How did you manage to end up with a dire wereboar wildshape at will ranger in the first place?
Sigh... Have a passing cleric cure him.
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1.) You shouldn't have Lycanthrope PCs in the first place.
2.) He's supposed to lose control when transforming, ain't he? Your DM should probably enforce that next time so the party is forced to kill him or enact "Plan: DM's Saving Throw" to remove his lycanthropy completely.
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Wait, you let your player CREATE a ranger who can wildshape at will into a dire wereboar?
What sort of level adjustment did you make? He has five levels of ranger now? So what level are the rest of the party?
Does the party include iron golem inquisitors?
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And actually, according to the beastiary, only afflicted lycanthropes go bat s#@@, naturals have more control over themselves.
So lemme get this straight.
You have a Ranger who can, at will, increase his Str/Con/Natural Armor by 2 and gain DR/10 Silver.
And this was approved upon character creation?
*Sigh*
F!+$ it, whoever allowed this brought it on themselves.
Something's not right.
How does he kill everything in sight as a dire wereboar? Is he using powerful charge or something with feats like vital strike?
What exactly is causing the power discrepancy?
Well it's not as overpowered now that you've stated that the level adjustment is in play (but still DR/10 is kinda ridiculous for a PC IMO).
But I agree with Adamantine, how is he murdering everything? Since he's only level 1 he shouldn't be better than the rest of the martial damage dealers in the party.
Edit: 2d8 Gore? How?
Well, the AC and damage doesn't sound all that awesome for a level 5 melee character, so the DR 10/silver sounds like the problem.
I had thought you were the GM, it sounds like you're the player with the character.
I wouldn't play a character like this for so many reasons that it's pointless to even go into it. As a GM I wouldn't allow anything like this. If I was a player and the GM allowed another player to do this, I'd probably find another game to play.
I guess my only advice is ditch the character and play something that keeps you in balance with the other PCs. Trying to "control" this beast just reinforces the obvious fact that the rest of the party is playing minion to your boss and frankly I'd get tired of that in about, oh, five minutes.
I guess my only advice is ditch the character and play something that keeps you in balance with the other PCs. Trying to "control" this beast just reinforces the obvious fact that the rest of the party is playing minion to your boss and frankly I'd get tired of that in about, oh, five minutes.That's why I was hoping to think of a way to allow the party to entirely control him. Literally the opposite of what you said, he'd be similar to a chained beast that they control. I'd be the minion to them being master. And the idea of literally being magically chained or restrained in a similar fashion completely reinforces that.
Sorry, I think you misunderstand. You want to be the nuclear bomb the party unleashes. When the party can't manage the situation, they turn loose their secret weapon who tears through the opposition that was making them pee their pants.
You = boss
They = minions
Being "chained up" when your awesome powers are not needed means nothing if you still end up being the big bag of awesomeness that saves the day.
Well here's the thing with that.
A.) The Wereboar statblock's Wereboar only has a 1d8 gore, and a Dire Boar only has a 2d6 Gore anyway.
But that's not a huge deal.
The problem is that you have a whole bunch of things that were meant for one-shot, powerful NPC characters to possess, that are not balanced for everyday use by a PC.
None of the things separately is an issue (well except the DR), but taken together you have: More attacks, higher Str/Con (effectively a Half-Rage at will), and a HEFTY damage resistance leg up over anyone in your party. The level adjustment doesn't do much to fix that since really all you've lost is your Combat Style Feat, 2nd favored Enemy, and Favored Terrain, but you've kept the BaB and Hit Dice and gained other things to compensate for those losses.
Seriously, just petition your DM to strip your powers and have you come back as a Level 5 Shapeshifter Archetype Ranger. Reflavor Bear to Boar and you're now back on par with the rest of your party and lose none of the flavor.
No moreso than it is for an NPC IMO
Look at it this way, an NPCs DR will not often come up in more than one fight. Its impact is negligible in the overall scheme (but significant for that one fight).
