Playing a lycan right now feels extremely iffy, going into the lycan form is practically useless, but making it more powerful risks making it a bit too silly in terms of meta.
I'm no game balancer in anyway, however I feel the following might be interesting ways to make them better/more flavourful in an interesting way then it is today
Unique mechanics:
Lycanthropes get some form of tagging, in the form of a unique "smell" that other lycans can sniff out, this allows Lycanthropes to identify one another. (maybe during the examine window or a combat log message when a lycan gets within X meters). If possible, someone who recently attained lycanthropy cannot sniff out others until their first shift, but can be sniffed out by other lycans the moment they are infected.
changes in green below affects the lycan in both their human/lycan shape
changes in orange only affects the lycan in their lycan shape
Changes to stat block etc:
+ CL/2 soft STR, DEX, CON (capped at +12) and a +5 natural AC bonus.
+4 to Detect and Stealth skills, -8 to Concentration.
10/+1 damage reduction and CL/10 regeneration (Min 1 Regen) every 3 seconds.
20% movement speed increase (does not go past the 150% speed cap).
Silver weapons apply a 1d6 penalty to AB and AC at the start of each round., this debuff lasts for 1 round and does not stack with itself
Carrying/wearing any silver equipment/materials provides -2 AB/AC bonus, and makes the lycanthrope take 2 points of positive damage/round
Set the lycanthropes attack/round to 1-5 based on CL (progress like a pure fighter)
100% spell failure.
Feeding the beast
Lycans need to feed their inner beast, they must perform X kills within Y time in their lycan form, or a stacking penalty gets added to the character.
My thinking here is that say, every ingame week (or something) you need to perform some kills to satisfy the beast, or it takes over, this would be somewhat similar to vampires not drinking their blood, in theory anyway.
Penalties are stacking for each "cycle" you miss the target on
-2 will save for each missed cycle (capping at -10)
-2 AC for each missed cycle (capping at -10)
Once you have missed an entire month worth of cycles, all your will saves will be rolled as 1's until you satisfy the beast
** The kills "rolls over", so if you miss the target the first cycle (and lets say that needs 10-15 kills), you will need to kill 20-30 in the second cycle, 40-45 in the next etc
Bloodfrenzy
Killing three times the amount of needed enemies in each cycle instead provides a buff, for each consecutive cycle another modifier is added, these bonuses are only in effect in the lycan form. They reset each full moon
1st cycle: +2 fast regen
2nd cycle: +1 wisdom save
3rd cycle: +1 reflex save
4th cycle. +1 fortitude save
This is to "encourage" playing as an actual lycan in the world and forcing the use of the form or suffer severe consequences.
Now, some of you might think "wow, those things are OP as hell" or "where did he buy that glue he's sniffing? I want some!", and I wouldn't know the answer to either of those questions, but these are interesting mechanics I can think of at least, and this post is about aiming for the stars, after all.
The curse/blessing should be a double edged sword - providing benefits at risks of penalties (mechanically).
New Mechanics entirely
I would like to see is expanded ways to affect the lycanthropy, both in terms of keeping it, and on how to cure it (I get why it's so simple to cure, sort of, but I also think its a boring way to handle it)
My suggestion to spice those 2 things up are the below:
Unique Rituals/functions
Embracing the Beast/Seeking /Sêlune’s blessing
The lycanthrope chose to embrace the blessing of Malar/Sêlune, this ritual can be performed by any Cleric of Malar/Sèlune or follower of Malar/Sêlune with the gift of devotion.
Ritual should involve some kind of things like current rituals do, with the addition that a creature needs to be sacrificed to Malar (ie, killed by the one who is the target of the ritual), creature needs to be lassoed and lead to the ritual spot
Result:
+5 will save to maintain control in lycan form
+4 competence bonus when using -investigate to track creatures or allows the lycanthrope to identify subraces when checking tracks.
Lasts until lycanthropy is cured
total cost for the ritual should be around ~100-250k gold or something so its not *too* intensive but also not too low (maybe use chunks of zardazik?)
My thinking here is that the DC today is just absurd, especially considering how bad the lycan form is, this will make it more reasonable to keep the form (it's still extremely high IMO, but better have it high than too low)
Acknowledgement of the Beastlord/Sêlune
A ritual/writ that requires you to hunt specific targets in each region of the world to prove your worth to the beastlord, these should be among the hardest to kill monsters in each region, and you need to bring their bounty heads to an altar. (forest of despair?)
Once all the heads are collected and you do this, Malar becomes impressed with your will, blessing your lycan form further.
+5 will save to maintain control in lycan form (for a total of +10 if you also have Embracing the Beastlord) ** increase it to +10 (+15 total) if major award isn’t implemented
DR changes to DR 5/- in lycan form
Each form get the following bonus:
Wererat: +2 spot & listen/+2 reflex save
Werecat: +2 bluff/+1 reflex & will save
Werewolf: +2 leadership/+1 fort & will save
Wereboar: +2 discipline/+2 fort save
Can only be done after having done the first ritual
Attaining both rituals means that curing your lycanthropy is no longer possible, you have become the beast.
** If possible, the bounty heads should only drop if a lycan gets the killing blow, in lycan form
Rejecting the Beast
The person rejects the beast within, choosing to expel the influence from their body, this ritual can be performed by druids.
The ritual involves gathering up specific herbs (like wolfbane, but maybe a few other either new/unique ones or just other ones), having a herbalist create a "Lycanthrophic totem" and then performing the ritual expels the curse from the body into a totem made out of the herbs.
Result:
Player is cured of lycanthropy and gets a 3 ingame month immunity vs lycanthropy
Player gets a bonus +2 AC/AB vs lycantropes for 1 ingame month
A "Lycanthropic totem" is created, carrying the rejected curse. This item automatically gets put into a container near the ritual site. It can be consumed in order to attain lycanthropy, but a player can only consume this once on their character.
A maximum of 3-5 can be stored at any one point, any extras get automatically removed on server reset/destroyed if the container is full
My thinking here is that attaining lycanthropy right now (with intent) is annoying at the best of times, and just silly at the worst of times, this would in theory let a stockpile of curses be built up, that lycans/aspiring lycans could raid in order to attain it, removing the item from the chest/storage immediately consumes it.
I also think the removal of it today is a bit uninspired and from what I can tell, don’t lead to much RP-motivated involvement, whenever I’ve seen a lycan appear people just immediately run off to fetch a herb and feed it to them and the entire thing is glossed over quickly. The ritual to get rid of it would instead lead to a bit more interaction with the world in order to actually cure yourself.
There should also be an NPC added (if there isnt one) that sells belladonna, since eating that prevents you from being infected during its duration (not sure if true or not as I have never tested it, if it isn’t, simply add a NPC that sells some kind of “blocker” of being infected)
This post is turning out longer than I had anticipated, but I want to jot down all my thoughts about lycanthropy, so it is what it is.
my last part is:
True Lycanthropy as an award.
Major award:
ECL +4 (Maybe 3? I dunno)
Base race: Human (to keep it simple, but maybe allow the common base ones that can attain lycantrophy?)
Base abilities
Can use the -track command
Ability to infect other willing targets
This would work similar to a thrall branding mechanically, where they get tied to the lycan who turned them, other lycans can "smell" this connection on them. (see it like a slave branding who turned them) and in every other sense the infected lycan works like if infected by a NPC.
+5 to maintain control in lycan form
Ability to use class features/spells/abilities in lycan form
alignments allowed:
True neutral, Chaotic neutral, Neutral evil, Chaotic evil
Lycanthropic string:
Wererat: +4 dex -2 str
Keen senses
Skill affinity: spot/listen (+2)
Werecat: +2 dex / wis, -2 con
Keen senses
Greater skill affinity: Bluff (+4)
Werewolf:+2 str / int, -2 dex
Keen senses
Greater skill affinity: leadership (+4)
Wereboar: +4 str - 2 dex
Keen senses
Greater skill affinity: Discipline (+4)
When picking your variant of lycanthropy this is the shape that character will take when transformed, this choice is permanent.
My thinking with the stat bonuses and keen senses is that those will apply in both human/lycan form, but another way to go about it is to force it all even more into the lycan forms and have them act as a hard bonus only while in lycan form
this is obviously a complete wishlist if I could have everything my way, and to me at least, would not make it something that would outshadow other rewards, the numbers are something I based out of simply trying to keep it balanced, the + bonus to willsave against is intended to bring it up so its *possible* to maintain control without a hyper-willsave build, but still shouldn't make iteasy to attain without sacrificing things for your more average options and still leave a decent chance at losing control.