The internet apparently ate my two posts.
Anyway, my group is losing a player to rl, and we've asked a new guy to join. He's apparently just finished reading the first book of the Twilight series and has become hung up on were-creatures.
So, he wants to play a good aligned were-creature monk. The problem is, I have no experience with were-PCs and this game is supposed to be a playtest of the Pathfinder game. I've attempted to discourage him, but he's really intent on this were-creature thing.
So, does anyone have experience with were-PCs? How will this likely impact my game? How do I translate the whole lycanthropy thing over to Pathfinder? How will this impact my playtest?
Thanks!
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So, does anyone have experience with were-PCs? How will this likely impact my game? How do I translate the whole lycanthropy thing over to Pathfinder? How will this impact my playtest?
Thanks!
Yes. In one of my campaigns, one of the players character's got infected by a were tiger. That +3 level adjustment definitely had an impact in terms of combat and challenges (i.e., he flattened anything the DM threw at us).
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If your player really is that insistent, I'd suggest you pick up Dragon issue 313 (available here) and use the Lycanthrope monster classes.
This will mean he's likely to be a were-whatever for his low-level career rather than a were-whatever monk, but otherwise, as Joela said, he'll blow the other characters away. He'll also be more fragile given some of the lycanthrope levels don't give out hit dice, but that's the price you pay to get a powerful race.
The best way is to explain all this to the player and try and persuade him that giving him such a powerful character will make things less fun for everyone else as he'll constantly overshadow them.
I'd be very hesitant about letting a new player in that insisted on playing any one thing especially if the DM has discouraged it.
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So, does anyone have experience with were-PCs? How will this likely impact my game? How do I translate the whole lycanthropy thing over to Pathfinder? How will this impact my playtest?
Thanks!
In my games, our issue was 1/2 Celestial & 1/2 Dragon PCs. (Different campagins and different players)
We adopted a path similar to what the already mentioned Dragon Magazine issue suggested. Basically, you balance out the increase power by having it cost levels over time and you don’t get all the “special creatures” powers up front.
For my 1/2 dragon player (who just loved dragons) it was so awesome that he could play one that "loosing" levels to be a 1/2 dragon didn't matter to him.
The 1/2 celestial wasn't as happy. In retrospect, I think we should have done her character concept as a prestige class she grew into. Perhaps that is how you should work your lycanthrope. Your monk is enthralled by the natural abilities and fights in a style that emulates his chosen were-beast. He follows a Feat & skill path that @ 6th or 7th level allows him to voluntarily take on a small prestige class that gives him lycanthrope abilities.
Example: For werewolf- The monk's fighting style is the "Fang and Claw" style, the prestige class for would be "Fang and Claw Master".
Before you get too wrapped up balancing him out with rules, talk to him more about his whole were-creature fixation.
If this is because of a book he just read, I bet he's going to be really into for a few sessions and probably be tired of it a few weeks or months down the road and ask to switch characters ("Cause I read this cool book about a Rogue that profits off his thefts by selling the rights to the stories of this thefts, so now I want to be a...")
If this is a flight of fancy character on his part, the flight of fancy aspect may be the most unbalancing.
Just my $0.02.
By the way, you can always say "no, we're not playing that sort of game. We are playing a game like <insert here>. What would you like to play that could possibly fit into that sort of game?"
Think of it this way, if he asked to play a cyborg pirates with double bladed vibro swords, you'd say no, because it doesn't fit the game everyone else wants to play, right?
Offer to play a higher ECL game next time, or a game designed for were-beasts later.
If you say no, and he can't accept no, he just screened himself out of playing with your group.
I know what triggered this was the fact that the wizard's player and I were talking about the fact that the wizard was bitten by a wererat and blew the for save. However, that player has actually decided to give up the character, for a variety of other reasons. So it just isn't worth his while to cure the lycanthropy.
Would the player be happy using the Shifter race from the Eberron Campaign Setting? It's a diluted version of a were-creature that's suitable as a PC race.
Would the player be happy using the Shifter race from the Eberron Campaign Setting? It's a diluted version of a were-creature that's suitable as a PC race.
Now that I've had the chance to see the Shifter race, that is exactly what we're going to do. Less an official race and more a family specific situation.
Awesome!
Something like that's probably the best idea. Lycanthropes in D&D are a good deal more powerful than regular humans, so the balance would be out of whack unless the other characters are high enough level to have him in with the necessary level adjustments - afflicted lycanthropy has a +2 level adjustment, natural lycanthropy +3, and you have to add the animal HD on top of that.
Cheapest would be a wererat for 1 extra HD for the dire rat, and werewolves have 2 extra hd - and both are usually not good aligned (though that is not the problem).
That means someone who was bitten by a werewolf would be Monk1 (+2 "levels" wolf plus level adjustment of 2) when the rest of party was level 5!
Better use some toned-down version, and I guess the shifter can work well enough.
He made his monk tonight. The character looks pretty reasonable. We'll see how it works out. After their encounter with wererats, the group is a little twitchy about lycanthropes. So they may just wack the new monk the first time he goes a little wolfy on them.
Now I just have to figure out exactly how to introduce him into the group. He'll be coming to Korvosa between Seven Days and Escape, during the group's downtime. He's heard about all the goings on and want to somehow help the town if he can. Gotta love lawful good.
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So, he wants to play a good aligned were-creature monk. The problem is, I have no experience with were-PCs and this game is supposed to be a playtest of the Pathfinder game.
Would the player be happy using the Shifter race from the Eberron Campaign Setting? It's a diluted version of a were-creature that's suitable as a PC race.
Now that I've had the chance to see the Shifter race, that is exactly what we're going to do. Less an official race and more a family specific situation.
Awesome!
Shifter would also have been my suggestion, as it avoids powergaming aspects and nasty level adjustments that usually accompany playing a were-creature. Shifter is a fun, balanced race full of lycanthropic flavour. Just forget that it's an Eberron race and play it as a Pathfinder were-wolf, and make your own legends!
And being a Pathfinder playtest, not only are you able to see the Monk's new Ki points in action, but also see how a non-core race compares alongside the new Pathfinder core races, which is useful for playtesting backward-compatibility with other 3.5 sources.
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Would the player be happy using the Shifter race from the Eberron Campaign Setting? It's a diluted version of a were-creature that's suitable as a PC race.Now that I've had the chance to see the Shifter race, that is exactly what we're going to do. Less an official race and more a family specific situation.
Awesome!
That's a really good idea! Using the shifter race could kind of give the character more of a "wolfman" feel, rather than a person who turns into a wolf. I've considered shifter in the past to also build a half werecreature. Someone who had one parent who was a lycanthrope, while the other was a normal human.