The Were powers

[Melamoto]

So, looking at the list of Lycanthropes, I take a look at the ability score modifiers for the different animals...
{table]Name|Animal Form|Animal or Hybrid Form Ability Modifiers|Preferred Alignment
Weretiger|Tiger|Str +12, Dex +4, Con +6|Neutral
Werewolf|Wolf|Str +2, Dex +4, Con +4|Chaotic evil[/table]

Now am I missing something here or is the Weretiger vastly more powerful than the Werewolf with no tradeoff? The balance issue wouldn't be so bad if they didn't share the same LA template! +10 Str and +2 Con, and what? They lose Trip from Werewolves I guess. Oh wait, they get Improved Grab, Pounce, and a powerful Natural attack. This should be at least LA+4 for a natural, and the Wolf barely deserves a +2 LA for natural. What is going on here?

[Temotei]

What is going on here?

Stupidity. The werebear has ridiculous ability bonuses, too, although no pounce.

[Sliver]

Tigers have much higher HD and the weretiger gets the HD of the base animal.. Better HD then LA IMO..

[Temotei]

Lycanthropy is horribly disfigured in the game. It needs a re-working. I think there's a homebrew out there doing just that.

[Yuki Akuma]

They have to take the racial HD when they take the template. Tigers are so much better than wolves because they have more racial HD.

Racial HD tend to suck compared to class levels, so. That's the idea, anyway.

[KillianHawkeye]

Tigers have 6 Hit Dice, and wolves only have 2. That's 4 extra levels you have to give up.

[taltamir]

Stupidity. The werebear has ridiculous ability bonuses, too, although no pounce.

and the wearbear is lawful good.

you literally make a will save (every time you tranform AND every full moon) or become lawful good

But yes, all the lycanthropy powers make no sense at all, they are all over the place, their LAs make no sense, etc...

[KillianHawkeye]

At least it's better than it was in 3.0.

[Gorgondantess]

...really? I think it's all rather balanced.
No, hear me out.
The LA pays for stuff like bonus feats, DR, etc, so for +3 LA you get +2 wisdom, DR 10/Silver, a couple bonus feats, empathy... sure, not that powerful, but it's something, and I've seen just as high LA for less stuff.
Then the RHD pays for the ability scores and natural attacks. It may not seem so huge, but trust me, there is a big difference between the 2 RHD on top of the LA and the 6 RHD on top of the LA. With the 2 RHD, you can pursue a caster class and still get to 8th level spells- pretty great, you're essentially a gish if you take the right PrCs with it and all that.
With the 6 RHD, you're looking at a max of 11 levels in any class before 20. Essentially, you put a big chunk of your levels into being a lycanthrope, and it rewards you for that.
Balanced? Not necessarily. But what monster class is?

[Temotei]

and the wearbear is lawful good.

you literally make a will save (every time you tranform AND every full moon) or become lawful good

But yes, all the lycanthropy powers make no sense at all, they are all over the place, their LAs make no sense, etc...

Is something wrong with Lawful Good? Not every Lawful Good person is like Miko, you know. Actually, most aren't.

[Eldan]

Well, nothing wrong with the alignment by itself, but, as someone said in the other thread:

Normally, he's a psychotic killer... but once a month, under the full moon, he transforms into Bearman, helper of old ladies and vanquisher of evildoers!

[UglyPanda]

Well, nothing wrong with the alignment by itself, but, as someone said in the other thread:

Normally, he's a psychotic killer... but once a month, under the full moon, he transforms into Bearman, helper of old ladies and vanquisher of evildoers!

To be fair, if we didn't have Jekyll & Hyde and Werewolves in our cultural awareness, it wouldn't seem so strange.

Normally, he runs a soup kitchen... but once a month, under the full moon, he transforms into Wolfman, eater of hobos and vanquisher of deer!

[LordZarth]

The difference is, two RHD is something you might take, sometimes, if you were really invested in having all this.

6 RHD means that it is now untakeable, unless you like to die/suck... for the whole game, yes, worse than the NPCS.