Jackalweres

[Pinjata]

So, i know a lot of people are really good at the lore, so I said, heck, let's ask here. Next random encounter, I rolled up for my party are jackalweres.

Now, I know these guys are evil and stuff, but ... I think their main trait is their lycantropic ability to completelly ignore mundane weapons damage.

PCs are currently in the forest and I was thinking of jackalweres approaching them in changed shape and selling themselves as lost miners. Their initial plan is to hang with the group, wait for them to go to bed, then jump the guard. If PCs get suspicious or hostile, jackalwares immediately attack. Opponents with silver or magic are few and far apart and there is no reason for them to be vary of this armed group.

Agree/disagee? Would like to add some advice? I'd appreciate it.

[PhantomSoul]

(I don't know on the lore side, but a thought in general.)

The Jackalweres could try to barter to get silver/magic items, to determine whether their potential targets have weapons that could hurt them. Potentially claiming that they want to get revenge on Werewolves that attacked their village a short travel away.

[Monster Manuel]

Lore-wise, I haven't got a whole lot to go on, but the main thing about Jackalweres is that they are not humanoids cursed to transform into jackals, but they are jackals that were cursed to transform into humanoids. The Jackal is their true form, not the human.

What does that mean for your encounter? Probably not much, except that after they are kileld they revert back to animal form. I've rarely used them, but when I did I played them as fairly miserable, and uncomfortable in their human skins. Like, it was patently obvious from the way they acted, moved, and spoke that there was something wrong with them.

I love the idea of the band of Jackalweres passing themselves off as helpless miners in the woods. Given that the lore suggests that they are jackals-wearing-human-suits, it might be fun to make them terribly bad at it. It's unlikely the players will let it get to the point where the lycanthropes can ambush them in the night if they are gnawing on raw bones, snarling at one another, and laughing at inappropriate times, but it's just a random encounter so have fun with it.

[Pinjata]

Thanks a lot to both of you. This helped immensely.

[Nikushimi]

(I don't know on the lore side, but a thought in general.)

The Jackalweres could try to barter to get silver/magic items, to determine whether their potential targets have weapons that could hurt them. Potentially claiming that they want to get revenge on Werewolves that attacked their village a short travel away.

Only thing about this suggestion if used along the lines of "Our village was attacked" the group might offer to help rather than give up weapons.

Though, that depends on the group.

Honestly, I'd ask myself "What is this encounter supposed to do for my players?"

You mention it's a random encounter, and those are fine and all, but you still need to ask yourself questions about the encounter.

Is this encounter meant to scare them? Kill them? Just hurt them a little? What is it meant to do? What do I want it to do?

These are questions to ask yourself. Werejackals have some crazy good abilities depending on the type of party they are up against.

So first you need to figure out the type of random encounter this is supposed to be.

1. Are the Werejackals there to kill? Are your players even capable of handling a Werejackal? If not, you might want to make this more of a mischievous encounter or something to just give them the creeps.
2. Is this meant as just something to hurt? Have them jumped in their sleep after the Werejackals work their way into the groups good graces. Hurt them, then have the Werejackals retreat because "they've had their fun" and they run away cackling into the night.
3. Is it meant to simply scare? Just have a rather large group of them watching the players as they make their way through the forest. Never acting unless the players act. Simply have this large group (15-20 or so depending) that is in the Werejackal form just following them, watching. All hours of the night. They disappear during the day, but there's always eyes watching.

Something like that is what I would suggest. You always have to be aware of what your players are capable of and how you want an encounter, even a random encounter, to go.

Sometimes it doesn't even end the way you think. My group ran into some Werejackals that were a bit different from the lore. They were "blessed" with this form by a council of Fey Spirits (woo fey....). We though they were attacking a town, so we killed them...found out later they were people. Wooooo.

My guy turned into one...only thing is, cause it was ****ing FEY SPIRITS....My Werejackal form is a female. >_>

Anyways, just have fun with it.

