So I am working on potential storylines and arcs for my characters down the road. Stuff that I'll seed in hooks and hints for that they could pursue if they choose or depending on choices they make, but not main plot stuff. With stuff like this I like to build in character building stuff for each of my players that they have expressed curiosity or interest for in the past, stuff that enhances the play but doesn't wildly alter the party or world structure (thats what main plot is for).
One of my players has in the past, and more than once, expressed curiosity about lycanthropy and that it might be fun/interesting to explore becoming a lycanthrope at some point and how that would play character and game wise (they are a big fan of all the werewolf tv and movie stuff so its a genre they are a fan of in general). The thing is I have no experience with lycanthropy in DND, or any RP games really, as a DM or even a player. Other than fighting some wererats or a werewolf here and there over the years, I have never played a character with lycanthropy or even been in a party with someone with it, so I am unsure of how to best handle it. Some questions for people that have done it as DM or a player:
Is it even worth it? By that I mean is it fun or a hassle? If I go this route I want to do it proper, they get bit or scratched, have to deal with the change being involuntary for however long it takes to gain control, not being in control at the full moon, keeping it secret (or not) etc. But that is a lot of character time and development to do, it could be fun, but I don't want it to turn in to a hassle.
What are your suggestions for types of were's that are fun? the character is a neutral/chaotic good human fighter, I could go the werewolf or the were rat route and have them have to deal with turning evil, but its really meant to be a fun thing at the end of the day, not force them to change their entire play type and character, so I was thinking weretiger or werebear or just do a homebrew of something funny like a werebadger or a weremonkey or something.
What are the downsides to having a player turn lycanthropic?
I don't know if it is possible/affordab;e for you - but having a look at Grim Hollow's setting and how they deal with Lycanthropy would make it much more character focussed (level in transformation, milestones to level up transformations, providing boons and flaws). There are development paths for characters with lycanthropy as well as other transformations (fiends, liches, vampires etc.). It is mentioned in the Player's Guide, but mechanics are covered in the Campaign Guide.
I had some experience with lycanthropy where one PC became wererat and ended-up infecting the entire party because all the players wanted to also become wererats in Dragon of Icespire Peak camapign. There was another campaign where a PC became a werebear, this time i ruled that it could not infect others, only true lycanthrope could and during transformation on full moon it was under DM control and was hunting and doing other acts of bestiality with no memory of it the next morning, when waking up naked and covered in blood.
The most powerful aspect of lycanthropy is the damage immunity. Players usually see it as a boon while lycanthropy is supposed to be a curse. I can't blame them, becoming immune to most monsters attack is very strong.
The most powerful aspect of lycanthropy is the damage immunity. Players usually see it as a boon while lycanthropy is supposed to be a curse. I can't blame them, becoming immune to most monsters attack is very strong.
This is one of my concerns with the whole idea actually, lol. The player in question, human fighter, is already a hell of a tank and has focused on turning them selves in to a human shield for the party and has an AC of 19 and plans on getting it as high as he can. I know It sounds like he is one of THOSE players and is annoying but he is not, the inability for almost anything to hit him winds up being hilarious most of the time and the rest of the party is decidedly squishy, so it works, but I worry about taking it too far and taking any jeopardy out of combat for his character and ruining it being fun and making it boring.
The most powerful aspect of lycanthropy is the damage immunity. Players usually see it as a boon while lycanthropy is supposed to be a curse. I can't blame them, becoming immune to most monsters attack is very strong.
This is one of my concerns with the whole idea actually, lol. The player in question, human fighter, is already a hell of a tank and has focused on turning them selves in to a human shield for the party and has an AC of 19 and plans on getting it as high as he can. I know It sounds like he is one of THOSE players and is annoying but he is not, the inability for almost anything to hit him winds up being hilarious most of the time and the rest of the party is decidedly squishy, so it works, but I worry about taking it too far and taking any jeopardy out of combat for his character and ruining it being fun and making it boring.
In my opinion I would say let them do just that. If your player wants to become a unstoppable wall then let them enjoy it as its part of the fun. So if he wants to take advantage of the damage immunities and resistances of the curse then just allow it that way the player can feel useful and excited in this moments.
However the reason I say just allow it is because even though it would allow the player to feel even more heroic and powerful the flip side is also true for you. This allows you to really get creative with the story potential and narrative story telling. Here some examples on how this could be fun and interesting
- What happens after spending several sessions saving a town from X the party falls asleep only to wake up and find the town brutalized with many townsfolk ripped apart only to find human fighter unconscious naked covered in blood in the town square?
