A question I am woolgathering on for a game I am running featuring not one, but eight separate types of lycanthrope enemies:
An afflicted lycantrhope gains a template, after failing several saves. The curative steps to prevent template addition appear to treat it somewhere halfway between a magical disease and a curse (hence my use of the word affliction).
Since the template gained as a result of infection is specific to the infecting lycanthrope, is it reasonable within the rules as they are written that a character could gain multiple lycanthropic afflictions from different sources?
As an example: an elf (with a horrible fort save) that gains afflicted lycanthropy from a wererat. Later, she is bitten by a wereboar, failing those saves again...
I'm looking at this ambiguity as a unique story/roleplaying situation. My players, most likely, are going to claim "Lycanthropy" is a specific "slot" affliction/template, and therefore cannot be gained multiple times. My counter to that is that you can apply multiple templates of similar types to other creatures (mostly undead, but other examples exist), and ultimately, I know it is my table, but I am curious what opinions the community (who may have esoteric lore I lack) have on the matter.
While I do not have an answer for this, I am posting to dot it. I too am curious on how the boards think on this.
I now have ideas for a story line from this though.. <evil grin>
Thanks. My evil knows no bounds, as I have created specific material "allergies" for each template (bone, obsidian, copper - harkening back to old 2e lore) - silver affects all of them, but then each of them has a specific separate allergy. The weaponry of many of the lycanthrope clans features this material, which doesn't harm them, but does bad things to enemy clans...
One of my DM's has pointed this out to me before. With nothing in the rules saying that you cannot stack the templates, you could be a were-bear/rat.
Fear the dread were-tiger/bat, pouncing on you at night with barely a sound!
Lorewise I thought you became immune to disease after becoming a lycanthrope, making it impossible to pick up a second affliction.
Personally wether its allowed by the rules or not I would rule it doesnt work. I have had players intentionally inflict themselves with lycanthropy. One went so far as to have the druid poison him and he charmed a lycanthrope and made him bite him.
It can be abused. And why would your "clans" fight each other if they could just bite each other and merge thier clans together. Why wouldn't there be some super were creature clan... they have every affliction they can find because they believe it makes them more powerful (which it does).
It just wouldnt make alot of sense.
Also, would the ability score adjusment stack?
Lorewise I thought you became immune to disease after becoming a lycanthrope, making it impossible to pick up a second affliction.
Personally wether its allowed by the rules or not I would rule it doesnt work. I have had players intentionally inflict themselves with lycanthropy. One went so far as to have the druid poison him and he charmed a lycanthrope and made him bite him.
It can be abused. And why would your "clans" fight each other if they could just bite each other and merge thier clans together. Why wouldn't there be some super were creature clan... they have every affliction they can find because they believe it makes them more powerful (which it does).
It just wouldnt make alot of sense.
OP sugest their (added) weaknesses stack
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The only RAW argument against it I can think of is that 'Lycanthrope' is a single template. Yes, there are multiple variations of the template, but they are all still 'Lycanthropes' (though etymologically that's a misnomer for all but werewolves). It would be like saying that you can have a Gnome with the Black Half-Dragon, Red Half-Dragon, and Silver Half-Dragon templates.
That said, I'd generally just disallow it on GM fiat. If there were some reason it should be allowed I'd probably rule that only the things which vary by animal would stack... thus you'd only get the stat changes once, but you could change into multiple animal (and hybrid) forms and have empathy with all the different animal types.
Lorewise I thought you became immune to disease after becoming a lycanthrope, making it impossible to pick up a second affliction.
Personally wether its allowed by the rules or not I would rule it doesnt work. I have had players intentionally inflict themselves with lycanthropy. One went so far as to have the druid poison him and he charmed a lycanthrope and made him bite him.
It can be abused. And why would your "clans" fight each other if they could just bite each other and merge thier clans together. Why wouldn't there be some super were creature clan... they have every affliction they can find because they believe it makes them more powerful (which it does).
It just wouldn't make alot of sense.
Out of curiosity, where does it say that lycanthropes are immune to disease? Haven't seen that anywhere. Additionally, the template specificaly uses the phrase :
Afflicted lycanthropes contract this ability like a curse or disease from another lycanthrope; they sometimes change form involuntarily.
This, to me, suggests that even someone or something immune to disease would be able to contract lycanthropy. Paladins are immune to mummy rot, but not werewolf saliva.
While I agree that you can't stack half-dragon templates, that is slightly different (since it has a genetic component) - there is no reason I've read that you can't stack, say, a half-dragon and a vampire, or a half-dragon and an afflicted werewolf, for that matter. Why would this template, specifically, be any different, when the pre-requisite is a humanoid?
I wouldn't allow hybridization of alternate forms - a character with multiple lycanthropic templates would be able to turn into a hybrid or full animal form of any single afflicted template.
Couple that with the fact that at my table I treat CR adjustment of nonstandard tempaltes as ECL levels (carry-over from 3.5) and the affliction, though it has benefits, actually has some _major_ ding associated with it, in terms of character advancement.
According to the template entry, the stat benefits of each individual creature only hit when in beast or hybrid form - it means a _lot_ of paperwork, but I haven't seen anything rulewise excluding it.
