Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kuronue 04-15-07, 07:25 PM	According to the SRD entry for werewolf: Alignment: Always chaotic evil But then, under the lycanthrope template (the more useful entry for PCs who don't necessarily want to be 1st-level human warrior and natural lycanthrope, using the following base ability scores: Str 13, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 8), it says: Alignment Any. Noble creatures such as bears, eagles, and lions tend to produce good-aligned lycanthropes. Sinister creatures such as rats, snakes, and wolves tend to produce evil-aligned lycanthropes. This is a reflection of how these animals are perceived, not any innate quality of the animal itself, so the alignment of the animal form can be arbitrarily assigned. It's clear to me that afflicted lycans are sort of forced into the default alignment after a time, but what about naturals? The second quote seems to indicate that they "tend to" be evil-aligned, but they CAN be, for instance, CN or even CG... is this interpretation correct? And also, if a CN werewolf bites a human, would they tend towards CE or CN?
tos_shai_hulud 04-15-07, 08:44 PM	The "tend to" indicates that different creatures have different temperments. Wolves are known to enjoy the hunt. They relish in the kill. This is an aspect of chaotic evil, so werewolves are always chaotic evil. All werewolves. Bears are noble, and defend their young. Werebears are always lawful good. It is the base animal that determines the alignment. You have to look at how each animal acts, and think what it would mean if the animal had intelligence. Obviously all animals are Neutral by default, but that is only because they don't know any better. They have no morality. If an animal enjoys killing, it is because that is a survival instinct. But, if it had intelligence, that would be a completely different story.
Kuronue 04-15-07, 09:06 PM	But then, it doesn't say that "sinister creatures produce evil alignments", it says the "tend to". And the alignment line doesn't read "special" or "by animal type", it literally reads "any".
Enigmous 04-15-07, 09:10 PM	Well I kind of have trouble seeing bears as good. Hell, I see wolves as better because of pack instincts.
Kuronue 04-15-07, 09:12 PM	Well I kind of have trouble seeing bears as good. Hell, I see wolves as better because of pack instincts. hence, the alignment of the animal form can be arbitrarily assigned.
tos_shai_hulud 04-15-07, 10:06 PM	If it is an established creature, then its alignment is listed as Always that alignment. When it is not established, then the DM can arbitrarily assign it. Like the weregoat I would make Neutral, the werevelociraptor would be chaotic evil, and the werehorse would be Lawful Good, but these are just my conceptions of the creatures.
Magrus 04-15-07, 10:14 PM	Personally, I never liked the alignment thing for were creatures. Animals act to survive, hence, they are neutral. There is nothing to say that a werewolf wouldn't do the same. Simply the bases out of myths that they were scary, and killed people. Which followed through into the game, they got slapped with a CE alignment. Then, the game designers thought "Well, what about other animals then?" and they worked up some others, and slapped other alignments on them for variety. Do whatever you want, they're only guidelines, and it's not like your adding stat bonuses or spell-like abilities. It won't upset a power balance of some sort. I most certainly don't run all Black Dragons as CE. That's boring and leads to meta-gaming.
Marcus Majarra 04-15-07, 10:18 PM	I believe the alignments for lycanthropes are a combination of animal instinct given humanoid cognizance. Basically, they consider the general animal behavior, and translate it to the kind of alignment an intelligent creature would have, if acting that way. Of course, myth also has a strong influence over the choice of alignment, what with the big bad wolf-man.
tos_shai_hulud 04-15-07, 10:19 PM	Depends on the campaign setting. Some settings I run very strict alignments. I am running Eberron and enjoying the looser alignment restrictions.
Neutronium_Dragon 04-16-07, 04:53 AM	It's not really based on the animal's instincts, but rather on the mythology of the animal in medieval European folklore. To them, wolves were vicious and savage, and thus werewolves are. Etc. It's assumed that any lycanthrope type will be given an "Always X" based on that consideration. On the other hand, neither of the official settings adhere to this. Both the FR and Eberron freely ignore the "always" designation and treat it as "often" instead. There are good-aligned werewolves and evil-aligned werebears (and so on) in both settings' official material. Hence, if you want to ignore the always part, there's certainly precedent for doing so.
Evil DM Mk3 04-16-07, 06:32 AM	Exactly. Look at the animal in question's assumed alignemnt, ie what eveyone thinks they are like. Dogs are loyal (lawful), eagels are noble (good) bears are often depicted as wise and/or gentle (again good), snakes are almost unveraly sly and evil (um, evil) It is true that animals just strive to survive, but like a lot in DnD (and real life too) history and facts don't matter. STORIES matter.
Kuronue 04-18-07, 09:30 AM	One of my players came up with: "It's basically fighting off the inner beast; when you're afflicted, the beast is likely to win over time by wearing you down, but when you're born with the inner beast, you learn to deal with it and make peace with it and it doesn't sway your alignment too badly." I think I might change the houserule that instead of being ANY alignment, they can be within one step for natural, so you can have CN or NE werewolves, barring divine intervention of some kind. Or should it be two steps (giving for werewolves a range from CE, CN, CG, NE, LE, or N, but not LG or NG....)