[Pinjata]

Honestly, I'd ask myself "What is this encounter supposed to do for my players?"
Drain their resources. That is it.

Thanks for a long and really constructive answer :)

[PhantomSoul]

Only thing about this suggestion if used along the lines of "Our village was attacked" the group might offer to help rather than give up weapons.

[...]

Oh, the thought for that is that they can find out if their potential dinner has weapons that would hurt them... if so, they move on to new targets! Their goal isn't to get the weapons (though that'd be a bonus!); the goal is just to find out if the party is likely to be an easy target or whether they should move on haha

[Tawmis]

I would do some foreshadowing...

Have the party spot a pack of jackals that seem to be trailing them but always out of range of spells and weapons and scamper off if attacked.

Then have the Jackalwere catch up in their human form (saying they escaped as slaves in a mine). This might allow the party to be more inclined to arming them.

Then ask to travel with the party (safety in numbers) until the next town. Then when the party camps, have the Jackalweres using their Sleep Gaze on anyone who stays awake to be guards.

[Sorinth]

Not sure what level the party is or how many Jackleweres you are planning on running but this can be a pretty deadly encounter.

The DC for the sleep gaze isn't very high, but if there are enough Jackleweres then even PCs with a strong save will likely fail. For example with a +6 Wis save having just 4 Jacklweres each use their sleep gave will give almost a 50% chance of knocking the PC out. If their plan works then basically they will target the one guy on watch, every Jacklewere will target him with Sleep Gaze and very likely knock that PC out. They then move over to the next PCs, wake one up quietly and mass sleep gaze that PC. Repeat until the whole party is knocked out.

To keep it as just a random encounter that drains some resources, I would probably make it so that the PC on watch has a good chance of spotting suspicious behavior prior to the ambush. If he sees them signalling to each other, or quietly waking each other up, the PC will at least have a chance of waking the party.

As to what happens if the party is completely knocked out and you don't want to TPK, then the Jacklewere's can either steal a bunch of stuff, or take them as slaves. Lore wise Jackleweres usually serve a Lamia, and so capture slaves for the Lamia. So you can create an entire story arc about them being captured and then having to escape the Lamia's lair if you wanted. Or just have them steal a bunch of stuff from the PCs, and then the PCs wake up the next morning with most of their stuff gone and have to track the Jacklewere's to their lair in order to get their stuff back. This can be a good challenge even for a higher level party if the Jacklewere's take any magic/silver weapons the PCs do have.

One tactic that can give a good scare if they are caught out before being able to ambush, is the Jacklewere's mass sleep gaze a PC until he falls unconscious. A couple Jacklewere then start dragging that PC into the forest, while the rest form a defensive screen and try to stop the other PCs from rescuing the fallen PC.

[JackPhoenix]

The DC for the sleep gaze isn't very high, but if there are enough Jackleweres then even PCs with a strong save will likely fail. For example with a +6 Wis save having just 4 Jacklweres each use their sleep gave will give almost a 50% chance of knocking the PC out. If their plan works then basically they will target the one guy on watch, every Jacklewere will target him with Sleep Gaze and very likely knock that PC out. They then move over to the next PCs, wake one up quietly and mass sleep gaze that PC. Repeat until the whole party is knocked out.

One note: the Sleep Gaze, unlike Sleep and some similar effects, is *not* broken by damage.

[Skrum]

I echo what Jack Phoenix said; this encounter has the chance to get deadly really fast. Maybe that's exactly what you want, or maybe the PC's are high enough level that even with good tactics the jackals won't be more than a nuisance.

As fun as it is to use well-thought out tactics for monsters, if the plan is TOO good, players just die with little chance of defense. Or your left in the situation of having your monsters make dumb decisions to give the players an opening - often fairly noticable, especially coming on the heels of very smart moves by the enemies. Neither of these situations are very good for emersive gameplay.