Special Conversion Thread: Lycanthropes and their ilk

[freyar]

Do you have original source material to justify making them entirely different monsters as opposed to class-level advanced werejaguars? Maybe the original stats or flavor text? I'm just not getting enough of a sense as to why these should be unique.

 

[Cleon]

Do you have original source material to justify making them entirely different monsters as opposed to class-level advanced werejaguars? Maybe the original stats or flavor text? I'm just not getting enough of a sense as to why these should be unique.

I do own that issue, yes.

Indeed I have the original magazine and the CD ROM archive version of it.

Frankly, apart from the non-standard transformation cycle and them all being clerics of the Smoking Mirror there's little to distinguish them from regular lycanthropes. They do have a habit of "sacrificing" victims by polymorphing them into jaguars, but that's about it.

I just like the idea of a "Jaguar Werepriest", and think we can do something with it.

 

[freyar]

Still thinking about it. Convince me.

 

[Cleon]

Still thinking about it. Convince me.

Nah, you convince me not to do it.

 

[freyar]

OK, sure: these appear to be nothing more than afflicted lycanthropes with class levels and only a single nonstandard special ability --- a slight altered shapechange/penalty to Change Shape. Frankly, this just appears to be a topic for an underbar, not an entirely new monster.

 

[Cleon]

OK, sure: these appear to be nothing more than afflicted lycanthropes with class levels and only a single nonstandard special ability --- a slight altered shapechange/penalty to Change Shape. Frankly, this just appears to be a topic for an underbar, not an entirely new monster.

But that would be boring, so I'd rather make them an all-new templated creature.

 

[freyar]

How about a prestige class for standard werejaguars? We've done similar things in the past --- maybe some sort of crocodile priests?

 

[Cleon]

How about a prestige class for standard werejaguars? We've done similar things in the past --- maybe some sort of crocodile priests?

Yeah, I wondered about that. Or even a prestige class for a cleric that turns them into a shapechanger.

 

[freyar]

That could work, too. Which do you prefer?

 

[Cleon]

That could work, too. Which do you prefer?

All-new template. The prestige class approach would either be unbalanced (if its HD equals the original's 5 HD) or have too many HD for my tastes.