Lycanthropy problem mostly solved

[GodofThunder555]

I've been doing an online game for 10 months or so and a rather obnoxious thing happened on a random encounter. They were trucking through the desert and the random encounter generator had pre-rolled an encounter with weretigers. It was kinda low CR for a bunch of level 7's but I made it work. And the party was doing their usual thing, tearing the tigers apart and taking very little damage.

So I made a fateful decision. The weretigers were about to die, so they start throwing all caution to the wind and biting. Then, the dice happened. The weretigers rolled stupidly well, but only on their bite attacks. Five of seven party members got bit. Okay, no problem. Surely most of them make their saving throw, right? Wrong! Four out of five failed their save and got curse with lycanthropy. And at first, they're talking like you'd expect: "We'll need to get a Remove Curse spell cast on us ASAP!" Then they start looking into it and metagaming. Purely from the min-maxer point of view, there's really no downside to lycanthropy, you get a boost in STR and you gain something that is almost non-existent in 5E: Damage immunity.

Needless to say, I'm feeling stressed. Now I get to navigate a party where half the members are immune to all non-magical/non-silvered physical attacks forever. So I give myself to till the in-game full moon to figure it out. And by the time the full moon came, they head over to a goblin village and wait for the change. So ... I presented the "accepting lycanthropy" moment like this.

"As the sun goes down and the full moon rises, something primal awakens inside [NAMES REDACTED]. It is an overwhelming demand to feast upon humanoid flesh. The bloodlust is shockingly powerful. And there is a bond between the four of you. Somehow you know that these are your hunting companions. The idea of feasting upon heir blood and their flesh is repugnant to you. The consciousness that is really you is struggling to see through the red haze, but you can see that all four of you have completely transformed into tigers.

The hunt begins. You smell it. What you crave is not far away. Blood. Flesh. Wonderful!!

This primal self within you approaches something the "real" you recognizes. It's the goblin village. You sprint towards it. You are so very hungry! You hear some creature shout out an alarm. Your prey is before you. You shift into a hybrid form. This feels right. A group of 25 goblins fire volley after volley of arrows at you. They rebound off of your skin like pebbles bouncing off of a stone wall. The bloodlust burns in each of you. You rush forwards. Swords strike you and simply bounce off of your skins. Batting aside the swords, each of you grabs a terrified looking goblin.

You look down, preparing to bite the goblin's throat out. You feel a choice. You can stay here in this moment, reveling in ripping out the throat and feasting on the flesh and drinking the blood. Or you can run away from it. If you choose to stay, you realize that your hunger for humanoid flesh will always be present, not just when the moon is full. You will forever feel a compulsion to hunt. To kill. To rejoice as you eat the still beating hearts torn from your victims. To drink the blood and eat the flesh. Adult or child, it's all the same to you. They are all meat. That is all.

So let me know what you choose to do."

Three out of four of them passed on that offer. If they accepted, they keep their damage immunity and have to kill and eat once a week. If they pass, then they don't get damage immunity except when they are transformed once per month.

How do you think I did?

[MaxWilson]

Three out of four of them passed on that offer.

How do you think I did?

Not terrible. It's traditional to make the ones who turn to lycanthropy into NPCs, and it sounds like you left that one as a PC, but that's a valid choice too.

For that one PC, you still need a solution, and I suggest disallowing XP gain / leveling up unless/until the lycanthropy is cured. So, they've got a powerful, bloodthirsty PC, but they're not getting any mechanical (XP) benefit from going on adventures. This aligns the metagame incentive back in the direction of seeking a cure.

[GodofThunder555]

Not terrible. It's traditional to make the ones who turn to lycanthropy into NPCs, and it sounds like you left that one as a PC, but that's a valid choice too.

For that one PC, you still need a solution, and I suggest disallowing XP gain / leveling up unless/until the lycanthropy is cured. So, they've got a powerful, bloodthirsty PC, but they're not getting any mechanical (XP) benefit from going on adventures. This aligns the metagame incentive back in the direction of seeking a cure.I didn't know that there was any tradition of making them into NPC's. That's interesting. The MM only says that you can be cursed and you can choose whether or not to accept the curse. It just seemed massively OP to me to have damage immunity to virtually all physical attacks, so I bent the rules on my own.

