Lycanthropes in 1st edition

[Yogibear41]

The other day while at my Dms house for a game(3.x) we got to talking about how monsters looked differnet in different editions and stuff and how my DM said that alot of his monsters look like the 1st edition variants instead, etc. etc. anway this lead to me looking through his old 1st edition Ad&D MM and I happened to come across lycanthropes. Now I didn't see any special rules about how a character was treated if he gained lycanthropy, so I was just wondering if it was a house rule kind of thing? or were their actually rules for it in say the Dungeon masters guide? I know that alot of things in 1st edition were left up to the DMs descisions, so I was just curious.

[LibraryOgre]

The other day while at my Dms house for a game(3.x) we got to talking about how monsters looked differnet in different editions and stuff and how my DM said that alot of his monsters look like the 1st edition variants instead, etc. etc. anway this lead to me looking through his old 1st edition Ad&D MM and I happened to come across lycanthropes. Now I didn't see any special rules about how a character was treated if he gained lycanthropy, so I was just wondering if it was a house rule kind of thing? or were their actually rules for it in say the Dungeon masters guide? I know that alot of things in 1st edition were left up to the DMs descisions, so I was just curious.

1st edition DMG has about a page and a half about being a full werecreature. Basically, you don't get any XP while in wereform, changing forms while in armor can hurt you, and you have a chance to control the change as you get older, plus a chance to change even when not in the full moon.

[Yogibear41]

Basically, you don't get any XP while in wereform,

Thats incredibly unfortunate

[Thrudd]

Thats incredibly unfortunate

You also automatically change alignment (per the monster manual entry for each type of lycanthope), while you are under the effects of the disease. So basically, you aren't completely in control of your actions while you are transformed. IIRC, the DMG implies or suggests that the character becomes an NPC if they aren't cured of the lycanthropy after some amount of time or certain number of transformations. I don't remember the specifics in the DMG, but I remember that I wasn't satisfied with it and created my own rules to allow for a PC with lycanthropy to play more as a normal character. I created a table whereby there is a percent chance that he can control when to transform or not to transform, depending on the phase of the moon and his character level. Another percentage table for whether he could control himself in were-form depending on moon-phase and level. I discarded the alignment change, but ruled that when in were form, he will act as a berserk beast and attack the nearest thing to him unless he can gain control. There is only one check to control which happens when transforming, if you fail it, you are a beast. The HD and attacks of the were-form were also scaled with level, not only as the MM.

[Yogibear41]

What if you wanted to be a lycanthrope though? I seem to a place in my heart for playing rangery lycathrope characters. Were-bears are CG in 1st edition arent they?

[Thrudd]

What if you wanted to be a lycanthrope though? I seem to a place in my heart for playing rangery lycathrope characters. Were-bears are CG in 1st edition arent they?


Yes they were CG. You would need to homebrew something. My player was a werewolf, that is what my rules were designed for, but they could easily apply to all lycanthropes. It isn't until you gain a lot of experience that a person completely masters their beast form. The lycanthopes as listed in the Monster Manual are those who have gone through that process already, and the alignment they have listed decribes how their society tends to interact with the human world. The wolves tend to be predatory killers who treat humans like sheep, the bears tend to be benevolent protectors of the wild, but any individual lycanthrope may not adhere to that. A first level werebear, then, is not yet in control of changing, and is not in control of the beast yet. A bear is a dangerous predator just like a wolf is. At lower levels, the were-form is much stronger in combat than in your human form, but most of the time it is dangerous to transform. By the time you can usually control yourself and control when to change, being in beast form shouldn't give you too big of an advantage over other characters at your level. Alternatively, changing into beast form could fatigue you, like a barbarian's rage. So doing it too much will hurt you, and it could just be allowed a certain number of times each day, just like a rage. This would not be in-line with the fluff of lycanthropes too much, however, who transform when the moon is full and and don't remember what happened afterwards. That was what I wanted to capture with my house rules, not making it too appealing to have lycanthropy. If it was so great and there was no penalty, then the game would just turn into a D&D version of Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

