The rogue in my campaign is perhaps the unluckiest 18 year old girl in all of Golarion. Not only did she lose an eye to an unfortunate critical hit, she contracted Blood Veil at one point and then gets bitten by Girrigz and fails her save against lycanthropy. Of course, this is quite an interesting dilemna for me who sees a whole host of RP'ing opportunities in the rogue's misery.
I was a bit lax with the whole lycanthropy rules at first (primarily because I didn't sit down and read through the whole section on the d20 SRD), but that's about to change. She's gotten pretty comfortable with the new change of events and is starting to misintrepret her misfortune as a blessing in disguise. However, she doesn't have a particularly high will save and I expect her to fail one of her saves which will shift her alignment to LE.
Now, I don't expect to go overboard with this and permanently change her alignment like the rules say (I don't like running evil campaigns), but I think it would be quite interesting for her to go evil for 1-3 nights per month.
OK, so here's the kicker: what would the latent, evil, animal side of her want to do during the 1-3 nights when it is in control? If you were the DM presented with this situation, what would you do?
All suggestions are welcome.
Odd ... from reading the wererats in Korvosa, I would have placed them at lawful neutral, with evil leanings. Eries Yelloweyes definitely didn't strike me as evil, and Samp, the one that escaped the Rat's Teat Boys, is listed as neutral evil ...
Makes me wonder if there's a shift coming for lycanthropes and their "absolute" alignment when we get the Bestiary :)
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Makes me wonder if there's a shift coming for lycanthropes and their "absolute" alignment when we get the Bestiary :)
That is the impression I am getting from the adventure paths and modules.
I never liked the idea that a person should just shift all the way to CE or LE is they are bitten. I think that their alignment should shift a little and I think the character should have evil urges and slips but does not become an absolute evil creature. In a group becoming an CE werewolf is pretty much a end for that character if that is the only choice they have. I just think that becoming a lycanthrope should be a great chance to do some role playing not a character killer.
I'd go more with "act like a rat, and by the rules of most of humanity, rats are LE."
One blessing in disguise she might have is that being a wererat could regenerate her blinded eye. Maybe it might look like a rat's eye, however.
If she becomes a wererat at night, she should be motivated to do what a wererat would want to do: break into a bakery or cheese shop or the queen's pantry and eat everything there. Attacking people who get in the way is just a side issue.
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I think part of the difference is also between natural were creatures and afflicted weres. If you are natural, I would imagine that you have control over your alignment just as any other creature, you grew up that way and such.
If you are afflicted, then its like a curse and changes you into what is expected. Now, I wouldn't see anything wrong with the idea of over a period of time someone adapting their alignment back towards what is more natural to them as they become accustomed to the curse and learn to control themselves better(there is even a clerical PrC out there that lets you basically act as a natural were after fighting off the shift enough), and DM fiat that you only take on that alignment in shifted form works well for me too.
I imagine the best comparison I could do, would be if somehow(divine intervention?) a character was suddenly made into a paladin. Part of that class means that he had better be lawful good. That doesn't mean down the line he won't start letting some of his natural behavior come out and shift a bit away from that or even drop down into blackguard territory. Only in the were-creatures case, instead of having a stick being waved at you in the form of losing your powers you instead have the much less game-mechanically accurate carrot that you feel urgings to behave in that way.
Perhaps a good way to represent that would be a second will save, when they change back out of were form to shake off the mindset(and thus alignment) of the previous creature. Something like a willsave the morning after a change, and then each morning at sunrise until they succeed and become themselves again, but the process starts over each time they fail a save and shift.
-Tarlane
Just out of curiosity how are you handling the boost to the characters level? Also has our player started investing ranks into Control Shape. If the player is interested in making this 'afflicted' state a more permanent part of the character you may want to consider allowing access to the Savage Progression class for the Wererat.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030912a
That would allow you and the player to account for the 'power' increase to character. It would also give give the player greater ownership of the affliction and justify less aggressive alignment alterations.
I like Tarlane's suggestion of being able to force yourself back to 'normal'. Allowing Control Shape in place of a will save if it is better? As for alterations in personality... what about using the negative personality aspects of the Chinese zodiac as guide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_(zodiac)
In terms of the permanent long term change, perhaps a compromise having the character move one step toward lawful, if already lawful then toward evil. Or something like that.
