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View Full Version : Player Help My level 10 CG winged teifling lore bard just got infected with weretiger lycanthropy



Zhentarim
2022-05-22, 11:45 PM
So my party was investigating the temple of the nature god, and my character is a bard with animate dead and negative energy flood and danse macabre on his spell list, in addition to fireball and polymorph, so my character usually hangs out in the back commanding his undead skeletal archers, lobbing fireballs when the skeleton archers are nearly dead, and polymorphing the party paladin into a dragon so the paladin can use her multiattack and firebreath to knock out all the enemies.

During this fight in the temple of the nature god, however, my tiefling was bitten and failed the constitution save. So now my winged tiefling bard is a weretiger.

My character was appointed as the director of prisons so I get my supply of undead by boiling convicted executed prisoners and then animating the bones, and storing the skeletons in prison cells. This is ironic since my character has a background as a criminal smuggler and was on the other side of the law (at first).

Anyway, this is how my character was before getting bitten:


9 str
14 dex
12 con
14 int
14 wis
20 cha

You do master the arts of a diplomacy, also gaining the following benefits too:

-- You can increase your charisma score by 1, up to a maximum of 20.

-- You also gain a proficiency in the Persuasion skill. But if you’re already proficient in this specific skill, then you do add double your proficiency bonus for checks you make with it.

-- Whenever you do spend a minute talking with someone those who can understand what you say, you can easily make a charisma (Persuasion) check the contested with the creature’s wisdom (Insight) check. Suppose, if you or even your companions are fighting the creature, and then your check will automatically fail. Whenever your check succeeds and the target has been charmed by you as long as it will remain within the 60 feet of you and also for 1 minute thereafter.


+2 necrotic light crossbow (additional +2 attack/damage and all damage is necrotic)

Nonmagic Pendant of the Chaotic Neutral Trickster God

Disguise Kit

Thieves Tools

Crowbar

Dark Clothes

Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Stealth

Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set, thieves’ tools

Equipment: A crowbar, a set of dark common clothes including a hood, and a pouch containing 15 gp

Feature: Criminal Contact

In your time spent operating outside of the law, you’ve managed to cultivate a reliable, trustworthy contact in the criminal underworld. This person will liaise with criminal factions, other individual criminals, and help you fence stolen or illegal items.

You likely have a secret way of getting in touch with your contact, even over great distances, and know how to find suitable messengers in any backwater gambling den, dive bar, or other establishment of ill repute.

Ability Scores: Int +1; Choose Dex or Cha +2 (chose Cha)
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 ft., fly 30 ft.

Age. Tieflings mature at the same rate as humans but live a few years longer.

Size. Tieflings are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium.

Darkvision. Thanks to your infernal heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Hellish Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage.
Winged. You have bat-like wings sprouting from your shoulder blades. You have a flying speed of 30 feet while you aren't wearing heavy armor.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Infernal.

Appearance. Your tiefling might not look like other tieflings. Rather than having the physical characteristics described in the Player's Handbook, choose 1d4+1 of the following features: small horns; fangs or sharp teeth; a forked tongue; catlike eyes; six fingers on each hand; goatlike legs; cloven hoofs; a forked tail; leathery or scaly skin; red or dark blue skin; cast no shadow or reflection; exude a smell of brimstone.

