lycanthropy... contagious?


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There is an article with a quasi-lycanthropy as a disease track. It's pretty moronic though as all it does it make you go crazy under a full moon and attack your allies when you're hit.(by anything)

The disease track isn't a bad idea however, it's just really poorly executed.
 

There is an article with a quasi-lycanthropy as a disease track. It's pretty moronic though as all it does it make you go crazy under a full moon and attack your allies when you're hit.(by anything)

The disease track isn't a bad idea however, it's just really poorly executed.
Do you remember where or when the article may have come out? Our latest quest has a lycanthrope as main villain, and the DM might draw inspiration even if the quality is not that great.
 


In 4e, the infected lycanthropes are gone, it's now just a true-breeding race. A universally evil race, for some reason I can't fathom.
 



In 4e, the infected lycanthropes are gone, it's now just a true-breeding race. A universally evil race, for some reason I can't fathom.

Not really. There are converted wererats in a wotc adventure (
Sceptre Tower of Spellgard
. It's just that they are not given that ability in the creature mechanics.

Essentially, if you want lycanthropes to be infectious, they are. And if not, they aren't. I think it's a perfectly fine set of mechanics as is - a system where getting hit by the monster means infection is definitely not a good fit for 4e. And lycanthropic infection is generally a bad idea when compared to the 4e design philosophy.

So, we leave it mechanically vague and let the GMs control if and when it happens.
 

Here's one way to do it that might be interesting.

Melora's Curse (Level is the level of the lycanthrope that infected you)
(There's something in the MM2 about Melora having a feud with Sehanine and creating lycanthropes.)

Stage 1: While affected by stage 1, the infected character gains the following Minor Quest: When you are Bloodied, attack the nearest Bloodied enemy. The level of the Quest is the level of the lycanthrope that infected you.

Stage 2: While affected by stage 2, the infected character gains the following Minor Quest: Drop an enemy to 0 HP or fewer. The level of the Quest is the level of the lycanthrope that infected you.

Stage 3: While affected by stage 3, the infected character turns into a lycanthrope during a full moon. In addition, after completing any Quests gained from Melora's Curse, repeat the Curse's attack; if it hits, the character turns into a lycanthrope until the end of the encounter. When the character is a lycanthrope, the character is under the full control of the DM. Use the statistics of the lycanthrope that infected the character, but change its level to the level of the infected character.

Check: During each full moon and after the infected character completes any Quests gained from Melora's Curse, repeat the attack that infected the character. If it hits, the stage of the curse increases by one.

Ending the Curse: A lethal dose of belladonna, which deals three times the character's Bloodied value in Poison damage, must be ingested during the new moon.​

The idea is that you have to control yourself in combat, which sucks because you won't always be able to take the tactically-appropriate action. If you do, you get some XP, but there's a chance the curse will progress. The player is tempted to be a little more brutal in combat, and there's a flag raised by the existence of the quest as to what's going on with the character - some colour that may get added to triggering actions.

There are other ways to do it, of course, but this one might be neat.
 

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