OK, so here's the kicker: what would the latent, evil, animal side of her want to do during the 1-3 nights when it is in control? If you were the DM presented with this situation, what would you do?All suggestions are welcome.
Well, you could always play up the idea of shiny object attraction meshing with her roguish nature, and have her go on monthly crime sprees during the full moon, stashing them somewhere in the Shingles where she can occasionally pull them out and watch them glimmer in the moonlight.
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Well, you could always play up the idea of shiny object attraction meshing with her roguish nature, and have her go on monthly crime sprees during the full moon, stashing them somewhere in the Shingles where she can occasionally pull them out and watch them glimmer in the moonlight.
OK, so here's the kicker: what would the latent, evil, animal side of her want to do during the 1-3 nights when it is in control? If you were the DM presented with this situation, what would you do?All suggestions are welcome.
My real world rat experience is limited to a few semesters in college doing animal behavior work with Norwegian rats, but here are a few bits of real world rat info that might help out the DM and/or PC.
Real world rats are opportunistic survivors, who are comfortable remaining in close proximity to much larger predators, as long as the rat remains undetected.
Rats are also highly social, establishing and maintaining simple dominance hierarchies through social agonistic behavior. Rats often strike at, bite or aggressively groom each other in dominance displays, but rarely fight. Hierarchies usually consist of a single dominate individual (the king or queen) and several subordinates.
Rats are "late" sleepers, often resting for 13-15 hours a day. Most rats can swim and burrow, but not all rats are good climbers.
Rats have demonstrated meta cognition (thinking about thinking, self awareness) in some animal behavior studies, which normally is only attributed to select higher mammals like Humans and Dolphins.
The rogue in my game got bit, too. Since this character was a follower of Desna (1 level in cleric), I actually took it a whole step further and said that the affliction of lycanthropy amplifies natural characteristics. So, she didn't have to turn into a rat, just something that fit her personality. So, she's a were panther. I did have her go "animalistic" when she changed the first time, killing some doctors that were harassing a family, done in a "dream" sequence... the party had already found out the doctors were evil, so it was her subconscious acting out. Then I ended up having a 4 month gap in "game time" between Seven Days and Escape, and I just said that over that time she got control of her shifting.
As far as game balance goes, she wasn't the most powerful character anyway, so I'm not too worried. I totally customized the effect the lycanthropy will have on her. She has no hybrid form, but she can change to a cat form. But, in cat form, she can't use any of her "human" skills or feats. She is, really, a cat, with a foggy sense of the human world.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Having an evil character in the party doesn't mean that they are going to betray their companions, though. Even a CE villain knows that the ends justify the means and you need others around you to achieve your evil plans. It also doesn't mean that they haphazardly kill anything innocent or good. One of the Pathfinder iconics is evil. If you have a paladin in your party it could be a problem, but an alignment shift to evil (LE especially) can be fine if the player is smart enough to know how to shift her character's motivations to more self-serving and conniving than homicidal and destructive. I say roll with it. Have a talk with the player and explain what you don't want to happen in the campaign (ie. her PC becoming disruptive) and offer suggestions toward how she can add an evil twinge to the character that already exists.
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The dwarf rogue in my game contracted lycanthropy from girrigz and wants to have the "gift" removed as quick as possible. And hes already LE! He's more concerned with finding his daily dose of shiver (he never kicked the habit he picked up from his youth full days with Lamm.) I would think that most good aligned pc's would want the curse removed and Knowledge about wererats and Lycanthropy should alert them to what might happen to them if they dont consult a priest quickly. With all the Abadar bankers casting cure disease, one (like tuttle) may be able to cast remove curse
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The dwarf rogue in my game contracted lycanthropy from girrigz and wants to have the "gift" removed as quick as possible. And hes already LE! He's more concerned with finding his daily dose of shiver (he never kicked the habit he picked up from his youth full days with Lamm.) I would think that most good aligned pc's would want the curse removed and Knowledge about wererats and Lycanthropy should alert them to what might happen to them if they dont consult a priest quickly. With all the Abadar bankers casting cure disease, one (like tuttle) may be able to cast remove curse
Same thing happened to my character.
Find an Alchemist and have your dwarf eat some Belladonna. Being a dwarf he should have a good chance of surviving the poisonous effects and will be cured of lycanthropy.