Edit: I forgot that my homebrew lycanthrope also had a chance to involuntarily change when damage was taken, with increasing chance of changing at high damage thresholds (50% damage, 75% damage, 90% damage). When I look at the 3e lycanthrope rules, I note that they included very similar things but using a Wisdom/skill check and set DC's for the change. (I never used lycanthrope characters in any 3e game, so never really looked at the rules)

[hamlet]

Thats incredibly unfortunate

It's a curse, not a benefit.

And werebears and wereboars don't generally go around spreading it to others given that they have generally inoffensive alignments.

[Yogibear41]

It's a curse, not a benefit.


Thats a matter of opinion, I've seen people do much crazier things in the name of more power.

[Ionbound]

It's a curse, not a benefit.

And werebears and wereboars don't generally go around spreading it to others given that they have generally inoffensive alignments.

You're thinking the TN weretigers, not the NE wereboars.

[hamlet]

You're thinking the TN weretigers, not the NE wereboars.

Nope. Wereboars are True Nuetral also.


Thats a matter of opinion, I've seen people do much crazier things in the name of more power.

It's the way the system was designed, the assumptions that are made and the rules reflect. Lycanthropy, in AD&D, is assumed by the core books to be a curse which the players should want to rid themselves of. Reveling in the curse and accepting it turns the player into an NPC monster.

If you want to make a lycathrope PC, then your best bet, though by no means terribly comprehensive, is Van Richten's Guide to Lycanthropes which has some info in it.

[erikun]

What if you wanted to be a lycanthrope though? I seem to a place in my heart for playing rangery lycathrope characters. Were-bears are CG in 1st edition arent they?
I ran a (2nd edition) game where everyone played very powerful creatures for their races, including one weretiger. I think it worked out fine, although it did allow me to be considerably rough on the characters at the time. :smallwink:

More seriously, I don't think that AD&D handled powerful races that well. My first impression is to give an XP penalty that decreases with each level, although that may be underestimating the benefit of the various werecreature abilities. (I know from the above experience that regeneration hardly means immortality in AD&D.) I'm honestly not sure what the different options/recommendations for playing a lycanthrope PC are in AD&D, though.

[Khedrac]

Because it is relatively close to AD&D it could be worth looking at B/Ex/C/M/I D&D. An entire rulebook (PC4 - Night Howlers) came out specifically giving rules for playing lycanthropes of many kinds. It's been a while since I read my copy but the rules might adapt fairly well (admittedly they may also not work with AD&D at all).

[Drumbum42]

It's a curse, not a benefit.

And werebears and wereboars don't generally go around spreading it to others given that they have generally inoffensive alignments.

I'd tend to agree with this. Being a lycathrope isn't like being a druid, it is often involuntary, and you have a tendency to eat people's sheep and cattle. (They frown upon this) Now, I have no problem with someone becoming one, I just think that there should be some substantial side-effects to being one. Waking up one day finding that you ate some villagers last night should be a possibility. How's your character going to deal with that if you're a good alignment?

I'd agree that over time you can get better at controlling it, much like people in the real world learn to deal with a disease. But if it were mostly upside, there were would be "turn me into a werewolf" store in every major city.

But that's my opinion on the "classical" interpretation, if that doesn't sound like fun, then homebrew it up! New/custom rules often make the best (most fun) games!

[Winter_Wolf]

If you were willing to do homebrew and conversion, AND could get your hands on a copy of Night Howlers ('Basic' D&D from the 1980s) you could probably play a werecreature. I don't know if it's available on DrivethruRPG as a PDF or not, and my own beloved paper copy disappeared about a decade ago.

Otherwise, I was of the assumption the DM would just make the character into an NPC or at least take control of it when it was transformed.