Most Broken Template?

[atemu1234]

Aaannnd... go!

[NoACWarrior]

While we are probably going to get into arguments on this...

I think the most broken template should be broken down into:
A) for PC building
B) for DM BBEG building
C) for DM monster building

A) Feral - that fast healing and all them pluses (note to others, I value the ability to start off every battle at full HP due to my experiences in DnD)
B) Unholy Scion - a great template for lower level BBEG, other high level BBEG don't really need templates anyways
C) Lycanthropy (battle titan) - a 600 HP 60+ str / 50+ con monster at cr8 or 9, nothing says to an adventuring party which doesn't have SoD / chargers / mailman / flight a TPK (this is arguable since by lvl 9 the party should have flight and chargers come online by 8th or so level, and mailman builds start off at 9th as well)

[Man on Fire]

Half-Minotaur from Dragon magazine. +12 STR, +6 CON, reach, large, gore all for +1 LA?

[Jeff the Green]

Symbiotic and tauric, both from Savage Species. They both combine two creatures and let you ignore the LA for one of them. Feral and half-minotaur don't compare.

Alternatively, unseeliie fey from Dragon Compendium. It's the only normal template (i.e. not dragonborn) that a caster should consider. And every Charisma-based caster should consider it.

[Silva Stormrage]

Firesouled gives you leadership so that can potentially be the most broken despite the +3 LA.

[.Zero]

Mineral Warrior, Lolth-touched, Phrenic, Saint and Necropolitan.
Some of them are not broken at all, but they add serious things to every PC.

[Story]

I second Symbiote. Pretty much everything from SS is broken, actually.

Symbiote Incarnate Construct Warforged//Dread Blossom Swarm Warforged Juggernaut anyone?

[Jeff the Green]

Mineral Warrior, Lolth-touched, Phrenic, Saint and Necropolitan.
Some of them are not broken at all, but they add serious things to every PC.

Yeah, no. Phrenic is about priced right, mineral warrior is good but still priced appropriately, lolth-touched is maybe a bit underpriced but the roles that like it need the help to begin with, and necropolitan is good only for a select subset of characters (pure casters) who are hit by the 3000 XP cost the most, and at higher levels the immunities are handy don't necessarily outweigh the cost of Con -.

Those four aren't broken, they're among the very few templates that are balanced for PCs.

[Inevitability]

Anything that grants regeneration and can be applied to a warforged. (They are living, right?)

[ryu]

Yeah, no. Phrenic is about priced right, mineral warrior is good but still priced appropriately, lolth-touched is maybe a bit underpriced but the roles that like it need the help to begin with, and necropolitan is good only for a select subset of characters (pure casters) who are hit by the 3000 XP cost the most, and at higher levels the immunities are handy don't necessarily outweigh the cost of Con -.

Those four aren't broken, they're among the very few templates that are balanced for PCs.

Necropolitan is very powerful in high tier play. High tier play generally assumes that if the opponent can manage to meaningfully interact with you they already have the option of killing you. Meaningfully interact includes making attack rolls that have non-arbitrarily low chance of hitting for one reason or another, successfully forcing you to make saving rolls, and a whole host of other things. Essentially the given weaknesses matter the least the higher optimization goes.

[OldTrees1]

Necropolitan is very powerful in high tier play. High tier play generally assumes that if the opponent can manage to meaningfully interact with you they already have the option of killing you. Meaningfully interact includes making attack rolls that have non-arbitrarily low chance of hitting for one reason or another, successfully forcing you to make saving rolls, and a whole host of other things. Essentially the given weaknesses matter the least the higher optimization goes.

Is that an argument against Necropolitians being useful? If high tier play is about not permitting your enemy from affecting you, then why would adding a Turning vulnerability be a good idea?

[ryu]

Is that an argument against Necropolitians being useful? If high tier play is about not permitting your enemy from affecting you, then why would adding a Turning vulnerability be a good idea?

It has incredible power at low levels due to immunity to most early save or die effects. If the enemy outlevels you to the point that turning is a meaningful option and you don't have contingencies in place for things like that you've got bigger problems. At the highest points you have plans for literally everything. At low levels though all you can really do outside of Pun-pun is optimize to the point that nothing at your level has a reasonable chance of killing you.

[Know(Nothing)]

Saint, even with the flavor restrictions, should be at least +3 instead of +2. Necropolitan is cheap for what you get, but not ridiculously so.

I think the main thing you have to look at is who would take what template. Half-Minotaur, incredible as it is, is going to be taken by a mundane, so they what, hit harder? Have more HP? They still aren't magic. That doesn't really ruin anything. Anything that helps casters, particularly tier 1's, will be the broken-est.

[OldTrees1]

It has incredible power at low levels due to immunity to most early save or die effects. If the enemy outlevels you to the point that turning is a meaningful option and you don't have contingencies in place for things like that you've got bigger problems. At the highest points you have plans for literally everything. At low levels though all you can really do outside of Pun-pun is optimize to the point that nothing at your level has a reasonable chance of killing you.

I thought bonuses to cleric level beat bonuses to turn resistance by a fair margin.

[Story]

Yeah, Turning is crazy easy to boost, thanks to all the splat support. Turn resistance simply can't keep up in high op.

And the only defenses are being more than 60 feet away or having total cover, and if you can reliably get that, you're pretty much immune to most attacks anyway.

[Jowgen]

I personally second Mineral warrior, especially on a con focused build (Mineral Dragonborn Mongrelfolk get virtually all the HP), and super especially at low levels, where the Damage reduction, Natural AC bonus, and burrow-speed make you an ugly, stupid but virtually un-killable beast; and that's not even all it does.

[ryu]

Yeah, Turning is crazy easy to boost, thanks to all the splat support. Turn resistance simply can't keep up in high op.

And the only defenses are being more than 60 feet away or having total cover, and if you can reliably get that, you're pretty much immune to most attacks anyway.

By high levels in high OP that is the goal. Again I said low levels are swingy especially if we're talking things with PC levels fighting.