If you want to quickly add a dash of paladin-like flavor to a 4e humanoid creature without actually making the creature a paladin NPC, I can think of no better way than to apply this templar template. (However, I must confess to feeling a little silly saying "templar template," because of the phonetic repetition.) Aeryn "Blackdirge" Rudel provides here a well-balanced and perfectly appropriate suite of powers to pump a creature up to elite status and give it a "warrior sworn to the gods" feeling in the process. Blackdirge realizes that the templar creature might swear fealty to a god anywhere along spectrum from lawful good to chaotic evil, so he wisely provides radiant and necrotic alternatives so that you can match the "feel" of the template's powers and features to the deity's personality. The blackfire slayer example, a dragonborn warrior sworn to serve undead dragons, tends toward the dark end of the spectrum, while the unimaginatively-named azer templar shines a brighter light. The art by Jesse Mohn illustrates the examples perfectly. If you use the template even once, your 99¢ was well spent.

This is a great template - especially if you enjoy making holy/unholy based villains. It adds some nice powers to make it fir the "elite/leader role" and can turn even a kobold into a solid elite leader! Definitely worth the price of a Whopper Jr... for a more detailed review, check out the Neuroglyph Games Website at www.neuroglyphgames.com.