Yaris was born on an island south of the main continent in a village populated by winged tieflings. He lived in peace there among his own kind until human invaders from a distant land invaded his island and killed or enslaved most of his people. Yaris lived and escaped on a boat to the mainland where he traveled the continent as a drug smuggler, having little respect for laws or regulations but having a soft spot for the weak and vulnerable causing him to occasionally help oppressed underdogs in his travels. Yaris crossed paths with the party while trying to smuggle in a drug to Tyar city that Yaris was told could be used in small doses to cure a disease, but the drug was illegal in Tyar city. The party was trying to clear their name of a murder. The person Yaris was delivering the drugs to owned a bar that the party was also going to. The bar owner tried to kill the party and the detective, so Yaris sided with the party over his employer, and Yaris traveled with the party from that point on. We tried to find a master forgemaster because the party had stolen a hammer that, if combined with a wish ring and wielded by a master forgemaster, it could create a robot army. Soon after Yaris joined the party, the hammer was stolen by an evil wizard named Salazar who was known to possess a wish ring. The party knew we had to find the last surviving master forgemaster before Salazar could. After a series of fools errands and false leads, including a horrific moment where one of the party members ripped off an innocent blacksmith's hands, and another moment where we banished an evil god to a dark crystal, we finally found a master forgemaster, but he wanted us to kill a dragon first before he would help us. We killed the dragon but the party member who ripped off the blacksmith's arm made a deal with the evil god and release the god into the dragon's body. He left the party at that point and we reported to the master forgemaster. The party then got another quest: retrieve a meteor that fell in the frozen north. There, the party adopted a gnome conjurer with the power to ask the gods questions. We secured the meteor but an envoy sent it back to the forgemaster ahead of us. While retrieving the meteor, the gnome adopted a remorhaz and named it Carl. When the party arrived back where the master forgemaster was, the forgemaster had built a teleporter using the meteor and was attempting to teleport to save his daughter who he believed had been kidnapped by the evil wizard. We fought the forgemaster and kept him from leaving, and instead the party went in his place the next day. Yaris polymorphed into a bug and stole the evil wizard's wish ring. The party used the wish ring to give the gnome the ability to use the evil wizard's known spell list and caster level for those spells in addition to his own known spell list, though the gnome uses his own caster level for his own spell list. The gnome must make a wisdom save in order to use the evil wizard's spells or else the evil wizard temporarily gains control over the spell and it turns out badly. We rescue the master forgemaster's daughter, but she really didn't want to be rescued. All the members of the party were assigned positions as members of the government. The party started fighting battles against the invading army that killed Yaris's people as they began invading the mainland. After fighting one battle, the evil god showed back up and the gnome killed them in one shot by passing his will save and using a 9th level spell from the evil wizard's spell list: disintegrate. This made the evil god back into a gem, which the party paladin took to a temple of the god of gods to be cleansed. At this temple, Yaris awakened Carl with the Awaken spell and the god of gods grew Carl to a medium-sized creature. At the temple, Yaris learned of a magical harp owned by an ancient bard who died 200 years ago named Azaki. Azaki's harp was a legendary instrument that could give the bard that plays it great power. Yaris used speak with dead to ask Azaki about his harp. Azaki said he left it with a dear friend as he was dying. Yaris used speak with dead again with the father of the king who granted Yaris control over the prisons. The king's father told the party that Azaki's friend was actually Azaki's lover and she's an old still-living witch in a hut with chicken legs in the south. We recognized the witch because we attacked the house a dozen or so sessions earlier. We used the teleporter to go to the witch, and I offered to help her talk to her long-dead lover one more time. She took us to the temple of the nature god, which is where she said she hid the harp long ago, and upon entering, we encountered several weretigers. We tried to get the harp without fighting the weretigers, but they wanted us to leave without the harp so we fought them. That's when Yaris got bit.

Cantrips:
Mage Hand
Prestidigitation
Vicious Mockery
Create Bonfire

1st level:
Healing Word
Charm Person
Dissonant Whispers
Disguise Self
Hideous Laughter

2nd level:
Enhance Ability
Invisibility

3rd level:
Speak with Dead
Animate Dead
Fireball
Leomund's Tiny Hut

4th level:
Polymorph
Charm Monster

5th level:
Awaken
Raise Dead
Danse Macabre
Negative Energy Flood


Expertise:
Diplomacy
Perception
Stealth
Investigation
Insight

Proficiency:
Intimidation
Sleight of Hand
Deception

Jack-of-all-trades on all other skills


https://youtu.be/sOnqjkJTMaA

I'm wondering how having weretiger lycanthropy will affect my character. What abilities will Yaris have in his 3 forms? Is he still going to be chaotic good? Is it still worth taking a 2 or 3 level dip into rogue, or would some other class be more appropriate now?

