Special Conversion Thread: Lycanthropes and their ilk

[Cleon]

Seems fine to me. Did we want to slot in "or X ratweres" at some point? An equivalent EL would be something close to 1d6 at level 8-9, then 2d6 and 3d6 subsequently.

Just to be clear.

The original of the Night Howler greater wererat could control normal "lesser wererats" (which became Ratweres in our conversion) once it reached high enough level.

The original version of the Wererat Lord could summon packs of rats, and the "clan leader" can control wererats it has created.

I'd be fine allowing the Greater Wererat to be able to summon Ratweres, but it's inappropriate for the Wererat Lord.

Come to think of it, neither of these creatures could summon lycanthropic minions as base monsters, but gained the ability at higher levels. That suggests we should do the same for our conversions.

Looking over the table in my previous post, I realize the level-equivalents are one too low - a 4-5 HD Wererat Lord is a 1st-2nd level character plus 3 HD of wererat. Secondly, I think the numbers could do with a little more tweaking.

How about the following:

Greater Wererat
Summon Ratkin (Su): Once per day, as a standard action, a greater wererat can call forth 1 rat swarm or a pack of 1d6+1 dire rats. These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve the wererat for up to 1 hour.

A greater wererat's summoning ability increases as it gains additional hit dice. It can summon larger numbers of rodents, and at 8 Hit Dice it gains the ability to summon ratweres. See the Greater Wererat Summoning Table for details.

A greater wererat can only use summon ratkin on ratweres it personally created by infecting a dire rat with ratwere plague. If no such ratweres exist, the greater wererat can only summon normal or dire rats.

Greater Wererat Summoning Table

Hit Dice	Ratweres	Rat Swarms	Dire Rats
4-5	—	1	1d6+1
6-7	—	1d3	2d6
8-9	1d3	1d4+1	3d6
10-11	1d4+1	2d6	4d8
12+	2d6	3d6	5d10

Wererat Lord
Summon Ratkin (Su): Once per day, as a standard action, a wererat lord can call forth 1d2 rat swarms or a pack of 2d6 dire rats. These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve the wererat for up to 1 hour.

A wererat lord's summoning ability increases as it gains additional hit dice. It can summon larger numbers of rodents, and at 8 Hit Dice it gains the ability to summon wererats. See the Wererat Lord Summoning Table for details.

A wererat lord can only use summon ratkin on wererats it personally created with its curse of the ratlord ability. If no such wererats exist, the wererat lord can only summon normal or dire rats.

Wererat Lord Summoning Table

Hit Dice	Wererats	Rat Swarms	Dire Rats
4-5	—	1d2	2d6
6-7	1d4	1d4	3d6
8-9	1d6+1	1d6+1	4d8
10-11	2d6	2d6	5d10
12+	3d6	3d6	8d10

 

[freyar]

I'd be happy with that.

Stealthy and maybe Point Blank Shot as the other feats?

 

[Cleon]

I'd be happy with that.

Updating the Wererat Lord Working Draft.

Updating the Greater Wererat Working Draft.

Stealthy and maybe Point Blank Shot as the other feats?

Hmm, he'll likely have decent ranks in Hide and Move Silently from his rogue levels and already has a good Dexterity and a +4 racial bonus, so Stealthy doesn't seem that crucial.

Furthermore, the Greater Wererat has Stealthy as a bonus feat, so I'd be tempted to give the Wererat Lord the same if we do give him that feat.

I'd prefer Improved Initiative, since both the Ratwere and Greater Wererat have that feat.

So, how about Improved Initiative and Point Blank Shot, plus possibly Stealthy (B)?

 

[freyar]

Imp Init, Point Blank Shot, and Stealthy(B) works.

Speaking of skills, our wererat lord gets 4 animal skill points and 60 rogue skill points, max 7 ranks. Unfortunately that doesn't divide up very evenly. Maybe 7 ranks each in Disable Device, Gather Information, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (local), Move Silently, Open Lock, and Search, and 4 ranks each in Listen and Spot?

 

[Cleon]

Imp Init, Point Blank Shot, and Stealthy(B) works.

Updating the Wererat Lord Working Draft.

