Templates are one of the most versatile features of the d20 game. And I feel I have said that before in other review of books of templates. But it remains true and with this book of templates by one of the bigger companies out there e in the d20 market we might be seeing more of them. Advanced Bestiary is a different type of monster books since it offers templates instead of new creatures.
Advanced Bestiary is the first in the Advanced line by Green Ronin. The book is offered as a print book as well as a PDF and while this review focuses on the PDF version the print version has the same content. The PDF is over two hundred and fifty pages. It comes in a zip file over eighteen megs. The art and layout are up to Green Ronin’s standards and the book is well book marked. There is a table of contents and an index. The front cover is done in color but the rest is black and white.
The best part of the book is at the beginning. It is a basic walk through of using templates. This type of information is usually left out of books. It is of course more using for inexperienced DMs but the advice and insight here should offer something new to even the best of them. The section also has information on creating ones own template. This section again is great for everyone. It also covers altering existing templates. This section alone makes this book well worth it to get. Nothing really like this has been but in print for the d20 system so it is nice to see new areas still being covered and covered well.
Templates though take up the bulk of the book. Each template ha sa sample creature for it all stated up and ready to go. Many also have some good art to go along with them. There are over a hundred new templates in the book so they cover a lot of different areas and should offer many new and interesting version of the already y familiar monsters of the Monster Manual and other monster books.
Some of the templates are similar to other ones we have seen in them like the celestial blessed and the Elementally fused creatures. Others though are very different like using templates for the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Some of the templates actually weaken creatures like the Feral Dragon template. There are a number of undead oriented ones like the Dread Ghost, the Dread Skeleton, the Dread Lich, and the Dread Ghast. There is a large variety of templates and it would be hard to mention them all.
Most of the templates only alter the challenge rating by a few points. Only four of them in here change it by more then three though there are a half dozen that vary the modification. There is a nice chart that relies the CR adjustment of each template making it easy to find one of the right power level needed. There is also a list of all the challenge ratings of the monsters presented. Most are ten or under but the Dread Lich Titan does top it with a challenge rating of twenty four.
This is a great book to make the same old monsters seem new and surprise the players. There are so many options in this book that combined with a single monster book it will create a very large amount of possible combinations. Green Ronin once again puts forth a very good book. The production values are high, the creativity is impressive, and the rules are very sound.
