monk/werewolf aligment

[Scurvy Cur]

The issue with adhering to PnP rules, is that no where does it give any reasonable and satisfactory answer as to why werewolves must be CE, and werebears must be NG.

You don't actually have to even touch on this one for Arelith's purposes for explaining why a pack of good aligned werewolves would run into some significant alignment dissonance. Just look at the function, and how it has been scripted on Arelith. Essentially, if my reading of the mechanics is correct, there is always the chance on entering werewolf form that your character goes berserk and hostile to all non-werewolves, regardless of how well you build (Mith doesn't seem to have tagged it as mind-affecting, so immunity effects are not going to stop it).

Any creature that turns into a potentially indiscriminate furry murderbeast, with the potential to turn innocent bystanders into indiscriminate furry murderbeasts, all of which stand a significant (read, non-zero) chance of brutally slaughtering anyone that comes into contact with them has significant alignment implications. This sort of behavior is, as a rule, generally chaotic and generally evil, and circumstance can only mitigate it so far. I would argue that no good alignment, and probably very few lawful alignments, jive happily with this unless it is an involuntary condition. On Arelith, the condition can only be considered involuntary for so long: Wolfsbane isn't that hard to get to, and "Not randomly slaughtering a bunch of innocents" should probably be priority number one for anyone trying to hold a good alignment, or at least close to the top of the priority list.

There's some wiggle room for people trying to utilize the power of the disease, while mitigating the risks it poses, but given that the risks of the disease are exclusively to non-infected bystanders, this is a choice that verges more soundly into neutral territory. There's no noble self sacrifice for a greater cause involved here; there's a frank willingness to gamble other people's lives, no matter how mitigated the risks, to have a little extra power.

[KregorRanger]

As I see it, and I've said it before...

If the general RP direction of the server, and devs in general didn't give a damn whether we actually paid a modicum of mind to the Forgotten Realms lore, they wouldn't have bothered to set the server in the Forgotten Realms universe.

They wouldn't have bothered to establish a hard point in the setting timeline that the server is set in.

They certainly wouldn't bother to publish official diversions from the setting lore.

And the lead Dev wouldn't be throwing his two cents into the thread on what he feels is a bad canonical direction for werewolf alignment.

[Dinosaur Space Program]

As I see it, and I've said it before...

If the general playerbase and devs in general didn't give a damn whether we actually paid a modicum of mind to the Forgotten Realms lore, they wouldn't have bothered to set the server in the Forgotten Realms universe.

I had a conversation with a friend on this exact thing. Ease of access, background for characters, general awareness of lore and how to interact with it, all allow for new characters and players to step into Arelith and have an idea what is going on without having to read extensive backlogs of custom lore. Canon and fluff from the campaign backgrounds Are important for character interactions and knowledge of how things actually interact within the setting which Arelith is in.

This admittedly could be an entire topic in and of itself. But I firmly believe that canon and fluff are important to keep in mind as guidelines to what we do so if nothing else, we know what we are an exception to and people know how to react to our RP outside of 'What I say goes, so deal with it'. Roleplay is the coming together of factors, having a baseboard for all of us to draw from puts us on equal footing and knowledge base if our characters have reason to draw on it. It also serves to give expectations of how others will react to what we have created and are playing so that the subtleties of what we have done are not entirely lost.

Canon information can only improve RP in my mind because it gives us material to work with and for others to understand where it came from without it being entirely out of left field and leaving those interacting with you at a loss for how they are supposed to react or feel on things given their Own RP.

[Norfildor]

If I remember correctly, in previous incarnations of the forums the Devs themselves stated on multiple occassions that cannonically Arelith is an animal of it's own. This was supposed to be for the sake of players being able to play the game without prior rigorous study of sourcebooks or campaign settings.

