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Seventh Dwarf
2009-09-11, 09:57 AM
I have searched the forums and read the player's handbook - no luck. How do people handle charm/hold person spells and lycanthropes/shapechangers/druids?

1. The lycanthrope or humanoid shapechanger is always susceptible to charm/hold person. Regardless of the form, his/her base form is humanoid and the spell operates against him/her.

2. When the lycanthrope is in human/dwarf/halfling form, he is susceptible. When in animal form, he/she is not. (Hybrid form is probably humanoid).

3. The lyncanthrope is never susceptible to charm/hold person spells. He is no longer humanoid, but a beast/humanoid hybrid not covered by the spells. This does not work for me for shapechangers.

I tend towards #2, but wondered what others did.

Yora
2009-09-11, 09:59 AM
Even in full animal form, a lycanthrope is still a humanoid, making it a person. So the spells should always work.

qcbtnsrm
2009-09-11, 10:04 AM
1. The lycanthrope or humanoid shapechanger is always susceptible to charm/hold person. Regardless of the form, his/her base form is humanoid and the spell operates against him/her.
Number one. Not only is the base form humanoid but the shifted form is as well (unless the base form wasn't humanoid). For example here is a block from the MM:

Wererat, Dire Rat Form
Small Humanoid
(Human, Shapechanger)
Still humanoid but it does gain the Shapechanger subtype. Unless your creature type changes (and I'm fairly sure none of you examples change creature type) you are still a humanoid and still vulnerable to Hold Person.

Yuki Akuma
2009-09-11, 10:19 AM
Spells only care about your creature type, not your biology.

As daft as that sounds.

Hold Person wouldn't work on a dragon who used Alternate Form to appear as a human, for instance, even though Alternate Form transforms the target biologically into one.

Mando Knight
2009-09-11, 10:30 AM
Even in full animal form, a lycanthrope is still a humanoid, making it a person. So the spells should always work.

The same reasoning applies to a Wild Shaped druid: that dire lion that pounced on you after summoning a pair of buddies from nowhere is susceptible to Hold Person...