Lets talk about Werecreatures

[Halcyon_Dax]

HELLO!

I was recently working on a natural wereleopard character and I thought that this might be an interesting discussion.

The Key to making a good (powerful that is) lycanthrope is to get as many good abilities into those animal hitdie that you can. Thats why leopard is a good choice (2 feats, pounce, rake, improved grab, big skill bonuses, only 3hd, damn cool).

The question here is:

What is your favorite animal to make into a werecreature

slash

What animal gets the best abilities for its HD?

[Shazzbaa]

Unfortunately, my traditionalist mind hasn't quite accepted that there exist anything besides werewolves and weretigers, and anything else that someone can prove to me actually exist in legend (I think werebears might have mythological backing, but I'm not sure).

Werecrocodiles and the like just make me want to cry.

However, I must admit, the hybrid form of the suggested wereleopard would be visually awesome...

[Halcyon_Dax]

Sorry, but i have to brag a tiny bit about my wereleopard NPC, because i think you will like him.

Fighter/Warshaper/Kensai

Fancies himself a paladin, however he walks that line between superzealous and evil. While he himself acts the pinacle of goodness, he scorns the weak slightly, and is wrathful and merciless in combat. Dispite this he still believes that he is righteous might (Has Silver Fang from heroes of Valor, and Kensai gives his claws electric and holy).

However, he does succumb to one urge he has... which even he knows is evil. Cannibalizing those he 'righteously smites'. However, he justifies this secret passion as 'due punishment for those who walk the path of evil' and 'the death of the evil will nourish the life of the good'. But deep in his heart he knows its wrong.

Tactics:
Pouncing on prey and making his full attack finishing with his improved grab and raking. Wereleopard gives him +8 to climb and he can take 10 on it. Also, +4 to both stealth skills.

Sacred Stealth, hehehe.


Also, Werewarhorses looked kindof interesting. (Fun name for one: Equinox, har)

[mooseofshadows]

Personally, I'm a fan of werewolves myself, but that's probably because my first tabletop RPG was Werewolf: the Apocalypse, for which I still have a particular affinity. Other than that, I'm a real fan of were coyotes and werebears, and also a nod to werespiders, and of course my old group's personal favorite, the wereplatypi.

[Person_Man]

From a crunch point of view, the best Were-whatever's I'm aware of are Entomanothrope Sword Spiders. Entomanthorpe's have all the normal advantages of Lycanthropes, plus they're immune to mind affecting effects. Sword Spiders (Monsters of Faerun) are vermin with 8 attacks, large size, and good abilities.

So, a Were-Sword-Spider with levels of Warshaper, Warmind, and Nature's Warrior with the Improved Multi-Attack feat would be quite a fearsome melee combat build. But it requires all kinds of cheese to use (online rules, 3.0 monster, multiple suppliments, frequent multi-classing), so I've never actually heard of anyone using it in a real game.

[Halcyon_Dax]

haha awsome.
I guess I was looking for the best core stuff, perhaps including the Completes.

Wereleopard warshaper kensai is pretty nasty and only uses MM and CW

[Thomas]

Unfortunately, my traditionalist mind hasn't quite accepted that there exist anything besides werewolves and weretigers, and anything else that someone can prove to me actually exist in legend (I think werebears might have mythological backing, but I'm not sure).

Werecrocodiles and the like just make me want to cry.

Eh? Wereleopards exist in African lore. Werecats exist in European lore. Weretigers in Asia, werejaguars in South America, weresharks in Pacific islands... there's a load of other shapechangers in stories. You can pretty much take the most prominent local predator, and people will have believed in men taking it's shape.

And D&D-style werewolves don't really have much of a mythological backing; they're straight out of 20th-century movies, which pretty much invented the man-wolf hybrid, silver, the bite-infection, etc. Medieval werewolves were usually witches of some sort, who often used a wolf-skin and foul magic to change shape; or else they were cursed to change shape. Applying these movie abilities to other creatures has precisely as much backing in mythology as applying them to werewolves does.


Personally, I like dire wolf werewolves, for that W:tA -look when they change...

Aside from that, I like any Ravenloft lycanthropes (with their salient abilities), but especially werebats. Richemulot wererats with spider climb are cool, too.

[The New Bruceski]

Tolkien has a basis for werebears in The Hobbit with the skinchanger Beorn.

[Thomas]

Tolkien has a basis for werebears in The Hobbit with the skinchanger Beorn.

No worse a basis for D&D lycanthropes than a movie featuring Lon Chaney Jr. ...

[LordLocke]

Tolkien has a basis for werebears in The Hobbit with the skinchanger Beorn.

I believe David Edding's 'The Belgarid' series had a man cursed to change into a bear as well. Barak, I think?

[Thomas]

I believe David Edding's 'The Belgarid' series had a man cursed to change into a bear as well. Barak, I think?

Protip: Eddings ripped off Tolkien zomg!

It's all just a take on Viking berserkers (bear-sarks, "bear-shirts"), who were sometimes thought to change into wolves or bears.

[Jack Mann]

Berserker comes from a Norse word meaning Bear-Shirt. They believed that a man could gain the power of a bear or a wolf by wearing its skin (this evolved from cults worshipping bears and wolves in Northern Europe). Certain groups capitalized on these beliefs, and gained a reputation for savagery and prowess in combat. Some were said to actually take the form of the animal in question. This is likely the source of Beorn, though Beorn is depicted as having far more self-control than the mythological (or historic) berserkers had.

EDIT: Damn you, Simu-Thomas!

[Ambrogino]

Like Thomas said, shapeshifters exist in nearly every form of myth, and very few things in D&D bear much realtionship to their progenitor myth. What he didn't mentions is Were-seals!

I still have the issue of White-Wolf Magazine they were statted in for W:tA...