Meanwhile, on a PC that damage negated accumulates. It is much more effective in the long run for a character that will participate in every possible battle. Whereas that NPC lycanthrope took an extra hit or two to kill, this PC lycanthrope is taking anywhere from 10-50% less damage in every battle in his career.
So your character becomes an NPC and the GM takes control. The ability to wildshape becomes unreliable and only happens under extreme stress. You roll up a level appropriate new PC that is not overpowered compared to your party.
Then you return wereboar dude back to his tribe as soon as possible and move on.
I am not trying to be critical here, but this is the sort of thing that makes me wonder whether I'm even playing the same game as some other people sometimes.
I simply don't understand how it is fun for the group for one member of the party to completely overshadow the rest of the group. As I said before, I'd get tired of this in five minutes.
.. or Rynjin's suggestion works too. I don't even know why you would want to play this character. I'd dump it in an instant. But then I'd never have started playing such a thing in the first place.
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Eh, first real character, wanted it to be something special.
I actually like the idea of him returning to the tribe, and me rolling up a new guy.
I'll be sad to see it go, but whatever.
Rynjin's approach lets you keep the flavor. It's not the flavor I have any issue with, it's the mechanics.
There are different ways to enjoy the game. One way is to just revel in the awesome damage that a character can do, no matter what that means in terms of the other characters.
To me the enjoyment comes from overcoming challenges and winning against the odds. Having the odds stacked in my favor so that I just knock over the opposition just bores me.
Different play styles. I didn't mean to imply that you were playing wrong. I just truly and sincerely don't understand the appeal of that sort of play. But I know that it is a very common thing for people to really enjoy.
Heck, maybe I'm the one that's missing something.
I... am not quite sure I understand this logic. How are they the minions when they're controlling him? He might be the secret weapon but he's THEY'RE weapon, not his own. They don't follow his orders, they use him like any other tool.I guess my only advice is ditch the character and play something that keeps you in balance with the other PCs. Trying to "control" this beast just reinforces the obvious fact that the rest of the party is playing minion to your boss and frankly I'd get tired of that in about, oh, five minutes.That's why I was hoping to think of a way to allow the party to entirely control him. Literally the opposite of what you said, he'd be similar to a chained beast that they control. I'd be the minion to them being master. And the idea of literally being magically chained or restrained in a similar fashion completely reinforces that.Sorry, I think you misunderstand. You want to be the nuclear bomb the party unleashes. When the party can't manage the situation, they turn loose their secret weapon who tears through the opposition that was making them pee their pants.
You = boss
They = minionsBeing "chained up" when your awesome powers are not needed means nothing if you still end up being the big bag of awesomeness that saves the day.
Kirt, if you don't understand what I meant in the post above, I have a feeling that I won't be able to explain it to you no matter how hard I try.
I understand you're saying the character overshadows his fellows, and he does. But that does not a boss and his minions make. A boss gives orders and his minions follow them. In this scenario he'd be the minion.
As I said. If you don't understand by now, I don't think I can explain it so that you will. And frankly I don't have the energy or motivation to try.
I... am not quite sure I understand this logic. How are they the minions when they're controlling him? He might be the secret weapon but he's THEY'RE weapon, not his own. They don't follow his orders, they use him like any other tool.
Did you ever read the manga/watch the show (either of them) Hellsing?
Basically involves Alucard the vampire being in the service of this group called Hellsing whose job is to protect the world from other vampires and such.
Alucard, to put it simply, is busted as all hell. At one point in the show he sits on an airplane in broad daylight, flying over the Atlantic ocean, sipping a glass of wine, and eating a steak (flavored with garlic) with a silver fork and knife. He is shown repeatedly regenerating from things like having his body obliterated, being decapitated and so on because every person he has ever eaten acts as "extra lives" for him. Effectively, they re-die in his place, making him virtually indestructible on top of him being largely immune to every classic vampire weakness you could care to think up.
He is the most powerful being on the planet, but he is in the control of Integra Hellsing.
But you may notice something about the show. While Alucard is ostensibly under her control and is therefore the "minion" in the show...he takes up 80-90% of the total screentime. While he is the minion and must ask permission to really let loose ("release restrictions") in battle, he is definitely the main character of the show.
