Included in spoilers just because. Dale, if you are reading this, stop here.
Throughout Broken Moon, four of the five PCs have contracted lycanthropy. Thus far, the full moon hasn't hit, but it's about three days away (should hit just about the time they make it to Feldgrau).
The players (and PCs) are pretty sure that they'd been infected. So, the resident wizard has been spamming Remove Curse like mad, two to three a day. They have not yet tried any of the wolfsbane despite my suggestions. They also haven't picked up on my suggestions (from both Cybrisa and the Prince's Wolves) to seek a cleric ASAP if they don't wish to join their tribes--since it needs it cast by a 12th level cleric to cure.
Now, I really don't want the game to end because the majority of the party goes beast. I also don't want to ignore the curse completely (and indeed, one of the PC's is actually looking forward to the change). So I'm looking for suggestions for post-change cures.
The one thing I've come up with so far is "a dose of wolfsbane every night at midnight for one month"...which obviously would be problematic as they'd be wolf-form for three of those periods and not wanting to take the cure.
Anyone have other ideas?
Once they change, if they don't make a DC 20 will save, they don't remember anything that happened. Since their equipment doesn't meld with them, just tell them they lost some items while they were changed.
That'll make them think twice about wanting Lycanthropy.
RJ: I have no problem with letting them do so. I think it might be fun. But I also don't want to force it on them, as the rules seem to indicate--once you have it, you have it.
TD: It's the character who wants it, not really the player. But again, at that point, it's too late.
Oh no Lycanthropy is totally something forced on them if they don't take the proper route to cure it. It's a fearsome curse for a reason, if they need help on curing it you're doing about all you can with NPCs pointing them back to someone who can help. This is what I term "a learning experience". If the PCs ignore the friendly NPC hints or the GM hints and proceed and wind up with a horrific curse/defect/etc it's now on their heads.
One way to do this is to simply let it happen, then play forward a little bit until it's obvious to everyone that playing werewolves just won't work here, which should be pretty quickly. Then give them the option to go back a few weeks and have just taken some wolfsbane once the players have it out of their system. Alternately, just start a band of entirely new adventurers off at the fourth module, and have them learn from there. The fifth PC, assuming he survives the rest of the party going wolf on him, could even be responsible for gathering them after he went into retirement, or PERHAPS could be leading them.
Helaman while I agree with some of your suggestions, the broken armor and wounds no one remembers how they got, I disagree with punishing the players if it goes to a 2nd time of transformation. Out of character they could be fully aware that they are infected, in character however who knows maybe Jimmy the Fighter is walking in his sleep after all the horrors they've seen. Considering the next book is Wake of the Watcher where madness is an issue they might write off their infection as nothing more than a trick of their mind. I've always been against hitting players with an alignment change when they're not in control of their actions after all it's not really them doing the deeds it's their body. The Beast is the one in control, think of it as a minor form of possession or a Jekyll/Hyde situation.
Except in this situation the PCs don't remember anything. I would look at the book Classic Horror's Revisited it has some interesting things in the werewolf section you could introduce. You could potentially involve a group mentioned briefly in the book called The Hounds of Good that may know a way to help the PCs stay themselves despite the curse. Pathfinder doesn't have the rules that I remembered from 3.5 where once you were aware of your condition you could make a check to control yourself when you involuntarily change. Mind everytime you changed you had to make another save or assume the new alignment and if you were to ever change voluntarily you immediately changed alignment.
Who knows if they all go wolf maybe they wanna stop the cult from succeeding as it would impede their own freedom if Tar Baphon rose again.
I think the curse of Lycanthropy works best when it's used to slowly seduce them to their own undoing as opposed to just breaking a chair over the head with a "btw new character time" because they got infected and didn't get it healed in time. It has about the same impact as a TPK most players I know would rather start something new at that point if they'll just be deprived of a character they've grown to love and develop.
I can see the strengths of being a lycanthrope is you're a natural born one, I just never fealt that the strengths outweighed the cons of being an afflicted one. Once a month I have my sheet to the dm and have bad things happen to me for a +2 wis and -2 cha, until you know I go dark side and embrace my evil then I can effectively get half the bonus of a barbarian's rage and the DR 5/silver. I don't disagree that it's a kind of buff if you play around in hybrid or animal form, but unless the GM let's you play around in those forms you don't get a whole lot going for you. After all this is Ustalav and they're pretty familiar with monsters going bump in the night silver shouldn't be too hard for the Way to drudge up once they know that the 'cough' heroes 'cough' have been cursed they'll take counter measures.