Talk:Lycanthropy (3.5e Feat)

Balance

I have no idea if this is balanced. Does anyone see any obvious abuses?--TheDarkWad (talk) 18:56, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

The main problem here looks to be usefulness as a character levels (or rather, at various levels of play). At first level, this is pretty decent. Turn into a bat/hawk/flying-thing, bypass all kinds of stuff (too much stuff). At higher levels, turning into a CR1 or less animal is worse than most comparable shape-altering spells, and you paid a feat for it. Not sure where you really want to go from here. --Ganteka Future (talk) 21:28, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

What if I let you take apply templates to the animal so that its CR is yours minus 3 (min 1) or something? Would that make it more useful at higher levels? I don't know how to make this not broken at low levels. A designed it so that if you are flying chances are you won't have any offensive capacity, and so that it don't serve as defensive capacity once you are already in combat, but it does let you bypass a lot of things. I doubt it would be nearly as good for bypassing whole encounters if I put a 1/round per level per use restriction (maybe allowing you to spend another full round action to renew the duration without reverting to your original form) or something, but it still seems overly useful. Any other ideas?--TheDarkWad (talk) 22:51, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

A second recommendation. "Minimum 3 HD. Choose an animal form with a CR equal to 1/2 your ECL. You gain its abilities and restrictions, etc, as stated before. Each time you level you can choose a different animal. You keep your hp, BAB, saves, skills, and effective HD."

The 3 HD reason is because that's when flight first comes into play (via levitate) and subsequently the ability to bypass changes like "that cliff". The 1/2 CR thing puts it on par with Summon Monster spells. It's not terribly useful as a combat buff, but fine for utility, and is effectively Summon Monster (well, Summon Nature's Ally) at will, using yourself as the monster. If you think changing animals each level isn't very thematic, simply fine ways for them to scale, including in size through normal advancement. Seems reasonable enough, and you could always keep to a theme (like wolf, dire wolf, worg, fiendish worg, half-potato uber paragon worg...). -- Eiji-kun (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Summon Monster scaling is actually a lot less straightforward than that. At level 1, you summon a monster that's stronger than you are, but it only lasts for 1 round, so it's not likely to see the end of the battle. At level 20, you summon a monster that's much weaker than you are, but it lasts long enough that you can summon several times and then buff each summon individually before entering the battle. To say that a single use of Summon Monster IX at level 17 is at all like a single use of Summon Monster I is at level 1 is misleading. At High Balance, I'd suggest going with CR = your ECL minus 2. --Foxwarrior (talk) 05:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)