Werebear Monk?

[Drake M]

I'm DMing a campaign with an Afflicted Werebear Monk in it. (not natural)
So as a novice DM, I've got concerns about:
-using monk abilities in FULL bear form
-Claws as unarmed strikes/natural weapons
-Levels. All kinds of levels.


FULL BEAR FORM - informed and understood. Thanks to everyone for input.


CLAWS? - Informed and Understood. thanks to everyone for input.




LEVELS - Luckily, Werebear happens to be listed extensively online under savage progressions at wizards.com. Table SP-11 shows the Brown Bear (lycanthrope) levels as a class that can progress to 6, rather than 6d8 that come with a large, set, stat bonus. Does that mean a character infected starts at Brown Bear lv1, and can level his Brown Bear-ness? Must level it?

Also, it shows the LA as a class as well, not as an actual LA. 1, 2, and 3. Does that mean an afflicted character starts at Lycan 1 and can level it to 2? Must level it to 2?

 

[Dandu]

Why don't you just disallow the werebear form and save yourself a headache?

 

[Drake M]

I kind of like the concept of a guy beating the hell out of things with his bare hands, and his BEAR hands.

Enough to put up with the headache.

 

[Dandu]

Honestly, a Monk/Druid has no problem dealing unarmed strikes as a bear, so I don't see why you'd need adjustments in this case.

 

[irdeggman]

You either do your natural bear attacks or you do your monk attacks - you can't do both at the same time. That is to say you don't get to do monk attacks using claw damage.

Rules Compendium pg 100

Creatures don't receive additional attacks from a high base attack bonus when using natural weapons. The number of attacks acreature can make with its natural weapons depends on the type of attack - a creature can make one bite attack, one attack per claw or tentacle, one ane gore attack, one sting attack, or one slam attack. . . .Refer to the individual monster descriptions, which take precedence over these general rules.

Monks abilities are not really based on a human form. In fact it specifically says that

. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes.

So basically a monk can make an unarmed strike with any part of his body.

 

[Starbuck_II]

FULL BEAR FORM - I just don't think a bear would be able to use monk abilities. It's not remotely designed to move that way. It can't even really walk upright.
Hybrid form I could easily see working with all monk skills. Am i offbase here?

Disagree. You can use evasion as a bear. You can use deflect arrow.
You can't flurry with natural weapons, but that isn't unexpected (claws aren't unarmed strikes).

LEVELS - Luckily, Werebear happens to be listed extensively online under savage progressions at wizards.com. Table SP-11 shows the Brown Bear (lycanthrope) levels as a class that can progress to 6, rather than 6d8 that come with a large, set, stat bonus. Does that mean a character infected starts at Brown Bear lv1, and can level his Brown Bear-ness? Must level it?

Savage Species progression unlike the classes in the book, can be leveled when player wishes.
Yes, you must level brown bear-ness to be a bear form with bear abilities. It even says so on the site.

Also, it shows the LA as a class as well, not as an actual LA. 1, 2, and 3. Does that mean an afflicted character starts at Lycan 1 and can level it to 2? Must level it to 2?

No, Natural ones can level higher than Afflicted.

Read this:
Each lycanthrope template class has three levels, but only natural lycanthropes can take all the levels it offers. An afflicted lycanthrope can take only 1st and 2nd levels in the class, since his level adjustment is +2 instead of +3.

So he can't take all the levels (stay weaker) as he isn't a natural (which are stronger)
This is just a mechanic so you can't spread the curse or better get DR (neither are normally allowed anyway for afflicted).

 

[Drake M]

Honestly, a Monk/Druid has no problem dealing unarmed strikes as a bear, so I don't see why you'd need adjustments in this case.

You either do your natural bear attacks or you do your monk attacks - you can't do both at the same time. That is to say you don't get to do monk attacks using claw damage.

Rules Compendium pg 100



Monks abilities are not really based on a human form. In fact it specifically says that


So basically a monk can make an unarmed strike with any part of his body.

