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Hi guys,
So we ran our game last night, and sure enough, one of the players got bit. Now he mentioned it might be fun to play a lycanthrope, but when someone is bit by say, a werehyena, they are going to turn evil if they submit to their animalistic side.
Has played with PC lycanthropes, and found them a way to retain their original (or at least, non-evil) alignment? If so, how did you do it?
Thanks!
I currently have three characters in my game that have been bitten by wererats, but don't necessarily know about Lycanthropy, so there is a good chance that at the next full moon they will rat-out.
What I plan on going for the first couple of full moons, (unless the characters get 'remove diseased'before then) is have the players play in a session where they share a dream in which they are attacking a giant to get to the gold in his castle. They will wake up in the basment of a cheese makers, with the family slain... (the family being the giants to the players Dire Rat characters)if the session plays out that way. From that point I will let them decide what they do.
They will not be able to transform on command initially. and their first transformations shoulf be wild animalistic events. Only after they have been a were creature for a while will they be able to controll their transformation. There should be some role playing with the character dealing with the effects of actions they committed in their first couple of transformed rages. One thing you could do perhaps is allow another player to play the were creature for their first few transformations. This may give the player the feeling of being unable to control their character's animalistic actions, and you will probably find that in a one-on-one session where a second player gets to ravage a neighborhood as a crazed monster that the evil done will leave enough for the original player to have some issues to deal with.
You could even tell the player that is playing the ravaged beast that you want them to play a wild animal that causes some trouble in a side session so that their characters will have something to deal with i a future session, never telling the player that the wild animal they are controlling is actualy the moonlight-transformed character of another player.
That being said, I don't know that being a were creature will necessarily make a PC evil, but I think what happens alot is that the character does evil unintentionally while they are transformed, then perhaps feels forced to do more evil to cover up their previous deeds, and there starts the spiral into darkness.
The damage reduction of a transformed creature can really unbalance a party. Just something to consider. There was a book back in 2ed called Moonlight Madness that was an adventure that dealt with were creature heroes trying to get cured. It might have some rules on the trouble with transforming at will, or resisting transforming. I bet there are other sources as well.
If you decide to let the player be a were creature, don't make it easy on the player. This should not just be a power-up. Which is hoe many players see it.
ASEO out
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When my otherwise "good" PCs have been infected with the evil lycanthrope strains I've basically come up with what I call "the incrediable hulk solution". When a PC first transforms they go into a wild rage and do bad things no matter what. They have no real memories of this event. When they eventually realize who they are they can begin training their minds to control the transformations (taking ranks in the skill). Until they sucessfully resist a transformation they are wild beasts that cannot be controlled. The first time they sucessfully resist a transformation I consider them to have mastered their condition.
This is where things get interesting. Once they master their condition I allow them to use the skill to transform when they need to. However, everytime they willingly transform I make them roll a will save. Sucess means that they stay the same in their new body and come out of the process unscathed. Failure means that their mind is seriously warped by their new form and when they return to their human state they are now evil.
I actually took this all one step further in my campaign. Three PCs were infected by wererats and the wizard had to buy scrolls of remove curse if I remember correctly. For two of the PCs all the necessary DCs were met and they turned back into their natural forms. The final PC though, rolled a natural 1 on his will save, but strangely enough also turned back to his natural form. Buying another scroll was expensive so the party just figured I was being nice. However, later in the campaign that same PC was brought to negative hitpoints and to the party's horror suddenly transformed into a wererat. For a time the PC had two personalities, his own and that of his wererat counter-part.
Hi guys,
So we ran our game last night, and sure enough, one of the players got bit. Now he mentioned it might be fun to play a lycanthrope, but when someone is bit by say, a werehyena, they are going to turn evil if they submit to their animalistic side.
Has played with PC lycanthropes, and found them a way to retain their original (or at least, non-evil) alignment? If so, how did you do it?
Thanks!
If the PC avoids turning into his Animal form, he can avoid the alignment change. Hopefully, the PC you are talking about was bitten by a lycanthrope with a hybrid form. Turning into a hybrid form does not force any check for permanent alignment change.
Also, the permanent change is only permanent in that its not an effect that has a duration. Regular uses of Atonement can return a PC who has turned evil.
Failing either of those options, you can just have him be evil. Evil characters have friendships and feel loyalty, so they can have reasons to adventure with a party and at least pretend to conform to social norms.
If you are looking for a PrC/mechancical route to solve your problem, Silverstars are a PrC from Faiths and Pantheons that requires Divine spells 2, four fighting feats, and CG alignment, and its 6th level class feature allows a person who has contracted lycanthropy to not change. If your PC goes into a PrC with small amounts of divine spells (like Temple Raider of Ollidamara) or he is of a class with small amounts of divine spells (like Ranger), then he can move right into this PrC. Its not a great option, but it is an option.
