Hologram Golem
2007-03-03, 12:24 AM
Ola. First time poster, long time blah blah.
Seriously, I've lurked around these boards for about a year and found the quality of advice here is much more attuned with my outlook than other DnD boards. Emphasis on the story rather than rolling and all that. So I finally break my lurker silence for a series of questions.
(Apologies if this should go in the Character Builder thread. I'm asking this partially as a DM).
I'm starting a PbP game set in Monte Cook's Ptolus, and a player expressed extreme interest in playing a lycanthrope. No huge deal. Except he's pretty new, and this is really my first DM-ing since 2nd edition. We've been playing a very active PbP game for over a year with a slew of other people (we're all semi to pro writers, so it's actually quite fun and active...) We went back and forth for a while (Killing off his character at level 2 just as the others advanced to level 3 to circumvent the LA... Checked out Curse of the Moon (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=6960), etc.) when I finally found this template. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a) This seems to work well, as the player can be infected and then progress without overly disrupting game balance yadda yadda...
My question is this, what unforseen issues do I have as a DM and he as a player have to look forward to? Since it's PbP, 2nd level won't arrive for a few months yet- so this gives us time to acquaint ourselves with rules, etc. He's planning an elven rogue (someone read Elfquest as a kid... heh...), that'll advance in the template- posssibly taking another rogue level to stem the Skill and Hit point hemorrhage and dump points into Control Form. I envision him very easily becoming a furry tempest (Elven rogue plus +4 DEX in were-form? Hello huge Defense...), but he's concerned about getting ganked at the low-end game. On one hand, this campaign will be based upon police procedurals and focusing on mysteries, so combat will be less than dungeon crawls- but that means the ECL of battles will be higher than average.
I've heard horror stories about trying to figure out lycanthropy rules, hence my post. And I've read some rather informed lycanthopy opinions here. Hence, the post.
So hi. Help me overprepare. Thanks.
Seriously, I've lurked around these boards for about a year and found the quality of advice here is much more attuned with my outlook than other DnD boards. Emphasis on the story rather than rolling and all that. So I finally break my lurker silence for a series of questions.
(Apologies if this should go in the Character Builder thread. I'm asking this partially as a DM).
I'm starting a PbP game set in Monte Cook's Ptolus, and a player expressed extreme interest in playing a lycanthrope. No huge deal. Except he's pretty new, and this is really my first DM-ing since 2nd edition. We've been playing a very active PbP game for over a year with a slew of other people (we're all semi to pro writers, so it's actually quite fun and active...) We went back and forth for a while (Killing off his character at level 2 just as the others advanced to level 3 to circumvent the LA... Checked out Curse of the Moon (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=6960), etc.) when I finally found this template. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a) This seems to work well, as the player can be infected and then progress without overly disrupting game balance yadda yadda...
My question is this, what unforseen issues do I have as a DM and he as a player have to look forward to? Since it's PbP, 2nd level won't arrive for a few months yet- so this gives us time to acquaint ourselves with rules, etc. He's planning an elven rogue (someone read Elfquest as a kid... heh...), that'll advance in the template- posssibly taking another rogue level to stem the Skill and Hit point hemorrhage and dump points into Control Form. I envision him very easily becoming a furry tempest (Elven rogue plus +4 DEX in were-form? Hello huge Defense...), but he's concerned about getting ganked at the low-end game. On one hand, this campaign will be based upon police procedurals and focusing on mysteries, so combat will be less than dungeon crawls- but that means the ECL of battles will be higher than average.
I've heard horror stories about trying to figure out lycanthropy rules, hence my post. And I've read some rather informed lycanthopy opinions here. Hence, the post.
So hi. Help me overprepare. Thanks.