So in other words, if you want to embrace and channel your inner D&D nerd, then by all means do so and it will be awsome! Just don't expect everyone to adhere to the same standards. If someone wants to play the farmboy with the scythe whose knowlege of Toril's landscape stretches from Cordorian docks to the slopes of Skull Crags or likes to roleplay as that eccentric fireball flinging sorcerer who actually knows less about the weave than the farmoy with the scythe, then they can do it and should not be discouraged just because they do not have the access to forgotten realms sorcebooks for one reason or another.


As an example, if we look back at the evolution of the Underdark server, then we could say that every change to the module has been made true with the regards to this very idea. In it's first iteration the server was very cannonic. The city of Udos Dro'xun had been made, with it's cultural, political and social structure, as a very close approximation of the cannonic city of Menzoberanzan. You'd have players of drow characters (and I used to be one of them) who'd have entire conversations in xanalres (not the -language, which didn't exist back then, but actual drow words written down while speaking "common"), adhere to a very strict social structure between the characters and engage in a rather complicated maze of politcal, religious and cultural plots. Needless to say that the RP used to be cannonically very hardcore but at the same time admittedly utterly brutal and unforgiving towards anyone who wanted to take part in it without having any clue about what's actually going on.
Then, gradually with the inclusion of Jhared's trading post, Urblexis Grond, the cataclysm and eventually the introduction of Andunor, every change remained consistent with the direction of retracting from the original cannon dependant environment and moving towards the wys/wyg environment receptive to a wider scope of character concepts and playstyles that is present today.

[Mithreas]

Arelith is based on 3e, with influences from many other sources (including Discworld, Elder Scrolls etc). We try to keep close to 3e simply to have an easy source for canon. However, Seven's point about 'why' is actually a very important one - if you can't answer 'why', how can you build a consistent, deep and meaningful character?

Becoming a werewolf doesn't change your alignment. Equally, taking levels in RDD doesn't either. Many years ago I played an RDD cleric, whose upbringing was LG but whose blood pulled her towards CE. She used to get really angry, and regret it later, but much of her identity was built around the struggle between the person she thought she ought to be, and the darkness inside her.

I'm totally open to people doing a similar thing with werewolf. The key question they have to answer though, is why they accept the curse and don't try to fix it. If they account for that in their RP, then there's a whole world of possible inner conflict to explore.

[P Three]

The issue with adhering to PnP rules, is that no where does it give any reasonable and satisfactory answer as to why werewolves must be CE, and werebears must be NG.

If you can't explain "why" to me, I just ignore it. Not all of DnD is reasonable let alone logical.

Same reason all gold dragons are LG and all Blues are LE. They simply are what they are.

[Scurvy Cur]

Becoming a werewolf doesn't change your alignment. Equally, taking levels in RDD doesn't either. Many years ago I played an RDD cleric, whose upbringing was LG but whose blood pulled her towards CE. She used to get really angry, and regret it later, but much of her identity was built around the struggle between the person she thought she ought to be, and the darkness inside her.

I'm totally open to people doing a similar thing with werewolf. The key question they have to answer though, is why they accept the curse and don't try to fix it. If they account for that in their RP, then there's a whole world of possible inner conflict to explore.

To be fair, Werewolf does something RDD does not: It runs the risk, every time it is employed, of killing allies and innocents and/or spreading the disease. Any time you give a character an ability that runs the RNG risk of exploding innocent targets, the use of that ability has a hard time staying within the confines of either law or good. I won't say it is impossible to play someone of a more lawful or goodish bent with lycanthropy as a long term thing, but only because impossible is a difficult label to attach to any RP. There will always be an extenuating circumstance where the risk is worth it because there simply is no other option, but continuous, repeated use of that ability is very hard to square with concern for the safety of the innocent (one of the things I do not consider to be optional for a good alignment), and shows a willingness to gamble on outcomes that at the very least trends chaotic.

