D&D 5E Werewolf Damage Immunity Question

[Ganymede81]

@Derren:
Respectfully, if you want that level of world-simulation out of your RPGs then D&D might not be the best game for you. No edition of D&D was ever built with that kind of internal consistency.

This is an important point.

While lycanthropes have immunity to weapon attacks as a nod to werewolf folklore, this invulnerability is there solely to present a fun and unique challenge to a group of PCs; it is not there to model fantasy biology or how lycanthropes interact with the fantasy world at large.

In either case, I'm on team "lycanthropes can harm other lycanthropes."

 

[BookBarbarian]

What about a Lycantrope thread Necromancer?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I'm currently using a lot of werebeasts in my campaign, and honestly I handed out silvered weapons to the party early on, but in my setting the idea is that werebeasts were specifically created to attack mortal civilization and be immune to weapons that kill normal animals. The magic and silver bypass is the result of an additional curse by an archfey werebeast hunter.

I would personally rule that non-magical, non-silvered weapon attacks launched by a creature cannot hurt a werebeast, but putting the werebeast in a dangerous situation can cause them harm (thrown rock does nothing, but pushing off a cliff works, because magic).

Werebeasts can't hurt one another, either, so a werebeast couldpush a boulder down a cliff onto friend and foe alike, harming the non-werebeasts but leaving the werebeasts just fine (prone at most). Because it's a magic curse!

 

[MPA2000]

We're too used to thinking of these sorts of things as D&D physics. We acknowledge that they don't have to fit normal physics, but expect that they have to fit a sort of fantasy physics. One of the designers (I think it was Jeremy Crawford) responded to a tweet about it by, essentially, saying that's not how they are treating lycanthrope damage immunity (that's where I'm referencing the folklorish thing).

Think of it this way. The curse of lycanthropy doesn't make your body impervious to most forms of damage. Instead, it creates a supernatural cosmic rule or magical state that prevents you from being damaged by mortal weapons. Weapons with a specific supernatural significance (in this case magic or silver) are explicitly excepted from this rule and can damage as normal. Suffering damage from other sources is not covered by this rule at all, and therefore they are not immune.

If you can find a way to get around the weapon rule, (such as by using natural phenomena) they will be damaged as normal. If you go too far and turn it into a weapon wielded by mortal hands (which in game rules generally means you are making at attack roll) it falls under the supernatural rule of protection by the lycanthropic curse.

It's a change from how prior editions have treated it, but I kind of like the feel engenders. I do agree that it causes some consistency issues with regards to why lycanthropes have not become Lords of All Monsters.

This makes sense. The magical defense against certain weapons, activates when an attack is imminent. So drowning, falling damage or even natural lightning strike could theoretically still harm them, since this would not activate the magic defense. In addition, perhaps monsters with the same immunities are like wise affected. So a Gargoyle and werewolf could essentially attack each other.

I think that the magic "knows" whether or not a weapon will harm it whether it is a normal or natural occurrence. Thus shoving a werewolf against a wall of spears, hoping that they would impale should not work. A stalagmite? Possibly.

 

[MPA2000]

I wouldn't. I heavily houserule around absurdities like this and keeping your dex bonus while unconscious.

I don't know any rule that allows you to keep your dexterity bonus while unconscious? That's always been an automatic hit for all weapons, and automatic kill if the weapons are slashing or piercing.

 

[ad_hoc]

I would guess making them have silvered weapons would be good enough.

Otherwise, they could fatigue each other to death. Combat for 6 hours can be tiresome, even if it is slapping an invulnerable opponent.

You just described every modern action movie.

3 hours of watching CGI characters ram into each other.

 

[MPA2000]

Of course those without magic weapons can still grapple, bind and burn lycanthropes.

I'm pretty sure that they can't burn the lyncathrope, since that is using it as a weapon. Now if the grapple it, bind it and burn down the hut they left it in, perhaps. I think that tid bit can be left up to the DM.

But generally if the rule says "only" then that is the only means of destruction, IMO.

 

[ad_hoc]

I'm pretty sure that they can't burn the lyncathrope, since that is using it as a weapon. Now if the grapple it, bind it and burn down the hut they left it in, perhaps. I think that tid bit can be left up to the DM.

But generally if the rule says "only" then that is the only means of destruction, IMO.

Burning is fire damage.