Lycantrhope question

[TypoNinja]

So, I'm playing a Lycanthrope (were-tiger) and while examining my options (I'm thinking tattooed monk) I hit upon an interesting possibility.

Tiger animal advancement has them go huge at 13 HD. That comes with quite a few goodies, extra reach, str, con, nat armor.

I had to take Animal/Tiger HD as part of the lycanthrope template, is there anything stopping me from advancing my animal side with just more animal HD, or is it too late to modify my 'base creature'?

Also, is such a plan even remotely viable as a build? Or is it too many levels spent for not enough gain? My game is fairly low OP, so it doesn't necessarily need to be a great option, just a passable one.

[Urpriest]

You can't modify your "base creature" through leveling. RHD increases give things (like size increases) that have unpredictable contributions to LA, so in general you are not allowed to simply add RHD at one per ECL past that of your starting character. Dragons and Monster Classes are basically the only exceptions.

[Yuki Akuma]

If you're Medium sized, your animal form can't be larger than Large anyway.

[Kuulvheysoon]

If you're Medium sized, your animal form can't be larger than Large anyway.

Unless he's a half-giant or goliath.

...Actually, does Powerful Build qualify you for Huge animal lycanthropes?

[Yuki Akuma]

Unless he's a half-giant or goliath.

...Actually, does Powerful Build qualify you for Huge animal lycanthropes?

No.

All it does is let you use Large size modifiers if that would be advantageous (such as for grappling), treat yourself as Large for the purposes of determining if a creature's special attack works on you (such as Swallow Whole), and lets you use Large weapons at no penalty.

That's all it does. For any other purposes, you're Medium.

[TypoNinja]

You can't modify your "base creature" through leveling. RHD increases give things (like size increases) that have unpredictable contributions to LA, so in general you are not allowed to simply add RHD at one per ECL past that of your starting character. Dragons and Monster Classes are basically the only exceptions.

I always assumed for Lycanthrope that your LA was either 2(or 3) and you could use any animal provided you had the HD to go around, based on the werewolf/werewolf lord examples in the both. The werewolf is only 2 HD (and medium) while the Lord has 6 HD, which makes him large based on wolf advancement, both are the same +3. It made sense to me too since it seems like the complete lack of class abilities while taking animal HD makes up for any size changes.

Is there actually a rule forbidding 'leveling up' as an animal or is just one of those things there isn't really a rule for?

Regardless, I'd missed that I need to be within one size category of my base creature (Just plain old human in my case). Guess that kills that, There wouldn't happen to be any templates that I could apply that would make me large sized would there? :P

[Yuki Akuma]

There is a rule for not advancing by racial hit dice - humanoids advance by class level, not by racial hit dice. And there is no class that advances your animal hit dice.

There's also the fact that if a monster that gets larger with more racial hit dice somehow gets more hit dice (such as through awaken), it doesn't get bigger. The versions with more HD aren't creatures that have gotten experience points and levelled up - they're creatures that are simply better than average. Which sometimes includes being larger than average.

The only exceptions to this are True Dragons, but only because most creatures are depicted at their most powerful age and dragons are given stats for every life stage.

Basically to have a Huge tiger form you'd need to have been bitten by a lycanthrope with a Huge tiger form. And if you're not Large, you wouldn't contract lycanthropy from him, anyway.

[KillianHawkeye]

I always assumed for Lycanthrope that your LA was either 2(or 3) and you could use any animal provided you had the HD to go around, based on the werewolf/werewolf lord examples in the both. The werewolf is only 2 HD (and medium) while the Lord has 6 HD, which makes him large based on wolf advancement, both are the same +3. It made sense to me too since it seems like the complete lack of class abilities while taking animal HD makes up for any size changes.

Actually, the werewolf lord uses the dire wolf as the base animal, not merely an advanced wolf.