Greetings all, first time posting here so I apologize in advance for any gaffs on my part.
I am working on a high level monster hunting campaign I'll be GMing when our current group reaches 12th level.
One of the party NPCs will be a werebear groom. He is 54 years old which would put him into the 'old' category.
My question is, when the base creature ages, would this also alter the stats for the base animal?
(If anyone is interested in the campaign or party builds I'm playing around with, feel free to feel free and I'd be more than happy to share. I think I have some interesting characters, backstories and all, as well as a rather dark setting with diseased and inhibited magic-- aka The Blight.)
Thanks
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The rules do not address any questions of aging creatures with multiple forms, so it's up to you as the GM.
Personally, I vote yes---young lyncathropes turn into young (hence smaller) animals, old lycanthropes turn into old animals.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If the character has already applied the aging modifiers to it's base ability scores, it stands to reason that those modifiers should not be applied again to the static modifiers you add or subtract in animal or hybrid form.
If the character is using completely different ability scores for hybrid or animal form, then the modifiers would be applied as normal.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for the replies!
I figured this was a GM call. I scoured the rules and boards to no avail, but I thought someone might have caught something that I missed.
I think I'm going with yes, too. It seems likely that the bonuses (+2 STR +2 CON) would remain but the overall stats for the animal form would change. Nonetheless, an old grizzly bear is still a mighty beast!
thanks again
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do PF werewolfs even age at the normal rate? Fictional werewolves tend not to.
Good question. I assumed that they did. I'm wondering if there is any mention in other versions, 2E, 3.5, etc?
Edit: It seems that they might not address lycanthrope aging because they don't want to encourage their use as PCs. Monster aging is rarely noted in the bestiaries except in a few cases like serpentfolk.
There is none that I'm aware of, though, unlike in, say, Underworld, lycanthropes of D&D and PF fame tend to be portrayed as mortal creatures that have generations and grow and age to grizzled ages, hinting at eventual death.
As a non-RAW thing, I'll tell you one variant I cooked up for a 3.5 game I unfortunately never got the chance to run!
The idea behind the game is that it would be a one-player, but the player would be a werewolf (non-evil); in it, therianthrope was the direct side-effect of magical runoff and pollution, which created "carrier" animals who were infected with remnant transmutation magic and cursed diseases that infected a creature bitten; this was the origin of various strains of therianthrope.
The PC in question needed to start as a commoner who was infected with lycanthrope, but had the option of leveling up either his lycanthrope side or his human side (maybe eventually qualifying for PrCs in human form; but otherwise gaining animal HD).
Similarly, in this world, his lycan and human sides aged at different rates: only the "side" that was currently "out" at a particular moment was the one that aged.
What this meant, of course, is that the humans and lycans lived at different rates: three days a month doesn't sound like much, but that adds up to a little more than a month a year - every decade you'd end up about a year younger, meaning you age ever-so-slightly more slowly, and could net a few extra years over a lifetime - or more, if you spent a lot of animal time.
That said, the animal-side was also mortal: they aged at the same rate the animal did (so being infected by a younger animal or earlier in a therianthrope's lifespan was better, for longevity, than an elder animal or elder therianthrope in that regard), but, like the human side, only while "out" - which means usually around 1/10 of the normal time said animal would exist (three nights a month). That, of course, would yield a hypothetical animal lifetime of ten times the norm... unless carefully rationed.
Some animals (with exceptionally short lifespans) might not really help slow aging at all - each full moon could be a death sentence, as the young and vibrant man would turn into an aged and venerable creature, if he spent toooo much time as one of those creatures... though, given that rabbits and ginea pigs live several years at a time, you could ration their lifespans, as well, into 80 or 40 years.
That said, wolves live 5-6 years: that's usually only 50-60 in this format; meaning that a person who got infected at 20 years old, could only expect more or less a normal maximum lifespan - a person born a lycanthrope would have a shorter-than-expected lifespan (bare in mind, a venerable wolf isn't going to do much.
Anyway, it's a complicated idea, but one I liked, and felt like I should share, as it's relevant, here! Hope that helps!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Tacticslion: Interesting idea. I'll have to look up how long bears live.
Natural werebears might change form a bit more than an infected werewolf and for shorter periods of time, which could make it far more complicated. It's also possible that they might not shapechange for months at a time.
I've always just assumed that being the same overall entity that there would be one age progression.
Thanks for sharing! I'll have to think that one over. Maybe just handwave/guesstimate a slower aging rate for the bear form.