- What happens if the wrong person notices the signs of lycanthropy in human fighter and word gets around, now you have a group of blood hunters tracking him down to eliminate him
- What happens when the party is in some kind of social conflict with an arrogant aristocrat that is irritating the party due to their nature or demands and suddenly the human fighter cant keep his cool and wolfing out in the middle of the meeting hall or says something problematic in rage
- What happens after the party begins to rely on human fighters durability then all of a sudden when they confidently square up with a big bad it just punches straight through him effortlessly
- What happens to the human fighter when he cant be a wall for EVERYONE, where he must pick and choose who he will save and who he will let be in peril?
-What happens when a roaming pack of werewolves pick up his scent and now come hunting after him and the party thinking they have him enslaved or captured in some kind of way and are willing to kill to free their brethren even against his wishes claiming "He does not understand the situation"
These are just some spit ball questions but you get the idea, you don't need to have experience with a situation to make it interesting if you are constantly asking " What happens if...?" additionally with combat get creative, you are the DM you really don't have any limits to what you can throw at the party. If his skills lean into tanking hits them let him have as much as he wants, look into other avenues that make things interesting. Sure its all fun and games to treat him like a meat wall until a succubus comes by and enchants him turning him against the party, or when the dragon swoops in picking up him and another member of the party and dropping them from 100ft up. He may survive but he will definitely be sweating as his party member is plummeting towards the ground.
These are just some ideas to run with. I find the rules of thumb here is the stronger the party wants to make themselves the bigger and crazier the threats you can dish out. Just work your angles and find problems and conflicts that make this equally fun and challenging.
I'd say only as a homebrew, with a lot of restrictions compared to the npc monster, as it would be insanely imba for a player character. (I dislike the Lycantrope statblocks in dnd in general...) Maybe more like the Shifter race from the Eberron Sourcebook plus the capability to turn full wolf, a vulnerability to silver, no ability to infect others (infection only by born Lycantropes somethingsomething...) maybe one or two other minor perks.
The most powerful aspect of lycanthropy is the damage immunity. Players usually see it as a boon while lycanthropy is supposed to be a curse. I can't blame them, becoming immune to most monsters attack is very strong.
This is one of my concerns with the whole idea actually, lol. The player in question, human fighter, is already a hell of a tank and has focused on turning them selves in to a human shield for the party and has an AC of 19 and plans on getting it as high as he can. I know It sounds like he is one of THOSE players and is annoying but he is not, the inability for almost anything to hit him winds up being hilarious most of the time and the rest of the party is decidedly squishy, so it works, but I worry about taking it too far and taking any jeopardy out of combat for his character and ruining it being fun and making it boring.
In my opinion I would say let them do just that. If your player wants to become a unstoppable wall then let them enjoy it as its part of the fun. So if he wants to take advantage of the damage immunities and resistances of the curse then just allow it that way the player can feel useful and excited in this moments.
However the reason I say just allow it is because even though it would allow the player to feel even more heroic and powerful the flip side is also true for you. This allows you to really get creative with the story potential and narrative story telling. Here some examples on how this could be fun and interesting
- What happens after spending several sessions saving a town from X the party falls asleep only to wake up and find the town brutalized with many townsfolk ripped apart only to find human fighter unconscious naked covered in blood in the town square?
- What happens if the wrong person notices the signs of lycanthropy in human fighter and word gets around, now you have a group of blood hunters tracking him down to eliminate him
- What happens when the party is in some kind of social conflict with an arrogant aristocrat that is irritating the party due to their nature or demands and suddenly the human fighter cant keep his cool and wolfing out in the middle of the meeting hall or says something problematic in rage
- What happens after the party begins to rely on human fighters durability then all of a sudden when they confidently square up with a big bad it just punches straight through him effortlessly
- What happens to the human fighter when he cant be a wall for EVERYONE, where he must pick and choose who he will save and who he will let be in peril?
-What happens when a roaming pack of werewolves pick up his scent and now come hunting after him and the party thinking they have him enslaved or captured in some kind of way and are willing to kill to free their brethren even against his wishes claiming "He does not understand the situation"
These are just some spit ball questions but you get the idea, you don't need to have experience with a situation to make it interesting if you are constantly asking " What happens if...?" additionally with combat get creative, you are the DM you really don't have any limits to what you can throw at the party. If his skills lean into tanking hits them let him have as much as he wants, look into other avenues that make things interesting. Sure its all fun and games to treat him like a meat wall until a succubus comes by and enchants him turning him against the party, or when the dragon swoops in picking up him and another member of the party and dropping them from 100ft up. He may survive but he will definitely be sweating as his party member is plummeting towards the ground.