And that is pretty much the point Adamantine was making.
Oh no, your character's nowhere near THAT bad.
But it was the only example I could think of on short notice.
Plenty of monsters do, and I'd say your character counts as a monster. You effectively have 5 levels in Lycanthrope, which we'll call a weird Druid/Barbarian multiclass/mash-up.
And anything is possible if your GM allows it.
But IMO either making a new character or having a more toned down version of the same thing (Shapeshifter Ranger, Boar Shaman Druid with the Rage Subdomain, Savage Barbarian with a little reflavoring, Beastmorph or Ragechemist + Vivisectionist Alchemist, and so on) might end up being both a simpler and better solution in the long run.
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The conversation about wether a dire-were-orcboar can have claws seems trivial at this point.
It wasnt the dire wereboar that got me.
It wasnt even the 'yeah he's an orc.... dire wereboar' that got me.
It wasnt even the fact that this monstrosity was allowed by a gm
or that it was controllable by a pc...
or that it's still around after being soundly proven to be overpowered...
...
Its that somewhere out there is a whole herd of them
And the whole tribe better all have an 18 charisma or I call shennanegins.
All these replies and not one person has attempted to answer the question.
OP: I think you've come up with the best suggestion with the choke chain. You could have a simple collar with silver spikes pointing inwards; to change with it on would mean that they go straight through the character's neck.
If you want to play on his bestial nature, perhaps a full gimp-mask?
I would also consider having the unlocking/unleashing method to be a short ritual, involving more than one character, rather than a simple key or whatever. This would lend itself to the urgency of the situation; that is, in an emergency, do the characters continue with what they're doing or do they give up actions to unleash the fury?
A quick example: to unlock the collar, 4 magical keys need to be pushed into recesses on each side of the collar; each key must be held by a different individual.
The mechanics: 4 characters must stand next to the ranger and remain there for x rounds.
Note: Should the lycanthrope ever touch a key, or remove the collar without the keys, he will die.
Perhaps the change can only be brought about by the sound of a musical/magical instrument of some sort.
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Your GM should learn to be more careful about allowing monstrous races as player characters. Generally speaking, the races without racial hit dice are suitable for play. There may be exceptions outside of those, and even races without racial hit dice aren't guaranteed to be suitable for every game, but DR 10 at 5th level is one really overly effective ability. Four attacks in a round is also really quite powerful, and the classic characters to specialize in lots of attacks (two-weapon fighters, monks, druids wild shaped as big cats) can't even accomplish that yet at this level. So your character is pushing the envelope on access to abilities.
However, if all the players are having fun, then the flub wasn't too bad. From here it's just a matter of making sure nobody develops issues with the party setup. Even if nobody gets mad at you rocking the battlefield, one of the other PCs might start thinking about monstrous races they'd like to play, further complicating the situation (unless the GM is interested in running that group!).
I guess there's a few things you can do from here. The first is that you retire the character, as said.
The second is just a matter of waiting: You don't have to give up your character and you don't have to change anything that has already entered play. You could just play the game being extra-powerful for a level or two, and you don't start leveling up again until you're on par with the party again.
The third attacks the mechanics, but that may be difficult since you've been using these abilities for a while: It's a character rebuild. Such a rebuild could be complete, or it could simply modify the disruptive elements of the character. A GM could keep your character's history and personality but change the mechanics through some different methods; an ancient well that changes the fabric of your being, a magic portal, and divine inspiration work for pretty much anybody on grounds of "Hey, Golarion is ancient, magical and weird."
More specific to your character however, your abilities as a lycanthrope might begin to change due to nothing more than your bloodline (like a sorceror!) -- until now, perhaps they were not fully developed. That gives you license to move ability score boosts around, impose a Will save DC, or introduce a risky berserking mechanic that makes you a danger to the party as well.
If your GM wanted to, you could even use it as a springboard to develop the wereboar further as a sort of 'class' that you level through, although your group might wait on that.