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Are templates playable?

   
Are templates playable?

I was newly introduced to D&D 3.5 and I am still learning. This site provides the perfect environment to do so, for which I am grateful. I must say what was strongly repulsing me is the class system which tends to spawn the same exact archetypes every game; and what finally hooked me up is the templates and endless possibilities of playing unexpected monsters and stuff. However I am harshly realizing that the LA is a heavy burden which render the whole thing mostly unplayable, more often than not. It seems there's a general consensus on that, and really few tricks to mitigate the drawback.

What's your take on this? any personal experience? some tips to share? maybe a whole party with the exact same LA?

That's a discussion on the playability of templates, feel free to contribute!

It depends on the template, and the class you are playing. The Feral Template is a god-send to melee characters, and is probably the second best 1 LA you can spend. Mineral Warrior is arguably the best, competing with Feral.

Casters should avoid LA like the plague. Unless you have LA buyoff, then you can shoot for 1 or two

Templates work wonderfully if the entire party is templated to similar degrees (and assuming that the DM can adjust the encounters to accommodate the actual power level of the party, and not what their supposed ecl would suggest)
the problems crop up when the party is composed of a mix of power levels (templates being just one means to achieve that imbalance)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fluffles View Post
...Unless you have LA buyoff, then you can shoot for 1 or two
Remember how well LA buyoff turned out for you in that level 18-20 game?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fluffles View Post
It depends on the template, and the class you are playing. The Feral Template is a god-send to melee characters, and is probably the second best 1 LA you can spend. Mineral Warrior is arguably the best, competing with Feral.

Casters should avoid LA like the plague. Unless you have LA buyoff, then you can shoot for 1 or two
Feral is a good example of a broken template. It gives you way to much for not enough cost.

I do agree that the entire agrument hinges on the template in question as to weather their worth playing. Take the half-dragon vs the half-Janni. They are both +3 offset but the half-dragon is a much better template.

Templates are also a burben. Most are well worth the price early on, but without buy-off they heur alot in the end game.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dominicius View Post
Remember how well LA buyoff turned out for you in that level 18-20 game?
You mean the game that died after one round of combat?

Templates can be playable... In certain circumstances. If you get so many LA that you only have 1 class level, then yes, it is pretty unplayable. If you play in a gestalt campaign, then LA becomes highly viable; you lose little and gain a lot. For example, I'm planning on playing a werebear in a campaign, and he is comepletely sound. Maybe not the strongest character, but definately viable. At lower levels, you really don't want to apply templates though, you just don't have a lot left after you give up so many levels.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fluffles View Post
You mean the game that died after one round of combat?
The game had too much awesome for the DMs to handle.

Feral advancement only applies to racial HD... it's not actually overpowered. Unless the DM decides to not use it as intended and let it progress with class level HD.

In general the viability of templates varies drastically with the templates themselves, often related to what source the template can be found in/how much usefulness it grants for the given LA. There are templates that are considered broken and some that are just great value for their cost while others are dump templates that are far too expensive.

Feral is good for races with racial HD. +1LA
Mineral Warrior is good, as previously noted. +1LA
Dark Creature is wonderful for a sneak with it giving you better abilities than a level of Shadowdancer and not needing any prerquisites. +1LA
Half-Fey grants a good fly speed and maneuverability, SLAs, enchantment immunity, stat increases for a rogue/caster type and a couple other things. +2LA

There are some broken ones from Dragon Magazine of course... such as the...

Half-Minotaur at LA+1 that can grant a size increase and a total of +12 Strength or so if I recall as well as a slew of other abilities, lol.

Same with Half-Ogre template, but both are Dragon Magazine.

RAW Feral goes by total HD, not just racial. It is a very common house rule though, and house rules are not accounted for in thought exersizes.




 

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