These are just some ideas to run with. I find the rules of thumb here is the stronger the party wants to make themselves the bigger and crazier the threats you can dish out. Just work your angles and find problems and conflicts that make this equally fun and challenging.
I love all of these suggestions, I think I will be using some of these to craft my approach, thanks!
I'd say only as a homebrew, with a lot of restrictions compared to the npc monster, as it would be insanely imba for a player character. (I dislike the Lycantrope statblocks in dnd in general...) Maybe more like the Shifter race from the Eberron Sourcebook plus the capability to turn full wolf, a vulnerability to silver, no ability to infect others (infection only by born Lycantropes somethingsomething...) maybe one or two other minor perks.
Yeah, the more I think about and consider it, I am defintely doing a homebrew were, not only do I not care for the RAW statblock, they are just kind of boring lore and RP wise. I am thinking about something like a weremoose or a werealmiraj would be absolutely hillarious. Im going to keep that there is a hybrid transformation and a full transformation, something like a werecow sounds terrible until you consider the strength boost a hybrid form with a bull would result in!!
On paper it's a straight buff - you are just a better adventurer, full stop. This is expected to be "balanced" with the DM making things inconvenient at certain times. Mechanical benefits offset through roleplay just sets up a bad dynamic for a DM who has the main plot and multiple other characters to worry about at all times. It's constantly on you to make it feel like a curse, and the most straightforward and obvious way to do that is to have the "beast" side take over - which directly impacts player agency which D&D leans heavily on.
A lot of this stuff also breaks up the party. Everyone has to sit through the lycanthrope's blood-rage cutscene. Everyone has to deal with the consequences. It's hard for it not to feel like the lycanthrope is the main character and everyone else is along for the ride.
Personally if my player wanted to become a werewolf, I would suggest that once the character is bitten it transitions to an NPC and they roll up a new character. They can have some input on where that character would go, but they would not be in control of it anymore.
I dont think lycanthropy is worth the hassle. The blood hunter and beast barbarian do a good enough job if they want that to be their character concept but lycanthropy isn't great just slapped on a character.
If you want to run it, I advise minimalism. The only character buff I might give is making them harder to kill. I.e when they get put to 0 they fall unconscious but unless the weapon was silver or magical they are considered to have succeeded their saving throws. Transformations would be rare (probably a roll against the curse dc every full moon) and would put the player under the gms control as werewolf monster usually resulting in an inconvenience . Other than that it would just be cosmetic, I'd let them change their appearance to be more animal like if they want and I'd consider giving some indefinite madness as a roleplay prompt things like " you feel anxious when in doors" or " you are constantly hungry no matter how much you eat" . This way it functions as a curse but isn't so over bearing as to ruin a character. Story wise it's easy to justify the weakness as the curse not being in control
My personal opinion is that D&D lycanthropy as written is NOT worth the hassle in terms of the impact on the characters and role playing. Lycanthropy as written only has mechanical benefits and all of the downsides are social/role playing. As a result, many players don't really see it as the curse it is intended to be.
If you want to homebrew lycanthropy and add mechanical benefits as well as drawbacks then you can create a more balanced form that can fit the narrative of your game but, as written, lycanthropy in D&D is generally not worth the hassle since the affected ones become significantly more powerful. Consider that the claws and bite of the 500+ hit point ancient red dragon are just slashing and piercing damage that have no effect on a lycanthrope. I'm sure the dragon can come up with other ways that might deal with the character but allowing the ability into your game makes it very difficult to create encounters where the one lycanthrope character can't just walk through them while the rest of the party become extremely vulnerable.
In addition, when the creatures realize that they aren't doing any damage to the lycanthrope - they won't bother attacking it. There is no "tanking" mechanism in 5e D&D ... if the creatures can't damage the fighter in front they will all go eat the squishies in the back and ignore the fighter - their high AC and immunity to damage become meaningless and then the fighter gets unhappy that they can't do their job, the others get unhappy for being munched on all the time. However, unless every opponent the party fights is an unintelligent beast, it will only take one round of combat for the creatures to realize that they are doing nothing to the fighter and then turn their attention elsewhere.
SavageLycan also suggested the following plot effects and the challenge with most of them is that they only have one answer.
- What happens after spending several sessions saving a town from X the party falls asleep only to wake up and find the town brutalized with many townsfolk ripped apart only to find human fighter unconscious naked covered in blood in the town square?
What does happen? Lycanthropes are known in the world. Townsfolk ripped apart will have wounds that are recognizable and consistent with a lycanthrope. There is a naked human in the square covered in blood.
