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Arkusus
2013-01-03, 04:18 PM
So, I'm DMing a game and thinking it would be fun to give the players some interesting options for shenanigans, to see what kind of trouble they could get up to, and I created an artifact that allows them to create lycanthropes of different animals and such...

I came up with a basic system that I'm fine with when it comes to infecting NPCs, but I realized soon after that I hadn't come up with a proper way to deal with the players infecting themselves...

Normal things, like "Werewolf" or "Werebear" I was prepared for (the only party members that CAN be lycanthropes aren't heavily based on physical stats anyway) but things like "Weregiantoctopus" caught me off guard... Basically I hadn't come up with a good way to deal with differentiating between higher-HD creatures.

Originally for NPCs I figured I'd include a mortality rate for creatures that get more exotic than the most basic "werewolf" "werebear" stuff, so they're welcome to do it as long as they know say... 90% of people will die doing it. (and that's just bad press) but including a one-shot random death chance with very unbalanced stats lying in wait doesn't work as well for players... (Since one dying means someone else will be joining soon, who can repeat the process)

Does anyone know any good alternate-sources for handling more in-depth lycanthropy?

Currently the best option I've got in mind involves making the players essentially multi-class into the creature, and not get the proper benefit till they've paid a certain level-adjustment price in character levels. (but not the normal one from Lycanthropy which is absurdly high for the return)

Xervous
2013-01-03, 04:35 PM
you could also allow them to trade current levels for the lycanthrope levels

Urpriest
2013-01-03, 05:08 PM
you could also allow them to trade current levels for the lycanthrope levels

This is probably the best option. I'd have the artifact trade their levels for HD and LA of the associated Lycanthrope. If they have too few levels to trade they die, which could explain the high death rate of the procedure.

If I wanted to encourage players to actually use this procedure I'd probably use a modification of the lycanthrope rules, for example homebrew monster classes or the like.