I'm fairly new to the hobby, and am running Dragon of Icespire peak with my friends. Recently one of them has been bitten by a wererat, and has become a tad too powerful for my liking, but I needed a thematic way to scale him back down.
I have created a table of rules, which I hope will encourage the party to have the lycanthropy removed in a fun and thematic manner. I have yet to use it on them, and do not know how balanced it is, but I though I might share it in case anyone has a similar issue and wants to use it as a basis for anything else. It's been designed with Phandalin in mind, but it should be easy enough to adapt to any campaign. Without further ado, here it is:
Mistrust level
Effects (cumulative)
1
Villagers will step aside from you and avoid interaction if possible.
2
The cursed player is prohibited from buying weapons from Lionshield Coster.
3
The cursed player is prohibited from buying armour from Lionshield Coster
4
The cursed player is prohibited from buying goods from Barthen’s Provisions.
5
The effects of levels 1-4 now apply to the whole party, but non-cursed players may make a DC 15 persuasion check to buy provisions.
6
Villagers openly boo at the party and makes threats against them.
7
The party may not buy any alcohol in the inn, lest their intoxication give way to a rampage.
8
Rotten veg is now thrown at the party on sight. Should the party attempt to purchase anything, they are charged an extra 10% as ‘security money’
9
The security charge from Barthen’s Provisions is increased to 20%
10
Harbin Wester refuses to pay rewards for quests (unless a DC 17 persuasion check is made). He warns the party that he does not know how much longer he can keep the villagers at ease, and advises them to leave Phandalin or have the curse removed of their own will.
11
A mob of 5 villagers and a priestess confront the party next time they enter Phandalin. The party is given the choice of letting the priestess remove the curse or be killed. This repeats until the curse is removed or the cursed player is killed, with the number of villagers increasing by 5 every time.
Personally, I am going to have the levels increase over time, but really anything could work here. To prevent the party from simply getting it removed and then deliberately gaining lycanthropy again, every subsequent time the party gains a mistrust level, it will be one level higher than their previous starting level e.g. the second time they are cursed they start on level 2, third time level 3 and so on.
So there it is. Please feel free to use this in your own campaigns in its current form or one you have adapted, and please C&C!
The ironic thing is that right now the wererat is the only thing keeping them alive atm. Doing SoS and currently it's holding off 2 ogres while one is unconscious and the other one had carried him into the temple.
2 wizards and a rogue is perhaps not the best setup at low levels XD
The table is workable if that's what you think would fit your campaign best, but don't forget that lycanthropy does possess the drawback of the player losing control of the character from time to time (or permanently, depending on the DM's discretion) so you can easily use that to drive home that "hey, this is something you don't want to have as a PC".
With that said, two wizards and a rogue? Unless they're running with a sidekick NPC or you're using a modified version of the adventure I'm...not optimistic this party will survive very long.
Yep, two wizards and a rogue. Currently we've only had two knocked unconscious but survived. I did try to tell them that a more durable class may be needed during character creation, but who am I to force a class upon my players, especially as a new DM?
I did roll a fighter for myself that could join their party, but they seem to be doing alright for now; if they start to struggle then I may have to introduce him.
The calender used in the forgoten realms us a lunar calender. One month equals a full moon cycle. A month has 3 weeks with 10 days each and the full moon us always on the 1st of the month.
So on the 30th, 1st and 2nd i would take my players PC and randomly attack bystanders in the night. During the days i would tell the player to play as if he is in an angry and agressiv mood during thise days.
Hello DMs!
I'm fairly new to the hobby, and am running Dragon of Icespire peak with my friends. Recently one of them has been bitten by a wererat, and has become a tad too powerful for my liking, but I needed a thematic way to scale him back down.
I have created a table of rules, which I hope will encourage the party to have the lycanthropy removed in a fun and thematic manner. I have yet to use it on them, and do not know how balanced it is, but I though I might share it in case anyone has a similar issue and wants to use it as a basis for anything else. It's been designed with Phandalin in mind, but it should be easy enough to adapt to any campaign. Without further ado, here it is:
Mistrust level
Effects (cumulative)
1
Villagers will step aside from you and avoid interaction if possible.
2
The cursed player is prohibited from buying weapons from Lionshield Coster.
3
The cursed player is prohibited from buying armour from Lionshield Coster
4
The cursed player is prohibited from buying goods from Barthen’s Provisions.
5
The effects of levels 1-4 now apply to the whole party, but non-cursed players may make a DC 15 persuasion check to buy provisions.
6
Villagers openly boo at the party and makes threats against them.
7
The party may not buy any alcohol in the inn, lest their intoxication give way to a rampage.
8
Rotten veg is now thrown at the party on sight. Should the party attempt to purchase anything, they are charged an extra 10% as ‘security money’
9
The security charge from Barthen’s Provisions is increased to 20%
10
Harbin Wester refuses to pay rewards for quests (unless a DC 17 persuasion check is made). He warns the party that he does not know how much longer he can keep the villagers at ease, and advises them to leave Phandalin or have the curse removed of their own will.
11
A mob of 5 villagers and a priestess confront the party next time they enter Phandalin. The party is given the choice of letting the priestess remove the curse or be killed. This repeats until the curse is removed or the cursed player is killed, with the number of villagers increasing by 5 every time.
Personally, I am going to have the levels increase over time, but really anything could work here. To prevent the party from simply getting it removed and then deliberately gaining lycanthropy again, every subsequent time the party gains a mistrust level, it will be one level higher than their previous starting level e.g. the second time they are cursed they start on level 2, third time level 3 and so on.
So there it is. Please feel free to use this in your own campaigns in its current form or one you have adapted, and please C&C!
I will keep this in mind -- my players are going to visit a hyomebrewed city that is a freaking den of wererats. Will use!
Proud poster on the Create a World thread
Ha ha that should be fun.
The ironic thing is that right now the wererat is the only thing keeping them alive atm. Doing SoS and currently it's holding off 2 ogres while one is unconscious and the other one had carried him into the temple.
2 wizards and a rogue is perhaps not the best setup at low levels XD
The table is workable if that's what you think would fit your campaign best, but don't forget that lycanthropy does possess the drawback of the player losing control of the character from time to time (or permanently, depending on the DM's discretion) so you can easily use that to drive home that "hey, this is something you don't want to have as a PC".
With that said, two wizards and a rogue? Unless they're running with a sidekick NPC or you're using a modified version of the adventure I'm...not optimistic this party will survive very long.
Yep, two wizards and a rogue. Currently we've only had two knocked unconscious but survived. I did try to tell them that a more durable class may be needed during character creation, but who am I to force a class upon my players, especially as a new DM?
I did roll a fighter for myself that could join their party, but they seem to be doing alright for now; if they start to struggle then I may have to introduce him.
The calender used in the forgoten realms us a lunar calender. One month equals a full moon cycle. A month has 3 weeks with 10 days each and the full moon us always on the 1st of the month.
So on the 30th, 1st and 2nd i would take my players PC and randomly attack bystanders in the night. During the days i would tell the player to play as if he is in an angry and agressiv mood during thise days.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]Ah thanks so much! I wasn't sure how to determine the lunar phase ingame so that was one of the reasons I created the table.