I've got a party that is soon to hit 3rd level, and there's a high likelihood one of them will soon (voluntarily) become a wererat. I have been giving it a lot of thought, so here's a long post about the subject. Context below, which could be relevant for people that want to address story-based ideas (balance via in-game repercussions, for example). If you're curious about my mechanics ideas, skip to the section titled Mechanics
Context
It's a very bleak, apocalyptic sort of swords-and-sorcery homebrew setting. Basically, you've got the occasional filthy, mostly lawless, sprawling metropolis divided by huge swathes of dangerous wilds and ruined skeletons of lost civilizations. The party is in one such metropolis, currently operating in one of the many slums and working for/around various gangs. The party is a halfling rogue (soon to be arcane trickster), a dragonborn paladin (soon to be oath of vengeance), and an NPC human cleric (Trickery domain).
One of the gangs they've found some common ground with is a group of Wererats called the Family; notably because they tend to be more focused on their particular neighborhood than with rapid expansion, and because the current Rat King has a soft-spot for the city's urchins. It's sort of an open secret that many members are wererats... they keep some anonymity as to whether any given individual is one, but the fact that they're a gang of wererats is common knowledge. The city is sufficiently chaotic that there's no major police force actively hunting them.
They just worked a robbery (of a very nasty wizard) with a few NPC allies, one in particular was a wererat of the Family. He's been impressed with them so far, particularly the halfling rogue.
He's probably going to try to convince them to join his gang. I already know that the player of the halfling rogue is definitely interested in becoming a wererat. I doubt the others will take him up on it. Long term, their interests may not always align with the interests of the Family, and there will no doubt be some opportunity for conflict and roleplay there. The Family is one of the better, more organized of the gangs (that Lawful Evil inclination helps out here) but ultimately they're still an evil gang in the slums.
The party's morality is pretty gray, as intended. (To forestall paladin tangents: I'm of the opinion that only the Devotion oath has much to do with traditional D&D paladins, and the Vengeance oath is basically compatible with any alignment.) That said, the party is actually more decent than the average person in the city, I'd say. They tend to expect to get paid for their work, and they don't balk at killing, but they've also done stuff like defend an old woman from a particularly nasty gang with no expectation of reward.
The most likely outcome here is that the halfling rogue officially joins the Family and becomes a wererat, and the paladin and cleric remain as-is, but friendly to the Family for now. The alignment shift to LE won't be a huge deal; both because I don't care much about hardline alignment enforcement and because she's always been the most morally questionable member of the party. I expect sooner or later they'll have direct friction with the wererats, but by then the Lycanthropy will have run its course.
Mechanics
So. That was a lot of context! The bottom line is that it's likely that one member of the party will become a wererat, and the others will not. This can create balance issues, since some wererat powers (I'm looking at you, immunity to nonmagic nonsilver weapon damage!) are pretty bonkers. Especially for level 3 characters!
I have some ideas for slowly building up to full wererat power over time that I think will reign in the worst excesses. Curious to see what other people think of them.
Initial Phase
Right after turning, no control to be had yet. The first full moon will confirm that the bite "took" (could take a few months in game to turn, theoretically) as the halfling will wake up exhausted and possibly down some HP after giving neighbors some stories to tell. If they're smart they will lock her up and she won't cause any mischief in her rat form.
Either way, she will start feeling twitchier after that first shift. I'll probably give her disadvantage to some ability checks when I feel like it, and generally make the early phase unpleasant as the curse takes hold.
I expect she will then spend some time training with the wererat friend they made, learning the basics of how to control the curse and force a shift. Then we enter the long-term beginner wererat phase.
Basic Wererat Phase
I'm thinking it will be the following:
-Can spend an action to shift, requires Con (Wis?) check DC 10, failure results in no shift, wasted action.
-Resistance, not immunity, to relevant damage types in hybrid/animal form. No resistance or immunity in human form.
-Maintaining hybrid or animal form requires Concentration, failure can result in loss of control rather than shifting out of rat-form. Probably based on severity of fail.
-When the shift ends, gain a level of exhaustion.
-If maintained for more than 1 hour at a time, can have mental side-effects, minor madness, more exhaustion, etc.
The way I see it, this results in something like an on-command Stoneskin that gives you exhaustion when it ends and comes with some minor extra perks like natural weapons. I'm tentatively okay with this. Shifting has visual effects and is loud, so it's not going to be useful in all situations. And heck, I could extend the action to take a minute or something, so no in-combat shifts. But more importantly, the concentration and exhaustion means that there's a real cost for using it. Since she will go Arcane Trickster, she will likely have plenty of Concentration spells in her toolkit. And exhaustion sucks, especially since Rogues love making ability checks.
If anything it may be too punitive. On the other hand, she's only level 3, and this is basically a gravy ability until I find some opportunity to give the pally a nice boon.
Some day, with enough practice, she will eventually become a master wererat (aka mostly an MM wererat) as below:
Master Phase
-Shifting takes an action and does not require a check.
-Full immunity in wererat form, and probably resistance in human form (if I am reading rules right, MM wererats get full immunity regardless of current form, right?)
-Advantage on saves to maintain Concentration
-No exhaustion, or perhaps exhaustion only after a certain number of shifts or certain total time spent shifted.
I envision that mastery abilities could be gained piecemeal, as well. Getting better bit by bit over the course of the game.
