I have a PC playing a chaotic good elf wizard in Curse of Strahd and they just uncovered the keepers of the feather and built an alliance with the wereravens. This player is trying to convince one of the wereravens to willingly attack him in raven form so he can become a wereraven.
I totally agree that his character would want to do this and reading about wereravens it seems like it wouldn’t actually be too bad. His alignment would change to lawful good and he would gain the benefit of shape shifting, also the damage immunities when in hybrid or raven form.
I kind of want to mess with him a bit though. Basically I want him to have a kind of rough transformation period where he struggles to gain control of it. Can you think of some ideas that would be appropriate?
Have him do con saves to learn how to change forms on purpose. Make the DC higher to change back into human form than it is to change into raven or hybrid form. If he fails a couple in a row have him take 1D4 psychic dmg.
As a DM I’m not sure I’d let a character do what you’re suggesting, just because of how meta he’s obviously thinking about it.
“Dmg immunity? Oh that’s awesome! If I ever get hurt I’ll shift into hybrid form and then back and be healed!”
Yeah that’s just not a headache I want, it just kind of heads out to munchkin land and that’s not where I really want to be as a DM.
You can make it that in his first couple of transformations, if he fails a certain amount of Con saves, he blacks out and basically goes into berserker mode. If it's before like a rest, roll a D20 to see if and how many civilians he has attacked while passed out.
He seems less interested in the damage immunity (I don’t think he even knows about it). He’s mainly interested in the ability to transform into a raven and then spy on people. He’s playing up the wizard thirst for power and knowledge angle and this would be a way for him to get all kinds of information covertly.
So I get it and I’m ok with it. If it was a werewolf the options would be more obvious but wereravens are a bit different.
Yeah, I like the idea of making it difficult to transform for a while. I’m also thinking about having him roll to fight the tendency to spontaneously transform. Like maybe he transforms into a raven and flies around castle Ravenloft trying to gain intel but every five minutes he has to succeed on a roll to avoid suddenly transforming back to his elf form right in the middle of a juicy conversation he’s spying on.
The first problem is he won’t know if he failed his saving throw or not to contract lycanthropy until he transforms on a full moon and either he remembers the transformation or someone else tells him that he transformed. Then his second problem will be learning how to control his curse since he’ll embrace it.
Those two combined should easily take a few months of game time and enough levels that the advantages of being a were-raven won’t be very significant compared to his abilities as a PC.
Keep in mind that, unlike Wildshape, "Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed." If that wizard has a spellbook, gold, or any magical items, they all drop right where he transforms, and he can't carry them. He will arrive butt-naked and largely defenseless. That's going to cause him a lot of problems, if not handled carefully.
If you want the transition to be rough, have him blackout in his hybrid form, fly over a forest or lake, and then transform fully into a raven, scattering his spellbook and magic items somewhere he will have no recollection of.
If you're nice, the other wereravens might be following him and can help him track down his things. If you're mean, he might drop his stuff in the deepest part of Lake Zarovich and have to fight the monster that lives there. (IF he can figure out where he went in his fugue state.)
Ooh, yes. That’s an interesting angle. In the last session when he was quizzing Davian Martikov about this I had Davian being reluctant to agree, saying that living with were raven lycanthropy is very manageable but that there are downsides. I had him say that the translation period can be frustrating but in time the effects can be controlled. Also that one downside is that he is basically cursing his progenitors without their consent.
So I’ve been cagey about the details so far. I’ll see how it goes tomorrow night and whether he really wants to pursue it. These are some good ideas though.
I’d suggest making the transformation be only at the end of a short or long rest. Make him commit to one form or the other for a period of time. Or at least give it a time of 10 minutes to complete, so he can’t switch from one to the other in combat. Make him think hard about which form he wants to take and when.
The other thing I’d suggest is don’t do it. You’re basically giving him a Druid’s wildshape class ability for nothing. (I’m not worried about stepping on toes, to be clear. Just giving out class abilities is very powerful) Maybe force him to spend a homebrewed feat to be able to control it, and still impose more restrictions. Otherwise If he wants to turn into animals to scout he should multi-class (or take find familiar) like everyone else.
You could have him be compelled to act extremely lawful good, like an annoying holier-than-thou paladin. This would be annoying for a whole campaign, but might create some fun social encounters for a session or two. Then after he gets used to his wereraven body and alignment, he learns how to take a more nuanced approach. He's basically a novice nun keeping on her best behavior or a new cop on the beat playing everything by the book.
Agreed on the Feat idea - I'd suggest having a conversation with you player so he knows what's up and you both agree ahead of time. You can expose him to Lycanthropy now (in game), but he can't really do anything with it until he spends his feat on it. Making homebrew feats is surprisingly simple... and this is right in line with the power level of a feat. If he doesn't want to spend the feat, I'd skip the whole thing. This is a pretty character defining characteristic, so spending a feat is perfect.
