Looking for Template(s) up to +2 LA

[Lycanthromancer]

I have a warforged character (Small sized; the only differences are 20 ft move speed, -2 Str and +2 Dex, has a bite rather than a slam, and looks like an anthropomorphic fox Decepticon), which is to be Lawful Evil. He's a special-ops agent for his nation during a war of gods and dragons (main deities are Bahamut and Tiamat), and is to get his very own Bonded Dragon (I'm begging for a velociraptor dragon), and he made his body and transferred his consciousness into it himself (he's a psion//swordsage 11, quite probably with another class or two mixed in on the swordsage side), and he specializes in sneakery, ambushes, assassinations, and dealing with constructs, structures and mechanical things.

Thing is, I get +2 free LA, and I was wondering what template(s) would go well with a character of this sort. He's highly intelligent, very mobile, and works like a medievil psionic MacGuyver. 'Cept he kills people.

I considered phrenic (+2) and shadow creature (also +2, I think), but I was hoping you guys had some other ideas in mind. I'm going more for useful utility abilities and flavor more than power, as I can optimize myself quite well otherwise. I can change the flavor around as I like, so long as it fits with the mechanics. I'd also rather have defensive/utility abilities than something overly offensive (unless it's just REALLY cool).

The world is Eberron with a bit of Dragonlance tossed in, during a war of the gods, and it's a solo game: just a boy foxbot and his dog dragon.

So, got any awesome ideas?

[Temotei]

Dark template. LA +1.

[Lycanthromancer]

Dark template. LA +1.Where's it from, and what's it do?

[Tavar]

Tome of Magic, I believe. Increases speed, gives the good version of HIPS, and possible some other minor abilities.

[drengnikrafe]

For some reason, every time I see "Free LA" I think "Winged Template". It's not very offensive, or really effective for much stuff, but I think it gives you a really good flight speed, especially if you have a nice dex.

[Lycanthromancer]

Dark creature looks good. I needed darkvision anyway, and the speed bonus, hide in plain sight, and other minor bonuses work well with me.

Don't recognized winged. Does it just give you wings and a fly speed?

Also, I haven't decided on either yet. Give me some interesting combos, guys! Thanks!

[drengnikrafe]

Savage Species. Page a hundred-somethingorother. (138)
IIRC, it's +2 Dex, +4 Wis, a fly speed equal to your land speed plus 30, and a maneuverability based on your Dex. I'll go find it, though.
EDIT: Hurrah for remembering wrong.
It's +4 Dex, +2 Wis, fly speed equal to land speed plus 20, and a maneuverability that starts at perfect and goes down by one category when you dip below 17, 15, 11, or 7 (So perfect at 17+, Good at 16-15, Average 14-11, Poor 10-7, Clumsy 6 and below.)

[Temotei]

Dark creature looks good. I needed darkvision anyway, and the speed bonus, hide in plain sight, and other minor bonuses work well with me.

Don't recognized winged. Does it just give you wings and a fly speed?

Also, I haven't decided on either yet. Give me some interesting combos, guys! Thanks!

Wings and a fly speed, yep. LA +2.

Dark gives some really nice stealth abilities, basically.

Draconic is LA +1 for claws, +2 Str and Con, and having dragonblood.

I'm burnt out on ideas right now.

[Tavar]

Considering the Campaign, Dark and Draconic would be good. Perhaps you were an experiment combining both energy from the plane of shadows and draconic body parts.

[Temotei]

Considering the Campaign, Dark and Draconic would be good. Perhaps you were an experiment combining both energy from the plane of shadows and draconic body parts.

Or your draconic history could be from a shadow dragon.

[BenTheJester]

Savage Species. Page a hundred-somethingorother. (138)
IIRC, it's +2 Dex, +4 Wis, a fly speed equal to your land speed plus 30, and a maneuverability based on your Dex. I'll go find it, though.
EDIT: Hurrah for remembering wrong.
It's +4 Dex, +2 Wis, fly speed equal to land speed plus 20, and a maneuverability that starts at perfect and goes down by one category when you dip below 17, 15, 11, or 7 (So perfect at 17+, Good at 16-15, Average 14-11, Poor 10-7, Clumsy 6 and below.)

It's a weak template for LA+2, but so many of my characters took it anyway.

Perfect maneuverability with only requirement dex 13? yes please.

[Vizzerdrix]

It's a weak template for LA+2, but so many of my characters took it anyway.

Perfect maneuverability with only requirement dex 13? yes please.

I had a Winged cleric once. Worked out rather well too.

[Eldariel]

There's of course Lolth-Touched in MM4, which I'm sure you're aware of. +1, massive physical bonuses, nothing bad. Draconic from Races of the Dragon is a nice +1 filler. Feral & Mineral Warrior look mighty unexciting for a Psion so meh; I suppose it's best just to combine two efficient +1s.