Oh bugger, I forgot he's human so gets yet another feat. How about adding Weapon Focus (bite)? We've already given the Greater Wererat Weapon Focus (bite) and Weapon Finesse so it'd fit.

Feats: Alertness (B), Improved Initiative, Iron Will (B), Multiattack (B), Point Blank Shot, Stealthy (B), Weapon Finesse (B), Weapon Focus (bite)

Speaking of skills, our wererat lord gets 4 animal skill points and 60 rogue skill points, max 7 ranks. Unfortunately that doesn't divide up very evenly. Maybe 7 ranks each in Disable Device, Gather Information, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (local), Move Silently, Open Lock, and Search, and 4 ranks each in Listen and Spot?

I suggest you reexamine your sums. It looks like you got its rogue levels and ratwere levels swapped round.

Rogues get 8+Int and our sample's human for another +1. With Intelligence 14 (+2), that's 8 +2 Int +1 human = 11.

Multiply by 3 plus its rogue level and you get:

44 SPs of rogue skills

Ratweres get 2+Int, for 2 +2 Int =4, multiplied by its 3 magical beast HD for:

12 SPs of Ratwere skills

So it's 44 rogue & 12 ratwere.

It'd be 60 rogue & 4 ratwere if it was a 3rd-level nonhuman rogue and a 1st-level magical beast, but it's the other way around.

 

[freyar]

Actually, now I'm very confused about the HD. Where do the 3d10 HD come from? Rats and dire rats only have 1d8 HD. Same for the greater wererat.

 

[Cleon]

Actually, now I'm very confused about the HD. Where do the 3d10 HD come from? Rats and dire rats only have 1d8 HD. Same for the greater wererat.

Both of them are "special lycanthropes" that uses a Ratwere as the werecreature.

The HD are 10-sided because they're Magical Beast levels instead of the Animal levels a normal Lycanthrope would add.

It was quite a while ago, but we did decide on that.

 

[freyar]

Ahh, I either forgot or missed that part of the discussion the first time around. Well, I'll agree now anyway.

For the skills, if this is a "born" lycanthrope, I'd say we're allowed to do 8 skills at 7 ranks each. How about Disable Device, Hide, Knowledge (local), Listen, Move Silently, Search, and Spot?

Back to the extra feat: Weapon Focus (bite) is fine.

 

[Cleon]

Hi y'all, I'm back!

Ahh, I either forgot or missed that part of the discussion the first time around. Well, I'll agree now anyway.

Good. I didn't fancy refiguring the stats.

For the skills, if this is a "born" lycanthrope, I'd say we're allowed to do 8 skills at 7 ranks each. How about Disable Device, Hide, Knowledge (local), Listen, Move Silently, Search, and Spot?

That's not what the SRD says, which uses the same rules for the skills of "born" lycanthropes and the infected variety.

I suggest we divide the 44 SPs from its "human 1st level thief" between eleven skills at 4 ranks each - maybe Bluff, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Hide, Intimidate, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Tumble.

We could swap Knowledge (local) for one of those, but it's not a skill it would use much in encounters with PCs. I'd concluded there was little point in giving it any ranks in Balance, Climb or Swim due to it having decent racial and/or ability bonuses in them.

Then we use the 12 SPs from the Ratwere to max out four "Rat Skills" to 7 ranks - Hide, Listen, Move Silently and Spot would seem the best picks.

Back to the extra feat: Weapon Focus (bite) is fine.

Agreed, I'll update the Wererat Lord Working Draft with it.

 

[Cleon]

Agreed, I'll update the Wererat Lord Working Draft with it.

I was just updating the Wererat Lord Working Draft with Weapon Focus (bite) when I remembere the Greater Wererat draft I used as a template also uses a human as the base creature, so we don't need the extra feat since it already has a human bonus feat figured in.

We could still add Weapon Focus (bite) as yet another bonus feat, but it seems surplus to requirements.

 

[freyar]

Your skill choices are fine with me. I don't think we need to add Weapon Focus as a surplus bonus feat, so it's ok.

Do we have many changes to background or tactics?

 

[Cleon]

Your skill choices are fine with me. I don't think we need to add Weapon Focus as a surplus bonus feat, so it's ok.

