Lycanthrope PCs

[lunaticfringe]

Has anyone played or allowed players to play as Lycanthropes using the rules in the MM? How did that pan out? Was it fun?

To open up the thread a bit.

What problems do you foresee running WerePCs? Any nasty exploits/cheese to watch out for? Or what house rules/homebrew would you use?

[MintyNinja]

I'm away from my books at the moment, but I believe Lycanthropes are immune to non-silvered mundane weapons. I can see that being the major draw for a lot of players, and how each GM interprets that will change how the game is played.

Were I to have a Lycanthrope character in my game, I would give them a separate character sheet for when they lost control and became a werecreature. That means that none of their Lycanthrope weaknesses would apply to their humanoid form, but none of their humanoid personality (or gear) would apply to their Lycanthrope form. Perhaps I could steal a page from J.K. Rowling and offer a potion that allows the Lycanthrope to remain in control while transformed. Alternatively, if they were to accept the savage beast within, then they might learn to control the transformations over the course of months. Or they could beseech the Gods themselves. I'd say Malar for controlling when to transform, Selune for controlling their transformed self, and someone else if they wanted it purged from their systems.

My end point is that I wouldn't just make the character more powerful so easily: I'd give them this heavy burden to play out. And if I felt they weren't doing it in a fair and measured way, I'd take the character away during their transformations. Let them black out and wake up in the aftermath.

[Oramac]

Honestly, Were-creatures in the MM are (in my view) designed to get the PC killed. They're way too powerful for a PC to play, and without some homebrew eventually they will go nuts and kill their own party.

For that reason, I created the Lycan Race in my sig. Feel free to use it! :)

[Maxilian]

I had a player who was a Wereboar (he got infected), and it was quite fun, for balance, i counted it as a Magic Item with a Very Rare type, and the Wereboar, was quite useful, but... most of the time it ended up for the party to have to fight X quantity of mobs and then fight the PC Wereboar, the sad part is that the Wereboar was the Cleric (So... no healing after combat, but another combat)

Note: Even when they start attacking their party members, i let them control their character (i just tell them what they see/feel that makes them attack their party)

[GlenSmash!]

If thought about it plenty of times. Immunity to non-silvered weapon damage is pretty darn strong. The free ability score is nice but as long as it's on of the types that gives a free 15 like a Werewolf, or Wererat it's not game breaking. The +1 to AC for some of the options may not stack with other ways of calculating AC, so i wouldn't worry about that. Basically a character with lycanthropy would get a lot of free stuff and the only cost is a change in alignment.

The biggest problem is the Werebear. Most players I know would change their alignment for neutral good in a heartbeat for all the Werebear comes with. Weretiger is a similar situation at Neutral alignment, though it's not quite as powerful. It just doesn't have enough drawbacks to offset the goodies.

So I broke down each of the bonuses lycanthropy can give and compared them to magic items/effects. Werebears get the most, so I'll use them as an example. The get a free 19 Strength like Gauntlets of Ogre power, and a +1 to AC like a ring of protection, and the ability to become Large Size like unlimited Potions of Growth but even better since it's not just a plus 1d4 to damage, and immunity to non-silvered weapon damage which would be a slick magic item, but doesn't exist in the DMG. Each other lycanthrope options has a subset of these bonuses (thought the Wererat gets a shrink option instead of enlarge.

If one of my players wants to embrace the curse it will either cost them attunement slots or ASIs. I haven't decided which yet. Werebear would cost 3, Weretiger, Wereboar, Wearwolf and Rat would cost 2. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it adds a cost beyond alignment changes.

Oh there is one problem. Once one of your players becomes a Werebear whats to stop them from making the whole party into Werebears? If that has the potential to be a problem for your group my change may not be that useful.

[Sigreid]

It depends on the game you're running. A problem I've thought of is a were-PC could quite literally plow through an army. On the other hand, it's pretty easily cured and it could be funny if a PC wound himself up and plowed into an army to have a 5th level enemy cleric cast remove curse leaving him naked and defenseless in the middle of a force he just ticked off.

[lunaticfringe]

Thanks for the input guys/gals.

I'm toying with running a Were Campaign. I would definitely change the immunity to resistance to nonmagical nonsilvered. It's still strong but nothing a level 1 Barb couldn't pull off. I don't want people scared of melee.

I'm thinking everyone would be the same type of Lycanthrope, probably werewolf. Since we do Point Buy everyone would probably get +4 or +6 Str with the no stat higher than 16 rule in effect. That way everyone is okay at using tooth & claw. Natural armor would probably stack with Unarmored Defense but not Dragon Sorcerer Scales or Mage Armor. A claw attack would be d4 instead of 2d4 and count as Light & Finesse. Alignment isn't really a thing in my games so I'm not too worried about that aspect of it.

I'm still playing around with ideas. The PCs will be stronger in melee, but I think I can compensate. It wouldn't be much of a werewolf game if PCs didn't Wolf Up and wade into melee like proper monsters.

[RickAllison]

So I've been playing a lycanthrope, and it has only come up in a few spots. Keep in mind that this is level 11, so not exactly a standard game.

1) He is a wereraven, and so he can fly. Not really a huge deal, we already had a druid who loves his Giant Eagle, and we have had several aarakocra. At-will flight has not done much considering he has to spend quite some time shedding equipment to fly as a raven...

2) Melding as a form. I think this may come up more and is worst for wereravens, who can pass as an ordinary bird. Others are much more conspicuous animals so blending in doesn't help much... Again this is on the level of several spells, but nothing outrageous.

3) Immunities. This came up once, when we had a curse that caused us to attack one another and the druid sent his Conjure Wolves after me. Did not know I was a werebeastie and so was surprised when I wasn't affected by his wolves' attacks. All enemies have used non-normal damage types, used magical normal damage, or didn't focus enough on him to make it worth caring (instead aiming for other party members). Was handy for transporting a werewolf prisoner as his lashing out couldn't hurt me, and the DM ruled my curse prevented his from taking anyway.

4) Spreading the curse. The monk wants it :smallbiggrin:. I do have to be careful as with my person's high Con score and level, using his beak attack becomes a very quick way to make a new wereraven... The DM does not really care (again, it has done little to help other than making me an excellent warden), but it is something to beware of.

TL;DR: While lycanthrope PCs can be a problem at low levels, they become far less OP at levels ten and up. Beware of werebears, but even they aren't trouble so long as someone isn't trying to abuse it.

[Oramac]

I'm still playing around with ideas. The PCs will be stronger in melee, but I think I can compensate. It wouldn't be much of a werewolf game if PCs didn't Wolf Up and wade into melee like proper monsters.

Let em wade in to melee. If it does ever get out of hand, just have a wizard drop a fireball on them.

Or an AOE Disintegrate (seriously, it's in Out of the Abyss).

[Brawndo]

The monk in one of my games got turned into a werebear and looking at the MM it looks like our DM.is using some.house rules. If she chooses to become a bear, she has to.make a WIS save to remain in control (we've been lucky so far) but she also gets 2 levels of Exhaustion when she changes back to humanoid form which is such a huge pain and time consuming to get rid of, she only willingly changes if it's a very serious emergency.