Licanthropy Rules

[shaka gl]

Yesterday, a pc was biten by a were wolf and did not pass the Fortitude check. How do i handle this? He can transform into a werewolf whenever he wants? Or is it automatic? He has control of himself where in that state?
Help!

[Winged One]

The rules for lycantheropy are included in the lycantherope entry in the Monster Manual and the SRD.

[shaka gl]

Ups, now i found them. Sorry.

[Rex Idiotarum]

There's a skill check involved after he finds out he's a werewolf, or the first full moon, whichever is last. it's called Control Form. I think it's Cha or Wis based...

[Shazzbaa]

It's Control Shape. Governed by WIS. So it's nice that Lycanthropes get an automatic +2 to WIS.

Afflicted lycanthropes can't control themselves until they "become aware," which takes a will save. Before that they can't transform on their own, and they become an NPC under DM control when they transform involuntarily. You get that aforementioned will save every time you transform, if I remember correctly.

After they become aware, they can use the Control Shape skill to change when they like.

That's just a quick overview, I assume you can read most of the rules yourself. :smallwink:

EDIT: Ehhh, what the heck, as long as I'm replying let's make it convenient:



When a character contracts lycanthropy through a lycanthrope’s bite (see above), no symptoms appear until the first night of the next full moon. On that night, the afflicted character involuntarily assumes animal form and forgets his or her own identity, temporarily becoming an NPC. The character remains in animal form, assuming the appropriate alignment, until the next dawn.
The character’s actions during this first episode are dictated by the alignment of its animal form. The character remembers nothing about the entire episode (or subsequent episodes) unless he succeeds on a DC 15 Wisdom check, in which case he becomes aware of his lycanthropic condition.
Thereafter, the character is subject to involuntary transformation under the full moon and whenever damaged in combat. He or she feels an overwhelming rage building up and must succeed on a Control Shape check (see below) to resist changing into animal form. Any player character not yet aware of his or her lycanthropic condition temporarily becomes an NPC during an involuntary change, and acts according to the alignment of his or her animal form.
A character with awareness of his condition retains his identity and does not lose control of his actions if he changes. However, each time he changes to his animal form, he must make a Will save (DC 15 + number of times he has been in animal form) or permanently assume the alignment of his animal form in all shapes.
Once a character becomes aware of his affliction, he can now voluntarily attempt to change to animal or hybrid form, using the appropriate Control Shape check DC. An attempt is a standard action and can be made each round. Any voluntary change to animal or hybrid form immediately and permanently changes the character’s alignment to that of the appropriate lycanthrope.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

EDIT: Ehhh, what the heck, as long as I'm replying let's make it convenient:

Makes me want to start a thread called "What's with all the nice people on these boards?" :smallsmile:

[cupkeyk]

Assuming that someone in the party can make the heal check and knowledge arcana check, can a recently afflicted lycanthrope know of his condition previous to his first change?

[Shazzbaa]

Thanks, Lord Silvanos. :smallsmile:

As per cupkeyk's question, I don't know if there's official ruling, but... well, first of all, a question: is lycanthropy Knowledge (arcana)? Bizarrely, since were-things remain humanoids, would it technically falls under knowledge (local), so that farmers are more likely to know werewolf lore than wizards?

Anyway, if you had the knowledge I'd think you could figure out what happened. After all, wolfsbane doesn't do any good unless you get it within an hour, and I think the Heal spell will work within three days. It's unlikely that you'd be hitting the next full moon within that time, so it stands to reason that there should be some way to identify what you've contracted.

But, just to throw this out there, it seems to me that knowing you're a werewolf and "being aware" are two different things. When you change form, you lose yourself; whether you're expecting the change or not. I'd rule that you have to make the requisite will save/wisdom check in order to become "aware."
It doesn't specifically say this; however it does say,
The character remembers nothing about the entire episode (or subsequent episodes) unless he succeeds on a DC 15 Wisdom check, in which case he becomes aware of his lycanthropic condition.
...and it does NOT say "or if others tell you what's going on" or anything similar -- ordinarily that sort of thing is spelled out in the rules. It also mentions, in the section on curing lycanthropy, that lycanthropes are typically chained up when undergoing the break-enchantment-cast-during-the-full-moon-style cure, which would imply that someone could be looking for a cure, and still "lose themselves" when in animal form.

[Mewtarthio]

Thereafter, the character is subject to involuntary transformation under the full moon and whenever damaged in combat. He or she feels an overwhelming rage building up and must succeed on a Control Shape check (see below) to resist changing into animal form. Any player character not yet aware of his or her lycanthropic condition temporarily becomes an NPC during an involuntary change, and acts according to the alignment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#alignment) of his or her animal form.

