evilbob
Adventurer
This is not exactly a new problem, especially with this adventure. Here's the context for those who want to read it: (spoilers)
[sblock]The character, who I'll call Creepshow, is a barbarian who has the insanity that he believes he's a werewolf even though he is not, and he is constantly hunting for the "head werewolf" which he believes he needs to kill to rid him of this curse. He's also a creepy sort of brutish fellow, a jerk and a bully, who I would describe as "neutral at best." (The kind of character that is awful for a normal campaign but fits right in to a Ravenloft one.) He is obsessed with wolves and wears lots of wolf pelts.
The party finally met up with the roving werewolf encounter and, thanks to the quirks of chance, he went first and attacked the alpha werewolf twice, critting once: overall doing over half their HP in damage. The rest of the party followed and downed the alpha before the other werewolves could even go. I ruled that thanks to the quick and brutal fight, the others started to fall into line and started to treat Creepshow as their new alpha. They took the group back to their lair, at which point he had another challenger in a one-on-one fight: he won initiative again and critted again, and once he had quickly downed his opponent he cut off his head, killing him (it wasn't really a fight to the death!). That shut the others up quickly, and Zuleika has shown great interest in him leading the pack, and offered to turn him (which she incorrectly implied would make the pack more likely to follow him). The other PCs' responses were: don't be evil, I'd hate to have to kill you, and you do what you gotta do (all very much in character). He rolled to decide and it came up "yes," so he went with it.
[/sblock]Suffice to say: it's an in-character choice that makes a lot of sense and is totally reasonable from that perspective.
So how would you handle the ramifications? I've told them it's 3 more nights until the full moon, and the party cleric is powerful enough to remove curse (although he'd get a save to resist, and frankly she's not going to undermine him, but he thinks of it as more of a backup plan). My issue is that there's not much in 5.0 whereas in 3.5 there were extensive rules about this, both from a crunch and RP perspective. Mostly all I can find is that he turns into a chaotic evil character and the DM plays him from then on. Which is silly, especially for a Ravenloft campaign (many of the characters skirt that line anyway), and anyway I'm not going to do that.
I guess I'm wondering: what would you do crunch-wise, and what would you do RP-wise to handle it? I want to stick to the idea that it's a power boost but also a horrible curse that people shouldn't really want (maybe I shouldn't have made all those other werewolves so cool...). All suggestions welcome.
Some thoughts to chew on:
If he's the alpha, what's stopping him from bringing the werewolf pack to bear on Strahd? Or is that so cool you'd have to allow it?
He's going to get murderous; how much control should he have since he's embracing it willingly? Or is it a "make lots of saves" thing? The party doesn't want to kill him but they also don't want him to kill them! And frankly he's a beast in 1-on-1 melee (barbarian, +2 weapon). Should he go after random villagers? Other important NPCs?
I guess the one thing I've decided is that he can't shift until after the full moon changes him; he can get all Jack Nicholson before that but he won't really turn until that point. But I feel like there should definitely be some loss of control, waking up in weird places, etc.
Crunch-wise, I'm thinking +1 to AC while shifted, and his barbarian rage will get outclassed since he'd be immune to non-silver, non-magical damage. The D&D werewolves are also sort of wimpy, which made them a bit too easy to kill so I implied they had some regeneration; maybe a second-wind he can use to heal up or something.
Edit: After some helpful comments, I think what I'd really like are ideas about how I can make the player feel like he's losing control of the character but without taking the character sheet away, or actually removing any agency from the player. Off-camera "you wake up in a weird place!" things are fine, but that's not really dramatic - more frustrating, I'd think. One idea in this vein for combat is when you get damaged, you take an OA against another friendly: it's a loss of control, but the player is still making decisions and still has agency. Any other ideas in that direction?
[sblock]The character, who I'll call Creepshow, is a barbarian who has the insanity that he believes he's a werewolf even though he is not, and he is constantly hunting for the "head werewolf" which he believes he needs to kill to rid him of this curse. He's also a creepy sort of brutish fellow, a jerk and a bully, who I would describe as "neutral at best." (The kind of character that is awful for a normal campaign but fits right in to a Ravenloft one.) He is obsessed with wolves and wears lots of wolf pelts.
The party finally met up with the roving werewolf encounter and, thanks to the quirks of chance, he went first and attacked the alpha werewolf twice, critting once: overall doing over half their HP in damage. The rest of the party followed and downed the alpha before the other werewolves could even go. I ruled that thanks to the quick and brutal fight, the others started to fall into line and started to treat Creepshow as their new alpha. They took the group back to their lair, at which point he had another challenger in a one-on-one fight: he won initiative again and critted again, and once he had quickly downed his opponent he cut off his head, killing him (it wasn't really a fight to the death!). That shut the others up quickly, and Zuleika has shown great interest in him leading the pack, and offered to turn him (which she incorrectly implied would make the pack more likely to follow him). The other PCs' responses were: don't be evil, I'd hate to have to kill you, and you do what you gotta do (all very much in character). He rolled to decide and it came up "yes," so he went with it.
[/sblock]Suffice to say: it's an in-character choice that makes a lot of sense and is totally reasonable from that perspective.
So how would you handle the ramifications? I've told them it's 3 more nights until the full moon, and the party cleric is powerful enough to remove curse (although he'd get a save to resist, and frankly she's not going to undermine him, but he thinks of it as more of a backup plan). My issue is that there's not much in 5.0 whereas in 3.5 there were extensive rules about this, both from a crunch and RP perspective. Mostly all I can find is that he turns into a chaotic evil character and the DM plays him from then on. Which is silly, especially for a Ravenloft campaign (many of the characters skirt that line anyway), and anyway I'm not going to do that.
I guess I'm wondering: what would you do crunch-wise, and what would you do RP-wise to handle it? I want to stick to the idea that it's a power boost but also a horrible curse that people shouldn't really want (maybe I shouldn't have made all those other werewolves so cool...). All suggestions welcome.
Some thoughts to chew on:
If he's the alpha, what's stopping him from bringing the werewolf pack to bear on Strahd? Or is that so cool you'd have to allow it?
He's going to get murderous; how much control should he have since he's embracing it willingly? Or is it a "make lots of saves" thing? The party doesn't want to kill him but they also don't want him to kill them! And frankly he's a beast in 1-on-1 melee (barbarian, +2 weapon). Should he go after random villagers? Other important NPCs?
I guess the one thing I've decided is that he can't shift until after the full moon changes him; he can get all Jack Nicholson before that but he won't really turn until that point. But I feel like there should definitely be some loss of control, waking up in weird places, etc.
Crunch-wise, I'm thinking +1 to AC while shifted, and his barbarian rage will get outclassed since he'd be immune to non-silver, non-magical damage. The D&D werewolves are also sort of wimpy, which made them a bit too easy to kill so I implied they had some regeneration; maybe a second-wind he can use to heal up or something.
Edit: After some helpful comments, I think what I'd really like are ideas about how I can make the player feel like he's losing control of the character but without taking the character sheet away, or actually removing any agency from the player. Off-camera "you wake up in a weird place!" things are fine, but that's not really dramatic - more frustrating, I'd think. One idea in this vein for combat is when you get damaged, you take an OA against another friendly: it's a loss of control, but the player is still making decisions and still has agency. Any other ideas in that direction?
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