It's still going to eat concentration, I think. It's just too good not to. This does beg the question about why NPC wererats don't have to use concentration... but I don't usually lose sleep over taking a "good for me but not for thee" approach to NPC design vs. Player restrictions.
So those are all my ideas so far. What do you guys think?
Context
It's a very bleak, apocalyptic sort of swords-and-sorcery homebrew setting. Basically, you've got the occasional filthy, mostly lawless, sprawling metropolis divided by huge swathes of dangerous wilds and ruined skeletons of lost civilizations. The party is in one such metropolis, currently operating in one of the many slums and working for/around various gangs. The party is a halfling rogue (soon to be arcane trickster), a dragonborn paladin (soon to be oath of vengeance), and an NPC human cleric (Trickery domain).
One of the gangs they've found some common ground with is a group of Wererats called the Family; notably because they tend to be more focused on their particular neighborhood than with rapid expansion, and because the current Rat King has a soft-spot for the city's urchins. It's sort of an open secret that many members are wererats... they keep some anonymity as to whether any given individual is one, but the fact that they're a gang of wererats is common knowledge. The city is sufficiently chaotic that there's no major police force actively hunting them.
They just worked a robbery (of a very nasty wizard) with a few NPC allies, one in particular was a wererat of the Family. He's been impressed with them so far, particularly the halfling rogue.
He's probably going to try to convince them to join his gang. I already know that the player of the halfling rogue is definitely interested in becoming a wererat. I doubt the others will take him up on it. Long term, their interests may not always align with the interests of the Family, and there will no doubt be some opportunity for conflict and roleplay there. The Family is one of the better, more organized of the gangs (that Lawful Evil inclination helps out here) but ultimately they're still an evil gang in the slums.
The party's morality is pretty gray, as intended. (To forestall paladin tangents: I'm of the opinion that only the Devotion oath has much to do with traditional D&D paladins, and the Vengeance oath is basically compatible with any alignment.) That said, the party is actually more decent than the average person in the city, I'd say. They tend to expect to get paid for their work, and they don't balk at killing, but they've also done stuff like defend an old woman from a particularly nasty gang with no expectation of reward.
The most likely outcome here is that the halfling rogue officially joins the Family and becomes a wererat, and the paladin and cleric remain as-is, but friendly to the Family for now. The alignment shift to LE won't be a huge deal; both because I don't care much about hardline alignment enforcement and because she's always been the most morally questionable member of the party. I expect sooner or later they'll have direct friction with the wererats, but by then the Lycanthropy will have run its course.
Mechanics
So. That was a lot of context! The bottom line is that it's likely that one member of the party will become a wererat, and the others will not. This can create balance issues, since some wererat powers (I'm looking at you, immunity to nonmagic nonsilver weapon damage!) are pretty bonkers. Especially for level 3 characters!
I have some ideas for slowly building up to full wererat power over time that I think will reign in the worst excesses. Curious to see what other people think of them.
Initial Phase
Right after turning, no control to be had yet. The first full moon will confirm that the bite "took" (could take a few months in game to turn, theoretically) as the halfling will wake up exhausted and possibly down some HP after giving neighbors some stories to tell. If they're smart they will lock her up and she won't cause any mischief in her rat form.
Either way, she will start feeling twitchier after that first shift. I'll probably give her disadvantage to some ability checks when I feel like it, and generally make the early phase unpleasant as the curse takes hold.
I expect she will then spend some time training with the wererat friend they made, learning the basics of how to control the curse and force a shift. Then we enter the long-term beginner wererat phase.
Basic Wererat Phase
I'm thinking it will be the following:
-Can spend an action to shift, requires Con (Wis?) check DC 10, failure results in no shift, wasted action.
-Resistance, not immunity, to relevant damage types in hybrid/animal form. No resistance or immunity in human form.
-Maintaining hybrid or animal form requires Concentration, failure can result in loss of control rather than shifting out of rat-form. Probably based on severity of fail.
-When the shift ends, gain a level of exhaustion.
-If maintained for more than 1 hour at a time, can have mental side-effects, minor madness, more exhaustion, etc.
The way I see it, this results in something like an on-command Stoneskin that gives you exhaustion when it ends and comes with some minor extra perks like natural weapons. I'm tentatively okay with this. Shifting has visual effects and is loud, so it's not going to be useful in all situations. And heck, I could extend the action to take a minute or something, so no in-combat shifts. But more importantly, the concentration and exhaustion means that there's a real cost for using it. Since she will go Arcane Trickster, she will likely have plenty of Concentration spells in her toolkit. And exhaustion sucks, especially since Rogues love making ability checks.
If anything it may be too punitive. On the other hand, she's only level 3, and this is basically a gravy ability until I find some opportunity to give the pally a nice boon.
Some day, with enough practice, she will eventually become a master wererat (aka mostly an MM wererat) as below:
Master Phase
-Shifting takes an action and does not require a check.
-Full immunity in wererat form, and probably resistance in human form (if I am reading rules right, MM wererats get full immunity regardless of current form, right?)
-Advantage on saves to maintain Concentration
-No exhaustion, or perhaps exhaustion only after a certain number of shifts or certain total time spent shifted.
I envision that mastery abilities could be gained piecemeal, as well. Getting better bit by bit over the course of the game.
It's still going to eat concentration, I think. It's just too good not to. This does beg the question about why NPC wererats don't have to use concentration... but I don't usually lose sleep over taking a "good for me but not for thee" approach to NPC design vs. Player restrictions.
So those are all my ideas so far. What do you guys think?