I think a LG lycanthrope would have some serious difficulty answering the question in bold, due to the fact that, at least long term, lycanthropy is a conscious choice on Arelith, and one that places innocents at risk. Keeping and using the disease is, to me, no different than a LG character using WoB or Implosion in a crowded street to stop a fleeing criminal: a conscious choice to expose innocents to collateral damage, which really doesn't fit the alignment.

As a disclaimer: this naturally does not apply to people that get caught by surprise by the disease, and for whom the whole event is a strictly unforeseen accident. That's going to happen pretty frequently, I would guess. The telling part, for me, comes when a character decides to keep the furry murdermobile in the garage.

TL;DR version: Catching the disease does not change your alignment away from law or good, but I'm pretty sure keeping it around and causing accidental harm that could have been stopped by taking an easy cure will do just that.

[Dinosaur Space Program]

This brings back to my point on guidelines. Which many people seemed to read as 'Your RP is wrong if you do not follow these rules'. That was not my intent. But the canon/fluff of spells, abilities, circumstances when it comes to evil and good choices are pretty pertinant. My original post was written more as a 'I hope people are keeping how other characters Might take your willing use of lycanthropy in mind given the baselines we are all coming from.' Namely that lycanthropy is not a positive thing when it comes to werewolves nor do Selunites (as a whole) encourage the use of evil lycanthrope forms for Anything.

Scurvy hit on a very key point that I was getting at but did not clarify well. Namely that being a werewolf does not make you CE. It is your actions in keeping it and the collateral damage associated with this Decision to keep it that canonically turns you CE which is why the 3.5 edition has that as a ruling. Your decision to be a frenzied murder machine, willfully embracing your feral bloodthirsty urges, is in keeping with accepting a CE alignment.

Once more, I will restate as I did prior that there are exceptions and I expect to see them. This does not make that RP wrong. I would argue that no RP is truly wrong if it is vindicated in action, characterization, and story. But taking the 'guidelines' into consideration also means you are fully informed as to what Other People might see your RP as. Arelith is a community of characters associating, fighting, interacting and therefore no character exists in a vacuum. Therefore, I doubt there is going to be a large community of characters seeing a disease vector lycanthrope running around and going 'This seems like a positive thing! We need more of this!' And not instead hunting them down.

[Mithreas]

To be fair, Werewolf does something RDD does not: It runs the risk, every time it is employed, of killing allies and innocents and/or spreading the disease.

Sure! Though one can certainly play an RDD with similar tendencies. Just because it's not mechanically forced on you doesn't mean you can't RP it (or for that matter, a totem druid who gets too animalistic at times, etc etc). 100% of Arelith lycanthropes will have control issues vs likely only a small proportion of RDDs/totems/etc, and that will surely impact how people react to them.

I totally agree that trying to employ lycanthropy as a weapon for Good is a really risky thing to do. I maintain it is possible to build a plausible character with that in mind (though possibly not one with a Wisdom score of 10 or higher )

Selune's portfolio includes Goodly lycanthropes, so I can see her church trying to assist a Good aligned character with the curse. Equally, the advice they are most likely to give is 'get rid of it'!

[Urch]

Reading all of this makes me think of Sergeant Angua from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

[Dalenger]

*come back from break, logs on, and sees what monster his tiny post (which was answered in the first comment) has become*

Ahem.

So I suppose to answer my original question... a monk-wolf would be very difficult (nay, impossible) to pull off. Thank you.

[P Three]

Mith-

Selune's "good lycanthropes" things also refers to the normally good aligned lycans, though. Like werebears or Lythari.

Also, are Lythari a thing here?

[Scurvy Cur]

*come back from break, logs on, and sees what monster his tiny post (which was answered in the first comment) has become*

Ahem.

So I suppose to answer my original question... a monk-wolf would be very difficult (nay, impossible) to pull off. Thank you.

I think it would be better to say "handle with extreme caution". It can probably be done, but be sure you've answered why your lawful character is doing this. It's good general practice for all characters of all alignments, but it's worth understanding that lycanthropy will always have the chance of your character losing control, no matter how you choose to play it.