Unoriginal
2022-05-23, 04:43 AM
So my party was investigating the temple of the nature god, and my character is a bard with animate dead and negative energy flood and danse macabre on his spell list, in addition to fireball and polymorph, so my character usually hangs out in the back commanding his undead skeletal archers, lobbing fireballs when the skeleton archers are nearly dead, and polymorphing the party paladin into a dragon so the paladin can use her multiattack and firebreath to knock out all the enemies.

During this fight in the temple of the nature god, however, my tiefling was bitten and failed the constitution save. So now my winged tiefling bard is a weretiger.

My character was appointed as the director of prisons so I get my supply of undead by boiling convicted executed prisoners and then animating the bones, and storing the skeletons in prison cells. This is ironic since my character has a background as a criminal smuggler and was on the other side of the law (at first).

Anyway, this is how my character was before getting bitten:


9 str
14 dex
12 con
14 int
14 wis
20 cha

You do master the arts of a diplomacy, also gaining the following benefits too:

-- You can increase your charisma score by 1, up to a maximum of 20.

-- You also gain a proficiency in the Persuasion skill. But if you’re already proficient in this specific skill, then you do add double your proficiency bonus for checks you make with it.

-- Whenever you do spend a minute talking with someone those who can understand what you say, you can easily make a charisma (Persuasion) check the contested with the creature’s wisdom (Insight) check. Suppose, if you or even your companions are fighting the creature, and then your check will automatically fail. Whenever your check succeeds and the target has been charmed by you as long as it will remain within the 60 feet of you and also for 1 minute thereafter.


+2 necrotic light crossbow (additional +2 attack/damage and all damage is necrotic)

Nonmagic Pendant of the Chaotic Neutral Trickster God

Disguise Kit

Thieves Tools

Crowbar

Dark Clothes

Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Stealth

Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set, thieves’ tools

Equipment: A crowbar, a set of dark common clothes including a hood, and a pouch containing 15 gp

Feature: Criminal Contact

In your time spent operating outside of the law, you’ve managed to cultivate a reliable, trustworthy contact in the criminal underworld. This person will liaise with criminal factions, other individual criminals, and help you fence stolen or illegal items.

You likely have a secret way of getting in touch with your contact, even over great distances, and know how to find suitable messengers in any backwater gambling den, dive bar, or other establishment of ill repute.

Ability Scores: Int +1; Choose Dex or Cha +2 (chose Cha)
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 ft., fly 30 ft.

Age. Tieflings mature at the same rate as humans but live a few years longer.

Size. Tieflings are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium.

Darkvision. Thanks to your infernal heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Hellish Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage.
Winged. You have bat-like wings sprouting from your shoulder blades. You have a flying speed of 30 feet while you aren't wearing heavy armor.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Infernal.

Appearance. Your tiefling might not look like other tieflings. Rather than having the physical characteristics described in the Player's Handbook, choose 1d4+1 of the following features: small horns; fangs or sharp teeth; a forked tongue; catlike eyes; six fingers on each hand; goatlike legs; cloven hoofs; a forked tail; leathery or scaly skin; red or dark blue skin; cast no shadow or reflection; exude a smell of brimstone.

