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.