Werecreatures

[Divine Intervention]

Having thought about it for a while, I believe that werecreatures could use a change.  As it stands any of the subraces essentially give you huge benefits mechanically, as good as pretty much any monster race in EFU.  They are also equipped with the built in disguise of being a non monster race, this means that unless they are actively dropping clues the whole time, they are virtually undetectable.  This is not to say people who have played them are bad at it, it is just that it's very difficult to actively determine whether someone is a werecreature, silver doesn't tell you, belladonna doesn't tell you either.  This leaves it up to the player to decide if they want to drop more clues and risk getting killed, whereas a mechanical system in unbiased and tells you exactly what to expect of your pc.  Now all other monster races have the HUGE disadvantage of well, being blatantly hideous fiends.  I am aware that you play a monster for a challenge, but considering just how powerful the wereforms are I don't see why they suffer no real penalties.

 I think it would be cool if some sort of modification of the addiction system could be added to the race to reflect that it is actually a -curse-, not a means to destroy everything in your path whilst suffering no notable effect on your human side.  

My suggestion is that penalties be applied to the PC like the addiction system does, if you do not shift every so often you start to suffer for it.  Losing will saves, mind saves, random itchings, distraction, dazing, loss of wisdom or some such.  I mean you have a beastial animalistic monster living side by side with your human nature, it seems like it should really start taking it's told on the PC's mind and body.

As far as I am aware the Lycan curse wants to be freed and used as often as possible in frenzied rage etc.  Further i'd suggest that if a pc goes for a long time without shifting at all that they recieve penalties to shifting back into humans, maybe the bloodhaze effect or some variation on bloodfrenzy to represent the beast being unleashed after being pent up and taking control, trying to assert dominance over the human side.

[Random_White_Guy]

At any one time in EFU for the most part there's at least 2-3 Lycanthrope PC's. Having played them off and on I am unsure about something so basic as "addiction".

In the past it has been believed that Naturally born Lycanthropes are afflicted in the sense that they're naturally evil, they're naturally inhuman, they're naturally monster-like, and they're naturally loners. Rarely in the past of PCs (Though some NPcs have) risen to high profile offices or positions, though that is mostly based on character build and history. It's not impossible for this to occur, just doesn't often happen.

Applications have been passed in the past for Lycans who don't enter human form, Lycans who don't have control of their form but leave it to DM disgression, or those who just shift between human and animal form and other cool things like that for the "Afflicted" Lycanthropes.

Ultimately though with EFU removing any discernible means or ways to detect Lycans (Silver no, True Sight no, etc) it has created a great atmosphere of witch-hunt, conflict, and more. Sadly however it's also created some stems of metagaming but that's best left handled OOCly by the DMs and characters.

After all,

With this suggestion it wouldn't be hard to go for a run in the wilds to "Let the beast run free" then just return to human form, animal form, or what have you. As it stands most Lycanthropes do spend time -every day- in their wereform for the most part, it's just not with people around heh. It's how they survive.

[CatScratchFever]

I've been told, both ICly and OOCly, that a number of people have witnessed my PC shifting between forms. Why they're not making use of that information, I can't rightly say. But even the super stealthy aren't completely invisible.

Also, fun fact, I actually implemented my own "addiction" system, of sorts. It involves a d20 rolled every half hour (real time) and different effects occurs depending on what I roll.

[Caster13]

I've been told, both ICly and OOCly, that a number of people have witnessed my PC shifting between forms. Why they're not making use of that information, I can't rightly say. But even the super stealthy aren't completely invisible.

Also, fun fact, I actually implemented my own "addiction" system, of sorts. It involves a d20 rolled every half hour (real time) and different effects occurs depending on what I roll.

And, yes, it's not difficult for anyone to sneak off to get their animal/lycan shape fix either.

[Egon the Monkey]

A lack of ways to spot out a lycanthrope might have led to interesting mysteries and conflicts, but these are fairly impossible to resolve short of a suspect shifting in front of your PC's eyes. Without a way to actively investigate, you're stuck trying to catch a mistake and as CSF points out it has to be someone bothered who catches you. Not like the old days when you could follow up on suspicions by poking them with silver, so werecreatures had something to watch out for. There's Pure Silver weapons with +dmg vs Shapechanger that do elemental effects for example, but they won't work on the human form.

On the other hand if the race was hooked up to the Addiction system with the saves going up and up the longer the PC survived, they'd only be able to use their cover for a time and would be paranoid of blowing it.

Why are there always 2-3 of these around? They're monsters on easy mode. Unless you start out obvious, you get at least a few levels of gaining supplies and XP without being on the run from everything. CSF's honour system there's cool, but a tweak to the Addiction system offers a way to introduce a real element of risk to the race, the same as other monsters get. And because it'd re-uses code we've got already, if it's possible it wouldn't take the effort of starting from scratch.

[TheImpossibleDream]

A few lycan hunting tools with charge/use that only function to effect lycans would be nice.