Yaris was born on an island south of the main continent in a village populated by winged tieflings. He lived in peace there among his own kind until human invaders from a distant land invaded his island and killed or enslaved most of his people. Yaris lived and escaped on a boat to the mainland where he traveled the continent as a drug smuggler, having little respect for laws or regulations but having a soft spot for the weak and vulnerable causing him to occasionally help oppressed underdogs in his travels. Yaris crossed paths with the party while trying to smuggle in a drug to Tyar city that Yaris was told could be used in small doses to cure a disease, but the drug was illegal in Tyar city. The party was trying to clear their name of a murder. The person Yaris was delivering the drugs to owned a bar that the party was also going to. The bar owner tried to kill the party and the detective, so Yaris sided with the party over his employer, and Yaris traveled with the party from that point on. We tried to find a master forgemaster because the party had stolen a hammer that, if combined with a wish ring and wielded by a master forgemaster, it could create a robot army. Soon after Yaris joined the party, the hammer was stolen by an evil wizard named Salazar who was known to possess a wish ring. The party knew we had to find the last surviving master forgemaster before Salazar could. After a series of fools errands and false leads, including a horrific moment where one of the party members ripped off an innocent blacksmith's hands, and another moment where we banished an evil god to a dark crystal, we finally found a master forgemaster, but he wanted us to kill a dragon first before he would help us. We killed the dragon but the party member who ripped off the blacksmith's arm made a deal with the evil god and release the god into the dragon's body. He left the party at that point and we reported to the master forgemaster. The party then got another quest: retrieve a meteor that fell in the frozen north. There, the party adopted a gnome conjurer with the power to ask the gods questions. We secured the meteor but an envoy sent it back to the forgemaster ahead of us. While retrieving the meteor, the gnome adopted a remorhaz and named it Carl. When the party arrived back where the master forgemaster was, the forgemaster had built a teleporter using the meteor and was attempting to teleport to save his daughter who he believed had been kidnapped by the evil wizard. We fought the forgemaster and kept him from leaving, and instead the party went in his place the next day. Yaris polymorphed into a bug and stole the evil wizard's wish ring. The party used the wish ring to give the gnome the ability to use the evil wizard's known spell list and caster level for those spells in addition to his own known spell list, though the gnome uses his own caster level for his own spell list. The gnome must make a wisdom save in order to use the evil wizard's spells or else the evil wizard temporarily gains control over the spell and it turns out badly. We rescue the master forgemaster's daughter, but she really didn't want to be rescued. All the members of the party were assigned positions as members of the government. The party started fighting battles against the invading army that killed Yaris's people as they began invading the mainland. After fighting one battle, the evil god showed back up and the gnome killed them in one shot by passing his will save and using a 9th level spell from the evil wizard's spell list: disintegrate. This made the evil god back into a gem, which the party paladin took to a temple of the god of gods to be cleansed. At this temple, Yaris awakened Carl with the Awaken spell and the god of gods grew Carl to a medium-sized creature. At the temple, Yaris learned of a magical harp owned by an ancient bard who died 200 years ago named Azaki. Azaki's harp was a legendary instrument that could give the bard that plays it great power. Yaris used speak with dead to ask Azaki about his harp. Azaki said he left it with a dear friend as he was dying. Yaris used speak with dead again with the father of the king who granted Yaris control over the prisons. The king's father told the party that Azaki's friend was actually Azaki's lover and she's an old still-living witch in a hut with chicken legs in the south. We recognized the witch because we attacked the house a dozen or so sessions earlier. We used the teleporter to go to the witch, and I offered to help her talk to her long-dead lover one more time. She took us to the temple of the nature god, which is where she said she hid the harp long ago, and upon entering, we encountered several weretigers. We tried to get the harp without fighting the weretigers, but they wanted us to leave without the harp so we fought them. That's when Yaris got bit.

Cantrips:
Mage Hand
Prestidigitation
Vicious Mockery
Create Bonfire

1st level:
Healing Word
Charm Person
Dissonant Whispers
Disguise Self
Hideous Laughter

2nd level:
Enhance Ability
Invisibility

3rd level:
Speak with Dead
Animate Dead
Fireball
Leomund's Tiny Hut

4th level:
Polymorph
Charm Monster

5th level:
Awaken
Raise Dead
Danse Macabre
Negative Energy Flood


Expertise:
Diplomacy
Perception
Stealth
Investigation
Insight

Proficiency:
Intimidation
Sleight of Hand
Deception

Jack-of-all-trades on all other skills


https://youtu.be/sOnqjkJTMaA

I'm wondering how having weretiger lycanthropy will affect my character. What abilities will Yaris have in his 3 forms? Is he still going to be chaotic good? Is it still worth taking a 2 or 3 level dip into rogue, or would some other class be more appropriate now?

A prison warden who boils prisoners to fuel his undead army is not chaotic good.

They're evil to the point several lesser Fiends are taking notes.