[herrhauptmann]

Feral (savage species) is a +1 I believe. Don't know how your DM will like a 'feral' construct, but ok.

Shade Template from Forgotten Realms campaign guide, I know it's a CR +2 for monsters. Not sure what the LA is though.

Most of the half elementals I believe are a +2 LA too (manual of planes probably).

Fiendish + Dark templates? Granted the fiendish and celestial templates seem rather subpar, but why not?

[gorfnab]

Shade Template from Forgotten Realms campaign guide, I know it's a CR +2 for monsters. Not sure what the LA is though.


Shade is +4 LA

Shadow Creature Template, from Lords of Madness, is +2LA and gives you most of the benefits of dark (Shadow Blend instead of HiPS though) but can potentially give you evasion, fast healing, and some other goodies as you level (every 4HD you gain another ability).

[Zaq]

There are a lot of weird ones in Planar Handbook (There are ones tied to law/chaos as well as positive/negative energy, and if memory serves half-elementals, and I could swear at least one more), though I don't have the book open in front of me right now. I don't remember if most of them are +2 or less or indeed what most of them do, but I remember that there's quite a few in there, so it's worth cracking the book and giving it a scan-through.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Shadow Creature from Lords of Madness is LA +2, and grants nice stuff like Evasion, Fast Healing, and Shadow Blend (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadowMastiff.htm) which is just amazing. Get someone to cast Deeper Darkness on a small pendant every few days, and when you wear it hold it in your mouth to block the effect. During combat, you can 'drop' it as a free action by spitting it out, thus granting you total concealment. Get a Shadow Dragon buddy to follow you around.

[2xMachina]

Shade is +4 LA

Shadow Creature Template, from Lords of Madness, is +2LA and gives you most of the benefits of dark (Shadow Blend instead of HiPS though) but can potentially give you evasion, fast healing, and some other goodies as you level (every 4HD you gain another ability).

Actually Shadow Blend is better than the HiPS. Skip the hide check.

[faceroll]

I would recommend against feral and mineral warrior, as they both penalize your int. Feral gives you -4; mineral warrior is -2.


There's of course Lolth-Touched in MM4, which I'm sure you're aware of. +1, massive physical bonuses, nothing bad. Draconic from Races of the Dragon is a nice +1 filler. Feral & Mineral Warrior look mighty unexciting for a Psion so meh; I suppose it's best just to combine two efficient +1s.

Doesn't Lolth-Touched make you Chaotic Evil?

[FMArthur]

I think your original idea of Shadow Creature is the best possible use of +2 LA for the type of character you're building. Dark is great but doesn't stack up so well against Shadow for a sneaky character if you're being given 2 LA for free.

[Lycanthromancer]

Shadow creature is pretty awesome, though the DM MAY disallow it once he sees that constructs can't technically take it, but the fluff is that my character (back when he was a bio-being) created his new construct body out of shadesteel and shadowstuff, so he may allow it.

But just in case he doesn't, are there any +1s that work well with the Dark template? I don't much care for Draconic, since it doesn't actually give me anything utility-wise but a pair of claws.

I've been looking through Crystalkeep, but it's not showing me anything that fits (and most of the +1s it does have aren't that good).

Thanks, guys. I've been looking, and so far haven't found much.

[Starbuck_II]

Elie Template in the Warcraft d20 book, but you probably want Wotc only.

Since Warforged are living: Stone Bone? Gain Powerful build, etc strong stuff.

Wacky idea: Spawn of Kyuss, favored.
Dust form.
Fire Souled.
Santified (if you were evil in your backstory).

[Lycanthromancer]

Okay, I told the DM that the Shadow Creature template *technically* wasn't usable by constructs, but he gave the go-ahead anyway.

Thanks for your efforts, guys!

Now, I guess we can talk about our favorite low-level templates (if only to keep the thread relevant :smalltongue:).

Half-minotaur looks pretty awesome. Get Large size for +1 LA, and a bunch of other goodies to go with? Yum.

Dragonborn is great on certain races, of course. Waterborn orc being an obvious one.

Phrenic scales *very* well, though I don't like many of the psi-likes that it gets.

And saint is, obviously, extremely powerful, as is voidmind.

And, of course, Lolth-touched and mineral warrior.

On the flipside are the fiendish and celestial templates. Totally not worth +2 LA. They're +1 at best, and only then if they gave you another perk or two.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

If you can get Magic in the Blood (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Magic_in_the_Blood) to work with psi-like abilities as well, Phrenic becomes extremely useful. That feat also works with Spellstitched, just split your four uses 3/1 between the two spells and it becomes 3/3. Half-Fey (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) is another favorite of mine, and also works extremely well with Magic in the Blood. Plus you're just one feat away from Perfect maneuverability and your spell-like abilities can qualify you for Mindbender.