[The Rambling Midget]

Also, are Lythari a thing here?

Only with a Major Award.

[DM Merricat]

Also, are Lythari a thing here?

Only with a 5% roll. Source here.

[P Three]

Thanks! Never really thought about playing one, but in case I do...

[Seven Sons of Sin]

The issue with adhering to PnP rules, is that no where does it give any reasonable and satisfactory answer as to why werewolves must be CE, and werebears must be NG.

If you can't explain "why" to me, I just ignore it. Not all of DnD is reasonable let alone logical.

Same reason all gold dragons are LG and all Blues are LE. They simply are what they are.

This is why Dungeons and Dragons should never be accepted at face value. As Dinosaur Program (Or Scurvy Cur?) mentioned, the whole thing has been written with incredible bias, printed with incredible bias, but this does not mean we should accept or rationalize everything that's been presented.

Why all werewolves have to be CE, is beyond me. But Scurvy Cur explains the CE-ness logically. That's the sort of "why" we're looking for. To hell with what books say here and there, justification will have to be found on our own terms, through our own reasoning. DnD doesn't account for everything (nor should it) and the entire purpose of everything written is meant to have an immense amount of interpretation (initially, for DMs, now for everyone).

There are many ways you can "spin" the curse. To justify it, and retain some good-ish alignment.

However, what I certainly think needs to happen now, is an increase in the rarity of the cure, more risk for the victim, and so forth.

[Dalenger]

However, what I certainly think needs to happen now, is an increase in the rarity of the cure, more risk for the victim, and so forth.

This is something I've been thinking about, and yes.

While wolf's isn't exactly common, it's still far too easy to come across. Lycantropy is supposed to be nay impossible to cure, where rumors of a cure are mere speculation and many consider it safer just to kill the werewolf than try to help it.

My suggestion (and if enough people agree with me, I will actually put it in the suggestion box):

Suggestion 1) Add a layer of complexity to making a cure. The raw materials needed to cure could start with wolf's... but perhaps from there, you have to take it to a series of NPCs so that they can do some work on it, until you have the final cure.

Suggestion 2) Make a high DC craftable recipe in cooking/alchemy, starting with wolf's and ending with the cure.

[P Three]

However, what I certainly think needs to happen now, is an increase in the rarity of the cure, more risk for the victim, and so forth.

This is something I've been thinking about, and yes.

While wolf's isn't exactly common, it's still far too easy to come across. Lycantropy is supposed to be nay impossible to cure, where rumors of a cure are mere speculation and many consider it safer just to kill the werewolf than try to help it.

My suggestion (and if enough people agree with me, I will actually put it in the suggestion box):

Suggestion 1) Add a layer of complexity to making a cure. The raw materials needed to cure could start with wolf's... but perhaps from there, you have to take it to a series of NPCs so that they can do some work on it, until you have the final cure.

Suggestion 2) Make a high DC craftable recipe in cooking/alchemy, starting with wolf's and ending with the cure.

Disagree. Mainly because I have no desire for Storm to be a werewolf, for example. She is in a position where while she never goes where the wolves generally are, if she's attacked by Town Wolves, I want her able to acquire a cure so her entire life doesn't become pointless for Gods know how long. There needs to be a cushion of suspension for people who are simply not interested in that kind of RP and who have chars who would stop at nothing to end the curse.

[Scurvy Cur]

I actually think that leaving the cure accessible to anyone that wants to get it, but non-trivial to get (as it is right now), is about ideal.

This may be personal preference, but I think the RP opportunities presented by lycanthropy are much greater when keeping it past an IG month or two is a conscious choice. When it is, essentially, voluntary as a long term condition, it opens the floor for a lot of mistrust and judgement issues. Does your character react with acceptance to someone who has decided to try to live with the curse, or do they draw a harder "Cure it or we shun you" line? Do they trust the other PC enough to let them walk free while infected with lycanthropy, or do they insist that all lycanthropes be imprisoned for the times that the change is involuntary?