The answer here is simple. The unconsious fighter is restrained by the irate townfolk and town guard. They are tested to see if they are a lycanthrope by cutting them with a regular dagger and a silvered one. No damage in one case, damage in the other, known lycanthrope. They create a bonfire and burn the character. If the character somehow escapes then they post notices, send word to other towns, contact higher authorities depending on how your world is structured politically and they send out bounty hunters. Keep in mind that this is a relatively common problem - the hunters aren't stupid - they know the character is a fighter - will have some idea of their abilities and those of the party if they decide to help the known murderous lycanthrope. Experienced hunters will not underestimate the party and will succeed in capturing/killing the PC and possibly the rest of the party. (A lycanthrope is a threat that needs to be dealt with - think about it, if being a lycanthrope only has benefits, why wouldn't everyone want to be one? TV shows and movies have idolized good werewolves and vampires but that is not the typical take in D&D)
The problem is that the only way this plot line ends is the character dead, exiled or possibly someone casts a remove curse and they try not to be recognized but at least now they can prove they aren't a lycanthrope. This is one of those fantasy tropes that rarely leads to a fun or interesting longer term narrative in a D&D game.
- What happens if the wrong person notices the signs of lycanthropy in human fighter and word gets around, now you have a group of blood hunters tracking him down to eliminate him
See above. Anything that leads to the PC being hunted has the same long term outcome.
- What happens when the party is in some kind of social conflict with an arrogant aristocrat that is irritating the party due to their nature or demands and suddenly the human fighter cant keep his cool and wolfing out in the middle of the meeting hall or says something problematic in rage
See above. Anything that leads to the PC being hunted has the same long term outcome.
- What happens after the party begins to rely on human fighters durability then all of a sudden when they confidently square up with a big bad it just punches straight through him effortlessly
This will usually require magic or silver damage and if the party can't see that coming then I'd be surprised. It just wouldn't be much of a surprise, it lasts at most a minute and doesn't compensate for the multiple boring combats where the fighter can't be hurt and everything goes after the rest of the characters once they realize it.
- What happens to the human fighter when he cant be a wall for EVERYONE, where he must pick and choose who he will save and who he will let be in peril?
The fighter can't save anyone. He can choose which creature to attack but all this really means is the fighter gets to be the last one or maybe only one standing after the TPK, looking around, mourning the fact that everyone else is dead. At which point, if it hasn't happened already, all of the other players decide that being a lycanthrope is a lot safer and better, we should all be lycanthropes! If that is the style of game the DM wants then great, but not everyone wants to run or play a pack of feral beasts running around killing things.
-What happens when a roaming pack of werewolves pick up his scent and now come hunting after him and the party thinking they have him enslaved or captured in some kind of way and are willing to kill to free their brethren even against his wishes claiming "He does not understand the situation"
Huh? Werewolves have an int of 10. Some of the werewolves could even have caught the curse rather than being born with it. As a result, they likely know what is going on. The real question is why the OTHER characters would remain with a known lycanthrope? The usual answer is that they wouldn't except it is a role playing game and the party sticks together - e.g. meta gaming reasons.
Why would any character travel with another creature/character that could wake up in the middle of the night and decide to slaughter them all while they slept? You'd never be able to trust them to stand watch, you probably never be able to trust them at all. If the players actually role played it, the only real solution would be to find a cure for the character as soon as possible before they do too much damage and in the meantime, you would bind them up every night before going to sleep so that they don't hurt anyone. That kind of situation wouldn't be much fun for the character infected by lycanthropy (unless they were really into role playing and didn't mind the actions that the other characters really need to take to keep the creature restrained).
Anyway, in my experience, lycanthropy in D&D player characters (using the D&D rules) is something best avoided in a game unless used as a short term find a cure narrative for folks more interested in role playing. If you homebrew something more balanced with good and bad mechanical effects then you can try it out but if it is worth having then you may find everyone in the party wants to be a lycanthrope - if that is the game you want to play that's fine - but if not then I'd look for other options.
Just a random thing, but my thoughts on lycanthropy revolve around how the werecreature's primary advantage comes from its wild nature. On the topic of damage immunity, I would only let a player gain that immunity if they decided to let the lycan side remain dominant, affecting their alignment to the point as is generally seen in media lycans.
If they were to control the lycanthropy however, transform at will, retain control of personality, etc., I'd let them get resistance instead and maybe a decrease on the strength increase, because I see this as tempering the wild side that lets them go all out.
