So I turned one of my PCs into a werescorpion last night....

[SoulsFury]

My PCs were making an overland flight on hippogriffs across a fairly large desert. I think the trek ended up taking 7 days flight, but I wanted them to get the gist of just how bare and lifeless the desert was, so they spent several nights with nothing happening. I normally make them roll for their watch, and I thought to myself, nothing should happen to them unless one rolls a one. So the elven swordmage rolls a 1 on his watch. A scorpion stung him, poisoning him. I had previously drafted some rules on how to become a lycan, but had never used them. Well, after three straight failures to his save, he had taken considerable poison damage and wakes up the wizard of the group. The wizard rolls a 20 on her perception check, so I had to make up something quick on the fly. She told him it was a wolf scorpion, named so because it can turn its larger victims into werescorpions. At this point, he made one more failed save. So I informed him, the poison has gotten so bad, he has to succeed at two saves to recover, but if he gets three more in a row, he turns into a werescorpion. Of course he succeeds once, and then fails three more times, lol.

So now the PC is a werescorpion. He can morph from a dire scorpion, to a werescorpion to a humanoid elf with an odd exoskeleton. The PC, much to my surprise loved it. I gave me an encounter power as a minor action to use his claw, only his left hand became a claw an werescorpion form, as a 1d6+5 attack, and a daily action with his stinger as a 1d6+5, +5 ongoing poison. Failures to saves result in them becoming werescorpions. At the end of the night, the player thought it was the most epic session. Just figured I'd share our experience

 

[Saeviomagy]

Players love things that make their characters distinctive, even if they come with downsides (as long as those downsides aren't too crippling).

Hell, I've seen a player think that it's awesome that they got cursed to dance whenever they hear music and then lost an arm to a trap.

They thought the curse was just interesting, and figured that a necromancer they knew might be able to fix the arm in an interesting way.

That said, other players hate that sort of thing. I've seen players freak out just because they got temporarily turned into something. They just felt that "what shape their character is" should be totally under their control.

So - there's both extremes out there.

 

[SoulsFury]

Yeah, the character now insists he is going to try and find a way to be turned into an elven werescorpion dragon, lol. You would think he is 10 years old, haha.

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

I am not sure where you listed what limitations or negatives you are giving the player? It all sounds like positive things you are giving them.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I don't even think that the divide is necessarily based on the player (for some it probably is), but for my part, it depends on the character.

Something like this happened to a character of mine once, also an elf, who got cursed with a Jekyll/Hyde type affliction, except that it was demonic in nature. I loved it. I had no real solid ideas for this character, so this was fine. If, on the other hand, it had conflicted with what I had in mind for him, it might have been less welcome.

I think it may also depend on what is being done. Some players like lycanthrope, or the idea of having a magical prosthesis, becoming a vampire, or <insert DM-inflicted thingy here>; others might like some of those things but not all, and others will hate that stuff. Maybe they think werewolves are cheesy, don't want to play a character with a deformity, or think that vampires sparkle and are for teenage romance novels.

I think, as a DM, it can hard to know, unless you know the player pretty well. I think it's pretty vital to get a feel for how your change to that player's character will go over before just thrusting it upon them.

Glad it worked well for you though. Sounds like everyone is having fun with it, and that's why we're here talking about it, after all.

 

[SoulsFury]

I am not sure where you listed what limitations or negatives you are giving the player? It all sounds like positive things you are giving them.

Well, I don't see the need to punish the player with bad statistics or mechanics. I'm sure some things will arise in game when the time comes. For instance, he will never be able to use a two handed weapon, duel wield or use a shield or old anything in his off hand in werescorpion form. Also, any diplomacy checks will suffer a penalty and more so when in werescorpion form. In dire scorpion form, he essentially has stats equivalent to a stormclaw scorpion, and at level 9, this isn't very good. The two little bonuses I gave him are fairly weak, there are plenty of magical items that give similar bonuses as daily and encounter powers. This just happens to have WAY more flavor than most magical items. I don't DM to punish players, I DM so that we can all have a positive gaming experience. Punishing my players all the time means they probably won't want to play as often. If it makes you feel any better, my custom meteor dragon they fought last night killed their kobold buddy Marko, who they took a liking to after catching him asleep on one of their hippogriffs.

I think, as a DM, it can hard to know, unless you know the player pretty well. I think it's pretty vital to get a feel for how your change to that player's character will go over before just thrusting it upon them.

Glad it worked well for you though. Sounds like everyone is having fun with it, and that's why we're here talking about it, after all.

I know my players pretty well, and we also swap out who DMs, I normally DM 9/10 but on occasion, the player of this character DMs as well. I'm fairly familiar with the type of stuff he is willing to do as a DM, and I also know that he fully believes in bad rolls=something bad happens. What is really funny, is when the wizard rolled her perception check and informed him he was changing to a werescorpion if he didn't save, the PC had no idea of the benefits and was saying, "Please don't save."

While the above poster mentioned that nothing bad came of it, well to me thats not true. His character concept and attitude was changed, in game. His character is the leader of a post-apocalyptic village of elves and goblins, so going from the charismatic leader of the village to being a lycan could cause problems for him. This might also alter who comes to the village. The group recently came into a large sum of emeralds that they will be using to build a wall for the village. The type of workers that will come to an elven village with goblins who have turned good could be vastly different if he is a lycan. There are wererats that might find solace in the fact that he is the leader of the village and seek refuge and employment at the village. Vastly changing not only the game, but the future of the campaign setting as well as the characters idea of what their village was to become.

Thanks for the replies guys!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I don't think in most cases you really need mechanical penalties. It depends on the type of game perhaps. If the player is one that will constantly find some way to cheese out anything and there's little RP then maybe possibly one might consider some downside. Otherwise I'd not give someone a HUGE benefit for nothing, but heck, what the OP did hardly counts as any real advantage at all. If it was say equivalent to a nice boon then maybe I'd consider it a treasure parcel at most.