This does give me some ideas for how to deal with the one member who accepted the curse of lycanthropy. Unfortunately for me, I'm married to that player, which will significantly increase the degree of difficulty. I'll manage for sure, but I'l just have to tread carefully.

I am feeling a little proud of the fact that I laid it all out for the players. "Here's what you're actually accepting. Do you truly want it?" It made it all real for the PC's and they opted out. All but my wife of course.

[MaxWilson]

I didn't know that there was any tradition of making them into NPC's. That's interesting. The MM only says that you can be cursed and you can choose whether or not to accept the curse. It just seemed massively OP to me to have damage immunity to virtually all physical attacks, so I bent the rules on my own.

This does give me some ideas for how to deal with the one member who accepted the curse of lycanthropy. Unfortunately for me, I'm married to that player, which will significantly increase the degree of difficulty. I'll manage for sure, but I'l just have to tread carefully.

I am feeling a little proud of the fact that I laid it all out for the players. "Here's what you're actually accepting. Do you truly want it?" It made it all real for the PC's and they opted out. All but my wife of course.

"Tradition" in this case is older than the MM, it stretches back into TSR days and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. If you'd never heard of this solution before and came up with it on your own, then that's extra good, well done! I do think the 5E MM should give better guidance to DMs in how to handle exactly this situation because as written, 5E pushes players to do exactly what yours did: view it as Cursed With Awesome (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CursedWithAwesome).

An intermediate ground in between full NPC status and Cursed With Awesome is to do what you did and take control of the characters only while they're transformed, and only grant benefits while they're NPCs.

You did pretty well, but since you granted them an (apparent) choice and your wife chose the wild side, well, now you have to decide what to do about it. Denying XP is one option; occasionally taking control of the PC via "tiger instincts" is another; giving the PC illnesses like amnesia and false memories from someone else (like a tiger) could be another. Wives can be tricky. Good luck! I hope she's a good sport.

[sayaijin]

I like the way this author handles it:

https://halflinghobbies.com/the-complete-guide-to-lycanthropy-in-dd-5e/

[tKUUNK]

yeah, well played! love it.

[Ionathus]

I really like the direction you took this! I also appreciate that you gave the players such a clear choice. For big character stuff like this, it's sometimes good to just lay all the options out there and make it clear this is a big decision.

I have a PC who was recently cursed with lycanthropy, and I decided to homebrew some things because she's a druid; since she's already a shapechanger, I had the curse affect her current wildshape rather than give her the werewolf transformation. She's a newer player and has been playing Circle of the Land, and always seemed disappointed by her lackluster WS options, so I had the curse give her some Circle of the Moon features and apply some bonuses to hit, damage, and also some mild DR to nonmagical/nonsilvered attacks while she's in wild shape. She's absolutely loving it.

Now, giving someone two subclasses and even some DR (almost unheard-of in 5e) is a big power spike, but the tradeoff is that she REALLY hates having lycanthropy. She learned about the curse by waking up after a full moon covered in blood and having ruined her favorite clothes, and having no memory of the sheep she apparently caught and tore to pieces. My group is a pretty serious roleplaying bunch, and the idea of blacking out for entire nights and not being in control of themselves is terrifying to the characters (the players find it very compelling, no worries!). That factor alone is enough to turn lycanthropy into a "Cursed with Awesome" that still definitely feels like a curse that they do not want to keep long-term.

Also, she's vulnerable to silver in every form, including her main humanoid one, and smart enemies are going to start taking advantage of that.

Long story short: if you want lycanthropy to be more narratively interesting or frame it as an actual tradeoff, one option is to schedule important events on the next full moon – at least, important events that require more discretion than "eat everything in a 3-mile radius."

[CapnWildefyr]

I think you did pretty well.

In older editions, it was clear in the DMGs that anyone who doesn't fight lycanthropy is no longer a PC but an NPC.

Here, also consider the player's class -- most clerics, paladins, and even druids will be in trouble if they "go over to the lycan side." Maybe that can help a player want to fight the curse. Now, there are evil gods who wouldn't care, but most others would. Even most druids (in the "stock" universe, anyway) see were-anythings as aberrations, since they are only the anger/aggression side of nature, devouring hunger without balancing creative force. (Wolves don't usually attack "just because," but a werewolf kills for fun, therefore = "bad.")