This is just me, but give them choices. Do they want to let the beast out and be the guy that gets hunted every time they enter a town but be a beast in combat? Or do they want to be a controlled version with a restrained wild side?
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ADHD Aussie (17M) with too many ideas and not enough time! Always up to chat!
Disclaimer: I'm not an optimizer. If I say something that's not fine-tuned to perfection, that's on purpose. D&D isn't an online tournament, it's a TTRPG where your imagination and the DM's compliance are the limits. I don't do "metas". If I can have fun with my thematically cool and still viable (both in and out of combat) concept, I'm happy. I'm not going for optimal stats; I'm going for optimal fun.
My personal feeling is that lycanthropy (and vampirism) as detailed in the vanilla rules just aren't very good. They're something that's extremely popular in the fantasy space, but D&D has never made an effort to capitalize on that. And I think that's a weakness of the game, compared to say, World of Darkness. There's stories worth telling that we just flat-out can't.
In my setting I use a modified version of Wild Shape to allow player lycanthropy: instead of basing it on Druid levels, I rule that you can use this modified Wild Shape to change into a lycanthrope with a challenge rating as high as your character level divided by 3, rounded down, but you only get the one alternate form. So you're either bitten by a werewolf, werebear, or what have you, and that's your one Wild Shape. Seems to work out pretty much comparable to the CRs that Druids get.
I play lycanthropy as a curse. It is something players should not want their characters to get.
If for no other reason than there is a period of time where I take their character away from them and do things. Horrific and violent things. Things they have no memory of.
The player gets their character back with something like, "Fighter McFighterface wakes up in a ditch. She's naked and covered in dried blood. It's not her blood because she is completely unharmed and feeling fine. In fact, she feels amazing, like she just had the best meal and sleep of her life. What does she do?"
It does lead to interesting gaming, where the players learn something about their characters.
In a game I ran, the final result of one character's cursing was the death (at the party's hands) of three caravan guards and 15 townsfolk. This was on top of the three murders the werewolf had committed while transformed. Up to that point the players thought their characters were the good guys.
I have a Lycanthrope in my game, who was born as one. I have waived the immunity to non-silver, because we agreed that it was overpowered.
I need to have a chat with them as I am compiling a new werebeast package and it will involve some new rules, which I need to see how they want to do it - rebuild their character to fit them entirely, or handwave that they're a different sort of werebeast and just use some of the rules.
In my world, the premise I use to make it a curse and a blessing would be:
You only have immunity to non-silvered weapons in hybrid form.
You turn on a full moon and go hunting.
You turn on your second failed death save, regaining 1d10hp and making a break for freedom.
Not only will this make for a surprise reveal mid-combat, it's inconvenient to have someone run off if they get knocked down. It also fits the horror-movie vibe of the werewolf getting beaten up and then turning and fighting back. Further to that, it is going to be a scary thing to see happen at lower levels if you are fighting people you didn't know were werebeasts!
The plan is that they might want to keep the "curse" and control it, because it can save them from death, but they also might want to get rid of it because it is hurting people around them.
So I am working on potential storylines and arcs for my characters down the road. Stuff that I'll seed in hooks and hints for that they could pursue if they choose or depending on choices they make, but not main plot stuff. With stuff like this I like to build in character building stuff for each of my players that they have expressed curiosity or interest for in the past, stuff that enhances the play but doesn't wildly alter the party or world structure (thats what main plot is for).
One of my players has in the past, and more than once, expressed curiosity about lycanthropy and that it might be fun/interesting to explore becoming a lycanthrope at some point and how that would play character and game wise (they are a big fan of all the werewolf tv and movie stuff so its a genre they are a fan of in general). The thing is I have no experience with lycanthropy in DND, or any RP games really, as a DM or even a player. Other than fighting some wererats or a werewolf here and there over the years, I have never played a character with lycanthropy or even been in a party with someone with it, so I am unsure of how to best handle it. Some questions for people that have done it as DM or a player:
Is it even worth it? By that I mean is it fun or a hassle? If I go this route I want to do it proper, they get bit or scratched, have to deal with the change being involuntary for however long it takes to gain control, not being in control at the full moon, keeping it secret (or not) etc. But that is a lot of character time and development to do, it could be fun, but I don't want it to turn in to a hassle.
What are your suggestions for types of were's that are fun? the character is a neutral/chaotic good human fighter, I could go the werewolf or the were rat route and have them have to deal with turning evil, but its really meant to be a fun thing at the end of the day, not force them to change their entire play type and character, so I was thinking weretiger or werebear or just do a homebrew of something funny like a werebadger or a weremonkey or something.
What are the downsides to having a player turn lycanthropic?
