I have a player who is currently an afflicted lycanthrope, meaning he has contracted the curse of lycanthropy. He wants to eventually become undead (specifically, a mummy) and I know undead are immune to disease, but as lycanthropy is considered a contracted curse and not a contracted disease I am wondering if his lycanthrope template would remain or fall off.
[RPG] Can a lycanthrope become undead without losing its lycanthrope template
dnd-3.5elycanthropyundead
Related Solutions
The infobox makes it seem that loss of character control only happens if the PC embraces the curse and the DM chooses to take control of the character, and therefore simply not embracing the curse would suffice to keep the character as a lycanthrope complete with powerful boons like damage immunities but without any drawbacks. However, the lore earlier in the lycanthrope chapter suggests that the condition is impossible to resist during full moon:
A lycanthrope can either resist its curse or embrace it. By resisting the curse, a lycanthrope retains its normal alignment and personality while in humanoid form. It lives its life as it always has, burying deep the bestial urges raging inside it. However, when the full moon rises, the curse becomes too strong to resist, transforming the individual into its beast form --- or into a horrible hybrid form that combines animal and humanoid traits.
(from Monster Manual, page 206, under Curse of Lycanthropy)
Even a character that resists the curse is unable to control their bloodlust during full moon, as is traditional to werewolves in fiction. Ask your DM to keep track of the phase of the moon while you're infected so you know how fast you need to get a remedy or other countermeasures.
There is no rule, but Monster Manual in page 206-207 gives some insight on what usually happen when a creature is inflicted by lycanthropy.
In page 207, there is a sidebar that specifically describes what usually happen when a PC is inflicted by lycanthropy. One of them is what you're looking for:
The DM is free to decide that a change in alignment places the character under DM control until the curse of lycanthropy is removed.
A lycanthrope can either resist its curse or embrace it. By resisting the curse, a lycanthrope retains its normal alignment and personality while in humanoid form.
When you resist the curse, you retain your normal alignment and thus the control of your PC.
It lives its life as it always has, burying deep the bestial urges raging inside it.
You can imagine that there is another beast living inside you, waiting to be unleashed. Think of double personality. When the other personality comes out, you are not you, and thus you cannot control you.
However, when the full moon rises, the curse becomes too strong to resist, [...] When the moon wanes, the beast within can be controlled once again.
When the full moon comes, you cannot resist the curse, thus your alignment change, indicating that the "other you" is now awake in place of the usual you. The DM then can rule that they will control the character, instead of you, until the moon wanes.
Of course, you can ask your DM to fight control for the character, especially when you are about to tear your loved ones. Asking for WIS save seems pretty reasonable, and it will add a dramatic build up to the scene as you try very hard to fight the bloodlust.
But most of the rules for lycanthropy assume either the player can willing change between states, or they immediately turn permanently and under the DM's control until the curse is removed.
What is written in Monster Manual is not a rule, and nowhere is stated that affected PC must turn the control permanently to the DM. The exact wording is "The DM is free to decide", so they can choose to control the character or not.
A reminder for DM that choose to introduce lycanthropy to their game:
- Player can only control one thing: their PC.
- Losing control of your PC is frustrating.
- Avoid a prolonged lost control, unless your player consent for it.
Lycanthropy can be fun. Explain how lycanthropy takes away control from your PC, and how you will do it.
- When does the player lose control of their character?
On every full moon? Or also sometimes when they lose their temper? - How long does the player lose control of their character?
Permanently until the lycanthropy is cured? Or for only five minutes, while you describe how the PC grotesquely transform and slaughter a neighbouring village?
Establish an expectation on how you use lycanthropy to form a story with your players, and they will see the curse not as a curse, but a tool to enrich your story.
As a DM, I will fast forward the scene when they lose control, briefly describe what they are doing, then describe the result.
Best Answer
So by the rules, lycanthropy is neither a curse nor a disease; it’s a template. The “curse of lycanthropy” is really a curse that causes you to gain the template—the point being, once the template is applied, the curse isn’t really a part of the equation. Similarly, for all lycanthropy spreads “like” a disease, it isn’t one. This is why the curing lycanthropy section needs all these special rules for handling it—it isn’t your standard curse or disease. The spells break enchantment, heal, remove curse, and remove disease don’t normally do anything to a template, hence that section.
The section does not, however, address immunity. The template itself kind-of addresses the concern when creating a lycanthrope in the first place:
But templates are not removed if the creature would later become ineligible to receive them (indeed, many templates make changes to the creature that would invalidate themselves, so it would be a problem if they did). So while an undead creature is not allowed to become a lycanthrope (they have the undead type, not the humanoid or giant type), a lycanthrope could become undead—and nowhere is this mentioned as ending the lycanthropy.
Now, in your world, you could reasonably rule that lycanthropy is enough “like a disease” to not apply to the undead, or that it is otherwise incompatible with lycanthropy. But you could also very justifiably rule the opposite way, and that ruling is more consistent with the rules, both in their technicalities and also (I would argue) in their spirit.