Also the player now has a different personality, bonds, everything. All the RP pointers change to be weretiger-ish or whatever. If your wife realizes she can't play the character the same way, maybe that will help too. If your bond changes from "I will defend my friends at all costs" to "When I'm hungry, I will eat my friends if they don't run fast enough," that's significant.

One side question for Ionathus, in general: why do we always have the cursed PC awaken half-naked, covered in blood, next to a half-eaten sheep? Why is it always a sheep? Why not a cow, or a grizzly bear, or a dozen chickens? Has anyone else also used sheep here? GoT555 at least picked goblins.:smallwink:

[Ionathus]

One side question for Ionathus, in general: why do we always have the cursed PC awaken half-naked, covered in blood, next to a half-eaten sheep? Why is it always a sheep? Why not a cow, or a grizzly bear, or a dozen chickens? Has anyone else also used sheep here? GoT555 at least picked goblins.:smallwink:

Huh, I didn't even consider that, just subconsciously picked it! I suppose there would be several factors:


Sheep are small, fuzzy, and fragile
Sheep are often portrayed as innocent
Sheep are more plentiful, so a single one going missing is less noticeable
The wolf-and-sheep parallel is a quick association
In addition to blood and viscera, sheep have wool which can be in little tufts all over the landscape to heighten the carnage, like a dog that shook the stuffing from a pillow
Sheep are often sacrificed in rituals, probably due to the whole innocence thing
Speaking objectively, sheep make the funniest barnyard animal noise, hands-down

This was a fun list to compile :smalltongue:

[MaxWilson]

One side question for Ionathus, in general: why do we always have the cursed PC awaken half-naked, covered in blood, next to a half-eaten sheep? Why is it always a sheep? Why not a cow, or a grizzly bear, or a dozen chickens? Has anyone else also used sheep here? GoT555 at least picked goblins.:smallwink:

Why not a half-eaten shepherd?

[GodofThunder555]

"Tradition" in this case is older than the MM, it stretches back into TSR days and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. If you'd never heard of this solution before and came up with it on your own, then that's extra good, well done! I do think the 5E MM should give better guidance to DMs in how to handle exactly this situation because as written, 5E pushes players to do exactly what yours did: view it as Cursed With Awesome (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CursedWithAwesome).Played plenty in those days, but didn't DM much. Thinking about it, maybe my old DM might have mentioned the fact that we lose our character if we remain cursed with lycanthropy, but it's a long time ago. Frankly the idea of intentionally remaining a lycanthrope never actually came up. Nobody I ever gamed with in the Basic, 1e - 3.5e days ever thought, "You know, maybe I should keep this curse." But this time around, with a little research, my group found all sorts of instances of hardcore metagaming insanity examples. Apparently there is even an entire gaming group that are all little people (gnomes and halflings) that are all weretigers somewhere out there. This makes them tiny in all three forms, which is "cute" apparently. They even have a bunch of art of their cute weretiger selves. Hey whatever does it for them, right?

I think you pretty well nailed it when it comes to 5e. The MM only barely stops short of telling you, "Yeah go ahead and let the PC's be lycanthropes, it'll be cool!" The guidance that you shouldn't allow it just isn't there. I suppose that leaves your options open for a lot of homebrew, but I was seriously not looking forwards to DM'ing for a bunch of mostly invulnerable PC's. I'd have to improvise silver and magical weapons into monsters endlessly. On the other hand, I was torn since the MM seemed to suggest that having PC's continuing to run with lycanthropy a completely legit thing. So I gave myself time to think it through and did the best that I could.


An intermediate ground in between full NPC status and Cursed With Awesome is to do what you did and take control of the characters only while they're transformed, and only grant benefits while they're NPCs.

You did pretty well, but since you granted them an (apparent) choice and your wife chose the wild side, well, now you have to decide what to do about it. Denying XP is one option; occasionally taking control of the PC via "tiger instincts" is another; giving the PC illnesses like amnesia and false memories from someone else (like a tiger) could be another. Wives can be tricky. Good luck! I hope she's a good sport.I got my wife to cave as well. She had a backstory of her entire family being sold into slavery in Calimshan (because Calimshan is like that). She had reunited with her mother and brother after 15 years. And I even had a hook where our daughter is sort of in the game. So I told her, "Everyone humanoid that you meet looks like food, just as ever deer that a wolf meets looks like food." So she had to square the idea of seeing her mother and IRL daughter's character as food. That was enough to override the min/maxer in her. She hopped in the queue with the rest and got the party cleric to cast Remove Curse. We're now 100% lycanthropy free!!