Thanks!
I don't know if it is possible/affordab;e for you - but having a look at Grim Hollow's setting and how they deal with Lycanthropy would make it much more character focussed (level in transformation, milestones to level up transformations, providing boons and flaws). There are development paths for characters with lycanthropy as well as other transformations (fiends, liches, vampires etc.). It is mentioned in the Player's Guide, but mechanics are covered in the Campaign Guide.
I had some experience with lycanthropy where one PC became wererat and ended-up infecting the entire party because all the players wanted to also become wererats in Dragon of Icespire Peak camapign. There was another campaign where a PC became a werebear, this time i ruled that it could not infect others, only true lycanthrope could and during transformation on full moon it was under DM control and was hunting and doing other acts of bestiality with no memory of it the next morning, when waking up naked and covered in blood.
The most powerful aspect of lycanthropy is the damage immunity. Players usually see it as a boon while lycanthropy is supposed to be a curse. I can't blame them, becoming immune to most monsters attack is very strong.
This is one of my concerns with the whole idea actually, lol. The player in question, human fighter, is already a hell of a tank and has focused on turning them selves in to a human shield for the party and has an AC of 19 and plans on getting it as high as he can. I know It sounds like he is one of THOSE players and is annoying but he is not, the inability for almost anything to hit him winds up being hilarious most of the time and the rest of the party is decidedly squishy, so it works, but I worry about taking it too far and taking any jeopardy out of combat for his character and ruining it being fun and making it boring.
In my opinion I would say let them do just that. If your player wants to become a unstoppable wall then let them enjoy it as its part of the fun. So if he wants to take advantage of the damage immunities and resistances of the curse then just allow it that way the player can feel useful and excited in this moments.
However the reason I say just allow it is because even though it would allow the player to feel even more heroic and powerful the flip side is also true for you. This allows you to really get creative with the story potential and narrative story telling. Here some examples on how this could be fun and interesting
- What happens after spending several sessions saving a town from X the party falls asleep only to wake up and find the town brutalized with many townsfolk ripped apart only to find human fighter unconscious naked covered in blood in the town square?
- What happens if the wrong person notices the signs of lycanthropy in human fighter and word gets around, now you have a group of blood hunters tracking him down to eliminate him
- What happens when the party is in some kind of social conflict with an arrogant aristocrat that is irritating the party due to their nature or demands and suddenly the human fighter cant keep his cool and wolfing out in the middle of the meeting hall or says something problematic in rage
- What happens after the party begins to rely on human fighters durability then all of a sudden when they confidently square up with a big bad it just punches straight through him effortlessly
- What happens to the human fighter when he cant be a wall for EVERYONE, where he must pick and choose who he will save and who he will let be in peril?
-What happens when a roaming pack of werewolves pick up his scent and now come hunting after him and the party thinking they have him enslaved or captured in some kind of way and are willing to kill to free their brethren even against his wishes claiming "He does not understand the situation"
These are just some spit ball questions but you get the idea, you don't need to have experience with a situation to make it interesting if you are constantly asking " What happens if...?" additionally with combat get creative, you are the DM you really don't have any limits to what you can throw at the party. If his skills lean into tanking hits them let him have as much as he wants, look into other avenues that make things interesting. Sure its all fun and games to treat him like a meat wall until a succubus comes by and enchants him turning him against the party, or when the dragon swoops in picking up him and another member of the party and dropping them from 100ft up. He may survive but he will definitely be sweating as his party member is plummeting towards the ground.
These are just some ideas to run with. I find the rules of thumb here is the stronger the party wants to make themselves the bigger and crazier the threats you can dish out. Just work your angles and find problems and conflicts that make this equally fun and challenging.
I'd say only as a homebrew, with a lot of restrictions compared to the npc monster, as it would be insanely imba for a player character. (I dislike the Lycantrope statblocks in dnd in general...) Maybe more like the Shifter race from the Eberron Sourcebook plus the capability to turn full wolf, a vulnerability to silver, no ability to infect others (infection only by born Lycantropes somethingsomething...) maybe one or two other minor perks.
I love all of these suggestions, I think I will be using some of these to craft my approach, thanks!
Yeah, the more I think about and consider it, I am defintely doing a homebrew were, not only do I not care for the RAW statblock, they are just kind of boring lore and RP wise. I am thinking about something like a weremoose or a werealmiraj would be absolutely hillarious. Im going to keep that there is a hybrid transformation and a full transformation, something like a werecow sounds terrible until you consider the strength boost a hybrid form with a bull would result in!!
I have a few issues with it.
