User Avatars on My Relationships: friends Block I have read several tutorials about doing this through views but I was wondering if it is possible to modify the block created out of the box by user relationships without having to create a view. 

Am using the following version for the module; 
-UR 7.x-1.0-alpha4
Copy /user_relationships/user_relationship_blocks/templates/user_relationships-block.tpl.php to your custom theme's directory and you can make any modifications you want from there.

Make sure NOT to edit that in place. You don't want to end up in a situation where your modifications are scattered all over different module folders.