D&D 5E PC Lycanthropes & monster attacks overcoming immunity

[Sacrosanct]

Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find this anywhere. We just had a PC get lycanthropy, and I noticed that as written, it seems monsters can't overcome the immunity with their natural attacks. Is that true? can two werewolves just beat each other until they get bored or one collapses from exhaustion? Is a lycanthrope PC effectively immune to 90% of monster attacks?

Or is there a rule somewhere that CRX or higher monsters can bypass immunity requiring magical weapons?

 

[DEFCON 1]

As the game is not set up or built to expect lycanthrope PCs, WotC probably didn't not worry about it. They probably rightly figured that if a DM had a player in their group become a werecreature... that the DM could make the necessary changes to their own game to still challenge and attack the PC as necessary. Whether that be give their monsters magical weapons, or assign them essentially the 6th level druidic wildshape feature, or any other thing a DM could invent or decide to do to maintain a challenge to their PCs. So I don't think the game has anything specific written, it's another one of those "rulings not rules" situations.

If someone wants to claim this is a hole in the game and WotC should be ashamed for leaving it open, so be it... but as is always the case, WotC picks and chooses which events they feel they need to create rules for and which ones they just expect DMs to make their own rulings for as necessary.

 

[dave2008]

Isn't this one of the reasons WotC is looking at changing immunity to regeneration for Lycanthrope PCs?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

House rule: Theriantropes can be hurt by natural weapons by other werecreatures, because they are attuned to primal forces. Or that damage becomes "no-lethal" and then recovered faster.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Maybe I'm blind, but I can't seem to find this anywhere. We just had a PC get lycanthropy, and I noticed that as written, it seems monsters can't overcome the immunity with their natural attacks. Is that true? can two werewolves just beat each other until they get bored or one collapses from exhaustion? Is a lycanthrope PC effectively immune to 90% of monster attacks?

Or is there a rule somewhere that CRX or higher monsters can bypass immunity requiring magical weapons?

That is indeed true. Earlier editions treated the natural attacks of a monster that can only be hit by X weapons as being X weapons. 5e doesn't have this.
If a creature contracts and then loses their struggle against lycanthropy, they are a lycanthrope and they are indeed immune to 90% of monster attacks, including those of other lycanthropes. That is why they become NPCs even from a good-aligned lycanthrope.

 

[jasper]

Or you can go old school. If I remember correctly, monsters of x level attacks were equal to plus x weapon, if the dm was deciding an edge case. So a 5th monster could hit a monster needing a +1 weapon.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

That is indeed true. Earlier editions treated the natural attacks of a monster that can only be hit by X weapons as being X weapons. 5e doesn't have this.
If a creature contracts and then loses their struggle against lycanthropy, they are a lycanthrope and they are indeed immune to 90% of monster attacks, including those of other lycanthropes. That is why they become NPCs even from a good-aligned lycanthrope.

I do believe also in earlier editions, if you were bitten and did not get cured in time - ala American Werewolf in London - then your PC became an NPC, at least during whatever duration the cycle took and dealing with the consequences thereof.