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I have a PC playing a chaotic good elf wizard in Curse of Strahd and they just uncovered the keepers of the feather and built an alliance with the wereravens. This player is trying to convince one of the wereravens to willingly attack him in raven form so he can become a wereraven.
I totally agree that his character would want to do this and reading about wereravens it seems like it wouldn’t actually be too bad. His alignment would change to lawful good and he would gain the benefit of shape shifting, also the damage immunities when in hybrid or raven form.
I kind of want to mess with him a bit though. Basically I want him to have a kind of rough transformation period where he struggles to gain control of it. Can you think of some ideas that would be appropriate?
Have him do con saves to learn how to change forms on purpose. Make the DC higher to change back into human form than it is to change into raven or hybrid form. If he fails a couple in a row have him take 1D4 psychic dmg.
As a DM I’m not sure I’d let a character do what you’re suggesting, just because of how meta he’s obviously thinking about it.
“Dmg immunity? Oh that’s awesome! If I ever get hurt I’ll shift into hybrid form and then back and be healed!”
Yeah that’s just not a headache I want, it just kind of heads out to munchkin land and that’s not where I really want to be as a DM.
You can make it that in his first couple of transformations, if he fails a certain amount of Con saves, he blacks out and basically goes into berserker mode. If it's before like a rest, roll a D20 to see if and how many civilians he has attacked while passed out.
He seems less interested in the damage immunity (I don’t think he even knows about it). He’s mainly interested in the ability to transform into a raven and then spy on people. He’s playing up the wizard thirst for power and knowledge angle and this would be a way for him to get all kinds of information covertly.
So I get it and I’m ok with it. If it was a werewolf the options would be more obvious but wereravens are a bit different.
Yeah, I like the idea of making it difficult to transform for a while. I’m also thinking about having him roll to fight the tendency to spontaneously transform. Like maybe he transforms into a raven and flies around castle Ravenloft trying to gain intel but every five minutes he has to succeed on a roll to avoid suddenly transforming back to his elf form right in the middle of a juicy conversation he’s spying on.
The first problem is he won’t know if he failed his saving throw or not to contract lycanthropy until he transforms on a full moon and either he remembers the transformation or someone else tells him that he transformed. Then his second problem will be learning how to control his curse since he’ll embrace it.
Those two combined should easily take a few months of game time and enough levels that the advantages of being a were-raven won’t be very significant compared to his abilities as a PC.
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Keep in mind that, unlike Wildshape, "Any equipment it is wearing or carrying isn't transformed."
If that wizard has a spellbook, gold, or any magical items, they all drop right where he transforms, and he can't carry them. He will arrive butt-naked and largely defenseless. That's going to cause him a lot of problems, if not handled carefully.
If you want the transition to be rough, have him blackout in his hybrid form, fly over a forest or lake, and then transform fully into a raven, scattering his spellbook and magic items somewhere he will have no recollection of.
If you're nice, the other wereravens might be following him and can help him track down his things.
If you're mean, he might drop his stuff in the deepest part of Lake Zarovich and have to fight the monster that lives there. (IF he can figure out where he went in his fugue state.)
Ooh, yes. That’s an interesting angle. In the last session when he was quizzing Davian Martikov about this I had Davian being reluctant to agree, saying that living with were raven lycanthropy is very manageable but that there are downsides. I had him say that the translation period can be frustrating but in time the effects can be controlled. Also that one downside is that he is basically cursing his progenitors without their consent.
So I’ve been cagey about the details so far. I’ll see how it goes tomorrow night and whether he really wants to pursue it. These are some good ideas though.
I’d suggest making the transformation be only at the end of a short or long rest. Make him commit to one form or the other for a period of time. Or at least give it a time of 10 minutes to complete, so he can’t switch from one to the other in combat. Make him think hard about which form he wants to take and when.
The other thing I’d suggest is don’t do it. You’re basically giving him a Druid’s wildshape class ability for nothing. (I’m not worried about stepping on toes, to be clear. Just giving out class abilities is very powerful) Maybe force him to spend a homebrewed feat to be able to control it, and still impose more restrictions. Otherwise If he wants to turn into animals to scout he should multi-class (or take find familiar) like everyone else.
You could have him be compelled to act extremely lawful good, like an annoying holier-than-thou paladin. This would be annoying for a whole campaign, but might create some fun social encounters for a session or two. Then after he gets used to his wereraven body and alignment, he learns how to take a more nuanced approach. He's basically a novice nun keeping on her best behavior or a new cop on the beat playing everything by the book.
Agreed on the Feat idea - I'd suggest having a conversation with you player so he knows what's up and you both agree ahead of time. You can expose him to Lycanthropy now (in game), but he can't really do anything with it until he spends his feat on it. Making homebrew feats is surprisingly simple... and this is right in line with the power level of a feat. If he doesn't want to spend the feat, I'd skip the whole thing. This is a pretty character defining characteristic, so spending a feat is perfect.