[amanodel]

Were-badger or were-boar gives endless rage or ferocity. Those are nice. I once created a gnome were-wolverine barbarian. That was sick.

Were-camels, anyone? :D

Also, any were-birds let you fly. They're awesome.


For their HD leopard, cheetah, crocodile and wolf worths it the most.

[Falconsflight]

The fun thing about were animals is you can do the whole "Increase HD" thing, or you can Decrease HD however you like.

So that creature with 8d8 hD you can decrease to 4d8 HD. Or that 2d8 HD can be increased to 4 HD to make the monster large.

Were creatures can be one size smaller, same or one size bigger than their base creature. WHich is rather fun.

[amanodel]

The fun thing about were animals is you can do the whole "Increase HD" thing, or you can Decrease HD however you like.

I know there's monster advancement (But that's stupid with lycantrophing), but I never heard of monster decreasement. Where is it?

[Falconsflight]

I assumed it was possible. Considering Advancement is just decreasment backwards. But I'm now that I look at it again, I'm not so sure.

But still. Turning that medium Wolf into a Large one for just one extra HD... That's nice.

[amanodel]

1 HD tiny elephants? That sounds wrong.

Advanced large were-wolf, you say? Helps with the tripping for sure. But you'd have to give that two extra HD, not just one. Wolf is 2 HD, large wolf starts at 4 HD. Two class levels might be better.

I quickly looked at the MM and only wolverines (from the previous list) are capable of a size increasement with 1 HD. But they can't use it well.

[Thomas]

Were-camels, anyone? :D

Also, any were-birds let you fly. They're awesome.

Thing is, you need a pretty danged big bird. Small to Large, for human lycanthropes. Not a lot of those in the game.

And camels aren't carnivores, omnivores, or scavengers. They're herbivores.

The fun thing about were animals is you can do the whole "Increase HD" thing, or you can Decrease HD however you like.

So that creature with 8d8 hD you can decrease to 4d8 HD. Or that 2d8 HD can be increased to 4 HD to make the monster large.

Were creatures can be one size smaller, same or one size bigger than their base creature. WHich is rather fun.

Houseruled decreased HD are fine for custom creatures, but you should never use a decreased-HD animal with lycanthropy. Those HD partly "buy" the animal's ability scores and special abilities, and a lycanthrope template with the same abilities but decreased HD is obviously way more powerful (it allows for more class levels in the same ECL/CR, and class levels are always more powerful than animal HD).

[Dhavaer]

1 HD tiny elephants? That sounds wrong.

Mimmoths! I want one!

[Charity]

Mimmoths! I want one!

Just add hay for-
A pet and a water pistol in one easy to care for bundle.

[Neo]

yeah, but then think about Colossal Mice.

You could have the ferocious were-lemming, comes with Improved Leap for those high up places.

[amanodel]

Thing is, you need a pretty danged big bird. Small to Large, for human lycanthropes. Not a lot of those in the game.

Eagles or 2hd advanced owls. Those are both small.

yeah, but then think about Colossal Mice.

Animals can't advance beyond a level. Many animals cannot advance at all.

And camels aren't carnivores, omnivores, or scavengers. They're herbivores.

But they have a secondary bite attack! They are scary! :)

[Yuki Akuma]

The monster classes on the Spooky Wizard's website allow you to take as many or as few animal HD as you like, up to the limit for a normal animal of its kind.

Of course, if you don't take any animal HD the shapechanging ability is merely cosmetic (except for damage reduction.. yay).

[Person_Man]

The fun thing about were animals is you can do the whole "Increase HD" thing, or you can Decrease HD however you like.

So that creature with 8d8 hD you can decrease to 4d8 HD. Or that 2d8 HD can be increased to 4 HD to make the monster large.

Were creatures can be one size smaller, same or one size bigger than their base creature. WHich is rather fun.

Wrong. Unless you're using a house rule, you can't reduce an animal's hit dice. You can only increase it.

Because of this and the +2 or +3 LA, Lycanthropes PC's are almost always a bad deal. But they still make great NPC's or enemies.

[Dire Penguin]

I find lycanthropes to be favored by players for some stupid reason. They're uncontrolable in their animal forms, and hated! I can't see why people think they're really all that cool...Except the commoner flaw:were-sheep.

TASTY: special quality (were-sheep)
Whenever being attacked by a carnivorous creature, the were-sheep always egts attacked first, becasue it looks yummy!

[Thomas]

Eagles or 2hd advanced owls. Those are both small.

Like I said, I prefer werebats (dire bat) for the flight. Large hybrid and animal forms. (Houserule the flight speed to the hybrid, obviously. What's the point, otherwise?) And they're bound to look more grotesque than any other werecreature, pretty much...

[Pegasos989]

I was concidering that in my next DnD campaign (which will use a bit WoD - WtA mythology) I would grant all the players werewolf template for free. Anyone sees any problems with it?

[Thomas]

I was concidering that in my next DnD campaign (which will use a bit WoD - WtA mythology) I would grant all the players werewolf template for free. Anyone sees any problems with it?

Aside from using anything to do with WoD?

I jest.

Seriously. So long as you enforce the rules (LA is +2 or +3, 2 animal HD, so that's +4 or +5 to ECL), the only problem you have is that most enemies can't pass their DR, which makes fights kind of pointless. (I loved playing a pixie sorcerer; at low levels, nothing could touch him, even if it could see him somehow.)

[Person_Man]

I was concidering that in my next DnD campaign (which will use a bit WoD - WtA mythology) I would grant all the players werewolf template for free. Anyone sees any problems with it?

Why use D&D if you want to play a Werewolf game? Just use the Storytelling system. It does a much better job of capturing the coolness of werewolves, with a lot fewer mechanics to get in the way.