Example a silver idol, used on a normal pc no damage, used on a lycan  causes frost damage and fingers them out. Considering they're such a  powerful race it wouldn't be much to their detriment.

[Ebok]

Naga, there actually are lycanthrope hunting swords with a bonus cold damage against shape-shifters. Isn't that basically the same thing? though it would be interesting to see Full-Moon events run in relation to shifters.

[Blue41]

I think Impossible Dream meant was a way to be able to finger lycans with the use of a item or tool. As it is now, it's basically your word vs. the suspect as far as proving the fact that they're a monster: either you catch and subdue/kill the lycan in question, or you don't. Proof is hard to get; you can't force a transformation, afaik.
 
It's not necessarily a bad thing that ID'ing a werecreature is difficult, because that should be part of the fun for your hide-in-plain-sight concepts. It would be nice if there was a method of exposing them besides setting yourself up as ambush bait, though.
 
My last Gazer PC was a werewolf hunter, who used silver/weapon enchantment, belladonna and items to augment spot/listen to great effect, so there's no shortage of weapons to fight them with. The fact that I could've unknowingly hung out with werewolves in their human form and been completely ignorant of that is pretty lol.

[Mort]

It`s up to the lycanthrope... If they invested in bluff/skill focus (bluff), have decent charisma...

Give them the benefit of the doubt to be hard to detect in human form.
If they didn`t invest, Give them the benefit of the doubt still!

 People who app for lycan usually dont app to play a PC they can easily level up (in human form), and then act all monstrous-like and PVP (in monster form)... That would be bad.

They generally app to play a Lycanthrope and to play that -stigma- . They will give HINTS to players they believe will treat them fairly and wont try to "WIN"...  They know they will die at one point, but they want to create a fair deal of intrigue surrounding it. I dont think we have to force them to roleplay it at all through somekind of mechanic... If you are approved, it generally means the DM team trusts you to do it by yourself. Generally, a situation where players trust eachother OOC`ly will be a lot more fair/cooler than a situation where players dont trust eachother... so WORK ON THAT trust. Show hints through good behaviors that you are not looking to 'win', just to develop that story. And if you do win and gave all the little nudges of respect along the road, people in IRC/Forum might not know, but your foe will be grateful and the DMs will know/figure it out by asking your foe/monitoring you.

You can also start to become paranoid and do a witch hunt if you are part of the Law. A Silver/Cold weapon against Lycanthrope will work on the Human form as far as I know, so... -- Just make sure you do this witch hunt AGAINST EVERYONE ... and not let your bias/knowledge guide you.

Just a parallel, If someone brushes you invisible, if he is a friend... do you drink a seeing potion? If he is an enemy ... do you drink a seeing potion? Your answer should be YES to both even if it is more costly or NO to both. You have to be consistant and deal with the consequences.

[VanillaPudding]

Lycans are great fun and, as RWG stated, most of them spend a good deal of time in their hybrid or animal forms as it is. They do have a benefit over some other monster races in that they can use their alternate forms to remain hidden, but many of the powerful bonuses they have only apply in the monster forms while that +3 level adjustment applies all the time.

It is very difficult for them to get beyond 7th level without a huge amount of DM xp for roleplay, and they can be killed on sight for what they are without any further excuses as well. They are far from impossible to detect or defeat, and I' be willing to bet that many Human characters have been and are stronger than any lycan character we've had.

[Egon the Monkey]

Mort, are you saying weapons with bonus damage vs Shapechanger will deal that bonus damage to the Human form too, or the player is expected to RP out being hit by silver? because every bit of information from DMs lately has been "silver only pierces DR".

[Mort]

I`m saying if you have a Silver Weapon with 1d4 cold damage vs. Shapechanger, it will be applied to lycans in Human form.

[Mort]

Now, whether we want to make this a viable mean of detection or not... The DM team will likely have to speak on the issue because of everything it entails*, but my gut tells me that it`s a fine way of detection.


[SIZE="1"]* (Bonus vs. Evil weapons being used as Detect Evil... )[/SIZE]

[HaveLuteWillTravel]

In the current DM plot it was already stated that things like silver and belladonna will not detect a lycan that's in human form. Egon, you already knew this since this entire thing has involved the Muster closely, so lets not go fogging up things now by playing Daddy against Mommy.   >.>

[TheImpossibleDream]

In the current DM plot it was already stated that things like silver and belladonna will not detect a lycan that's in human form. Egon, you already knew this since this entire thing has involved the Muster closely, so lets not go fogging up things now by playing Daddy against Mommy.   >.>

Seems very strange. Why would a source of damage that effects shapechangers not work on a shapechanger? Even in human form their race remains shapechanger, they just inherit human race in addition while in the form. Effects that deal damage to either will work on a shapechanger, but damage vs shapechanger should work no matter what shape he happens to be in.

Silver isn't exclusive to werecreatures, it works on all shapechangers, lycans included, no matter what shape they're in at the time. I don't know whether belladonna is exclusive to lycantrophe or not, but silver certainly isn't.