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View Full Version : [3.5] Lycanthropy + Undeath = ?



Drakevarg
2010-02-05, 06:55 PM
Simple question; what happens when a Lycanthrope becomes a free-willed undead, such as a Mummified Creature? Do they retain their shapeshifting ability or is it, as my DM suggests, a disease that ceases to function alongside the character's pulse?

Quietus
2010-02-05, 07:06 PM
Point out to your DM that it's called "Curse of Lycanthropy"? Doing a search-find on the Lycanthrope page of d20srd revealed that only Wererats mention disease, because dire rats carry Filth Fever.

That being said, I would say that your hybrid and animal forms would take on the same undead template that you do. So your mummified lycanthrope character would have his animal HD changed to undead HD, and would have Mummified <humanoid?>, Mummified Hybrid, and Mummified Animal forms, regardless of whether that template can be applied to those forms.

Rule of cool > silly book-rules, here. An awakened skeleton of a shapechanger that can turn into a skeletal rat is freaky stuff.

Deth Muncher
2010-02-05, 07:35 PM
Lycanthropy + freewilled undead = Every Twilight fangirl's dream, as you get the combination of Pattinson and Lautner.

Salt_Crow
2010-02-05, 07:53 PM
Druid's WS doesn't work in undeath because it's polymorph-based (requires Con scores) but iirc, lycanthropy's just based on Alternate Form special ability. So I'd imagine becoming a vampire or something won't stop a lycanthrope from shifting.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-02-05, 08:02 PM
Druid's WS doesn't work in undeath because it's polymorph-based (requires Con scores) but iirc, lycanthropy's just based on Alternate Form special ability. So I'd imagine becoming a vampire or something won't stop a lycanthrope from shifting.

In the case it is polymorph based you can maybe ask your DM to see if the feat Undead Wildshape from libris mortis to work on your alternate form.

Johanas
2010-02-05, 08:12 PM
I've used undead lycanthropes in SEVERAL of my games. It's almost become a trademark for undead werewolves to show up in my games. I try to do it differently each time, and it's always just a fun little side thing, but my players love it. I use Down with the Sickness for a theme, it's lyrics are especially good for transformation scenes. Loads of fun. I completly agree with Quietus. Rule of Cool is King.

Fhaolan
2010-02-05, 08:23 PM
Rule of cool > silly book-rules, here. An awakened skeleton of a shapechanger that can turn into a skeletal rat is freaky stuff.

Normally I would have said that the undeath curse takes precidence over the lycanthrope curse... but this sentence is making me rethink that just because I have one player in the group that will really and truely *freak* when she hears me describe the scene to her.

Thanks muchly. :smallsmile:

Quietus
2010-02-05, 08:33 PM
Normally I would have said that the undeath curse takes precidence over the lycanthrope curse... but this sentence is making me rethink that just because I have one player in the group that will really and truely *freak* when she hears me describe the scene to her.

Thanks muchly. :smallsmile:

I just spent the last half hour statting out this NPC, because yeah... the idea was just that cool. :smallbiggrin:

Fluffles
2010-02-05, 09:03 PM
Druid's WS doesn't work in undeath because it's polymorph-based (requires Con scores) but iirc, lycanthropy's just based on Alternate Form special ability. So I'd imagine becoming a vampire or something won't stop a lycanthrope from shifting.

Corrupted Wild Shape feat from Libris Mortis lets undead Druids WS :smallbiggrin:

SilverClawShift
2010-02-05, 09:09 PM
Great, thanks. Thanks a lot. Now that the idea is in my head I have to bug my DM and find a way to convince him to let my knife-flinging rogue become a vampiric were-viper.

AstralFire
2010-02-05, 09:47 PM
I suppose I'm the only one here who doesn't find this interesting.

Raiki
2010-02-05, 10:03 PM
Great, thanks. Thanks a lot. Now that the idea is in my head I have to bug my DM and find a way to convince him to let my knife-flinging rogue become a vampiric were-viper.

And then maybe write up a delicious campaign journal about the experience?

~R~

Foryn Gilnith
2010-02-05, 10:05 PM
I suppose I'm the only one here who doesn't find this interesting.

Eh, I get similar reactions to most "cool" concepts. Takes the actual description to get my blood pumping.

Lycar
2010-02-05, 10:13 PM
In my opinion, you either are a living shapechanger (life = change),
or a rotting corpse, forever imprisoned in stagnation.

Then again, I have a burning hatered for undead in general and vampires especially, that just might border on obsessive.

So I'm slightly biased there.

Lycar

Eurus
2010-02-05, 11:23 PM
I don't really care for the idea of an undead lycanthrope either. If lycanthropy can't normally afflict the undead, why shouldn't a lycanthrope becoming undead lose the template? I know by RAW there's no reason it should, but it still seems strange.

Zeta Kai
2010-02-05, 11:35 PM
Lycanthropy + freewilled undead = Every Twilight fangirl's dream, as you get the combination of Pattinson and Lautner.

