Homebrew Werewolf -- Wanted input

Howdy! Doing a sort of "fantasy Russian" setting and rolling a (potentially bad) NPC. I saw the notes in the beastiary for Werewolf, but wanted to make some changes to bring Werewolves more in line with what I had read of Russian mythology, along with ideas that I pulled from a few other sources. I don't intend on the PCs actually catching lycanthrope, but if they did I wanted the drawbacks to outweigh the gains. For context, most of the playable races in my game are considered fey, hence the little notes regarding that. Tell me what you think (especially of the last few exploits)!

• Must change on at least one night of a full moon. On a night of the full-moon, if they choose to resist the urge to change, they must take the Flagging and Vexed condition instead. On the last night, if they still resist the urge, they lose control to the GM for the night and transform, waking up with no memories of what they had done.
• Can change at night but become automatically Vexed and Brave in doing so.
• Werewolves change back when they have either shaken off the Vexed condition (Strenous[25] and may continue to stay in wolf form for as long as they wish) or until the sun comes up or unless they draw blood and feast after hunting (in which case they lose Vexed automatically and can continue to exist in wolf form_.
• Changing back to humanoid form makes the lycanthrope Exhausted and Nauseated and cannot begin to shake the former until after 8 hours of rest where they will drop back to Fatigued. These conditions reset back to Normal if the lycanthrope changes to werewolf form while the conditions persist.
• Changing increases creature size by one up to large. If already large or bigger, they stay their size.
• Fey and shapeshifters cannot contract Lycanthrope
• Changing destroys clothing and armor.
• Those who receive a critical hit form a werewolf contract lycanthropy.
• A dose of belladonna (wolfsbane) taken within one hour of contracting lycanthropy negates the condition if correctly prepared with a Demanding [21] LOG check. Only one such attempt can be made.
• If slain, the werewolf reverts back to its natural humanoid form.

Exploits:
Pack attack. Wolves work together well. Any wolves adjacent to the victim count as flanking, gaining the +1d6 bonus to attack. When 4 or more wolves are adjacent to the victim, the victim becomes overwhelmed, and is pushed one step down the Tiredness status track at the start of its turn.

Pounce (m). The wolf can jump half its horizontal jump distance (10') from a standing start when making a bite attack. This counts as a charge (pay 2d6; +1d6 damage), and also knocks the victim prone on a successful attack.

Transformation (1). You give into your primal instincts, transforming into something part-wolf and part-man. You gain +5 to STR and END, and +3 to AGI and INT. You're considered a size larger (if already at Size Large or bigger, you remain the same size). You take on vexed and brave. You also induce terror in those who you change. All non-lycanthrope creatures are afraid until they shake it off or for 5 minutes after leaving your presence; additionally, once they leave your presence for longer than a minute, they must make a WIL(Concentration or Bravery) to remember the events surrounding the time spent with you, or are forced to rationalize what had happened if not forgetting outright what had occurred while with you.

Howl (2). The werewolf can unleash a howl so loud that its victims are stricken with fear. The howl uses two actions. A roar uses END as its attack (5d6), and attacks any creature within 40'. Victims successfully attacked are rendered Apprehensive [21].

Diseased. Lycanthropy transmits via scratch or bite. Any time you make such an attack and crit on the hit, the defender contracts the disease. This can be transmitted only when in wolf form.

Magical Repellant. You are unable to cast spells while in wolf form. Additionally, an area of up to fifteen feet around you is considered dampened.

Wolfsbane. If within ten feet of wolfsbane, you take the Sick condition and can not shake it off until out of range of the wolfsbane.

Darksight. You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in darkness as though it were daylight.

Primal Rage. You take three actions this turn, all at a -2d6 penalty. If attacking with all three actions, take a free action to attack again with the same penalty. At the end of the round, you advance along the Anger track by one step, and cannot shake it off until the end of combat.

Interesting. Do you worry that managing all those different conditions might be a bit much for the player?

I also agree that the conditions are a bit much. I like the idea though. The combat stat bonuses, would make it very power for a PC. What is the setting or concept that you are putting this in?

Alex

Hey, thanks for the replies!

In regards to conditions, I utilize a rough printout that I made that tracks all the conditions into neat little boxes. I then use coins to represent the different players and place them appropriately when they start moving down the track, so I can, at a glance, tell who is where along what track. So far, it's worked out, and was really helpful when I threw enchanted-arrow slinging pixies at them, considering the different tracks they'd go down.

Doing a sort of Fantasy Eastern Europe setting. From what I understood of Russian mythology, werewolves were able to change at will, not explicitly weak against silver, but also didn't have insane health regeneration that you might find in other systems. The combat bonuses are very, very big and I was hoping the drawbacks would weigh strongly against this benefit while still making some sort of sense and discouraging players from actually seeking to become werewolves. In this context, for an upcoming story-arc, the PCs would contend against a tribe of werewolves. Allowing for the fey restriction on gaining lycanthropy, I already don't have to worry about half the party becoming werewolves and for the others, they've demonstrated motivation enough to avoid the disease as best they can as lycanthropes are an abomination in their eyes.

TheLazyLife said:

Hey, thanks for the replies!The combat bonuses are very, very big and I was hoping the drawbacks would weigh strongly against this benefit while still making some sort of sense and discouraging players from actually seeking to become werewolves.

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Well they're certainly much bigger bonuses than I would ever give, but WOIN has the nice concept of a maximum dice pool per Grade. So these bonuses really just have the effect of making anyone who contracts the disease a 'max dice pool' fighter without having to worry about buying or increasing combat skills. That seems okay. You may want to remind the players of the cap; I imagine any player thinking it would be excellent powergaming to be bitten by a werewolf may lose that desire when you remind them that for a grade 5 PC, 5d6 attack + 5d6 bonus = 5d6 attack. Likewise at grade 5, defense score 18 + 3d6 bonus = defense score 18. What they're really getting (and which is scary enough) is a maxed-out initiative, perception, and +1d6+5 natural damage.

Since you're giving them a bonus to END...does that mean more HP in wolf form? And if so, how do you plan to handle it when a wounded werewolf shifts back to human?

Yikes, I didn't notice the +5d6 STR. That's enormous! That's +15 minimum to your STR score, but if you have, say, 3d6 already, 8d6 would take your effective STR into the region of 40 or so. That's double the strength of a t-Rex.

Yeah, I definitely back tracked in +5d6 when I was reconsidering it last night. What I had in mind and what I wrote down are two different things, and I apologize for the confusion. What it should be is a +5 to the aforementioned attributes, and only while in wolf form. Definitely had a brain fart somewhere in my thinking there.

In terms of END giving extra HP and reversion: the extra HP would be something along the equivalents of temporary HP in other systems. In a scenario where they took damage that was less than their "temporary HP" and reverted back to their regular HP score, the damage won't carry over and could be rationalized as not being as bad as it was, etc.

A straight +1d6 would probably suffice then, and be a little more elegant to apply.


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