Updating the Wererat Lord Working Draft.

Do we have many changes to background or tactics?

The tactics would do as-is if we changed the summon rodents to summon ratkin and the "ratwere underlings" to "wererat underlings", but I'd rather tweak it to emphasize that their default option it to use their minions to do their fighting for them.

The background needs complete reworking. Wererat lords don't shun common wererats, they rule over them. They aren't "infected" with ratwere plague, but are a more powerful line of natural lycanthrope.

 

[freyar]

A start:

Wererat lords are a powerful form of natural lycanthrope, rulers of their close kin, the common wererats. A tribe of wererat lords surrounds itself with their infected creations as obedient servants, but other wererats sometimes congregate around wererat lords, who they worship with nearly religious devotion.

Wererat lord society is often mobile, with a group of wererat lords and their lycanthropic entourage moving on once they've drained a town of its most valuable possessions.

Combat
Wererat lords are fond of ambushes, preferentially using their common wererat minions to do the actual fighting. Given time, they use summon ratkin to call rat allies to send into combat. When forced into combat themselves, wererat lords prefer to fight with manufactured rather than natural weapons, using their class abilities extensively.


By the way, I noticed that they should be able to force their common wererat slaves to transform according to the original text. Shouldn't we add that to the Command Cursed Wererat ability?

 

[Cleon]

A start:

Wererat lords are a powerful form of natural lycanthrope, rulers of their close kin, the common wererats. A tribe of wererat lords surrounds itself with their infected creations as obedient servants, but other wererats sometimes congregate around wererat lords, who they worship with nearly religious devotion.

Wererat lord society is often mobile, with a group of wererat lords and their lycanthropic entourage moving on once they've drained a town of its most valuable possessions.

Combat
Wererat lords are fond of ambushes, preferentially using their common wererat minions to do the actual fighting. Given time, they use summon ratkin to call rat allies to send into combat. When forced into combat themselves, wererat lords prefer to fight with manufactured rather than natural weapons, using their class abilities extensively.

Hmm, that's missing a few points.

Firstly, Wererat Lords live up to 200 years - twice as long as a normal human.

Secondly, as an addenda to that, are all Wererat Lords human? I'm suspecting they are, since there's no mention of Wererat Lords of other races.

Thirdly, the original text implies they like missile weapons: "Even better, they prefer to use missile weapons from a safe place, or else set traps and ambushes".

Fourthly, the text has "Wererat lords are born, not made, and must be sired by two wererat lords" which I'm assuming means both mother and father must be a Wererat Lord rather than that Wererat Lords all have two fathers, which is what it means literally...

How about:

Wererat lords are a powerful form of natural lycanthrope who regard themselves as the aristocratic rulers of wererat kind. Many ordinary wererats worship wererat lords with nearly religious devotion, but most wererat lords view their lesser kin as nothing but expendable pawns.

Wererat lords live by themselves or in small family groups surrounded by obedient (and usually dim-witted) servants, usually common wererats created by the wererat lord's infectious bite. They prefer to live in large settlements such as cities, where they can murder, devour and steal from humanoids while hiding in their midst. Their normal strategy is to take over a small guild or noble house by infecting all its members with lycanthropy, and then live in luxury off the labour and wealth of their infected slaves. Thieves guilds are a favorite target. They quickly move on to the next town once they've drained the neighbourhood of treasure or if the locals become too suspicious.

All known wererat lords have been human, but extraordinarily long lived ones - a wererat lord's lifespan is fully twice that of a normal human. Wererat lords are very rare, probably because they only produce more of their kind when they mate with another wererat lord.

COMBAT
Wererat lords are cowardly creatures who would rather use their summon ratkin power and wererat minions to do their fighting for them. They prefer ranged attacks, ambushes, and traps over melee combat. Wererat lords prefer to fight with manufactured rather than natural weapons, using their class abilities extensively.

A wererat lord will quickly abandon its followers to save its own skin, but may be willing to take a few risks to save another member of its tight-knit family.

By the way, I noticed that they should be able to force their common wererat slaves to transform according to the original text. Shouldn't we add that to the Command Cursed Wererat ability?