I suppose I'm being too logical about this, and not practical enough about this. Logically, a fist with claws should do more damage than a fist without claws, but I guess it doesn't matter plenty. I'll just leave it as large monk standard damage.

After some more searching, I found in the 3.5 FAQ that a creature CAN use natural weapons in full attack/after flurry of blows, after other attacks, and only if the natural weapon does not use any limbs already used to attack that round.

I.e. A werebear monk attacking in full attack can use whatever unarmed strikes it gets, then bite, but NOT claw.

Thanks for the input, that's one down.

 

[Drake M]

Disagree. You can use evasion as a bear. You can use deflect arrow.
You can't flurry with natural weapons, but that isn't unexpected (claws aren't unarmed strikes).

Savage Species progression unlike the classes in the book, can be leveled when player wishes.
Yes, you must level brown bear-ness to be a bear form with bear abilities. It even says so on the site.

No, Natural ones can level higher than Afflicted.

Read this:
Each lycanthrope template class has three levels, but only natural lycanthropes can take all the levels it offers. An afflicted lycanthrope can take only 1st and 2nd levels in the class, since his level adjustment is +2 instead of +3.

So he can't take all the levels (stay weaker) as he isn't a natural (which are stronger)
This is just a mechanic so you can't spread the curse or better get DR (neither are normally allowed anyway for afflicted).

I think you've misunderstood my question on levels slightly.

Example: A lawful good monk is bitten by a Werebear. I realize he can't level his lycanthropy past 2, because 3 is reserved for naturals.

But the question is, does he IMMEDIATELY obtain level 2 and all it's bonuses, or does he start at level 1?
If he starts at lv2, why does level 1 exist?
If he starts at lv1, when leveling due to experience, is he FORCED to level it to two, or is he allowed to level his monk?



Also, same scenario: A lawful good monk is bitten by a Werebear. Disregard whether or not he is a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level lycan for the sake of this example.

He also obtains HD as a bear, which count as levels as per this page: Savage Progressions: Fiendish Creature and Werebear Template Classes
Does he start out with one level of Brown Bear and progress? Or does he start with all 6?
If he starts with all 6 why do the stats for 1-5 exist, when there is already a formula for all 6 combined in the Monster Manual?
If he starts with 1, when leveling due to experience, is he FORCED to level it to two, or is he allowed to level his monk?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

After some more searching, I found in the 3.5 FAQ that a creature CAN use natural weapons in full attack/after flurry of blows, after other attacks, and only if the natural weapon does not use any limbs already used to attack that round.

I.e. A werebear monk attacking in full attack can use whatever unarmed strikes it gets, then bite, but NOT claw.

As others noted, you can use ANY part of your body to make an unarmed strike, so the werebear monk should be able to use claws and bite as secondary natural attacks after the unarmed flurry. Lesson here: If you're the monk's enemy, you really don't want to stand there and trade full attack actions with him. Try to do more skirmishing style fighting if plausible.

Really though, it's not that bad. Secondary natural attacks are all at -5 to hit (-2 if he takes multiattack), add only half str bonus to damage, and have weak base dice damage. With the -2 penalty from flurry, which WILL apply to the natural attacks, and medium BAB (and general multiple ability dependency that all monks suffer causing him to have a lower str score than a melee warrior would want to pay for other stats), he won't hit things with a decent AC terribly easy. His level adjustment and d8 HD will make him a bit of a soft target compared to a Fighter, too. DR mitigates that a bit. He's very reliant on full attacks to do his thing, though, so that's a major weakness. I honestly don't see how he'd be any more powerful in combat in your campaign than a Fighter or Barbarian with a greatsword and power attack.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Also, if Werebear is a headache for you, there's the Bear Warrior prestige class in C.Warrior to turn into a bear and maul stuff. It's a rage-based class for Barbarians, but there are "ki rage" monk variants and the Sohei from Oriental Adventures, iirc.