VRGtR has lots of dark gifts that have drawbacks if I recall, but oddly they didn’t include lycanthropy. You could use the old battlerager drawback that they have to make a saving throw not to start attacking the party if they use their lycanthropy form in battle after there are no more opponents.
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D&D General The thread where I review a ton of Ravenloft modules
- Thread starter der_kluge
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Voadam
Legend
In 3e once afflicted you have the involuntary changes from the moon and chances of changin when you are wounded. You can try to resist with a wisdom check that can be bolstered by a developed skill. You then get the blackout if you fail and are temporarily an NPC acting on the werebeast's alignment.
It changes once you realize what is going on though.
"A character with awareness of his condition retains his identity and does not lose control of his actions if he changes. However, each time he changes to his animal form, he must make a Will save (DC 15 + number of times he has been in animal form) or permanently assume the alignment of his animal form in all shapes. "
"Once a character becomes aware of his affliction, he can now voluntarily attempt to change to animal or hybrid form, using the appropriate Control Shape check DC. An attempt is a standard action and can be made each round. Any voluntary change to animal or hybrid form immediately and permanently changes the character’s alignment to that of the appropriate lycanthrope."
It changes once you realize what is going on though.
"A character with awareness of his condition retains his identity and does not lose control of his actions if he changes. However, each time he changes to his animal form, he must make a Will save (DC 15 + number of times he has been in animal form) or permanently assume the alignment of his animal form in all shapes. "
"Once a character becomes aware of his affliction, he can now voluntarily attempt to change to animal or hybrid form, using the appropriate Control Shape check DC. An attempt is a standard action and can be made each round. Any voluntary change to animal or hybrid form immediately and permanently changes the character’s alignment to that of the appropriate lycanthrope."
der_kluge
Adventurer
I just downloaded a product from Sean K. Reynolds on DriveThruRPG and that's basically what he has - a cursed Rage feature that only ends with a spell like calm emotions otherwise it just continues to rage until the full moon ends (or maybe until combat is over). During which they attack friend and foe alike.
Voadam
Legend
I had two PCs be narratively Werewolf the Apocalypse style werebeasts in a 5e game.
One was mechanically a human druid who narratively was a werewolf wolf changing into human form.
The other was mechanically a shifter barbarian who would change into their werebear hybrid form when using shifter stuff and raging.
Avoiding lycanthropy and just going non contagious werebeasts is an easy reskin in 5e.
If you want her to reskin to be a balanced PC werewolf in 5e say that infected werewolves are not contagious and just reskin her stuff to be werewolfish. It can work for a lot of builds.
One was mechanically a human druid who narratively was a werewolf wolf changing into human form.
The other was mechanically a shifter barbarian who would change into their werebear hybrid form when using shifter stuff and raging.
Avoiding lycanthropy and just going non contagious werebeasts is an easy reskin in 5e.
If you want her to reskin to be a balanced PC werewolf in 5e say that infected werewolves are not contagious and just reskin her stuff to be werewolfish. It can work for a lot of builds.
Another one that could be a story-based drawback is that they can have control over their lycanthropy most of the time, but once during the full moon, they HAVE to kill an intelligent creature and eat a part of them. Let the PC choose but you can also be the internal beast voice inside of them, nixing choices that aren’t satisfying (okay, you can get away with a goblin this one time, but next month, it’ll have to be better fare, etc - something more, “good and noble”) - basically acting out the role of the Dark Powers.
Voadam
Legend
The solution I came up with for why werewolves were a thing but not a pandemic was that there was a three part stage of stuff.
1 Original Curse. Cursed person has no control over their werebeast, they fully black out and are beasts and are infectious murder beasts.
2 Infected. Turned into Werebeasts and can fight it or not but not infectious.
3 Natural Lycanthropes. Descendants of the cursed are naturally integrated personalities with full control over their shaping but are not infectious.
This gives you tribes of werebeasts running around but not exploding in infections all the time and some reasons certain strains are more prevalent.
You can also have the infectious horror ones as an element in the setting but it is one offs from a specific curse story and has a limit of an individual vector instead of exponential vectors.
You can also have everyone believe all werebeasts are super infectious and use the Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts as an in-world document, that is just wrong on that point.
1 Original Curse. Cursed person has no control over their werebeast, they fully black out and are beasts and are infectious murder beasts.
2 Infected. Turned into Werebeasts and can fight it or not but not infectious.
3 Natural Lycanthropes. Descendants of the cursed are naturally integrated personalities with full control over their shaping but are not infectious.
This gives you tribes of werebeasts running around but not exploding in infections all the time and some reasons certain strains are more prevalent.
You can also have the infectious horror ones as an element in the setting but it is one offs from a specific curse story and has a limit of an individual vector instead of exponential vectors.
You can also have everyone believe all werebeasts are super infectious and use the Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts as an in-world document, that is just wrong on that point.
der_kluge
Adventurer
One thing I was just looking at had a novel solution - they reserved the full powers for anything under 7th level (not sure why that level exactly). I'd want to avoid having to deal with the PC infecting other things, and having to roll those saves and yes - it does create a pandemic of werewolves, which is also super problematic, and not very realistic. One could also argue that maybe you have to work up to a certain level as a werewolf before your bites are toxic enough to transmit it.
At any rate, I'll try to read what Van Richten has to say on the topic.
At any rate, I'll try to read what Van Richten has to say on the topic.
Necropolitan
Adventurer
First break down the mechanical aspects of being a werewolf, then ask your player which of them she wants.
It's not like a wereshark or wereraven which gives other benefits (swim/fly speed, water breathing in the case of the wereshark), all a werewolf gets is a possible ability boost, a damage immunity, and natural attacks.
Depending on how many she's willing to give up (damage immunity is the one most likely to be an issue) you might be able to give her what she wants just by having the transformation be flavor-only and reskinning her weapon attacks as her werewolf form's natural attacks.
Of course, the other problem with 5e lycanthropy is that Remove Curse exists and is only a 3rd level spell. So if being a murder monster becomes too much of a burden, it's fairly easy to undo.
Yyyyyeah, it’s yet another one of those spells that just gets in the way of any story that you want to tell about a curse or cursed item, and turns it into just another hindrance that’s easily disposed of once a player hits 5th level if not sooner.
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