If it becomes too hard to cure, it also becomes too hard to condemn the people that choose to just carry the curse; in the end, it's not their fault that they've had it for years. Under the current system, it is. And I sort of like that.

Then again, I'm openly hoping that lycanthropes are treated with suspicion and unease at best, revulsion and mob violence at worst. Not only is there more conflict and tension this way, but it puts a significant poignancy behind any time they are extended trust.

Also, anything that removes grounds to treat lycanthropes as the happy fuzzy puppy club IC is good in my book.

[Dalenger]

Mmkay, it would seem I'm rather outvoted. I understand (and do partially agree) with where you are coming from: for those who do not want to RP wolfiness, we shouldn't make them go through a whole ordeal in order to go back to their planned RP... so I suppose my original suggestions are a bit extreme.
I still think that getting a cure to such an extreme curse should have more depth. However, I cannot come up with a better solution besides just making it more complicated (which would seem rather unpopular) so I suppose I'll just stop talking now.

[DreamOfCream]

Seven, I get where you are coming from, but I think you are trying to apply human exposition to a very alien world. The setting of the Forgotten Realms has been made to foster conflict. Banites hate Tormites. Red Dragons hate Gold Dragons. Sun elves are racist. Drow like slaves. This is much like Tolkien does in Lord of the Rings. Melkor, the Ungoliant, Sauron, Balrogs... why are they hellbent on conquering the Middle Earth?

Tolkien does not try to address these issues, like some philosophical debate. He says, look this is the framework of Middle Earth, now lets focus on the war, romance, and adventure..

I take the same outlook with Forgotten Realms. Here is the framework, now let's make some conflict with it. Of course throwing in some morals in characters can be good and give conflict more dimensions. But I find the wishywashy philosophical debates over whats good and wrong, boring. I quite enjoy a Banite waging war against Cordor soley because it will please his/her God.

But hey, this is a big server, lots of people with different prefferences, so do what you want. I am just offering some advice to help get over the same conundrum that I faced for awhile.

[KregorRanger]

However, what I certainly think needs to happen now, is an increase in the rarity of the cure, more risk for the victim, and so forth.

The cure has already become rarer than it used to be, and placed in places that either require you to be 1) strong enough to get it, or 2) have to form parties, or 3) interact with other PCs with access, if you don't have said access.

Also, the risk is already stupidly high, as you don't even have to make contact with a lycan, with the current code implementation for infection. You can be shooting one from a hundred feet away, or even just standing aside, not actually engaged in combat, while others are fighting nearby.

Tend to agree with PThree on this one: If you choose to play the lycan and run with it, great. My main has no intent or desire to contract a lasting infection of lycanthropy, and I sure as hells don't intend that it will take me days and random chances to be cured every time I get "scratched," and now with players roaming around even more to deliberately spread it. That's the sort of situation that will lead me to just stop playing, because spending half my playtime curing my own lycanthropy, that isn't fun to me.

[Dinosaur Space Program]

Seven, I get where you are coming from, but I think you are trying to apply human exposition to a very alien world. The setting of the Forgotten Realms has been made to foster conflict. Banites hate Tormites. Red Dragons hate Gold Dragons. Sun elves are racist. Drow like slaves. This is much like Tolkien does in Lord of the Rings. Melkor, the Ungoliant, Sauron, Balrogs... why are they hellbent on conquering the Middle Earth?

Tolkien does not try to address these issues, like some philosophical debate. He says, look this is the framework of Middle Earth, now lets focus on the war, romance, and adventure..

I take the same outlook with Forgotten Realms. Here is the framework, now let's make some conflict with it. Of course throwing in some morals in characters can be good and give conflict more dimensions. But I find the wishywashy philosophical debates over whats good and wrong, boring. I quite enjoy a Banite waging war against Cordor soley because it will please his/her God.

