Any tips for running lycanthropes as PCs?

Zzyzx

First Post
Looking to add natural lycanthropes as playable races to a middle-range (level 7-10) campaign.

Any tips for playability? Are they fragile "paper tigers" because of an LA +3 and animal hit dice? I would think that the DR 10/silver helps a bit there?

I'd add a few more races to add more non-evil choices: werewolverines as chaotic neutral maybe, were-eagle as (probably) chaotic good, and maybe a couple others.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.
 

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There is a were-bear orc barbarian in my current campaign (berserker archtype). He's easily one of the most powerful melee combatants I have ever seen (38 strength score in hybrid form).
He was so powerful I bumped up werebear LA by +1. I really think were creature LA should be on a individual basis.
 

IME they can be somewhat over-powered at lower levels and under-powered at higher levels but OK inbetween so your level7-10 campaign should hopefully be OK.

My main piece of advice is that there can be an awful lot of work involved in figuring out the stats of the different forms (especially if they have human, hybrid and animal) so try and get all the stats pre-computed rather than trying to figure things out on the fly mid-session.
 

The DR helps a little and the scent is nice but +3 LA is a hard hit. It is big time siginficant for casters, and the loss of 3 BAB + the medium progression of their animal HD means they are behind on attacks. It takes a big animal to get the big stat bonuses that make them very good melee creatures though it can be done (werelion is not bad, were advanced wolf). Shifting to a winged form can be useful (were-eagle) or going small for (gnomish wereraven). Were rogues are pretty good because the DR helps and the loss of a few skill ranks is not that big a deal, they can still find traps, scout, and do some sneak attack damage with their natural attacks.
 


Thanks for the tips. I've found that an increase in CON, which many animals give, goes a long way to help with minimizing the HP hit due to +3 LA.

The mention of the were-advanced lion got me thinking:

When creating were-templates, it seemed to me that I should use the "basic" edition of the monster. Increasing the were-wolverine, for instance, even one hit dice makes them large, with +8 STR, +2 natural AC, etc. that makes a huge difference.

Any comments to this?

Also, the suggested "Curse of the Moon" product seems interesting, but doesn't it just re-tread the same territory that the WoTC website put up to expand the "Savage Species" take on monsters as PCs?
 

I played a Barbarian/Psychic Warrior Weretiger (named Sher Bahadur) and had a lot of fun. I used the WoTC Were-tiger class which at low levels had the tiger form less effective than the human form - although this balanced out once I got real tiger abilities (bite and claw).
I only used two forms (no hybrid) with both stat blocks listed which made that a bit easier to handle.
 

Paradigm Concepts' Slaves of the Moon: The Essential Guide to Lycanthropes is worth a look. It complements Curse of the Moon mentioned above quite nicely.

Pinotage
 

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