The Dolghast from Magic of Eberron is an eerily appropriate monster for my Mythic Sagas game, and I ascribe their creation to a cult of Hel via a magic item. Presumably the Dolghast represents the result of a transformed basic human.
I'm thinking that this cult might eventually want to transform other types of creatures, such as a squad of Legion Devils that they capture from Niflheim. To that end, I'm looking at backing out the abilities of the Dolghast, and making the abilities into a template (much like was done with the Umbral Creature, Spectral Creature, Wight, and Wraith templates in Savage Species, I suppose).
Backing out the abilities a Dolghast has above a normal human, it gains:
Aberration type
+5 Natural Armor
+8 Str, +4 Dex, +2 Con, -4 Int, +4 Cha
Fast Healing 5
Scent
Dissolution: Due to this ability, the template pretty much has to also grant claw attacks to the base creature (unlike the Wight template, which doesn't grant a slam attack, it just works with existing natural attacks.) If the creature hits with both claw attacks, it deals Con damage and stuns the target; the Con damage can be reduced to 1, and the stunning negated, with a Fort save.
Stench: 10-foot aura of stench, Fort DC or be sickened for 1d6+4 minutes. It counts as a poison.
Half Dead: This is technically just an Extraordinary ability, but has many of the traits of a Subtype.
- Immunity to fatigue, exhaustion, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects.
- 50% chance to ignore the extra damage dealt by a critical hit or sneak attack.
- A half-dead creature can be healed by both negative energy and positive energy, but only if it successfully saves against the spell (using the spell's normal DC). If the save fails, the spell deals damage as if the half-dead creature were living (for inflict spells) or undead (for cure spells).
It also has a base of 6 HD, but a Wight has a base of 4 HD, and the template doesn't alter the base creature's HD at all, aside from changing the creature's type to Undead, and making the HD into d12's. The example Troglodite Wight only has two HD. I think leaving the HD alone is probably a good idea, aside from turning them into d8's.
A Wight is a CR 3 monster, and the template increases a monster's CR by 3.
Would the above abilities fall in line with a +4 CR increase? (A Dolghast is a CR 4 creature.)