I think the big key is to make sure they have to eat humanoids and to confront them with just how sick that would be. If you can get by eating wild game and livestock, then it's not really a downside to counterbalance the rather massive upsides of lycanthropy. You just have to buy lots of cows or something. No more of a moral dilemma than ordering steak at the local restaurant.

[GodofThunder555]

My group is pretty good at truly roleplaying and here's some of what they did.

The Ranger: "Even without the hazy nightmare I can guess what I have done. As the horror at myself comes to mind, I vomit, and seeing the blood and flesh pour from my mouth I continue retching long after my stomach is empty. I sob on the trip home and don’t respond to anything or anyone. I do, however, follow along.

Eyes puffy and red, I approach [party cleric] and wait while she cures [other party member with lycanthropy] of the curse.

Cleric: [Cleric] gives [Ranger] the same stipulation about not intentionally getting re-bitten. [Cleric] prays loudly in the celestial language saying "aufero exsecratio" an cast 3rd level cleric spell remove cures on both [Bard] and [Ranger] curing their lycanthropy.

I nod in thanks and turn towards the door, my head hanging low. “Keep an eye on [animal companions] for me.” I finger my necklace of prayer beads [Wind Walk] and vanish into the night as a whisp of cloud."

The Monk (my wife): [Monk] returns to Headquarters and greets her friends, she is surprised that as she sees them see begins to wonder how they would taste. She returns to the village to see her mom and is appalled to find herself thinking the same thing of the villagers and worst of all her mother. She becomes quiet and quietly asks her mother for the bag with the tabaxi child in it. She looks inside to see if the child has awakened yet and a thought flashes through her head, "Meat!" She closes the bag quickly and closes her eyes breathing deeply. She returns to the main part of the headquarters and seeks out [party cleric]. "[Party cleric], it is enough. Please rid me of the curse of the were-tiger as well."

The Arcane Archer: "[Archer] remained guarded and suspicious of the lycanthropes until they were cured. In somewhat private moments, he furrows his brow and asks them, "Did ye be killing anything that wasn't evil?" "

The Monk: [Monk], avoids [Arcane Archer]'s gaze for a moment, then meets his eyes firmly. “I was able to remain in control the entire time, though I fear I lost something to gain that control. We only killed goblins, I made sure of that. But the thoughts...” [Monk] looks away again, ashamed. “The thoughts were too much. Even for my carefully trained mind.”

The Arcane Archer: "Relieved at [Monk]'s report, and softened by her demeanor, [Arcane Archer] pats her on the shoulder. "A most impressive person ye do be, but some burdens do not be the kind one should be picking up or carrying. Ye all do be right to be dropping that, aye, and leaving it behind."

The Monk: "[Monk] looks at him again, a relieved look in her eyes, “You are right friend [Arcane Archer], some burdens should not be shouldered.”

The Cleric chastises each of them for not getting cured sooner. As above, for each cursed player, she makes it a pre-condition that they must promise to never intentionally get bitten by a lycanthrope again. Then she casts Remove Curse.

I have a good group and it was nice to see that this weird crisis led to a lot of excellent role-playing. Win-win.

[verbatim]

The upcoming Ravenloft Book has rules for a Dark Curse (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25036111&postcount=1) that simulates Lycanthropy. I think it's not perfect but it is definitely better than the monster manual's mechanical benefits of acquiring lycanthropy that make players want to try and metagame it in the first place.

[Corsair14]

Were tigers are low CR for level 7s? Wow they have fallen in stats. Your first problem was you let them know they were infected. You should have rolled the saving throws and kept the results hidden. They wouldn't know anything until the first full moon and all of a sudden the unbitten party members are getting attacked by weretigers from inside their camp.

