Revisiting the Menagerie: Let's Read the Book of Templates!

[Makiru]

So, I decided to chime in on this "Let's Read" phenomenon that Rappy was so gracious to begin. Following in the footsteps of Volthawk's Advanced Bestiary thread, I decided to do the other big third-party template book.

So, what is the Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition?

Book of Templates: Deluxe Edition is a third-party D20 supplement from SilverThorne Games with approximately 85 templates ranging from various halfbreeds to self-replicating monsters and creatures without geometry. With that in mind, let's dive in!

EDIT: Feel free to discuss anything that you want regarding the content. The bumps will be appreciated and I'll at least know if anybody is actually interested in this or if I need to change how I compose the entries.

Aberrant

Applies to any corporeal creature except constructs, outsiders, and undead.
Type changes to Aberration

Measuring out at five pages, this is the generic "wizard made something weird at random" template, complete with multiple tables for rolling random abilities and qualities, including, but not limited to:
-Adhesive
-Blood Drain
-Various gazes
-Grabbing powers (Improved/engulf)
-Destructive Harmonics
-Disease
-Enslave
-Ground Manipulation (?)
-Psionics
- and Web

Qualities
-Amorphous-ness
-Choker quickness
-Various resistances and immunities
-Mimic shape (again, ?)
-Regeneration and fast healing

While there isn't any stat adjustment, apparently forceful transformation makes you more chaotic and evil (if you're intelligent, of course). There is a level adjustment, but it is mostly up to DM judgement. The example creature is a cockatrice with moaning and spell resistance, and if the picture is to be believed, a bad case of the tentacles.

A spell by the name of Grafting Ritual is presented for any enterprising young arcanist who wants to make their own sins against creation, which has a built in chance of botch or complete failure. An item is also given, a bottle of adhesive specifically from an aberrant.


Abyssal

Applies to any living, corporeal, non-celestial creature.
Becomes Outsider with Chaotic subtype.

A demon-specific version of the Fiendish template...yawn. Detect good and law, +4 Charisma, Aura of Chaos, Fire resistance, and Smite Good are almost taken directly from Fiendish, with the new addition being Chaos Burst. This 1/day power functions as Word of Chaos, dealing 1d6 chaos damage per HD to lawful creatures. The other noteworthy change is Negative Energy Conversion, which makes positive energy powers negative. The example, an abyssal ravid, makes good use of this last power, giving it a negative-energy lash attack. For a +2 LA, an overwhelming "Meh" in most situations.


Amorphous

Applies to any living creature or construct.
No type change.

Just what is says on the tin, this template doesn't change what the creature looks like, but it can now slip through any opening with its now fluid body. Keeping with the oozy theme, the creature gets additional ooze hit points, improved grab and constrict, 50% immunity to sneak attacks and criticals, and the ability to double its reach for 1+Con bonus rounds. As far as stats are concerned, it gets +2 Con and -2 Intelligence, with a minimum of 2. Not too bad for a +3 LA.

Two example creatures are given, the slip-shape giant (a hill giant) and the aptly-named ultramorph (a doppleganger). Strangely enough, amorphousness is transmitted via spores, which imparts memory loss as well as the advertised ooze traits. Even worse, this melting disease can be gotten via injury or ingestion. Naturally, there is also a ritual spell (Rite of the Shapeless Form) for making helpless creatures into blobs. This is a theme the book really wants to hammer into the reader's skull: Casters, in fact, have no moral boundaries, especially since this incantation is available to clerics and druids as well!



Next time, we'll look at angels both fallen and ferocious, world-ending terrors, and monsters with magical might to the maximum!