That seems a good idea, although it's worth noticing that in the original it was only the "clan leader" who could force this transformation. Maybe we should set a minimum HD/level for this ability, like we did with the summon ratkin ability?

Speaking of summon ratkin, I just noticed we've got "at 8 Hit Dice it gains the ability to summon wererats" in the text but the table shows it getting that ability at 6 HD.

Oops!

I suggest making the 6-7 HD row for the summon wererats "—" like the 4-5 HD row.

 

[freyar]

All the text is good.

I'd be ok with 8HD for summoning actual wererats. The question is if we then shift all the numbers down the table or just start with 1d6+1 at 8HD.

As far as Command Cursed Wererat goes, I suggest adding a line as follows: "Commands from wererat lords with 8HD or more are able to cause cursed wererats to change forms."

 

[Cleon]

All the text is good.

Updating the Wererat Lord Working Draft.

I'd be ok with 8HD for summoning actual wererats. The question is if we then shift all the numbers down the table or just start with 1d6+1 at 8HD.

I suggested changing the table to make the 6-7 HD row "—", which leaves all the rest of the column unchanged.

Shifting the Wererat numbers down wouldn't make much sense, since a common wererat and a rat swarm both have the same Challenge Rating.

As far as Command Cursed Wererat goes, I suggest adding a line as follows: "Commands from wererat lords with 8HD or more are able to cause cursed wererats to change forms."

How about keeping the sentence structure similar to command ratkin, e.g. "At 8 HD, a wererat lord can command cursed wererats to "transform", which forces them to involuntarily transform into hybrid form."

 

[freyar]

You mean similar to Summon Ratkin? I will agree to your wording in any case.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I like letting them summon wererats starting at 6HD. I don't see a level limit on "clan leaders" in the original text.

 

[Cleon]

You mean similar to Summon Ratkin? I will agree to your wording in any case.

Updating the Wererat Lord Working Draft.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I like letting them summon wererats starting at 6HD. I don't see a level limit on "clan leaders" in the original text.

Well there's no definition of what a "clan leader" is apart from that they have extra powers.

My idea was we'd just treat a "clan leader" as a particularly high-level wererat lord rather than a special variant.

We could cover them with a sub entry, I suppose. e.g.:

Wererat Lord Clan Leader
Most colonies of wererat lords are headed by a clan leader who possesses heightened supernatural powers, as follows:

Command Cursed Wererat (Su): A clan leader's Command Cursed Wererat power affects cursed wererats created by any member of its clan, not just those it created itself.

Rodent Empathy: A clan leader's Rodent Empathy affects common wererats with fewer Hit Dice than the clan leader as well as animals and magical beasts of the rodent family.

Summon Ratkin (Su): A clan leader's Summon Ratkin power can summon greater numbers of rodents than a standard wererat lord. It uses the following table:

Clan Leader Summoning Table

Hit Dice	Cursed Wererats	Rat Swarms	Dire Rats
4-5	1d4	1d4	3d6
6-7	1d6+1	1d6+1	4d8
8-9	2d6	2d6	5d10
10-11	3d6	3d6	8d10
12+	4d6	4d6	10d10

 

[freyar]

I don't think we need a separate sub-entry. I like the idea of their just being "higher level" wererat lords, but I think "higher level" could start at 6HD rather than 8HD, that's all. But I'm not fussy, so just pick what you like (as long as you give me something later ).

 

[Cleon]

I don't think we need a separate sub-entry. I like the idea of their just being "higher level" wererat lords, but I think "higher level" could start at 6HD rather than 8HD, that's all. But I'm not fussy, so just pick what you like (as long as you give me something later ).

I prefer 8 HD for the "leader".

If we made it 6 then the clan leader may only be 3rd level, which seems too low. Making it 8 HD means the clan leader is 5th+ level, which seems more appropriate.

Actually, shouldn't we incorporate that into the Organization?

e.g. "Solitary, pack (2-8), infestation (2-8 plus 4-16 wererats), troupe (2-8 plus 11-20 dire rats or rat swarms) or clan (2-16 plus one 5th-8th clan level leader and 6-24 wererats and 2-40 dire rats or rat swarms)".