For Flavor Reasons: Lycanthropy houserule

[atemu1234]

I'm debating making it so that every werebeing has the stats of a "natural-born" lycanthrope. What should I look out for to stop this from breaking the game or something like that?

[daemonvatis]

Unless lycanthropy is exceedingly common or plot-relevant, I don't see this being an issue. Naturals are more powerful and have higher LAs, so that might make balance and adjustments even harder if a character gets bitten, but that's the only problem I can see.

Actually, the Lycanthrope section in the MM is confusing and kinda poorly written (and I think the DMG directly conflicts with the MM on LA at one point. You could probably get away with tweaking and re-writing the whole thing.

[lytokk]

The difference as far as I can tell is that Natural lycans have dr10/silver in animal or hybrid, and afflicted have dr5/silver. Not horribly gamebreaking, as if it gets bad then its nothing to make sure the baddies going against your players know that they're going to be dealing with lycans and bring silver weapons. Of course, this means that your players get silver weapons to sell, increasing wealth a bit more. But, a properly paranoid party wouldn't sell those weapons and instead stockpile them so they can't be used against them again.

Natural lycanthropes having complete control over their shapes, whereas afflicted have to make control shape checks. Out of combat, a natural lycan can bring heal themselves back up to full in a matter of minutes, whereas one missed check could keep an afflicted stuck in either hybrid or animal form until the next dawn. Beyond a certain level though, assuming good investment into the control shape skill, it becomes less of an issue.

Also, afflicted lycanthropes cannot spread the curse, only natural. So if you take this ability away, expect your party to all become lycans after the first one is bit.

Thats all of the possibly abuse I can think of.

[supersonic29]

If you're tailoring to your party here just consider that DR 10/silver bit. If the party is expecting this and prepared for it then that's a small deal, but if you are jumping them with this encounter than it's a huge deal. Also if you are or are not going for a party infected with lycanthropy, there's always that.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Lycanthropes aren't a particularly good option for PCs because of their high LA (in addition to the rather lackluster animal HD).

For NPCs it's not really much of a problem unless your party is at the very low levels. Otherwise a cure isn't all that hard to come by, making it a temporary annoyance from level 5 onward to a non-issue at level 12 at the latest. The increased DR can be annoying but shouldn't be insurmountable.

Unless your party is mundane, of course, but then i'd be surprised if they live that long. :smalltongue: