Ability Stacking

[White_Drake]

I'm playing a thief who is a were panther. My DM says that the lycanthropic bonus to Dex (+8) doesn't stack with my huge base Dex from various enhancements (quickened, inherent, class levels). He says that because my base Dex is higher than the base dex of a panther. I say it does. Who's right?

[Baroncognito]

The DM is always right.

That said, does it say what type of bonus the lycanthropic Dex bonus is? And what type of bonus the other various sundries provide?

It should stack with the Dex from leveling, at the least.

[eggs]

By the rules, they stack. And given the 6 levels/4 BAB that those stat bonuses cost, they'd better.

EDIT:
Relevant sources -
Lycanthrope (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lycanthrope.htm)

Lycanthrope characters possess the following racial traits. +2 Wisdom. Physical abilities are increased by the animal form’s ability modifiers when a lycanthrope changes to its hybrid or animal forms.
...
Note this increases, rather than replaces the default ability score.
Alternate Form (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#alternateForm)


Any gear worn or carried by the creature that can’t be worn or carried in its new form instead falls to the ground in its space. If the creature changes size, any gear it wears or carries that can be worn or carried in its new form changes size to match the new size. (Nonhumanoid-shaped creatures can’t wear armor designed for humanoid-shaped creatures, and vice versa.) Gear returns to normal size if dropped.
Note that magical gear remains on the form. It even changes size to stay on an augmented form, such as the intermediate lycanthrope form. So even enhancement bonus gear should carry over to the partial transformation.

[Eisenfavl]

IIRC lycanthropes have untyped enhancements. Your DM is wrong.

Also, punishing someone for playing a suboptimal character with vague houserules? Is a were-panther really so good that the DM needs to ignore RAW to weaken you?

[tiercel]

As others have pointed out, by RAW those ability adjustments should stack.

Of course, by RAW you should be stuck with animal HD and LA garbaging up your ECL, so that's the tradeoff. (If a panther has 3HD and the werepanther template has +3LA, your werepanther 1st level rogue (with 3 Animal-type HD) has ECL 7.)

If your DM is being generous about how he handles LA/animal HD for a werecreature, then it's probably well within his rights to modify how the stat adjustments stack.

[Edit to add:] Also note that your ability adjustments (other than +2 Wisdom) only take effect in your animal or hybrid form (which basically means you'll be in hybrid form most all the time, RP considerations or "disguising myself as just an animal" aside).

[Voyager_I]

The DM is always right.

No, they just have the final say. That's not the same thing at all.

In this case, your DM is wrong both in the sense that your attribute bonuses stack by RAW, and that Lycanthrope LA and Racial HD is already near-unplayable without denying them the things they actually get.

[White_Drake]

Thanks, I've got a signed character audit by the DM to avoid future problems with it. My ECL is through the roof, although we're playing a high powered campaign, and have been running the same characters for several years, so we're all high level. By the way werepanthers are not vague house rules; under "Lycanthrope" in the Monster Manual it gives clear instructions on how to create new variants of were creature. Scientifically speaking, panthers don't exist, "panthers" are actually melanistic (black) variants of other big cats, such as leopards, which are listed in the Monster Manual. The template is afflicted (quest reward), which means it's only +2 LA.

[Rejusu]

Thanks, I've got a signed character audit by the DM to avoid future problems with it. My ECL is through the roof, although we're playing a high powered campaign, and have been running the same characters for several years, so we're all high level. By the way werepanthers are not vague house rules; under "Lycanthrope" in the Monster Manual it gives clear instructions on how to create new variants of were creature. Scientifically speaking, panthers don't exist, "panthers" are actually melanistic (black) variants of other big cats, such as leopards, which are listed in the Monster Manual. The template is afflicted (quest reward), which means it's only +2 LA.

When he said "vague house rules" he wasn't talking about the were panther, he was talking about how the DM was punishing you with vague house rules by saying the bonuses don't stack. But yes, to echo everyone else here it's kind of silly to pay the penalties for something like this without getting the bonuses.