Accepting the Weretiger curse change your personality to the point you become true neutral, though, so I suppose your character will boil prisonners to create undead goons less often.

diplomancer
2022-05-23, 05:23 AM
A prison warden who boils prisoners to fuel his undead army is not chaotic good.

They're evil to the point several lesser Fiends are taking notes.

Accepting the Weretiger curse change your personality to the point you become true neutral, though, so I suppose your character will boil prisonners to create undead goons less often.

I think he meant that the prisoners were already dead, though I don't see much the point of boiling them. So not nine-Hells-evil perhaps, but definitely not Chaotic Good.

MoiMagnus
2022-05-23, 05:56 AM
Talking about alignment on this forum will be difficult unless you want the "is it even possible to be a good-aligned necromancer?" debate to start once again.

Suffice to say that a lot of GMs here would label your character EVIL without looking further than having an army of skeletons as a regular combat tactics (and not just a one time exception). Then another bunch of them would label you EVIL for the way you obtained it (it's still organised desacralisation of dead bodies, possibly combined with a cruel mean of execution if the boiling is alive).

But your GM didn't labelled your character as EVIL (as far as we know). So those points are moot and not really relevant for your table.

CapnWildefyr
2022-05-23, 06:32 AM
Talking about alignment on this forum will be difficult unless you want the "is it even possible to be a good-aligned necromancer?" debate to start once again.

Suffice to say that a lot of GMs here would label your character EVIL without looking further than having an army of skeletons as a regular combat tactics (and not just a one time exception). Then another bunch of them would label you EVIL for the way you obtained it (it's still organised desacralisation of dead bodies, possibly combined with a cruel mean of execution if the boiling is alive).

But your GM didn't labelled your character as EVIL (as far as we know). So those points are moot and not really relevant for your table.

Agreed. (FWIW I didn't get past animate dead on the spell list before thinking EVIL.:smallwink:)

But to the OP, usually if you accept the curse, you're an NPC. Players aren't meant to have those extra powers and the DM makes you into an NPC. Often. And yes your alignment, as Unoriginal said, your alignment (or personality etc for those who don't use alignment) goes all weretiger. OTOH if you fight it, you can stay as you are although technically the DM can narrate or take outright control of your character when you "tiger-out." That is, lycanthrope is supposed to be a curse, not a feature, so when you tiger-out, you're not yourself and therefore the DM may intervene, even to the point of narrating those parts. (As in, "You went to bed last night near the campfire, but when you wake up, you're naked on the ground, where you just fell off of a low tree limb. You seem to have blood down your front and bits of deer skin stuck in your teeth.")

Or your DM might let you play a weretiger. You need to discuss it. It's very much DM dependent.

da newt
2022-05-23, 07:01 AM
Monster Manual pg 207 "PCs as Lycanthropes"

Zhentarim
2022-05-23, 08:41 AM
I think he meant that the prisoners were already dead, though I don't see much the point of boiling them. So not nine-Hells-evil perhaps, but definitely not Chaotic Good.

The DM makes me boil the corpses if I want skeletons instead of zombies, and me and the party all prefer skeletons because skeletons are better archers and they weigh less if we are trying to travel long distances. The DM assumes I boil the corpses of prisoners so often that 9 times out of 10, I have a full stock of skeletons I can reassert control over and march through the teleporter with the night before we plan to use the portal, giving me a chance to have a long rest to restore my spells. The skeletal archer army hasn't had skeletons leftover yet, but so far its allowed the kingdom to avoid sending the living into (much) combat. We actually didn't take a skeletal army with us to the nature god temple since we were expecting this to be a quick errand talking to the witch, but since this has taken a turn the party hasn't expected, the paladin took out her cauldron once we defeated the first wave of weretigers and, after they reverted to their humanoid forms (a dwarf, an elf, and three humans), we loaded the reverted weretigers into the cauldron and cooked their flesh off so we could have skeletons instead of zombies. We killed more weretigers further back in the temple, but by then, a couple skeletons had fallen prey to some traps the weretigers and wereboars had set up. My religion check told me that Kudzu, God of Nature, is Chaotic Good, so it surprises me he had wereboars in his temple as well. So far, the werecreatures we have encounted have been able to speak in hybrid form and shift between their three forms as well. So that at least opens the possibility my character can master the curse as well.

