D&D General Player lycanthropy

[Saref08]

I noticed that a lot of rules for player lycanthropy seems quite bad in both editions. So curious, do you use the 5e rules (Player gains nonmagic nonsilvered bps immunities and actions from the stat block, but at the cost of their alignment changing), the 5.5e rules(player becomes a Werewolf NPC upon hitting 0HP), or homebrew rules if a character becomes a Werewolf/Other Werebeast. If it's homebrew, how do you handle it? (Would like something to use for my game since I'm not really a fan of either ruleset)

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Player lycanthropy was a lot of fun in 5e, and the 5.5 monster manual killed it, though the organized play adventure to promote the new Ravenloft book brings it back (so maybe the book itself does? I haven't gotten to read it yet).

In any case, while fun, 5e Classic lycanthropy was definitely overpowered. One solution I encountered was having the player become resistant to non-magical weapons damage instead of immune and just saying they were not fully lycanthropized yet (which maybe also means they can't "bestow their gift" to other PCs yet). Another strong alternative was just leaning into it. Damage they aren't immune to is not hard for a DM to come by, and having them once in a while get to tank against a whole legion of enemies they are immune to can be kind of fun, and saves a lot of rolling. I don't know, if the player controlling the were-character is an inveterate scene hog maybe it's terrible, but I never thought it was a problem.

When my character was a wererat in Waterdeep Dragon Heist the DM just rolled with it, but gave me the consequence of occasional thematic consequences, the most memorable being having a rat-form sleepwalking incident that ended with the character waking up naked on the outskirts of town.

 

[MarkB]

Player lycanthropy can be problematic at the table if it comes up unexpectedly, but ultimately once you learn to schedule your sessions around the lunar cycle and be careful of silverware you should be able to work around it.

 

[Alas]

To implement lycanthropy at my table, I'd bring back the character themes from 4th edition D&D. They published two different takes on werewolves, one in Dragon Magazine and one in the Neverwinter campaign book. Both offered the same essential features: shapechanging (hybrid and full beast), and a level-scaling melee attack. They differed a bit in additional perks (usually movement boosts) and frequency (one was an at-will, and the other was an encounter power). There were also themes for wererats and werebears using the same chassis.

To update the 4e themes to 5th, I'd keep it simple: make the werewolf's natural attack scale like a cantrip (keyed to an ability of the player's choice), give them a +5 ft hybrid/+10 ft beast boost to Speed, and don't change the rest of the stat block (AC, hp, etc). I'd work with the player to decide how important silver and lunar cycles are to the story, and only come up with rules for that as necessary.

 

[Remathilis]

Player lycanthropy was a lot of fun in 5e, and the 5.5 monster manual killed it, though the organized play adventure to promote the new Ravenloft book brings it back (so maybe the book itself does? I haven't gotten to read it yet).

Sadly no. But the wereraven rules could be expanded on. They seem akin to a dark gift, so if I were doing it (and by if, I mean when) I'll probably build using both as a model.

 

[AlViking]

The issue I would have with lycanthropy is that in most suggested implementations it's all bonuses with no penalties which is not really fair to the other PCs in the group. While I view it as a curse not a power-up (sorry if there are any Twilight fans out there), if I were to implement it I would make it like multi-classing. For balance reasons I would make a custom lycanthropy class. I'd also add limits because the PC can't fully embrace the curse - they retain control of who they are, not the beast within.

So I'd use Path of the Wild Heart barbarian as a start and and use the bear, panther and lion aspects (or Path of the Beast from 2014 rules). You get resistance to most types of damage while activating your lycanthrope form (raging). You could also tweak it a little bit depending on the variety of lycanthropy so a wererat could use dexterity instead of strength but by doing this it largely becomes an RP thing and not just a straight power up with no cost.

That way it's still balanced with options everyone else can take and it makes sense to me that if you're wolfing out you can't cast spells.

 

[Corinnguard]

Level Up: A5e uses a synergy feat chain for anyone wanting to be a particular kind of lycanthrope. Players can either embrace their inner beast or briefly tame it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sadly no. But the wereraven rules could be expanded on. They seem akin to a dark gift, so if I were doing it (and by if, I mean when) I'll probably build using both as a model.

This is where I'd start as well, or by creating a custom barbarian subclass where raging is their transformation.

 

[Corinnguard]

A 5e version of PF1's Shifter (Weretouched) archetype could work here.

Weretouched – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Player lycanthropy can be problematic at the table if it comes up unexpectedly, but ultimately once you learn to schedule your sessions around the lunar cycle and be careful of silverware you should be able to work around it.

But seriously, I had a PC in one of my groups get infected with lycanthropy. They thought having those immunities would be cool...until a few sessions later, when they realized that fighting foes that presented zero risk got boring very quickly.