Greater Wererat Working Draft
Lycanthrope, Greater Wererat
Greater Wererat, Human Form
Medium Humanoid (Human, Shapechanger)
Hit Dice: 1d8+1 plus 3d10+12 (34 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+2 natural, +2 leather, +1 buckler), touch 10, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+5
Attack: Longsword +5 melee (1d8+1/19–20) or heavy crossbow +4 ranged (1d10/19–20)
Full Attack: Longsword +5 melee (1d8+1/19–20) or heavy crossbow +4 ranged (1d10/19–20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Summon ratkin
Special Qualities: Alternate form, damage reduction 5/magic or silver, low-light vision, rodent empathy, scent, speak with rats
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +5
Abilities: Str 13, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 8
Skills: Climb +9, Handle Animal +3* (+7 vs. rodents), Hide +8, Intimidate +3* (+7 vs. rodents), Listen +5, Move Silently +6, Spot +5, Swim +9
Feats: Alertness (B), Improved Initiative, Iron Will (B), Multiattack (B), Stealthy (B), Weapon Finesse (B), Weapon Focus (bite)
Environment: Urban and underground
Organization: Solitary, pack (2-8), infestation (2-8 plus 4-16 ratweres), troupe (2-8 plus 11-20 dire rats and rat swarms) or colony (2-16 plus 6-24 ratweres plus 2-40 dire rats and rat swarms)
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: +3
Greater Wererat, Dire Rat Form
Medium Humanoid (Human, Shapechanger)
Hit Dice: 1d8+1 plus 3d10+12 (34 hp)
Initiative: +7
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), climb 20 ft., swim 20 ft.
Armor Class: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7
Attack: Bite +8 melee (1d6+4 plus ratwere plague)
Full Attack: Bite +8 melee (1d6+4 plus ratwere plague)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Ratwere plague, summon ratkin
Special Qualities: Alternate form, damage reduction 10/magic or silver, low-light vision, rodent empathy, scent, speak with rats
Saves: Fort +9, Ref +6, Will +5
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 17, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 8
Skills: Climb +12, Handle Animal +3* (+7 vs. rodents), Hide +11, Intimidate +3* (+7 vs. rodents), Listen +5 , Move Silently +9, Spot +5, Swim +12
Feats: Alertness (B), Improved Initiative, Iron Will (B), Multiattack (B), Stealthy (B), Weapon Finesse (B), Weapon Focus (bite)
Environment: Urban and underground
Organization: Solitary, pack (2-8), infestation (2-8 plus 4-16 ratweres), troupe (2-8 plus 11-20 dire rats and rat swarms) or colony (2-16 plus 6-24 ratweres plus 2-40 dire rats and rat swarms)
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: +3
Greater Wererat, Hybrid Form
Medium Humanoid (Human, Shapechanger)
Hit Dice: 1d8+1 plus 3d10+12 (34 hp)
Initiative: +7
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares), climb 20 ft., swim 20 ft.
Armor Class: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+7
Attack: Longsword +7 melee (1d8+3/19–20) or bite +8 melee (1d6+4 plus ratwere plague) or heavy crossbow +7 ranged (1d10/19–20)
Full Attack: Longsword +7 melee (1d8+3/19–20) and bite +6 melee (1d6+1 plus ratwere plague); or heavy crossbow +7 ranged (1d10/19–20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Ratwere plague, summon ratkin
Special Qualities: Alternate form, damage reduction 10/magic or silver, low-light vision, rodent empathy, scent, speak with rats
Saves: Fort +9, Ref +6, Will +5
Abilities: Str 17, Dex 17, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 8
Skills: Climb +12, Handle Animal +3* (+7 vs. rodents), Hide +11, Intimidate +3* (+7 vs. rodents), Listen +5 , Move Silently +9, Spot +5, Swim +12
Feats: Alertness (B), Improved Initiative, Iron Will (B), Multiattack (B), Stealthy (B), Weapon Finesse (B), Weapon Focus (bite)
Environment: Urban and underground
Organization: Solitary, pack (2-8), infestation (2-8 plus 4-16 ratweres), troupe (2-8 plus 11-20 dire rats and rat swarms) or colony (2-16 plus 6-24 ratweres plus 2-40 dire rats and rat swarms)
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: +3
Greater wererats are close kin to common wererats and ratweres. They are infected with a potent form of lycanthropy, the ratwere plague, which transforms humans and dire rats into lycanthropes and is fatal to most other creatures. While they shun the common wererat, greater wererats often rule colonies of ratweres, rats and dire rats. Greater wererats casually devour their rodent minions whenever food runs short, and even a gifted ratwere is looked down upon as little better than a slave.
Combat
Greater wererats use their animal or human forms to spy on enemies and set up ambushes, but favor their hybrid form for fighting. Given time, they use
summon rodents to call rat allies to send into combat. Most greater wererats treat their rodent and ratwere underlings as disposable chattels, and are unlikely to risk their own skin to protect them.
Alternate Form (Su): A greater wererat can assume a bipedal hybrid form or the form of a man-sized dire rat.
Ratwere Plague (Su): Supernatural disease—slam, Fortitude DC 15, incubation period 1 minute; damage 1d6 Wis plus being sickened. The sickened condition last as long as the victim suffers Wisdom damage from this disease.
Unlike normal diseases, ratwere plague continues until the victim reaches Wisdom 0 (and is transformed into a lycanthrope or dies) or is cured by
remove disease or similar magic.
Ratwere plague is a powerful curse, not a natural disease. A character attempting to cast any conjuration (healing) spell to remove the ratwere plague, or heal the Wisdom damage it causes, must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check, or the spell has no effect on the afflicted character.
Afflicted humans reduced to 0 Wisdom transform into greater wererats, afflicted dire rats reduced to 0 Wis transform into ratweres, and other creatures reduced to 0 Wisdom die.
Rodent Empathy: A greater wererat has a +4 racial bonus on Charisma-based checks against any animal or magical beast of the rodent family, including rats, dire rats and ratweres.
Speak With Rats (Su): A greater wererat can communicate with rats and dire rats as if it had a permanent
speak with animals spell. It can also use this ability to speak with ratweres and other wererats using this ability, which sounds like rodent squeaks and chirps.
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 |
Skills: Greater wererats have a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks and a +8 racial bonus on Climb and Swim checks. Greater wererats can use their Dexterity modifier or their Strength modifier for Climb and Swim checks, whichever is better.
In rat or hybrid-form, a greater wererat gains a +8 racial bonus on Balance checks and can always choose to take 10 on Climb and Swim checks, even if rushed or threatened. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.
Feats: Greater Wererats gain Alertness, Iron Will, Multiattack, Stealthy and Weapon Finesse as bonus feats.
The greater wererat presented here is based on a 1st-level human warrior, using the following base ability scores: Str 13, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 8.
Originally appeared in Dungeon #88 (1988).
Skill Breakdown
Human Warrior Skills (12 SPs): Handle Animal 4, Hide (cross-class) 2, Intimidate 4
Ratwere Skills (6 SPs): Listen 3, Spot 3