A character with awareness of his condition retains his identity and does not lose control of his actions if he changes. However, each time he changes to his animal form, he must make a Will save (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatStatistics.htm#will) (DC 15 + number of times he has been in animal form) or permanently assume the alignment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#alignment) of his animal form in all shapes.

As such, I'd imagine that, until they make the Wisdom check, lycanthropes always lose themselves when involuntarily transformed. If somebody else tells them about it, they may understand intellectually what's happening, but they still can't recall anything that happened while transformed and it just doesn't seem "real" to them. Therefore, they could undergo the cure as usual, but they'd still need to be restrained during the administration lest the cure fail and they transform as usual. If, however, they are "aware" of their condition, they still need to be restrained for a different reason: If they fail the Will save against alignment shift, they may still attack their former allies after the shift (of course, it's only an alignment shift, not a domination, so they'd probably still consider former allies to be allies, though that may not last long, but why take the risk?).

[TSGames]

Yesterday, a pc was biten by a were wolf and did not pass the Fortitude check. How do i handle this? He can transform into a werewolf whenever he wants? Or is it automatic? He has control of himself where in that state?
Help!
If your alignment does not match the alignment of the werewolf, you're boned. I very highly recommend that you get rid of the lycanthropy ASAP if that is the case.

[Ogremindes]

Depends on how you play the alignment. It doesn't have to be Vile Evil and Anachic Chaos.

[TSGames]

Depends on how you play the alignment. It doesn't have to be Vile Evil and Anachic Chaos.
Actually, if you read the description in the MM it does have to a be a vile evil.

[Shazzbaa]

Eh, it also says you can squiggle with alignments if you want -- wolves are traditionally evil, so werewolves end up being evil, but it doesn't have to be that way, even by the rules. In the game I'm playing in, werewolves become neutral.

But if you're playing with the traditional CE werewolf, then yeah, they not only lose control of themselves, they also kill everything in sight.
Though with a good will save you can keep your own alignment in your normal form for a little while...

[Rockphed]

...But it just keeps getting harder to control...then bam! One day, you find that ripping people's throats out is kinda fun. And then you just kill everything in sight.

[Everyman]

Shazzbaa, I would have been very disappointed if you hadn't posted in this thread at least once. This is probably YOUR speciality. :smallbiggrin:

Going back to the idea of identifying lycanthropes, I'd like to humbly suggest that this fall under Knowledge (Religion). First, its a curse (something that just feels fairly divine to begin with). Second, it forces an alignment on your actions. Finally, it affects both giants and humanoids, neither of which belong to the same knowledge skill. This is just a suggestion based on fluff though, so take it as you will.

[AmoDman]

Knowledge Religion? Nah, the alignment battle is something a werewolf deals with, not something that has to do with werewolf knowledge itself. I'd say it's definitely Local or Natural -

Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)

Nature (animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)

[Everyman]

Eh, I don't know.

I don't think Lycanthropy should fall under Nature, as it really isn't a "natural" thing. It also may not be real relevant to the campaign setting and I have trouble seeing Joe Average farmer knowing about it, so Local's out too. What kind of check can analyze a magical curse/disease.
...
Wait, perhaps only Heal can identify lycanthropy then. If it can be treated with mundane things (wolfsbane with a possible Heal check) then perhaps one can just leave it at a simple Heal and leave it at that.

Let's see...the DC to treat a disease is equal to its saving DC (in this a DC 15). It seems to me that to treat a disease would first require identification, so why not simply make it a DC 15 Heal check to diagnose Lycanthropy?

[AmoDman]

Eh, I don't know.

I don't think Lycanthropy should fall under Nature, as it really isn't a "natural" thing. It also may not be real relevant to the campaign setting and I have trouble seeing Joe Average farmer knowing about it, so Local's out too. What kind of check can analyze a magical curse/disease.
...
Wait, perhaps only Heal can identify lycanthropy then. If it can be treated with mundane things (wolfsbane with a possible Heal check) then perhaps one can just leave it at a simple Heal and leave it at that.

Let's see...the DC to treat a disease is equal to its saving DC (in this a DC 15). It seems to me that to treat a disease would first require identification, so why not simply make it a DC 15 Heal check to diagnose Lycanthropy?

The Local and Nature knowledge breakdown examples I posted are straight from the SRD. Local would know of Legends of the area, Inhabitants of the area, and humanoids (aka, legends and descriptions of humanoids who have become werewolves); Nature knows about animals, monstrous humanoids, and of course is a poster child for the druid (nature magic), so it can be knowledge of people who have turned into animals or monstrous humanoids a la wild shape-esque magic, only more afflictic.