[GodofThunder555]

Were tigers are low CR for level 7s? Wow they have fallen in stats. Your first problem was you let them know they were infected. You should have rolled the saving throws and kept the results hidden. They wouldn't know anything until the first full moon and all of a sudden the unbitten party members are getting attacked by weretigers from inside their camp.Online game makes it tough, but still that's exactly what I should have done. But since I had them roll the saves on their own, the cat was out of the bag a long time ago. They knew whether or not they failed their save. It was just a matter of the full moon happening from there.

I do think that 5e should explicitly say that a PC who embraces lycanthropy should become an NPC. If a DM wants to homebrew and run with a pack of lycanthropes, then that's up to that DM and may God have mercy on his/her soul.

I think the whole experience gave a lot of my players a chance to do some real soul searching, and they got to know who their characters really are better. All's well that ends well, right?

[Sigreid]

Remember that peasants have not just pitchforks, but torches. And lycanthrops are not immune to fire. Also remember that they are not immune to being trapped in a pit or restrained. When they're feeling their power too much, they will be easily restrained and burned. Even by simple villagers.

[GodofThunder555]

Remember that peasants have not just pitchforks, but torches. And lycanthrops are not immune to fire. Also remember that they are not immune to being trapped in a pit or restrained. When they're feeling their power too much, they will be easily restrained and burned. Even by simple villagers.This is true, but a few lycanthropes with 7 or 8 character levels can be a lot harder to handle. As long as the lycanthropes aren't stupid, they can systematically take down a decent sized village. And lycanthropes aren't stupid either.

Not sure what this has to do with my narrowly avoiding my players becoming lycanthropes and thereby gaining complete immunity to the vast majority of physical attacks in the game. This group of characters dishes out damage fast enough that by the time the creatures they're attacking figures out that they're immune to anything, they creatures are already dead. I definitely felt that it was just too overpowered. To be honest, I have hard enough time keeping up with the party's damage output. I don't need another thing to make DM'ing even more difficult.

[Sigreid]

This is true, but a few lycanthropes with 7 or 8 character levels can be a lot harder to handle. As long as the lycanthropes aren't stupid, they can systematically take down a decent sized village. And lycanthropes aren't stupid either.

Not sure what this has to do with my narrowly avoiding my players becoming lycanthropes and thereby gaining complete immunity to the vast majority of physical attacks in the game. This group of characters dishes out damage fast enough that by the time the creatures they're attacking figures out that they're immune to anything, they creatures are already dead. I definitely felt that it was just too overpowered. To be honest, I have hard enough time keeping up with the party's damage output. I don't need another thing to make DM'ing even more difficult.

Yeah, I was mainly thinking when they're overconfident and careless.

For the rest of it, I think part of your answer is how to fight a lycanthrop is known. Word will eventually get around they the party are monsters, and at least a percentage of opponents will come prepared.

[Kane0]

It made it all real for the PC's and they opted out. All but my wife of course.

Yeah my wife is pretty bloodthirsty too. You did well!

Even if you dont want to have silver/magic weapons coming up far more frequently you can introduce a lycanthrope hunter NPC, holy types that are obliged to kill-on-sight, knights and other authorities deeming weres too much a threat to live, etc etc.

Magic missile works just fine as does fire, acid, poison, falling and drowning. Even commoners forewarned are commoners forearmed.

[quindraco]

It's worth pointing out that that linked article up above about various lycanthropes, while largely excellent, spread a persistent myth that simply isn't true.

Lycanthropes are not immune to nonmagical P/S/B damage. They're immune to P/S/B damage from nonmagical attacks. P/S/B damage that is both nonmagical and not an attack hurts them just fine.

In other words, Lycanthropes are functionally wearing full body suits of excellent armor. Absolutely anything that ignores armor will ignore their immunity.

For example, from the PHB, while acid, fire, and poison are nice, they're consumed. If you don't mind picking them back up, caltrops will just hurt lycanthropes, completely bypassing their immunity. On a more realistic note in terms of recovering your gear, hunting traps will do the same thing. If you can convince your DM to let you build one, or you are the DM and you want a credible way for a town to fend off lycanthropes, a competently designed trap will work just fine on them, even if it deals P/S/B damage.

This is absurd, but I would argue not any more absurd than these items already ignoring adamantine plate armor.

[Sigreid]

strangulation and drowning too.