A way to balance lycanthrope PC could be to remove the damage immunities and attack from carrying the curse of lycanthropy as well as limit the Shapechanger trait down to a number a time per day.
Piggybacking off of this to ask about it-one of my PCs is a bloodhunter who worships a deity of curses that got inflicted with werewolf lycanthropy. How to balance that? We established a system on how his character will lose control seeing others blood and the moon, needing to roll wisdom saves, and vulnerability to silvered weapons. Anything else I should do?
There is a sidebar about it in the monster manual. It gives them strength 15 if they didn't already have. When they shapeshift their AC becomes 12 and all of their equipment including their weapons morphs into it. and they can use their claw attack. (Don't think they should be able to bite and give random people lycanthropy.) If they are a fighter and can attack more than once they can multiattack. Of course the downside is that while in Werewolf form you become chaotic evil. I feel as if at later levels becoming a werewolf is actually a downgrade.
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"Uh, I have Illusory Script. I think I can read that."
one of my players wants to be a lycanthrope but i don’t know how to implement that without it being absolutely broken
I'm playing a werewolf in one campaign this is how I do it:
On an ordinary night: Shifter race, use basic two-weapon-fighting with shortswords as the claw attack while shifted, and got my choice of Mobile or Charger as a free feat when I got Lycanthrope.
On a full moon: forced to change & stay in shifted form. Gain the same benefits/costs as Rage (as if 1st level Barbarian) while shifted but must make Wisdom saving throws every hour or lose control. Allies can try to help her regain control granting her a new Wisdom saving throw once per round to regain control.
I would replace the immunity to silver and regeneration with them simply not dieing at 0 but instead stabilizing unless they were hit by a silver weapon. This maintains the abilities of werewolves without providing insane durability. The explanation would be that those with regeneration or immunity are essentially rabid and hence ignoring pain.
In terms of transformation it doesn't need to be limited if it doesn't grant a hit point buffer which by default it doesn't. I would personally make it so they can't wear armor and drop what they are holding when transforming because werewolves aren't the elegant transformations of a polymorph or wild shape.
As for bites spreading lycanthropy and madness, I would make that entirely at the discretion of the DM. Only creatures the dm wants to will become werewolves and the player has no control of those creatures. It's magic, so a bit of mystery is a good thing, you don't need to treat it like a diseases with defined symptoms. How the curse chooses it's victims is unknown. Some are seem immune, some go mad and some it punishes in other ways. Maybe the curse knows that at some point you will need to say something important so it simply takes away your ability to speak in a human voice at that time. Maybe it punish's you by constantly drawing you into fights with other werewolves and empowering your enemies with the curse.
The option I use is from the Grim Hollow source. It levels with the characters and only after they achieve a goal that furthers their progress. However, Grim Hollow only offers wolf and bear for their lycanthrope options, but I'm sure flavoring it shouldn't be too difficult.
Piggybacking off of this to ask about it-one of my PCs is a bloodhunter who worships a deity of curses that got inflicted with werewolf lycanthropy. How to balance that? We established a system on how his character will lose control seeing others blood and the moon, needing to roll wisdom saves, and vulnerability to silvered weapons. Anything else I should do?
I would probably see if the player wants to change his subclass so the Lycanthropy is handled by the subclass instead of trying to do something outside the game.
Practically speaking, lycanthropy is only broken if you let it be.
Lycanthropes are just as likely to be killed by a house fire as anybody else is. Spells and elemental damage will wreck a lycan's day because they totally bypass the damage immunities.
Got an encounter with some local bandits? Have one of them lose his weapon and fight with a torch. Big tough werewolf not so cocky now, is she? Party going after some cultists? No lycan will appreciate an Eldritch Blast to the face. Exploring ancient ruins? You'd better hope those acid pits dried up...
As for balance within the party, I tended to solve that by giving out magic items or plot-relevant feats. Sure, the trickster cleric is now immune to nonmagical damage, but his barbarian pal has a sword that can rewrite destiny a couple times a day, when she needs to. And the harder the party can hit, the harder I can hit them in return.
When I gave two of my PCs lycanthropy, I had encounters that they breezed through because of the damage immunities, and they felt awesome. But I mixed in enough encounters with other threats that they didn't feel invincible. As with everything in a campaign, it's up to the DM to adjust to keep things fun, fair, and new. I say, embrace the opportunity!
I have actually just released a supplement for this very purpose (and will say, this thread appearing was part of what made me return to the project, it's been WIP for over a year!)
Basic goal was to make being a lycanthrope balanced, without making it broken or rubbish. It also has to start off by feeling like a curse, but end up with control, so it has progression in there too!
one of my players wants to be a lycanthrope but i don’t know how to implement that without it being absolutely broken
Take a look at the shifter species. It can give that kind of flavor without going full were-creature.
