template version of the modification though. I kinda wonder if I'll ever use it.

Kris Strife
2009-04-18, 05:10 AM
See, that's your problem. You're the DM. Screw the rules all you like so long as the PC don't catch you and when they do, threaten to take away XP.

Also, I don't do this too much because I don't DM too much. In all the years I've been playing, I'm DM'd less than a dozen times.

I wonder why your group wont let you DM...

KazilDarkeye
2009-04-18, 08:11 AM
I've used the Mummified Creature Template (Libris Mortis) on various kinds of Sphinx to some extent. They didn't work too well due to their mental stats being lowered, but they were certainly thematically appropriate.

mikej
2009-04-18, 08:37 AM
"the wizard did it!"

I do this sometimes, it's easier to add a template to the appropriate creature than writing up a whole new monster. It's not some TPK ready to happen, just a challenging encounter. Though I really don't do this often, I'm pretty good using one of the many monsters from MM I-V in creative ways.

bosssmiley
2009-04-19, 06:01 AM
An Aquatic Bullete (Had to make up an aquatic template)

Aquatic landshark? Detection of redundancy detected methinks. :smallconfused:

Kurald Galain
2009-04-19, 06:40 AM
There's so much silliness allowed within the rules, that I don't see how anybody could reasonably object to a mild bending of the rules. Yes, call them guidelines. Rule Zero is the only thing that matters.

woodenbandman
2009-04-19, 01:44 PM
^I think that's a rather egocentric viewpoint. The DM does not win the game. The DM plays the game, like everyone else. He just controls the monsters. Technically if you break the rules you are breaking the rules. RE: templates, though... I had a DM who gave my animal companion taint, and I didn't know what the **** was going on. So I released him ("wolfenstein", he was) and I brought in a new one (Duke Nukem). So then Duke Nukem had to go because we went somewhere inappropriate for a wolf, and then Wolfenstein came to me one night, having gone insane (and turned into a dire wolf, and having learned to speak), and we had the most interesting conversation and fight. It was hilarious, and I think that it was totally appropriate. The DM applied the Tainted Raver template after awakening my old AC, technically invalid to do, but it didn't matter because it was awesome.

If you do this as a DM, be careful, because it could end up with some funky **** that you didn't anticipate, and your players might go "hey, no fair, you did X against the rules and as a result Y happened." The DM doesn't need to break the rules to win the game. He can win the game at any time, ever.

I guess I'm saying be careful with this stuff. Usually it's not even an issue, but in a few cases you really shouldn't apply certain templates to certain things, like making the Succubus with a 52 charisma and a DC 47 dominate (or whatever ridiculous number it is). If you apply this stuff judiciously, it's all good, but if you get out of hand and start building "I Win" buttons, such as the creature with 9th level SLAs 1/day against low level parties, then it goes to ****.

EDIT:


d. I understand that there is a possibility huge synergy, but since I'm the one playing the creature, I can choose not to use their synergistic abilities together.

As a player, I hate this. I much prefer monsters played to their full potential, so that I have to play to my full potential. I prefer to engage in a battle of wits with an opponent going full force, which makes the victory very satisfying. The knowledge that my foe has held back his abilities, rather than going balls-deep into the action, cheapens the victory and makes it feel like poo. It's like someone saying "I let you win," and you know it's true that they did.

As a player, I know when the DM is holding back and when they're going full out, and I much prefer the latter. Just last night my group had the best session yet, because my DM let another player control what amounted to an enemy army, and he really played it to the absolute best of his ability. The session culminated with an epic battle against 10 athachs, 2 wizards, some harpies, and a souleater, and when we fled epicly, it didn't feel crappy, because we had fought valiantly, but we had to admit at the end of the game that we had lost, and he had won. What was satisfying about this session was the duel of wits between 2 opponents, when each of them was operating to the fullest extent of their potential, and the battle at the end, where one opponent was declared the victor after all. It totally cheapens that victory, or, indeed, that defeat, if the opponent lets you win/escape.

Pronounceable
2009-04-19, 06:32 PM
There's no such thing as an illegal monster. Anything a DM does during game is MORE legal and canon than anything in any rulebook. It might turn out to be a mistake if it makes the players unhappy, but it's never "illegal". Ruleslawyers be damned.
And DM does not play the game, he runs it. He does the most work and has the most responsibility and is not another player. DMs don't win or lose it, they are the game.

horseboy
2009-04-19, 06:54 PM
I'm not a fan of ecologies that some how support 11 bajillion different alpha predators. It's one of "those things" that gets me. As such I don't really make up monsters. Now, give me something that exists from outside the ecology (horrors (demons), elementals and the like), and I'll go to town. Making a demon that's the personification of the fear of being slowly eaten alive is going to require some whole cloth creation on part of the GM. Of course, anything I make is as close to legal as possible. I've got no interest in the return of the "Bad Old Days" of Schrodinger's Monsters.