Couple that with the fact that at my table I treat CR adjustment of nonstandard tempaltes as ECL levels (carry-over from 3.5) and the affliction, though it has benefits, actually has some _major_ ding associated with it, in terms of character advancement.
Now that sounds like you (just?) want to slow the PCs's level advancement.
So if you're a were-man/bear/pig does that mean you change into all of them at once, or does it rotate? "Uh oh, the next full moon is a Tuesday, that means I'll transform into a were-mouse instead of a were-elephant."
I would at least in the case of lycanthropy suggest they override not stack. Wererat bit by werefox becomes werefox. Werefox bit by wereboar becomes wereboar. Wereboar bit by weretiger becomes a . . . . Thundercat you get the idea.
While I agree that you can't stack half-dragon templates, that is slightly different (since it has a genetic component) - there is no reason I've read that you can't stack, say, a half-dragon and a vampire, or a half-dragon and an afflicted werewolf, for that matter. Why would this template, specifically, be any different, when the pre-requisite is a humanoid?
doesn't lycanthropy have something of a genetic component also? as it can be inherited.
also its totally possible to be a half-dragon vampire. but i cant see being a were-bear/rat if for no other reason than the templating noted above.
play wise I think it would be WAY too difficult to track and dragonamedrake has a point, if you can be multiple types of were-creature wouldn't there be a bunch of that running around? If your players insist on it being possible treat the multi-template as a true penalty. kind of like inbreeding.
last note... many people fail to play the lycanthrope properly. when a player is afflicted with lycanthropy as an affliction (as opposed to inheriting it from a parent) the GM is supposed to take control of the player when he transforms and run him as a chaotic evil beast. Its not something that most players would really be interested in even if they think that they can outsmart the disease by some how immobilizing themselves during the full moon, the GM can always work out ways to make it suck, for example... they know how they locked themselves in. so they know how to get themselves out, or they manage to trick a party member or NPC into letting them out in a moment of sanity (kind of like a drug addict)
I think it would basically be exactly like the half-dragon template, you can't be a half-dragon blue half-dragon black.
Lycanthropy is a single disease. It just expresses in multiple ways, depending on what strain you have. Just like the flu, you can't contract two different flu's at the same time, one wins over the other.
Just like the flu, you can't contract two different flu's at the same time, one wins over the other.
Yes you can have multiple flu viruses at the same time. You just get sicker the more infections you are having to fight off.
As for Lycanthropy, if you as a DM want to allow multiple lycanthropy, just be careful that your players don't start to just use it as a power-up method. I've had a DM who would allow you to have 2 alternate forms, since his world had 2 moons. (Though I suspect that the only reason he was threatening to allow it was because of the humorous combination of were-bat and tortoise. Long story.)
I don't think it's addressed really in the rules, as a player who contracts lycanthropy is supposed to be attempting to cure themselves. If they aren't, they should really be reverting to DM control as they are not truly in control of their character.
Even a group of chaotic evil PCs would probably be loathe to travel with someone who might randomly turn into a butchering machine on a whim.
Since we're purely in house rules territory at the moment, I'd probably just rule that the "most powerful" lycanthropy curse takes precedence.
Lycanthropes being immune to all disease is in Skyrim I think? Might be where that came from.
Personally I'd rule that lycanthropy makes you immune to more lycanthropy. Flu viruses can coexist and even meld together into a new strain, but not all infections get on so well. A stable ecosystem of gut bacteria can prevent infection by pathogenic strains like C. difficile and before the discovery of penicillin (but after the discover of quinine) syphilis patients were intentionally infected with malaria. The malaria caused such high fevers the syphilis bacteria couldn't survive but the patient usually could, and then the malaria could be cured with drugs.
Of course, I'd only make that ruling if the game had a serious tone. Some other games just need ManBearPig.
Great food for thought here - again though, nowhere have I found Lycanthropy specifically referred to as either a disease or a curse - it is an affliction similar to both, yet neither. That is where the ambiguity comes in.
I'm not pushing multiple lycanthropy infectiosn to slow down players, I am trying to ding players who are trying to hyper-power their characters by taking on multiple templates. I _do_ force shifts on them, and _do_ take control when they fail the will saves, but they are a pretty inventive group, and have been mitigating the issue somewhat with equipment and clever planning.
Thanks for the responses all. I was mostly wondering if I missed a gaping hole somewhere - didn't seem like I did.
As far as the disease/curse thing goes the CRB (p.557) says it is just a curse and not a disease(whereas it lists mummy rot as both a disease and a curse) so by RAW a character immune to disease is not immune to lycanthropy. The Lyncanthrope entry in the Bestiary also refers to it as "Curse of Lycanthropy" but doesn't include an affliction block.
The fact that it can be cured with either remove disease or remove curse might lead to a different house rule.
I think it is both, more like a disease at the start then becomes a curse.
How would you in turn deal with the conflicting alignments of the lycanthropy variants, doesn't the affected creature's alignment shift to that of the creature over time? Maybe that was just an old house rule.
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How would you in turn deal with the conflicting alignments of the lycanthropy variants, doesn't the affected creature's alignment shift to that of the creature over time? Maybe that was just an old house rule.
I can find nothing of it in the RAW, but I may have missed it. From what I can tell, lycanthropy does not change the alignment of the character.
(edit: damned autocorrect tried to change lycanthropy to philanthropy, big difference!)