Templates that are good for melee

[Spacehamster]

I'm curious why so many DM's say they don't allow templates like half Minotaur for example, sure it's very powerful but ppl are allowed to play wizard and druid. that on their own still in the end is more powerful then a pc with half Minotaur. :) so I say lower LA on stuff that makes poor melee classes better to even the battlefield a little! ;)

Does anyone think like me out there? Like what's the harm if one of your melee guys keep up with the party wizard? :)

[Rethmar]

Mineral Warrior is a pretty good template for a straight strength-based melee warrior. It gives AC, Strength, Damage Reduction, Constitution, and a few other bonuses. +1 Level Adjustment

Same goes for the Feral template, I believe. Although that may be a 3.0 template.

[Kazyan]

Half Minotaur does not let you keep up with the party wizard. In modern optimization, a staple Strength build is "if I charge at you, you die" anyway. Casters are powerful because they can target entirely different defenses and do anything and everything outside of combat. All Half-Minotaur does is make every mundane that wouldn't benefit from it very sad. It doesn't give you anything new and puts what you can already do on easy mode.

[Vhaidara]

Half Minotaur is just obscene for its LA. Feral (+4, -2, +2, -4, +2, +0, +6NA, +10 speed, claws, and some other little bonuses) is considered a strong +1, and Half Minotaur (Size increase, +12, -2, +4, -2, +0, -2, +4NA (?), no speed change, gore, and some other little bonuses) blows it out of the water. Combined with Half Ogre (+4, -2, +2, -2, +0, -2, +2NA (?)), which is a 0 LA if you'r already large (say, from applying half minotaur, which is like 2 pages earlier in the same issue of Dragon), and it is just accelerating when the game becomes Rocket Tag. And Rocket Tag, while it can be fun for a while, turns around really fast when you lose.

[Necroticplague]

Lolth touched is a simple, but good one. +6 STR and CON, plus fear immunity, for 1 LA.

The variant half-fiend for half-goristro is ridiculous for the same reason as half-minotaur. The stat boosts on its own are pretty "meh", for its LA (combining other templates in this thread would be better). However, it bumps your size all the way to huge, giving you the related stat benefits. Unfortunately, the +4 LA is very steep.

[Vhaidara]

I still remember Bob The Great. He was a character I theorycrafted who had every legal template from every book I had that didn't remove his Con score. Level 1 Human Fighter, ECL 132. Str of around 200.

[Spacehamster]

Half Minotaur is just obscene for its LA. Feral (+4, -2, +2, -4, +2, +0, +6NA, +10 speed, claws, and some other little bonuses) is considered a strong +1, and Half Minotaur (Size increase, +12, -2, +4, -2, +0, -2, +4NA (?), no speed change, gore, and some other little bonuses) blows it out of the water. Combined with Half Ogre (+4, -2, +2, -2, +0, -2, +2NA (?)), which is a 0 LA if you'r already large (say, from applying half minotaur, which is like 2 pages earlier in the same issue of Dragon), and it is just accelerating when the game becomes Rocket Tag. And Rocket Tag, while it can be fun for a while, turns around really fast when you lose.

Half mino actually does increase speed too. ;)

[Urpriest]

Half-Minotaur introduces a bad precedent. By using the size increase rules from the HD advancement section for something that isn't HD advancement, it implies that those rules should be used whenever size increases, and that helps casters (via Enlarge Person, Righteous Might, Giant Size, etc.) a lot more than it helps mundanes.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You won't find anything with a benefits-to-LA ratio better than Half-Minotuar, which is from Dragon magazine issue 313.

Half-Goristro (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a) at the bottom of that page gives you Str +8, Con +8, +5 natural armor, two slam attacks that each add 1.5 Str to damage, DR, SR, resistances, immunities, spell-like abilities, and a size increase with all the benefits that come with it.

You can actually combine those for a total LA of +5, and if you put them on something like a Water Orc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#racesOfWater) you'll have the following adjustments:

Water Orc, Half-Minotaur, Half-Goristro
Huge Outsider (Augmented Monstrous Humanoid, Augmented Humanod, Orc, Native)
Str +32, Dex -4, Con +20, Int -4, Wis -2, Cha -2
+12 natural armor
40 ft. land speed, swim 40 ft.
Two slams primary 3d6+(1.5 Str), gore secondary 2d6+(1/2 Str)
Plus all the other traits that each of those gives you, for +5 LA.

Starting with Str 18, you'll have a 50, for a +20 modifier. Your two slams will each be 3d6+30 damage, your gore will be 2d6+10.

Edit:

Half-Minotaur introduces a bad precedent. By using the size increase rules from the HD advancement section for something that isn't HD advancement, it implies that those rules should be used whenever size increases, and that helps casters (via Enlarge Person, Righteous Might, Giant Size, etc.) a lot more than it helps mundanes.

Half-Minotaur and Half-Goristro are an exception, not a standard, since they both have to specifically state that the benefits from increasing size through advancement apply. Actually, the Dungeonbred template also applies the reverse of the size via advancement bonuses. The only possible precedent set is that a permanent size increase due to the application of a template gives you the benefits of the size increase via monster advancement chart. A Wizard can use Polymorph to take the form of an advanced Fleshraker that's large size and benefits from that chart, but he cannot take the form of a creature with a template (unless he's turning into himself, per Alter Self). Spells that increase size specifically state what they give, which overrides any other adjustments they would gain from changing size.