Personally if my player wanted to become a werewolf, I would suggest that once the character is bitten it transitions to an NPC and they roll up a new character. They can have some input on where that character would go, but they would not be in control of it anymore.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I dont think lycanthropy is worth the hassle. The blood hunter and beast barbarian do a good enough job if they want that to be their character concept but lycanthropy isn't great just slapped on a character.
If you want to run it, I advise minimalism. The only character buff I might give is making them harder to kill. I.e when they get put to 0 they fall unconscious but unless the weapon was silver or magical they are considered to have succeeded their saving throws. Transformations would be rare (probably a roll against the curse dc every full moon) and would put the player under the gms control as werewolf monster usually resulting in an inconvenience . Other than that it would just be cosmetic, I'd let them change their appearance to be more animal like if they want and I'd consider giving some indefinite madness as a roleplay prompt things like " you feel anxious when in doors" or " you are constantly hungry no matter how much you eat" . This way it functions as a curse but isn't so over bearing as to ruin a character. Story wise it's easy to justify the weakness as the curse not being in control
My personal opinion is that D&D lycanthropy as written is NOT worth the hassle in terms of the impact on the characters and role playing. Lycanthropy as written only has mechanical benefits and all of the downsides are social/role playing. As a result, many players don't really see it as the curse it is intended to be.
If you want to homebrew lycanthropy and add mechanical benefits as well as drawbacks then you can create a more balanced form that can fit the narrative of your game but, as written, lycanthropy in D&D is generally not worth the hassle since the affected ones become significantly more powerful. Consider that the claws and bite of the 500+ hit point ancient red dragon are just slashing and piercing damage that have no effect on a lycanthrope. I'm sure the dragon can come up with other ways that might deal with the character but allowing the ability into your game makes it very difficult to create encounters where the one lycanthrope character can't just walk through them while the rest of the party become extremely vulnerable.
In addition, when the creatures realize that they aren't doing any damage to the lycanthrope - they won't bother attacking it. There is no "tanking" mechanism in 5e D&D ... if the creatures can't damage the fighter in front they will all go eat the squishies in the back and ignore the fighter - their high AC and immunity to damage become meaningless and then the fighter gets unhappy that they can't do their job, the others get unhappy for being munched on all the time. However, unless every opponent the party fights is an unintelligent beast, it will only take one round of combat for the creatures to realize that they are doing nothing to the fighter and then turn their attention elsewhere.
SavageLycan also suggested the following plot effects and the challenge with most of them is that they only have one answer.
What does happen? Lycanthropes are known in the world. Townsfolk ripped apart will have wounds that are recognizable and consistent with a lycanthrope. There is a naked human in the square covered in blood.
The answer here is simple. The unconsious fighter is restrained by the irate townfolk and town guard. They are tested to see if they are a lycanthrope by cutting them with a regular dagger and a silvered one. No damage in one case, damage in the other, known lycanthrope. They create a bonfire and burn the character. If the character somehow escapes then they post notices, send word to other towns, contact higher authorities depending on how your world is structured politically and they send out bounty hunters. Keep in mind that this is a relatively common problem - the hunters aren't stupid - they know the character is a fighter - will have some idea of their abilities and those of the party if they decide to help the known murderous lycanthrope. Experienced hunters will not underestimate the party and will succeed in capturing/killing the PC and possibly the rest of the party. (A lycanthrope is a threat that needs to be dealt with - think about it, if being a lycanthrope only has benefits, why wouldn't everyone want to be one? TV shows and movies have idolized good werewolves and vampires but that is not the typical take in D&D)
The problem is that the only way this plot line ends is the character dead, exiled or possibly someone casts a remove curse and they try not to be recognized but at least now they can prove they aren't a lycanthrope. This is one of those fantasy tropes that rarely leads to a fun or interesting longer term narrative in a D&D game.
See above. Anything that leads to the PC being hunted has the same long term outcome.
See above. Anything that leads to the PC being hunted has the same long term outcome.
This will usually require magic or silver damage and if the party can't see that coming then I'd be surprised. It just wouldn't be much of a surprise, it lasts at most a minute and doesn't compensate for the multiple boring combats where the fighter can't be hurt and everything goes after the rest of the characters once they realize it.
The fighter can't save anyone. He can choose which creature to attack but all this really means is the fighter gets to be the last one or maybe only one standing after the TPK, looking around, mourning the fact that everyone else is dead. At which point, if it hasn't happened already, all of the other players decide that being a lycanthrope is a lot safer and better, we should all be lycanthropes! If that is the style of game the DM wants then great, but not everyone wants to run or play a pack of feral beasts running around killing things.
