Slightly confused about lycanthropy

[Goonthegoof]

If you make your character a lycanthrope do you gain the animal's bonus feats or do you just get feats to spend from the animal's HD added to yours?

[dob]

My understanding is that you get the animal feats; those are the feats awarded by the animal's HD. The MM might have given some animals might get more than would normally be their fair share, in which case you say hooray, bonus feats.

All lycanthropes get Iron Will as a bonus feat though, I think.

(On the lycanthrope tip, when I try to make a wererat by lycanthrope creation rules, I end up with a rather different stats block than WoTC did for their stat block, so either I'm misunderstanding something or they didn't bother to follow their own rules when making the wererat examples.)

[Goonthegoof]

Thanks, that's exactly what I was wondering. There's several animals with more feats than they should actually have, I was wondering if animal X has 3HD and the feats parallel park, juice fruit and improved hating this campaign, do I get the three feats or do I just get the one feat from three extra hit dice?

[Artemiz]

If you're planning on playing a lycanthrope of any sort, you might want to let your DM know. I know from experience that lyncanthropes are VERY powerful (at least in 3.5), especially coupled with other templates/non-core races.

If you're the DM, well, good luck.

[Swok]

that actually is entirely dependent upon the lycanthrope in question. In general, the more animal HD you get hobbled with, the worse off you are. Animal HD are pretty bad.

And yes, bonus feats are included explicitly in the "creating a lycanthrope" section

" Add the base animal’s feats to the base creature’s. If this results in a lycanthrope having the same feat twice, the lycanthrope gains no additional benefit unless the feat normally can be taken more once, in which case the duplicated feat works as noted in the feat description. This process may give the lycanthrope more feats than a character of its total Hit Dice would normally be entitled to; if this occurs, any "extra" feats are denoted as bonus feats.

It’s possible that a lycanthrope cannot meet the prerequisites for all its feats when in humanoid form. If this occurs, the lycanthrope still has the feats, but cannot use them when in humanoid form. A lycanthrope receives Iron Will as a bonus feat. "

[Apropos]

If someone already explained this, ignore me.

With lycanthropes, you get racial HD, which can give you those feats that you get every three HD. In addition to that, you get the feats listed in the animal's entry and Iron Will as a bonus feat.

[Sophismata]

With lycanthropes, you get extra HD, which can give you those feats that you get every three HD, but must first be 'spent' on the base animal's feats. Extra feats from the base animal are given as bonus feats. You get Iron Will as a bonus feat.

Slight correction.

[Goonthegoof]

Someone already did, but thanks anyway.

[Goonthegoof]

Someone already did, but thanks anyway.

[SpikeFightwicky]

(On the lycanthrope tip, when I try to make a wererat by lycanthrope creation rules, I end up with a rather different stats block than WoTC did for their stat block, so either I'm misunderstanding something or they didn't bother to follow their own rules when making the wererat examples.)

The stat block seems to add up. Keep in mind that the base animal of the wererat is a Dire Rat, and not a regular rat (+6 Dex and +2 Con). Because of the size limitations, humans and other medium sized creatures cannot become were-rats of the tiny variety.

As has been stated, the animal HD give you the animal's feats (no choice in the matter), and if it causes you to double up (like if you had 'Alertness' before the transformation), you don't get to pick a different feat.