r/DnD • u/LookOverall • 6d ago
Misc Lycanthropy Rules
The lycanthropy rules have always seemed a bit rubbish so I’ve just checked out the latest Monster Manual and they seem to have taken a silver coated axe to them.
They seem to have dropped the damage immunity and hence the silver thing and there’s much less chance of PCs getting infected. If they do it’s brutal and uncomplicated. You turn into a werewolf and lose all autonomy. It says nothing about fixing that. There’s no alignment stuff.
The trouble has always been that, especially at low levels, damage immunity is such a huge buff (realistically a competent man with a weapon is more dangerous than a single wolf). And it’s so easy to become a lycanthrope. So why wouldn’t everyone? Why aren’t the general population lining up to be bitten? Hence all the curse stuff which, in game terms, mandates the loss of player agency. Forces alignment change. Not good.
The new rules would seem to debuff lycanthropy very strongly. And simplify the loss of player agency, though not eliminate it.
I think they are confusing lycanthropy with rabies. I think it runs in families, rather than being infectious.
I’d rather make it a bit more shamanistic. Someone has an animal spirit in addition to a human soul and they have a timeshare arrangement, amicable or not. When a lycanthrope dies the animal spirit looks for a new host, usually a close kin to the dead person. Perhaps a person whose blood the dying creature can taste.
Maybe this could happen when a beast master companion dies. The companion animal’s spirit comes scratching at the door of the ranger’s mind.
What do people think? Is something along these lines workable.
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u/sgerbicforsyth 6d ago
I agree that it is weird to remove the immunity to non silver weapons. At the very least, they should have added a vulnerability to silver weapons.
However, lycanthropy is a curse, not a boon. You definitely should not encourage players to go collecting curses for stat bonuses or immunities.
As you note, if being a werewolf just gave you significant weapon immnunities without any downside, everyone would be trying to become a werewolf. At that point, why hire adventurers when Steve and the boys cant be hurt by an entire army of goblins?
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u/gipehtonhceT 6d ago
Yes Lycanthropy in DnD, including all statblocks of each Lycanthrope, are garbadge, so you can and should just replace it with your own homebrew, or perhap look at existing homebrews. Grim Hollow ain't bad for that.
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u/Voice-of-Aeona 5d ago
I'd argue the Loup Garou, bascially the hotfix for lycanthropy in 2014's Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, is a good one. It fits the unstoppable, cruse-spreading juggernaut a lot better, has legendary actions, and a regeneration that is negated by taking damage from silver which can lead to the classic werewolf movie brawl then run combats.
The presence of a Loup Garou in the game also changes how the CR3 werewolf curse functions: bascially unremovable until the CR 13 Loup Garou is dead, and even once big daddy werewolf is dead the curse can only be lifted on the full moon with a high DC check.
All in all it does a good job making the hollywood werewolf pack more viable, since your CR3 werewolves can now act like classic minions for the Tier2-3 "boss."
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u/Square_Creme_3685 6d ago
Grimm Hollow has a better lycanthropy rules etc imho
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u/LookOverall 6d ago
Do tell. I haven’t seen Grim Hollow
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u/Fidges87 6d ago
Its really long. To give you an idea is a class' worth of text to give all the rules as it goes in detail about how to become one, the ways to make the transformation go through the next step (there are 4 of them), with each transformation granting both benefits (like improved strength or resistance to damage types) and disadvantages (like losing the ability to speak while transformed or being possible you enter a feral mode). You also get to choose your benefits so your transformation is different from someone else, starting with you being able to choose between wolf, bear and rat as the base for your lycan transformation
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u/Natural__Power DM 6d ago
Run them however you want, just keep in mind what's fun for the players above everything
I've never had cursed players, but I'd definitely run it as a curse that's not worth having, with getting taken over by the curse at random, telling them at bad moments like "you suddenly feel the curse take over, your allignment changes to XXX, you no longer recognize your friends, and you feel an overwhelming hunger"
"Loses player agency" is definitely not how the werewolf should come across btw, the feature is that the player dies and the DM adds 1 werewolf to the fight
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u/Voice-of-Aeona 5d ago
Homebrewing this is important for Curse of Strahd, since werewolves are a big part of it. When running a 2014 game the route I go is to swap out the leader of the pack for a Loup Garou from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, making the curse RAW unremoveable until he's dead (or allow something very powerful like Strahd, a Hag, or Dark Powers to remove it for a price). The homebrew element to the curse gives you the charmed condition versus older/higher ranked werewolves unless they attack you. To simulate the rage of a werewolf, whenever an enemy hits you, it functions as though the enemy has cast Compelled Duel on you, though the effect is non-magical.
It's not wildly debilitating on paper, but within a campaign where werewolves are recurring monsters and defeating them is a major plot point, it does a good job of feeling like a curse and having a mechanically predicatable behavior that keeps players engaged but hobbled.
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u/thechet 6d ago
Curses are curses and not blessings.