Mmmm, I deleted an accidental message and it droppped this thread to the bottom of the forumn. Hopefuly, this blank message will bump it back up.
Aseo,
Your dream scenario was very clever. I like it!
I think it's sorta a killjoy to simply inform players of their characters' infection. It's so much more fun when they "discover" it only after investigation/conclusion. Besides, they're not supposed to have memory of their lycanthropic actions so IMO it's almost meta-gaming to inform the players of what their actions are.
IMC, a paladin once contracted lycanthropy from a werewolf. The first full moon found him and his companions sleeping in the inn. He awoke in the morning to find his companions murdered and himself covered in blood. The player of the paladin thought this was all just a clever sidetrek. He and the ranger (who was staying outside of town) gathered funds to raise their dead companions and they embarked on this murder mystery. Imagine their surprise when the murderer turned out to be the paladin! He was cured of course but lost his paladin benefits until he could fully atone for his heinous acts while in wereform. This lead to a further adventure as he was sent on a quest by the church/heirarchy of the knighthood. Everyone had great fun with those adventures.
Incidently, I also liked the suggestion of (under the guise of a one-shot adventure break in the campaign)allowing the players to play at being evil animals bent on wanton destruction & carnage. I would, however, allow each PC's actions while on this "side trek" to represent the actions of his/her own character (versus another party members). This could be particularly fun if one or more players takes extra delight in being evil and rampaging - this could, in fact, represent some repressed part of their character's personality (now revealed while under the "curse").
I talk about this some in my new book Curse of the Moon, by the way -- how to handle alignment issues for acting according to your lycanthrope form's alignment.
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Has played with PC lycanthropes, and found them a way to retain their original (or at least, non-evil) alignment? If so, how did you do it?
I leave PCs alignments up to the players, not the DM. This includes those infected by lycanthropy.
In my campaign NPCs are also not forced by race to be any specific alignment. That includes lycanthropes.
Its how you roleplay an afflicted lycanthrope which is the important and fun thing.
I gave the player the option to give in to animal side (adopt standard alignment for creature), deny his animal nature (retain own alignment and constantly battle with temptation to do evil) or find his own middle ground somewhere in between.
The easiest way to go is to use the template in the MM as a guide. Have the player role-play and deal with all of the problems that arrise from the werecreature thats inside.
I have a campaign that's our "fun" campaign for the nights when the group doesn't want to run the primary campaign. They're the monsters from the Dungeon adventure, Monster Quest. We just play it for laughs. Ignatz is a wererat. Changing isn't much of a problem as his alignment is the same as a wererat's alignment.
As for rampaging around, being a lycanthrope doesn't mean that the character is going to change and eat all of the halflings in the village. They are still intelligent creatures. That means the werewolf is going to eat half now and half tommorrow night. :)
--Ray.
OK, need a little help here. In the game I'm running, one of the PCs was bitten by a lycanthrope, failed the save, and contracted lycanthropy. However, he died before the next full moon, and was unaware of his affliction. The party brought him back using Raise Dead, cast by an NPC cleric. Now, I know Raise Dead does not cure magical diseases and curses. My question is: Would the cleric raising him know, through the process of raising him, that the PC had been afflicted with lycanthropy? Would the cleric know that something was just not "right" about the raised PC? I can't find any rules regarding this, so I have a feeling it's something I'll just have to make a call on, but I'd like to hear how others would handle it.
Thanks in advance!
In a past campaign, I played a character that was bitten by a wererat and neither my character nor the rest of the party figured it out for quite a long time. Strange murders we attributed to the enemies we were hunting. The strange dreams didn't seem so out of the ordinary because the DM liked to frequently give us all strange dreams as portents or with no meaning whatsoever. Our DM had us do "DM rolls", rolling a d20 for an unknown reason, which it turned out were to see if my character could keep control or not. Eventually when we figured it out, the challenge was resisting the change when it was unavoidable. Changing voluntarily was not an option because I didn't want my PC to become evil. But the DM really enjoyed tempting me with situations that the hybrid form would fare better.
I totally understand the threat of having your alignment change as an afflicted lycanthrope. More than thinking of it as becoming an 'evil' creature, it is giving into one's natural instincts. Depending on the type, that might be different, but with most of the ones that are listed as 'evil' and are carnivorous, that tends to be feeding on and satiating oneself with whatever feasible prey is at hand. Afflicted lycanthropes work this way, though natural ones, I'd be more flexible with, since they'd have had much more time to handle their powers and desires. Afflicted ones are dealing with a sudden change and that it affects alignment makes sense to me.
