Wandering Monsters: Changing Shape

Why is it that, despite lycanthrope supposedly being viewed as a curse, it was just oh-so awesome in 3rd Edition?

I am not saying that I or anyone I knew actively sought it out, but if a werewolf just happened to bite you, and that bite resulted in, among other things, a boost to your Hit Dice (which also boosted your attack bonus, saving throws, and skill points), a Wisdom and natural armor bonus, damage reduction, a bonus feat, and so on, is that really so bad?

Sure, afflicted lycanthropes transform during the full moon and perform actions dedicated by their animal’s alignment, but half of them are Neutral, and werebears are even Lawful Good. I guess the only real drawback, in the case of the wererat and werewolf anyway, is that you can end up with the animal’s alignment, which in both cases is Chaotic Evil. On that note, why does your alignment change at all? Why are werebears Chaotic Good? Eberron gave some interesting and conflicting history to lycanthropes, which would be a lot better than “because this is how it was in an older edition”.

It is because of this that I liked how 4th Edition handled lycanthropes: if you got bit, you might contract moon frenzy. No animal form, no extensive stat boosts, just a penalty to Will and/or the chance of randomly attacking your allies (and it did specify allies, despite how silly this might seem). Sure, it did not keep in with the folklore by causing you to involuntarily transform and go on a murder-spree, but then Dungeons & Dragons has always selectively chosen which parts of which mythologies it adheres to, and more importantly there was no silver lining.

I also preferred how 3rd and 4th Edition handled harming them: the former gave them a combination of fast healing and damage resistance against non-silvered weapons, while the latter gave them regeneration, which could be shut down for a bit when they were hit with a silvered weapon. In both cases this made silver weapons useful, but not necessary, which is what I would prefer, especially since against the typical commoner they are still pretty potent.

I think that an animal should affect one physically and mentally, why do werebears tend to live in cabins in the woods? Why do they act as wardens for an area? I am all for defining some physical and personality traits, especially when they are thematic to the animal (like wererats being thin, wiry, and sly), but without a compelling story reason giving, for example, werebears a global preference for specific types of buildings and self-appointed roles does not make sense to me.

I am also confused as to how doppelgangers, broadly described as “parasitic shapechangers that live off the efforts of others,” are Neutral. At the least adopting the identity of someone else in order to acquire wealth strikes me as Chaotic Neutral, if not outright Chaotic Evil, particularly for the ones that like to mentally plunder prisoners on a daily basis. Also, what is with immunity to sleep and charm effects? Likewise reading minds it is not really explained, but I guess that it is at least immediately useful to their agenda.

Flesh Golems, Vampires, and Werewolves

Oh my.

Flesh Golem
This Monster Vault excerpt has a new stat block for a flesh golem and master vampire, as well as werewolf moon frenzy (complete with a different disease layout). One thing of note is that it looks like they’re taking the lack of fluff thing from Monster Manual to heart, as flesh golems feature seven paragraphs of text dedicated to their creation methods, and lack of biological needs and social etiquette. Aside from that, here’s the rundown of notable changes in the Monster Vault version.

• Hit points are unchanged
• Defenses are equal to or lower than the older version
• Resist 10 cold
• Fire attacks cause it to flee as a free action, and if it cannot move at least half its speed it grants combat advantage
• When it takes lightning damage it gets to make a basic melee attack
• Slam is slightly more accurate and deals a lot more damage (11 more points on average), and becomes more accurate when its bloodied
• Double attack also causes its attacks to prone targets that it hits
• Golem rampage is reworded, but basically does the same thing. The old version made it clear that it provokes opportunity attacks and attacks friend and foe alike, and while the new version uses the terms “move” and “creatures”, I think it could be easily interpreted incorrectly
• Berserk attack is unchanged

I like this one a lot more because its afraid of fire and gets a boost from lightning, like Frankenstein’s monster (which it is so obviously based off of). I also like that when it gets bloodied it gets a bit more dangerous, not just with the extra attacks it gets (good for an elite), but also because they become more accurate. This lends itself narratively to the idea of a wounded beast frantically lashing out. All these work together to mechanically enforce the core concept, and perhaps allowing players to sympathize with it if you want to make it more intelligent and/or free-willed.

Master Vampire
Vampires get a similar treatment in the fluff department, but since there’s no real cohesive vampire statblock it’s kind of hard to make a direct comparison. For example, sunlight usually destroys minions instantly, but either doesnt do anything to other vampires, or just stops their regeneration. Some are vulnerable to radiant damage, some just dont give a fuck. In the case of this vampire, sunlight deals radiant damage, and all radiant damage stops their regeneration, making it super effective.

Its claw deals more damage than an elite war troll vampire, and while its bite can only be usd on dazed, dominated, or stunned opponents the damage is insanely high (32 average) and heals him by almost a quarter of his max hit points. He can turn into a cloud of bats, making him insubstantial, stealthier, and granting him a fast fly speed. Since its supposed to be a swarm, I’m assuming the insubstantial is a fast method for saying “he takes less damage from attacks”. Dominating gaze takes a standard action to use, still works on one creature at a time, and only lasts for a turn (thank god). His last little trick is that when he is bloodied, he can turn into a mist form, which works mostly the same except that the vampire can only do it after he takes damage while bloodied. It makes him insubstantial and gives him a fly of 12.

I like the concentration of traditional vampiric themes. Other vampires sometimes had one or two abilities, but they were wildly inconsistent.

Lycanthrope
Unfortunately the only statblock is for the new werewolf moon frenzy disease. The differences are slight and only present in stages two and three; during stage 2 the victim only makes one attack when bloodied as opposed to making save each turn, and during stage 3 the victim makes a free attack each time she is struck instead of going for the closest target. To make matters worse, free attacks made in both stages are only against allies. Moon frenzy was already pretty annoying, a nice change from 3rd Edition when it could actually be quite advantageous, but now it’s even worse.