Shapeshifting, Polymorph, Lycanthropy

[Water Bob]

How long, per the 3.5 rules, does it take to change form? If an NPC is a werewolf in the game, and he begins to change during a tactical combat, how many rounds (six second rounds) does it take the NPC to change?

And, during the change, how vulnerable to attacks from others is the NPC?

 

[Nagol]

As a (Su) ability, it take a Standard action and the character is no more vulnerable than he wold be normally.

 

[Water Bob]

Wow. So, it's not like those long, painful, dramatic scenes in movies. In the game, if you blink, you miss it. One moment, a human is standing there, and in a flash, it's a werewolf.


A few seconds, not more than three--maybe even in one second--that's a standard action.


That's a lot quicker than what I was thinking.

 

[Water Bob]

How do you describe this in your games? What image do you put in the player's minds eye?

 

[crispy01]

I suppose it's all to personal preference. There are Werewolves in a couple games I am playing, and they both transform differently. The first is simply, like you say, blink and you miss it, just kind of morphing into a wolf, kinda like those gifs online which morph a picture , say of someone's face, into something else seamlessly. The second Werwolf has to be chained up every full moon, and has a good 30 second description of all of his bones cracking, teeth and hair growing. I suppose you could have Full-Moon transformations be the long, violent, painful, graphic type of transformations, and the voluntary ones be the quicker, more controlled?