I would say either check would work, actually, but might obtain different particulars. Alignment being of the soul is a debate for the philosophers :D (this is, after all, mafe up fantasy worlds with their own rules...).

[Mewtarthio]

I don't think Lycanthropy should fall under Nature, as it really isn't a "natural" thing.

Who says it's not natural? Druids are the scions of nature, and they do pretty much the same thing without spreading curses.


It also may not be real relevant to the campaign setting and I have trouble seeing Joe Average farmer knowing about it, so Local's out too.

He'd better know about it if he doesn't want to get eaten by anthropormphic wolves. Besides, the cliched story is that the villagers always drive werewolves out with torches and pitchforks, burning the bodies of anyone killed by them.

[Everyman]

Lycanthropy is not what I'd call natural. True, you're turning into an animal, but its an affliction that mutates its base subject. I just can't see what is natural about that. Of course, this could just be a discrepency on what we mean by "nature", so you may be right.

However, I don't accept that farmers know about lycans. Unless lycans are a BIG problem in the area (in which case it would definately fall under Local), I don't see how your average villager would know more about lycans than the high priest in the party.

Darn WotC, not giving us detailed insight into every crucial aspect of the game...:smallamused:

[Kantolin]

To be fair, it's possible that the local populace 'knows' about werewolves the way people 'know' about dragons.

More along the 'It's a terrible monster that tears apart everything and is seventeen feet tall with glowing red eyes that shoot lazers that has the head of a wolf and the torso of a snake and it tore apart my cow with one hand while wrecking my barn and I barely got away with my life and gimme another drink'

And less actually relevant information. :P But if we go by people 'knowing' about as much as your average person in real life, it may be similarly common knowledge that they show up at full moons.

Actually, I like the idea of using Knowledge(Local) [As technically, they're still humanoids... well, if they were beforehand, anyway] to determine how lycanthropy works. Just piecing together enough rumors and legends until you get something workable.

At the same time, once you have someone who is a lycanthrope unconscious and tied up in your living room, I'd say a variety of checks would figure this one out. From Knowledge Arcana, to Nature, to Heal checks. Maybe even Religion in a couple cases. Once you have the lycanthrope down, it shouldn't be terribly hard.

[AmoDman]

However, I don't accept that farmers know about lycans. Unless lycans are a BIG problem in the area (in which case it would definately fall under Local), I don't see how your average villager would know more about lycans than the high priest in the party.

Where do you think our legends of Werewolves come from? I doubt one often finds Werewolves near the Temple of Pelor, as much they find them in the back woods of nowhere inhabited by a small populace of woodsmen and farmers.

[Mewtarthio]

However, I don't accept that farmers know about lycans. Unless lycans are a BIG problem in the area (in which case it would definately fall under Local), I don't see how your average villager would know more about lycans than the high priest in the party.

Why would the high priest know anything about lycanthropes? His religious training details religious rituals, creatures of the outer planes, and positive/negative energy (and the creatures animated by the latter, since apparently all religions concern themselves with the undead). At most, I'd expect him to come across some obscure passage that talks about the religious ramifications of lycanthropic alignment shifts (eg where does the soul go after death, can the lycanthrope be converted back through normal means, etc), right along with the Helm of Opposite Alignment, the Mace of Blood, and other curses and diseases that affect alignment. I wouldn't really expect him to know about lycanthropic vulnerability to silver or belladonna unless his order deals with werewolves often (the latter is a possibility for healing orders, too).

[Rama_Lei]

While on the subject of werewolves, I have a question. I'm DM for a campaign and a character wants to play a lycanthrope. I think he wanted to be a werewolf, but here's the hitch. The module I'm running is about the heroic band of PCs stopping the evil army, and I'm worried that if he goes wolf, he'll ruin the game. Now I could fudge the rules and allow him, but I'm letting them know that I'm going to play by the RAW, and keep it orderly, and don't want to be a hypocrite. Now should I let him play that or come up with another concept, such as a werebear paladin. Plus, the bear is lawful good!

[Mewtarthio]

Werewolves are supposed to be Chaotic Evil. Either houserule otherwise, introduce the possibility for redemption*, or make him play the bear. The last is easiest.

*Which brings up another question: Can a werewolf be redeemed just like a regular CE character? You can have Succubus Paladins, so this isn't very much of a stretch to imagine, but does the illness force them to remain irrevocably evil? And how would you deal with a paladin who becomes a werewolf? He's already got plenty of LG memories.