Huh? Werewolves have an int of 10. Some of the werewolves could even have caught the curse rather than being born with it. As a result, they likely know what is going on. The real question is why the OTHER characters would remain with a known lycanthrope? The usual answer is that they wouldn't except it is a role playing game and the party sticks together - e.g. meta gaming reasons.
Why would any character travel with another creature/character that could wake up in the middle of the night and decide to slaughter them all while they slept? You'd never be able to trust them to stand watch, you probably never be able to trust them at all. If the players actually role played it, the only real solution would be to find a cure for the character as soon as possible before they do too much damage and in the meantime, you would bind them up every night before going to sleep so that they don't hurt anyone. That kind of situation wouldn't be much fun for the character infected by lycanthropy (unless they were really into role playing and didn't mind the actions that the other characters really need to take to keep the creature restrained).
Anyway, in my experience, lycanthropy in D&D player characters (using the D&D rules) is something best avoided in a game unless used as a short term find a cure narrative for folks more interested in role playing. If you homebrew something more balanced with good and bad mechanical effects then you can try it out but if it is worth having then you may find everyone in the party wants to be a lycanthrope - if that is the game you want to play that's fine - but if not then I'd look for other options.
Just a random thing, but my thoughts on lycanthropy revolve around how the werecreature's primary advantage comes from its wild nature. On the topic of damage immunity, I would only let a player gain that immunity if they decided to let the lycan side remain dominant, affecting their alignment to the point as is generally seen in media lycans.
If they were to control the lycanthropy however, transform at will, retain control of personality, etc., I'd let them get resistance instead and maybe a decrease on the strength increase, because I see this as tempering the wild side that lets them go all out.
This is just me, but give them choices. Do they want to let the beast out and be the guy that gets hunted every time they enter a town but be a beast in combat? Or do they want to be a controlled version with a restrained wild side?
ADHD Aussie (17M) with too many ideas and not enough time! Always up to chat!
Disclaimer: I'm not an optimizer. If I say something that's not fine-tuned to perfection, that's on purpose. D&D isn't an online tournament, it's a TTRPG where your imagination and the DM's compliance are the limits. I don't do "metas". If I can have fun with my thematically cool and still viable (both in and out of combat) concept, I'm happy. I'm not going for optimal stats; I'm going for optimal fun.
My personal feeling is that lycanthropy (and vampirism) as detailed in the vanilla rules just aren't very good. They're something that's extremely popular in the fantasy space, but D&D has never made an effort to capitalize on that. And I think that's a weakness of the game, compared to say, World of Darkness. There's stories worth telling that we just flat-out can't.
In my setting I use a modified version of Wild Shape to allow player lycanthropy: instead of basing it on Druid levels, I rule that you can use this modified Wild Shape to change into a lycanthrope with a challenge rating as high as your character level divided by 3, rounded down, but you only get the one alternate form. So you're either bitten by a werewolf, werebear, or what have you, and that's your one Wild Shape. Seems to work out pretty much comparable to the CRs that Druids get.
I play lycanthropy as a curse. It is something players should not want their characters to get.
If for no other reason than there is a period of time where I take their character away from them and do things. Horrific and violent things. Things they have no memory of.
The player gets their character back with something like, "Fighter McFighterface wakes up in a ditch. She's naked and covered in dried blood. It's not her blood because she is completely unharmed and feeling fine. In fact, she feels amazing, like she just had the best meal and sleep of her life. What does she do?"
It does lead to interesting gaming, where the players learn something about their characters.
In a game I ran, the final result of one character's cursing was the death (at the party's hands) of three caravan guards and 15 townsfolk. This was on top of the three murders the werewolf had committed while transformed. Up to that point the players thought their characters were the good guys.
I have a Lycanthrope in my game, who was born as one. I have waived the immunity to non-silver, because we agreed that it was overpowered.
I need to have a chat with them as I am compiling a new werebeast package and it will involve some new rules, which I need to see how they want to do it - rebuild their character to fit them entirely, or handwave that they're a different sort of werebeast and just use some of the rules.
In my world, the premise I use to make it a curse and a blessing would be:
Not only will this make for a surprise reveal mid-combat, it's inconvenient to have someone run off if they get knocked down. It also fits the horror-movie vibe of the werewolf getting beaten up and then turning and fighting back. Further to that, it is going to be a scary thing to see happen at lower levels if you are fighting people you didn't know were werebeasts!
The plan is that they might want to keep the "curse" and control it, because it can save them from death, but they also might want to get rid of it because it is hurting people around them.
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