What my character did and what I recommend is the Moon Guardian prestige class from the WotC free web enhancement, "More Divinity", from the Complete Divine. It is a prestige class for divine casters, but I see no reason why you couldn't tweak it make at least the 1st level open to anyone, or cut out the levels that give bonuses to divine spellcasting and just leave it as a 3-level prestige class. Even taking just one level of this prestige class allows a PC to maintain some control of their new state. You can keep your alignment and change voluntarily, and you can take ranks in Control Shape.
My PC only took one level in this class to keep some control, but decided to take a new path devout his life to hunting down other evil lycanthropes and curing them if they were afflicted or slaying them if they were natural ones.
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My question is: Would the cleric raising him know, through the process of raising him, that the PC had been afflicted with lycanthropy? Would the cleric know that something was just not "right" about the raised PC?
The Cleric shouldn't have any idea, although the Cleric's diety may have a specific interest in the situation and provide some sort of warning, or other effect. (If the diety is Belsameth, of the Scarred Lands setting, whose a big fan of werecritters, she'd be all for it. If the diety is more like Selune, of the Realms, a dedicated foe of evil lycanthropes, she might even refuse to grant the ressurection, or, at the bare minimum, offer some warning dreams or imagery to the Cleric, perhaps of the Cleric attempting to heal a person, with wolves howling in the distance, or of a wolf-like figure rushing past him and dissapearing, only to have the raised party member be behind him when he turns around.)
In the case of an evil were, and a good god(dess), the warning dreams might be a decent idea, but leave them vague. The character might not see the face of the infected person during the dream of howling wolves and trying to heal someone, just feel a sense of urgency that he must heal this person before the wolves closing in get them, or he might not see exactly what streaks by him in the dark when he turns to only find the party member standing there.
The dreams might get more intense over time;
He might have a dream of the party eating a fine meal, but the raised person is eating like a wild animal, with scraps flying everywhere.
He might have a dream of a wild combat, and the raised character has to be restrained at the end of the fight, as if he's in a barbarian rage.
He might doze off during guard shift to see yellow eyes reflecting the firelight staring back at him from one of the sleeping bags. Startling awake, he looks to see that it is the raised character, and he's facing in the other direction, sound asleep.
He might get a sense of deja vu when the raised character licks his lips, or flashes his very white teeth when he smiles, wondering why that looks so disturbing.
My question is: Would the cleric raising him know, through the process of raising him, that the PC had been afflicted with lycanthropy? Would the cleric know that something was just not "right" about the raised PC?The Cleric shouldn't have any idea, although the Cleric's diety may have a specific interest in the situation and provide some sort of warning, or other effect. (If the diety is Belsameth, of the Scarred Lands setting, whose a big fan of werecritters, she'd be all for it. If the diety is more like Selune, of the Realms, a dedicated foe of evil lycanthropes, she might even refuse to grant the ressurection, or, at the bare minimum, offer some warning dreams or imagery to the Cleric, perhaps of the Cleric attempting to heal a person, with wolves howling in the distance, or of a wolf-like figure rushing past him and dissapearing, only to have the raised party member be behind him when he turns around.)
In the case of an evil were, and a good god(dess), the warning dreams might be a decent idea, but leave them vague. The character might not see the face of the infected person during the dream of howling wolves and trying to heal someone, just feel a sense of urgency that he must heal this person before the wolves closing in get them, or he might not see exactly what streaks by him in the dark when he turns to only find the party member standing there.
The dreams might get more intense over time;
He might have a dream of the party eating a fine meal, but the raised person is eating like a wild animal, with scraps flying everywhere.
He might have a dream of a wild combat, and the raised character has to be restrained at the end of the fight, as if he's in a barbarian rage.
He might doze off during guard shift to see yellow eyes reflecting the firelight staring back at him from one of the sleeping bags. Startling awake, he looks to see that it is the raised character, and he's facing in the other direction, sound asleep.
He might get a sense of deja vu...
Many thanks! I have an idea of which way to go now!
I DM a good-aligned werewolf.
Kragg: NG male half-orc afflicted werewolf ranger 6/warshaper 2/stalker of Kharash 5
The player wanted to take levels in stalker of Kharash in the Exalted Deeds book, so I saw that as a green light to finally use a lycanthrope. Soon after his first level in stalker, Kragg was mauled by a good-aligned werewolf lord, making him the latest servant of Kharash. I've worked in mentors and rivals. It's been great.
In order to even things out, I traded 2 HD of "werewolf" for 2 of Kragg's levels. That left him on par with the rest of the group in terms of ECL.