But hey, this is a big server, lots of people with different prefferences, so do what you want. I am just offering some advice to help get over the same conundrum that I faced for awhile.

This is a very good way of handling it. I personally find issue with people trying to say that the realms could be radically different than human history etc because it is a world in a bottle created by humans who based it off of human history and whatever weird thing they found at the bottom of a whiskey flask. A bottle made by a very small select population of people with high bias who were trying to make as much content as possible and then apply rules to it so people could roll dice. We cannot say that things would be radically different because we have no true way of conceptually handling an indepth view of the realms and D&D lore outside of the standards these people have loosely given us.

In the end, why all werewolves are CE was a Gameplay Choice. Which was then backed with behaviors and further lore when the writing staff felt like it. Werewolves were meant to be bad guys, something to fight or cure within the gameplay mechanics, but also run the risk of becoming the 'boogeyman' yourself. Because the fluff itself states that werewolves have bloodlust, wish to murder people, and have uncontrollably raging issues are why they are CE. It was a decision that was vindicated with further writing. You can ask Why on something like this but you can't without realizing it was entirely a slap dash judgement call that Then had further logic applied to it.

In the end, these somewhat randomized decisions or ones based out of old folklore (Aka wolves are evil and eat babies), are the basis and foundation of why the realms are even put together. The writing staff wanted pretty stark good vs evil poles on either side of the field so you could pick which one you wanted to punt the ball to.

In the end, how we take the canon we are given and Use it in our characters is what sets it apart. But they always exist as guidelines regardless and often Do vindicate themselves within the text. Scurvy and my examples of CE are expressly written under Lycanthropy in the monster manual. But you have to accept that werewolves are CE before you can accept the reasoning as to Why they are CE. It could have easily been weretigers or werebears if the writing staff had felt like it.

In the end, suspension of disbelief is important in all fantasy settings. If you look behind the curtain, you are just going to realize that in the grand scheme of things? It doesn't make sense. You have to accept some things as basic Rules of 'just how things are' and then the setting explains why it is that way compared to other things within it. You can't take an example and put it under an microscope and hope that how it is connected into things makes sense. Because it was never meant to stand alone in the first place.

Saying this, accepting some things as Evil some things as Good leaves a grey area for PCs to work within and play with and Have those philosophical debates because there are cemented, known factors of Good and Evil expressly written out for us to deal with. We got our goals. Now how do we want to handle the ball?

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As an addition concerning Lycanthropy vs Curing: Given the canon cure is greater restoration (Because its a lot rarer in a low level setting to get and expensive), I think wolfsbane hits the right note. There are going to be werewolf griefers who will be out to infect ALL the people ALL the time and frankly? I don't want to get on to see how many times I get infected in a given day and then sit on wolfsbane plants hoping someone petted it in the last two hours for a cure only for This to be taken away as well. It actually is already hard to cure it unless you know someone you can plant pet and is around near midnight near one. I don't really think we need to add to the issue here.

I would love to see a Little tightening up of the code for infection as well if possible. Getting infected from range attacks or being in the vicinity is going to become a pressing issue with a good portion of the server trying out werewolf forms. I also think it wouldn't be an issue to put in wolfsbane plants as seeds again given then it gives infected individuals a Few more options A and B it also gives another point of conflict for lycanthropes to engage in if they do not wish to PvP. Just bump the DC to successfully manage one through the roof so its a long term hard commitment to make one and thus it will be rarer for that fact. Give it a masterly damask weapon DC and a bizillion crafting points.

[Mithreas]

Lots of 'no' suggestions in this thread, but I do want to comment on why ranged weapons infect you. The code that's responsible runs -very- often so it's as simple as possible to minimise performance impact. I do want to improve it, but doing something that (e.g.) checks how close the character is to the werewolf is very expensive computationally.

My current thought is to check for having a melee weapon (or no weapon) equipped, which is a simpler check, but there are some other problems I'd like to address too. Not all of which are public knowledge