You could also use either the Barbarian path of the beast or Bloodhunter Order of the Lycan for a bit of Lycanthropic flavour.
A way to balance lycanthrope PC could be to remove the damage immunities and attack from carrying the curse of lycanthropy as well as limit the Shapechanger trait down to a number a time per day.
Piggybacking off of this to ask about it-one of my PCs is a bloodhunter who worships a deity of curses that got inflicted with werewolf lycanthropy. How to balance that? We established a system on how his character will lose control seeing others blood and the moon, needing to roll wisdom saves, and vulnerability to silvered weapons. Anything else I should do?
I am leader of the yep cult:https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/82135-yep-cult Pronouns are she/her
There is a sidebar about it in the monster manual. It gives them strength 15 if they didn't already have. When they shapeshift their AC becomes 12 and all of their equipment including their weapons morphs into it. and they can use their claw attack. (Don't think they should be able to bite and give random people lycanthropy.) If they are a fighter and can attack more than once they can multiattack. Of course the downside is that while in Werewolf form you become chaotic evil. I feel as if at later levels becoming a werewolf is actually a downgrade.
"Uh, I have Illusory Script. I think I can read that."
I'm playing a werewolf in one campaign this is how I do it:
On an ordinary night: Shifter race, use basic two-weapon-fighting with shortswords as the claw attack while shifted, and got my choice of Mobile or Charger as a free feat when I got Lycanthrope.
On a full moon: forced to change & stay in shifted form. Gain the same benefits/costs as Rage (as if 1st level Barbarian) while shifted but must make Wisdom saving throws every hour or lose control. Allies can try to help her regain control granting her a new Wisdom saving throw once per round to regain control.
I would replace the immunity to silver and regeneration with them simply not dieing at 0 but instead stabilizing unless they were hit by a silver weapon. This maintains the abilities of werewolves without providing insane durability. The explanation would be that those with regeneration or immunity are essentially rabid and hence ignoring pain.
In terms of transformation it doesn't need to be limited if it doesn't grant a hit point buffer which by default it doesn't. I would personally make it so they can't wear armor and drop what they are holding when transforming because werewolves aren't the elegant transformations of a polymorph or wild shape.
As for bites spreading lycanthropy and madness, I would make that entirely at the discretion of the DM. Only creatures the dm wants to will become werewolves and the player has no control of those creatures. It's magic, so a bit of mystery is a good thing, you don't need to treat it like a diseases with defined symptoms. How the curse chooses it's victims is unknown. Some are seem immune, some go mad and some it punishes in other ways. Maybe the curse knows that at some point you will need to say something important so it simply takes away your ability to speak in a human voice at that time. Maybe it punish's you by constantly drawing you into fights with other werewolves and empowering your enemies with the curse.
The option I use is from the Grim Hollow source. It levels with the characters and only after they achieve a goal that furthers their progress. However, Grim Hollow only offers wolf and bear for their lycanthrope options, but I'm sure flavoring it shouldn't be too difficult.
I would probably see if the player wants to change his subclass so the Lycanthropy is handled by the subclass instead of trying to do something outside the game.
Practically speaking, lycanthropy is only broken if you let it be.
Lycanthropes are just as likely to be killed by a house fire as anybody else is. Spells and elemental damage will wreck a lycan's day because they totally bypass the damage immunities.
Got an encounter with some local bandits? Have one of them lose his weapon and fight with a torch. Big tough werewolf not so cocky now, is she?
Party going after some cultists? No lycan will appreciate an Eldritch Blast to the face.
Exploring ancient ruins? You'd better hope those acid pits dried up...
As for balance within the party, I tended to solve that by giving out magic items or plot-relevant feats. Sure, the trickster cleric is now immune to nonmagical damage, but his barbarian pal has a sword that can rewrite destiny a couple times a day, when she needs to. And the harder the party can hit, the harder I can hit them in return.
When I gave two of my PCs lycanthropy, I had encounters that they breezed through because of the damage immunities, and they felt awesome. But I mixed in enough encounters with other threats that they didn't feel invincible. As with everything in a campaign, it's up to the DM to adjust to keep things fun, fair, and new. I say, embrace the opportunity!
Silver weapons all around!!!
I have actually just released a supplement for this very purpose (and will say, this thread appearing was part of what made me return to the project, it's been WIP for over a year!)
It's over on my dtrpg thread:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/advertisements/182105-my-character-is-a-werewolf-duckslayer-games-dtrpg#c16
Basic goal was to make being a lycanthrope balanced, without making it broken or rubbish. It also has to start off by feeling like a curse, but end up with control, so it has progression in there too!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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