Turning PCs into Lycanthropes

[ptolemy18]

I've always wanted to do this in one of my games, but I've never had the chance... UNTIL NOW. (mwa ha ha ha! )

Has anyone run games where PCs turned into lycanthropes? It's not definitely going to happen, but the PCs are going to encounter a bunch of lycanthropes soon -- and they might not successfully identify them for what they are -- so if everything goes according to my evil DM plan, there's a chance that one of them might end up with the dreaded lycanthropy virus in their veins.

Will they get it cured? Will they turn upon the other PCs and attack them, possibly dying or becoming an NPC in the process? Or will they... BECOME A TOTALLY KICK-ASS LYCANTHROPE PC? The possibilities (both role-playing-wise and rules-wise) are endless! As a DM, I love transforming PCs into weird things. (I like Reincarnation and Polymorph for the same reason...)

I'm wondering how anyone else has DMed or set up a similar situation.

Jason

 

[Thunderfoot]

With the new lycanthrope templates it depends on a couple of things - does the character know they have been bitten by a lycanthrope? If so, most will want to get it cured somehow. (In most cases anyway.)
If they don't get it cured, the player has to understand that their character may become a part time NPC under DM control (helps keep players from dealing with the "How do I do what I do I want to do?" dilema), Everytime the character "goes hairy", DM makes up a storyline, tale, rumors, etc. of what happens. The character wakes up with amnesia of the event, in strange locations, etc, and has to deal with the emotional stigma of not knowing the truth of what really happened. Great fun.
If the character realizes what's up and controls the change - then things get really fun. Hopefully the player is a REALLY GOOD ROLEPLAYER - otherwise, they end up being a little cartoonish/comic bookish in their changes - (Player - "I run behind a tree and "wolf out", come back and kick but in the name of goodness!" DM - "You goob!")

All in all, you should have a pretty good time regardless. Happy gaming!

 

[theodinheadbasher]

I have actually gotten to do this very senario with my group for 2e. They were walking through the forest, and heared a piercing cry through the night, and found this large group of werewolves surrounding one damsel in distress. Battle ensues, and one of the PCs(an elven ranger) gets bitten by on of the werewolves. Now, in the second edition MM it says that if you are turned into a lycanthrope, you have no control over it. So as they continued forward through the wood, they reached a small halfling and gnome community called Gullykin, and they were having a festival for the full moon. As night rolls around, the ranger disappears, and the festival is interuppted by a rampaging werewolf that slaughters almost 50 of the townsfolk before running off into the night. It was pretty wicked, cause she had to go on a special quest to regain her rangerhood.


But ya, it says pretty clearly that you don't have control over it, but then again, i dont really know 3.5e that well, if at all, so *shrug*. I personally wouldn't give them too much freedom, cause it leaves you open to people screwing around too much with their new doom powers.

 

[RIPnogarD]

Guess I fall into the old school with this one, where there is a line between good and evil. Lycanthropy is a bad thing, call it a curse, disease, infection or whatever, it was meant to be cured or killed. I still try to use alignment in my campaign and except for the new werebear, all thropes tend to be not so good and loose control. They want to kill things while changed. I’ve never agreed with the “TOTALLY KICK-ASS LYCANTHROPE PC” theory. IMC, I would sick everything from paladins and city guard to Evil creatures afraid of the Thropes power after them. I would pit the world against them. Eventually they’d look for a ‘cure’…
But what do I know, I like paladins.

 

[tarchon]

We had it once - the DM's biggest challenge was to keep the PCs from figuring out how to use it to übermunchkinize the character. The PCs' biggest challenge was to keep the werewolf from ravaging the countryside, or at least to keep anybody from finding out the PC was doing it.

 

[KenM]

A DM did this to us in an old game once. He had use start to turn into werewolves. The way he handled it so we would not go "wow we are kick ass werewolves now" was good, IMO. He had us all "black out" while we we changed. We wake up in our camp that is totally trashed by large animals, so it seems. Our 2 NPC mercs we hired were mauled and dead. The way we found out it was us was the cleric in the party did a commincate with dead spell. I forgot what spell it was.

 

[ptolemy18]

Well, firstly, the campaign I'm running doesn't have alignments...

But despite that, I don't want the PCs do be able to use lycanthropy as some huge advantage. If one of them becomes a lycanthrope, I'm going to have them horrendously attack the other PCs and eat them and do all kinds of evil stuff. But on the other hand, if they just happen to transform into a lycanthrope when they're surrounded by bad guys and no PCs are around, it could be a useful trait.

Jason

 

[Treebore]

Goodman Games has two products full of useful ideas about Lycanthropy. I just read their one on Werewolves today.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Right after 3e came out, I ran Castle Amber as the adventure to kick off the campaign. The druid ended up as a werewolf- he was triply-cursed, actually: he read a cursed scroll, and activated a glyph which cursed him with lycanthropy, and also was bitten, or something else that I can't remember. At any rate, there's tons of this stuff in Castle Amber- I dare any party to come out of that dungeon without at least one lycanthrope PC.

Anyhow, he was a lycanthrope the entire time he played, until the player moved away a few months later. I even had a prestige class for him to take, based off the lycanthropic classes in Creature Crucible 4 (Night Howlers). He especially needed the class because he constantly changed voluntarily, and would then miss his check to maintain alignment and attack the party. Some people never learn, I guess- which is why they eventually killed him. They had him raised later.

Having a lycanthropic PC worked out pretty well, actually. The first night of the full moon, the party was staying in a castle with an evil enchantress who had charmed a couple of PCs. When the moon rose and all the howling started, they realized the druid had gone out into th woods and followed him. This gave them the opportunity to meet up with the enchantress' enemy, a werewolf lord who agreed to train the druid in exchange for help against the enchantress. A cool session of betrayal, intrigue, and toothy combat then followed.

I've been playing in an online Blackmoor game (currently on hiatus) in which my arcane warrior was also made into a werewolf (my PCs always seem to get turned into odd things, but this is the first werewolf. Usually I'm becoming a vampire or getting possessed by something instead).

Unfortunately, the arcane warrior is sort of like an arcane paladin, and has similar alignment and multiclassing restrictions. Plus, I'm a member of a group that tracks down rogue spellcasters and evil monsters and destroys them. So there's a good chance that they might kill me if they find out, even if I can keep myself from going berserk and not lose all my class abilities. Still, it's been pretty cool, even if I'm not sure how it will end.

 

[warlord]

Lycanthrope PCs are great. In fact I'm playing oine right now in my Buffy game. He's a 12 pt so he's in control but that doesn't mean he can't "wolf out" uncontolably when he gets really pissed.