[Shazzbaa]

Shazzbaa, I would have been very disappointed if you hadn't posted in this thread at least once. This is probably YOUR speciality. :smallbiggrin:

I... have a specialty? :smallredface: This made me giggle. I didn't know my obsession with werewolves was so obvious. ^^;

Oh, geez, the knowledge thing is hard. By RAW, it's Knowledge(local), so I'd say that people might have heard of werewolves and know a few things (knowing they have something to do with full moons and turn into animals and, depending upon how were-things are used in the campaign, probably aren't very friendly... also, could probably put together that wolfsbane helps) from local legend, provided such legends existed.

But who would know how to cure lycanthropy? What sort of study would that fall under? I'd... actually, thinking about it, I'd say it depends upon the campaign. If were-things are typically viewed as evil cursed monsters, then the clerics would learn of them in their studies, because it would sort of be their job to undo such a curse (just as it is they learn about undead because it is their job to destroy undead). Thus, Knowledge (Religion) would probably reveal werewolf knowledge. However, if were-things were just yet another sort of creature in your campaign, then I'd put it under Knowledge (Nature). The people who studied animals would happen across werewolves. And if the cures of lycanthropy exist only in legends, then I'd go back to Knowledge (Local), and say that only someone who knew the local legends very, very well would be able to put together the various cures.

So, I guess in summary, Knowledge (Local) could actually make sense... but you could make a case for the other two based on how lycanthropes are treated in your game. I, personally, can't see clerics NOT learning about lycanthropes, so I'd probably want to rule that Knowledge (religion) would cover it somewhat, but that's just me.

As per a player wanting to be a werewolf -- as I said earlier, the Monster Manual does specifically point out that:

Alignment: Any. Noble creatures [...] tend to produce good-aligned lycanthropes. Sinister creatures [...] tend to produce evil-aligned lycanthropes. This is a reflection of how these animals are perceived, not any innate quality of the animal itself, so the Dungeon Master can arbitrarily assign the alignment of the animal form.
...so, it's technically RAW that the alignments can be changed. The problem with playing an Evil lycanthrope is that eventually the player will fail his will save and adopt that alignment permanently, in every form. So, no, I wouldn't let him in as a typical CE werewolf. But I wouldn't mind changing the alignment that he'd be shifting to.

For the game I'm playing in, we declared that my werewolf character had already failed the will save and changed alignment -- to Neutral -- before the game started. (Werewolves ending up Neutral made sense to us, and we could easily explain the legends of werewolves being horrible killing machines as being a case of a terrified animal suddenly finding itself in the city and attacking equally terrified villagers out of fear... or in response to being attacked by the superstitious townspeople). If you do change the alignment of a lycanthrope, you're not really changing the mechanics; you're merely ruling that wolves aren't evil, which (IMO) is pretty easy to justify, and is specifically allowed in the Monster Manual.

I'd say it's your call as DM and how you'd like to portray lycanthropes in your game. However I feel the need to mention that for some (myself included) werewolves are special, and other lycanthropes just aren't the same. I would suggest the werebear option to him, and if he goes for it, awesome... but if he just wants to be a werewolf, then I wouldn't see a problem with letting him in as a N or CN werewolf.
(Just make sure he doesn't want an excuse to just "go crazy" in animal form... because in that case, you may want to say "No lycanthropes for you!")

[Shazzbaa]

*Which brings up another question: Can a werewolf be redeemed just like a regular CE character? You can have Succubus Paladins, so this isn't very much of a stretch to imagine, but does the illness force them to remain irrevocably evil? And how would you deal with a paladin who becomes a werewolf? He's already got plenty of LG memories.
I could actually see this either way.

I'd always seen the alignment change as a sort of Wizard-of-Earthsea-ish idea where you'd been in the body of the animal for so long that you begin to adopt the animal's outlook.
So, I see no reason why someone with this new outlook, who encountered something that made them rethink their outlook, couldn't have a natural alignment change just as any other character.

The only real question is, would this force them to start making will saves upon taking animal form again? And the answer to that is dependant upon how you see lycanthropes: whether you see the animal as almost a separate entity that afflicts the lycanthrope in question (in which case it would probably retain its original tendencies and force the lycanthrope to fall back into the animal's mindset), or whether you think that once he's become aware and connected with his animal side, the lycanthrope is one creature which can, as a whole, have his outlook altered (in which case once the lycanthrope has changed alignment once, he can change alignment later as any normal character could, without penalty). I'd say it's a DM call, based once again on how you view lycanthropes in your world; RAW never specifies whether the alignment change is a one-time thing or not, to my knowledge.

Though I do not wish to make this an alignment discussion, I will throw out there that, IMO, alignment has very little to do with memories. If you've come to see the world as a viscious place where you must take what you can get, then you'll look back at your old ideas about the goodness of the human spirit and think your old self to be a fool. But you could certainly be shown something, or experience something, that makes you rethink your current views of the world... and that would be a natural alignment change.