One man's squick is another girl's squee. :smallsigh:

Drakevarg
2010-02-06, 01:30 AM
This is pretty much what my DM concluded;

-A lycanthrope can become an undead, but not the other way around.
-When a lycanthrope is turned undead, they're permenantly mode-locked into whatever form they were in during the transformation.

I can kinda live with this, especially if I could find some sort of Lawful Evil lycanthrope, gain control of its hybrid form, then find some necromatic cult to turn me into a mummified creature while I'm in that form. Epic Strength bonuses ahoy.

Though doesn't dying turn a lycanthrope back into their natural form? If that's the case, then being an undead lycanthrope translates to "3 levels of useless level adjustment."

Jack_Simth
2010-02-06, 01:37 AM
Druid's WS doesn't work in undeath because it's polymorph-based (requires Con scores) but iirc, lycanthropy's just based on Alternate Form special ability. So I'd imagine becoming a vampire or something won't stop a lycanthrope from shifting.
Amusingly, that was errata'd. Wildshape is no longer based on Polymorph, and doesn't have that restriction.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-02-06, 01:51 AM
One man's squick is another girl's squee. :smallsigh:

This comment is meme-worthy

Devils_Advocate
2010-02-06, 12:26 PM
Simple question; what happens when a Lycanthrope becomes a free-willed undead, such as a Mummified Creature? Do they retain their shapeshifting ability or is it, as my DM suggests, a disease that ceases to function alongside the character's pulse?
Vampires, ghosts, and liches explicitly retain the Special Qualities they have in life. The Mummified creature template doesn't have that wording, but it doesn't say to take anything away...


-A lycanthrope can become an undead, but not the other way around.
Natch. Undead are immune to most things that require Fort saves. So unless you want to argue that lycanthropy is "harmless"...


Though doesn't dying turn a lycanthrope back into their natural form? If that's the case, then being an undead lycanthrope translates to "3 levels of useless level adjustment."
"A slain lycanthrope reverts to its humanoid form, although it remains dead. Separated body parts retain their animal form, however."

How very... odd. Evidently there's something about dying that makes you change back, rather than something about being alive that keeps you transformed. How very peculiar.

But anyway, while I can see where your DM and others are coming from, it explicitly doesn't work that way in D&D. Check the wording of the raise dead spell; magical diseases and curses stick with you when you're deceased. Think of lycanthropy as an infection of the soul.

And, of course, there are natural lycanthropes, who can't even be "cured" at all, because for them it's not a curse; it's what they are.


In my opinion, you either are a living shapechanger (life = change), or a rotting corpse, forever imprisoned in stagnation.
Vampires are undead shapeshifters. :smalltongue:

But vampires ingest sustenance and sleep in their coffins and are vulnerable to an attack to a specific part of their bodies and generally speaking are allowed to be like living creatures while allegedly not being, in some technical sense, alive. Even though the description of the Undead type explicitly says that they really shouldn't work like that. :smallconfused:

Ghouls are another type of undead to which eating is rather central. Really, it's like they wrote up the description of the creature type without consideration for the monsters that it would be used to cover.


Normally I would have said that the undeath curse takes precidence over the lycanthrope curse.
Well, sure, you could imagine the curses being all competitive and territorial. But I don't see why it should be that way. Why wouldn't they like each other instead?

"Yay! Team up!"

It would be annoying for necromancers if you could only inflict someone with one curse at a time. What if there was one person that you really wanted to curse, like, a lot? And if the curses are both spells that you got from your sininster god, shouldn't they be on the same team? I mean, really. Come on, forces of dark magic! We're all in this together! :smalltongue:

Optimystik
2010-02-06, 12:37 PM
-A lycanthrope can become an undead, but not the other way around.

Indeed - lycanthropy is a disease, undead are immune.


I suppose I'm the only one here who doesn't find this interesting.

You're not, though you did at least find it interesting enough to post. :smalltongue:

Zaydos
2010-02-06, 01:14 PM
Personally I'd say Afflicted Lycanthropes lose it completely when they become undead, the effects of the curse ended by their transition to undeath. True lycanthropes? Now these I can have more fun with. They aren't cursed or diseased so that explanation doesn't work. Next question: Can an undead doppleganger use it's alternate form ability? The same applies to werewolves.

Now we move on to the next part where we figure out the actual game mechanics and I'd apply the undead template to all of its lycanthropic forms (seems more balanced CR and ECL-wise).

KillianHawkeye
2010-02-06, 08:16 PM
It would be annoying for necromancers if you could only inflict someone with one curse at a time. What if there was one person that you really wanted to curse, like, a lot? And if the curses are both spells that you got from your sininster god, shouldn't they be on the same team? I mean, really. Come on, forces of dark magic! We're all in this together! :smalltongue:

If you were the Necromancer from Diablo II, you'd be used to it. :smallwink::smallamused: