I will introduce myself. My name is Khuzd, I'm 33 years old, I'm Spanish (so be patient with my English), I live in Barcelona, and I played BECMI from 1986 to 1997, more or less. After that, work, marriage, children...
This year I'm coming again to THE GAME (Mystara, Known World, OD&D). I've been reading this forum and www.pandius.com for nearly a year. What a great work! Congratulations!
I play only once a month with my brother and some friends of him. It is difficult to find the time. I read with great illusion about you guys who already play with your children. It sounds fantastic. I can't wait. My older son is 4 years old... OK, let's be patient. :-)
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GREATER LICANTHROPY
Somebody (sorry, I don't remember who) suggested about REAL dangerous licanthropy. He suggested that were-creatures could be designed as having invulnerability to magic weapons. These way, only silver weapons and fire would harm them. No more two-handed swords +3 cutting down to little pieces our werewolves. Please, Mr. Warrior, use your silver dagger and remember, you are BASIC, not EXPERT with daggers.
It sounds great but... I suspect that very soon (as soon as they kill their first dragon and take the money of the treasure) all our heroes will bath in silver all their magical weapons, swords, axes... According to PC4 this would be a good solution for them.
Anyway, I still think "Greater Licanthropy" could be used. Let's consider these ideas:
1) "Normal" licanthropy came from Alphatia. "Greater licanthropy" (GL) too. It has been recently created by Inmortal Alphaks. He has released "Greater Werecreatures" to extend "Greater Licanthropy" (GL).
2) Alphaks' goal is to destroy Alphatia. Alphatia is plenty off wizards. So GL makes werecreatures (werebats, boars, tigers...) very resistant to magic. I suggest that all Greater Werecreatures enjoy:
+8 saving throws vs. Spells, Magic....
Inmunity to Charm, Sleep, Hold, Paralysis...
Inmunity to damage spells such as Magic Missile, Lightning, Ice Storm... all area damage spells based in cold, electricity...
But they are not inmune to fire based magic (Fireball, Meteor Swarm...) even though they enjoy permanent natural protection such as by "Protection from fire" spell.
They are also damaged by normal fire (1-2 hp, +strength bonuses if hit with a torch), by silver weapons and by wolfsbane.
Magical weapons DO NOT harm Greater Licanthropes. A Longsword+3 bathed in silver, would inflict 1d8 (or more, depending mastery level) without the +3 bonus. A normal nonmagical longsword bathed in silver would do the same.
Only magical weapons designed specially againts licanthopes would damage Greater Werecreatures as usual. For example, a dagger +2, +4 against werecreatures would be +4 against Greater Werecreatures.
3) Alphaks Creater Werecreatures are ALWAYS evil, very evil (never neutral or good), and loyal to Enthropy and Alphaks himself. But they tend to go to the Known World, to spread GL between normal werecreatures. They do not really enjoy being at magic-filled Alphatia.
4) GL spreads exactly as normal licanthropy. A normal werecreature can be infected by GL exactly as mortal creatures. In fact, greater werecreatures are trying to "up-grade" veteran normal werecreatures and make them join to Alphaks guide. Inmortals such as Mrikikat (wererat, lord of the sewers of UnderThyatis) will of course be furious when their folk start to change to GL and go to Alphaks.
5) As GL is relatively a new development, PC heroes do not know about it... until they discover -the hard way- that "this damned wolf does not bleed nor dies!" and "my magic missile is useless!" You still can rely in classical fireballs and big grups of peasants with torches.
6) You can create secret societies or knigthley orders of traditional wereboars or werebears (neutral alignment) fighting against Greater Licanthropy. Maybe the PCs are some of them (if using PC4, I prefer using it only to create powerful evil werecreatures) o may be they help the PCs or ask for their help.
7) You can have Alphaks creating armies of greater weresharks to attack Alphatian undersea Kingdom of Aquas... Underwater, fireballs are not a danger for these creatures. Also, imagine full villages of evil greater wereseals at far-away Yannivey Islands, Qeodhar or Norwold, waiting an order to attack King Ericall or Alphatia. Imagine Alphaks offering the "upgraded" licanthropy in Glantri... Princes would have problems...
This way, you can credibly create lots of powerful creatures -with an epidemic sense of horror- to bring some action into the life of medium to high level characters.
Thank you to you all.
Khuzd
I'd think that just for pure game balance there'd have to be some counterbalance or weakness to these greater werecreatures to keep them from absolutely dominating the world. (Remember, PC4 talks about why *regular* weres haven't yet taken over large chunks of the planet, and its best answers are "they haven't been around that long, they don't have strong internal unity, and they don't have the leadership".) Maybe there's something simple and common that can be used to turn a greater werecreature back into human form (where they lack immunities and can be beaten on). Maybe there's a clerical spell or magical item that suppresses a greater werecreature's immunity. Maybe greater werecreatures just die during the Day of Dread. But let's face it - if total magic immunity could be easily spread across an army of followers, *someone* would have come up with it before now. And Mystara would be in ruins.
Somebody (sorry, I don't remember who) suggested about REAL dangerous licanthropy. He suggested that were-creatures could be designed as having invulnerability to magic weapons. These way, only silver weapons and fire would harm them. No more two-handed swords +3 cutting down to little pieces our werewolves. Please, Mr. Warrior, use your silver dagger and remember, you are BASIC, not EXPERT with daggers.
In 3E this is exactly how this works already. Lycanthropes have DR 5 (or 10) vs silver.
Some monsters are vulnerable to certain materials, such as alchemical silver, adamantine, or cold iron. Attacks from weapons that are not made of the correct material have their damage reduced, even if the weapon has an enhancement bonus.
Some monsters are vulnerable to magic weapons. Any weapon with at least a +1 magical enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls overcomes the damage reduction of these monsters. Such creatures’ natural weapons (but not their attacks with weapons) are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
So that means that a werewolf with DR 5/silver applies the damage reduction to any non silvered weapon. However a vampire with DR 10/silver and magic would take normal damage from silvered weapons, or magic weapons.
I actually wrote an article several years ago about different forms of lycanthropy. It does take some liberties with standard canon for Mystara, but still it might be useful to you. It can be found in the vaults here:
http://pandius.com/lyctreat.html
I wanted to do something very similar to what you are suggesting by creating different strains of lycanthropy (some more deadly than others). The article doesn't contain any real stats (it's system agnostic), but I'll leave some suggestions here.
Mythic Lycanthropy - created by the vampire kings of old Taymora, this strain is the worst of the worst. I'd modify the 3E lycanthrope template to do the following:
Hybrid form only. Once a lycanthrope changes, they never change back to their former selves. In addition I might use dire animals for the template instead of normal animals
DR 10 / magic - they can only be harmed by magic weapons
Fast Healing 3 - They heal 3 points per round. (less than a vampire, but still scarry).
Ancient Lycanthropy - Modified version of Mythic Lycanthropy created by the Nithians to mitigate some of the worst effects of the disease.
Human and animal form - hybrid form very rare. Only normal animals allowed for template (no dires)
DR 10 / silver and magic - they can be harmed by silver or magic
no fast healing
Modern Lycanthropy - what we know and love today
all forms available
DR 5 / silver - less Damage Reduction, but can only be hurt by silvered weapons
So that means that a werewolf with DR 5/silver applies the damage reduction to any non silvered weapon. However a vampire with DR 10/silver and magic would take normal damage from silvered weapons, or magic weapons.
Almost right
DR 10/Silver and magic means a weapon must be both silver and magic to bypass the damage reduction. DR 10/ Silver or magic means a silver weapon or a magic weapon will bypass damage reduction. Its a small symantec difference, but it makes a very big difference in the ease of an encounter.So I revise my previous statement. I would make Mythical Lycanthropy DR 10 / silver or magic. The two together is too much IMO.