Lycanthropy and PCs...

[Carl Cuthulhu]

In the game I am DMing the characters have managed to run afoul of a den of very angry wererats and their horde of direrats.

Upon the closing of last week's game session we were left with the PCs facing off with two very nasty wererats and a dozen or so direrats. Our heroic PCs had one member with 12 HP, another with 2, one with 1, and yet two more sitting at 0.

So, rather then having a massive character rolling party after the beasties destroyed the party, I am instead planning on doing something even more vile and rat-bastardly! (With and emphasis on the rat in the rat bastard!

The wererat shaman who the PCs are hunting will arrive just in time to save the party from death, but to prepare them for a fate worse. LYCANTHROPY!

He will see to it that the good-hearted heroes join his depleted ranks as wererats themselves.

Now that brings me to my request for assistance. According to page 218 of the Monster Manual there is a little write-up regarding the Control Shape skill. Of course none of the party has such a skill, but i am assuming they can use it untrained to avoid turning into wererats. They will all turn lawful evil while in rat or hybrid form, but remain their previous alignments when in humanoid state. Now how is a good way to deal with things like them turning into beasts and killing infants? Should such a thing done while under the curse of lycanthropy affect clerical spells, etc?

Also I need some inspiration on how they can break their curse and escape the torment at the hands of their wererat masters?

Thank you all ever so much.

As always you people are the best!

 

[Angelsboi]

Dreams. Let them have dreams of horrible things and then have them wake up and find out the horrible things they dreamed of come true.

 

[LostSoul]

Play up the fact that lycanthropes are more powerful. Make them want to stay infected. (It's easy enough to cure in a standard game.) But have thier evil side push through more and more as they revel in the newfound abilities and powers. Make them succeed at Control Shape checks when they take damage, as the MM rules. Then start having them make checks when they cause a lot of damage - a kind of rage. Then have them make checks whenever they get angry or something doesn't go thier way.

Make the choice between "clean" and "unclean" a dilemma instead of an easy choice.

 

[Sodalis]

let the players deal with it. you give them a problem, and make them find a way out.

In all my years of playing, i learned that players will neevr do the thing that the DM thought they would Obviously do...

So why try. Make them wererats, and let them run with it for a while. When they grow tired of it, they will gather info and find a way to break it. If they want to keep it, they will hunt down the shaman and make him infect them again...

Roll with it- have fun- and leave some space for the players to play around with teh wererat form/ halfbreed form...

 

[Sammael99]

Also I need some inspiration on how they can break their curse and escape the torment at the hands of their wererat masters?

As was mentioned above, in a standard game getting rid of Lycanthropy is quite easy. In my game, the barbarian was infected by a Werewolf. the first time he "lost it" he shifted during a tough combat and went down (and shifted back to human) but since he'd largely contributed to the victory, the characters didn't see it as too bad. Next time he shifted was in an Inn when another patron insulted him. The other characters in the group tried to restrain him, and he killed one of them.

Belive me now they want him to cure ! He's joined a monastery and picked up a few levels as Monk for "discipline", and I allowed him to spend a few points in Control Shape. He must now wait for a grand conjonction of the two moons when the priests of the moon goddes told him they could do a ritual to cure him, but also added that he might die...

 

[LostSoul]

Re: Re: Lycanthropy and PCs...

Belive me now they want him to cure ! He's joined a monastery and picked up a few levels as Monk for "discipline", and I allowed him to spend a few points in Control Shape. He must now wait for a grand conjonction of the two moons when the priests of the moon goddes told him they could do a ritual to cure him, but also added that he might die...

Now that is cool. A lot better (in my opinion) than the simple "Let's get a bunch of gold together so we can get a cleric to cast Remove Disease on him."

You've changed the spell from a simple game mechanic to a plot device. Nice work!