Kurt Kurageous
2022-05-23, 03:46 PM
Why are we boiling them when a swarm of rats or rot grubs will do the same thing?

Zhentarim
2022-05-23, 04:16 PM
Why are we boiling them when a swarm of rats or rot grubs will do the same thing?

The party paladin suggested this method and we all just went with it.

When I get my lycanthropic str boost, should I use that to multiclass into something that will make be a better melee fighter?

Keravath
2022-05-23, 04:53 PM
1) Whether animating skeletons would be considered evil is world building dependent and thus up to the DM. Most real cultures have a respect for the dead that would make it culturally unacceptable to most to use bodies of anyone to create skeletons without being evil. However, it is possible to imagine a world where religious aspects are attached only to the soul. The body is just a vessel and what happens to it after the soul is gone is irrelevant - it can be used for a variety of other purposes (again up to the DM based on the in-game culture).

2) Your DM seems to run things more for fun than by any specific rules (polymorph can't turn a creature into a dragon for example - you need the 9th level True Polymorph for that) - as a result, it is again pretty much up to him what can/will happen and up to you to figure out how to handle the transition to being a lycanthrope. From a role playing perspective, there will be a conflict between the animalistic nature of the curse vs the character - you'll have to ask your DM what will be involved in learning to control the curse.

Were tigers don't typically pass along the curse - since it would mean more competition. (This is another example of your DM choosing to run things for their world - rules as written - were tigers won't typically bite opponents at all just to avoid the possibility of passing along the curse).

"They don’t like to pass on their curse, because every new weretiger means competition for territory and prey."

Your character can choose to embrace or fight the curse (resisting the chance except at the full moon).

"If the character embraces the curse, his or her alignment becomes the one defined for the lycanthrope. The DM is free to decide that a change in alignment places the character under DM control until the curse of lycanthropy is removed."

If you embrace the curse, your outlook on the world will change and your alignment would be neutral. You'll also pick up a 17 strength and the other lycanthrope aspects - immunity to bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage from non-magical attacks that aren't silver, hybrid and animal forms along with the attack forms (claws/bite).

3) I don't think that being a lycanthrope will likely affect your choice of classes. It doesn't open up any new options and in your humanoid form, it isn't obvious that you are a shapeshifter. (keep in mind polymorph will no longer work on you if you sometimes cast it on yourself).

The down side is whether you will be unable to control the transformation or the hunting of prey for some time after acquiring the curse - it is up the DM how long it will take for you to learn to control it.

Finally, at your level it will be fairly easy to lose. All it takes is the 3rd level remove curse - touch spell, 1 action cast - and the lycanthropy will be gone (unless your DM has changed the rules for it). Intelligent opponents or your personal enemies will probably have researched you and your party and if lycanthropy is a problem for them, they will remove it. All it takes is a 5th level divine soul sorcerer, a cleric with the metamagic adept feat, etc .. to subtly cast a remove curse on your character while moving past you in a tavern and then bye-bye lycanthropy. However, again at your level, the odds of running into magical damage and spells and other things that lycanthropy doesn't affect are much higher. At low level, lycanthropy is a major boost - at higher levels, depending on the campaign and DM - it might not make that much of a difference.

Zhentarim
2022-05-29, 02:59 PM
I ended up going the "remove curse" route. I thought being a weretiger would be cool, but I did a few Intelligence (History) checks and appearently Lycanthropes are hated even more than necromancers in his setting, and while I had been able to keep my character's necromancy (mostly) secret, he said keeping lycanthropy secret would be even harder and people would hunt my character. I might play the concept in another game at some point, though, if the opportunity ever comes up again.

KorvinStarmast
2022-06-02, 12:32 PM
Why are we boiling them when a swarm of rats or rot grubs will do the same thing? Let me add insect swarms to this great idea. Once you've seen how a swarm of ants will strip an old chicken bone down to just bone you can appreciate 'clean' at a whole new level. :smalleek: