I once had a player who insisted on being a werebear. I refused his demand and it resulted in a four hour argument. The player quit the group shortly after. The reason I refused is a simple one. The player only wanted the fringe benefits of the werebear and had no interest in the role play there of. He was also well known for" not playing by the rules", as the microwaving his dice, among other things, was an indication. He just could not, or more to the point would not, understand that it would be grossly unbalanced to allow him to be a werebear while the rest of the group were level one zero exp adventures.
If the group works, the rules become less and less important as the story takes over, but for new groups, rules are very important, and anyone who expects the DM of a new group to make extraordinary exceptions for their sole benefit should expect refusal. Also, arriving at a game with a preconception of what your character is, before the DM has even talked about the campaign setting, really misses the point of co-operative story telling, mutual participation and that understanding of your character being a part of the setting, not the setting conforming to your character.
Elderos5 you could have allowed him to get what he wanted. The way to make him regret his choice is by having him hunted by ones that fear and loath lycanthropes. And after this continues time and time again disrupting what he thought would be neat,I believe he might have regretted the decision. You can also put a level cap on classes for lycanthropes as well. Or really piss him of to always have his character being pursued by big ugly yet sweet lady were-bears great for the amusement of all....i don't like letting people walk away angry from what's supposed to be a fun,social experience for everyone! 🐻
Elderos5, you should really look into "deal with the devil" tactics of DM'ing. When a player is pushy and demanding for something, I allow it. I never just allow it privately, I tell him to bring it up in a group gathering. That is so my veteran players can react when I shrug and say "fine, you want it so bad, so be it. Just tell me, are you sure?" That's usually when half my veteran players jump in and advise him against it and the other half giggle and say "do it, this should be good!" For a Werebear, I would give cursed conditions as the price for the player wanting one just for the benefits. An experience point penalty for every time he role plays or acts in defiance of a werebear persona. No experience gained for any combat that he, as a werebear, would not do. If he did eat as much as a werebear should, he involuntarily transforms into his bear form and hunts for food as an NPC until he gets his fill. If he keeps acting not very werebear-ish, other werebears will hunt him down to kill him. If there are gods related to werebears, every round of combat has a 25% chance of the god cursing the player character if the combat was started for a reason a werebear would not do (vulnerability to non-silver, 4pt to attack, damage and armor class penalty, or lethargy [slowed as the revered Haste spell]). Plus, the general experience point penalty of getting no experience points from combat if the player character is never at all at risk by being in combat. I have many house rules that I made over the decades. In my campaigns, I allow anything. I encourage imaginative players. I have regulations for the power mongers and the absurd so all players can enjoy the sessions. The player you commented about would easily fall under my "deal with the devil" house rule to bring about balance. You could alternatively make him buy racial feats per level gained but I doubt he would agree to have a mutated progressive form of something everyone else gets just by getting infected ("cursed").
A werebear paladin with Oath of the Ancients would be interesting. But I think a werebear druid would be more likely. But I can't get this mental image of a werebear barbarian with a polar bear look that has the Path of the Tundra Storm Herald. A humanoid polar bear moving toward you relentlessly, with swirling cloud of freezing mist swirling around it. Ice sickles hanging off parts of its armor and great axe which is resting over its should Conan style. Just like a polar bear stalking you on the tundra, not running but walking. Relentlessly coming with a disturbingly calm fury freezing the world around it.
my first ever game of D&D my character got turned into a werebear by her (my) complete stupidity Everyone in the group other than the DM was brand new to the game so he had made an NPC druid/wizard character to help us out. My character had found a huge stash of potions in the last dungeon and brought them all to her and asked her to help identify what they were since she had connections to the place where they were found. we identified all but one, and the druid told me that she had no idea what this last one was (the DM knew, but the druid didn't roll high enough to figure it out). I asked the DM how do we figure it out, because I had no idea what metagaming was or that what I was doing was against the rules lol. through the druid (and pretending that my character had asked that), He replies sarcastically "Guess you just have to drink it to find out." So me, being terrible at reading sarcasm, did exactly that. The druid starts freaking out, "YOU CAN'T JUST DRINK MYSTERY POTIONS, IT WAS A JOKE!" as it turns out, it was a potion of lycanthropy (I don't know if these are actually a thing since we were using homebrew rules, but he had used dice rolls to determine what it was). The DM asks me to roll to see what the phase the moon currently was, and sure enough, it was full, so right before our poor, sobbing druid, I start to shift. The DM is very scared and asked me to roll a D100 to see what I was going to turn into. We were currently on a ship, so that was almost certainly going to be very very bad since everything on that table was listed as chaotic evil except the bear. I roll whatever the bear was and from that day on, my character was a were-polar bear. I was playing a Dragonborn so we decided that when in my hybrid form, some of my hair stuck together and still resembled scales, and when we actually got someone to draw it, we realised she looked like a pangolin.I also didn't really understand alignments so when he told me I was lawful good in this form, I thought that just meant I was a goody-two-shoes type character, so every time she shifted, I made her compulsively clean, but because she was so big and kind of clumsy, she usually just made more of mess in the process. DM thought it was too funny to correct. So the pangolin-polar-bear-dragon who was a compulsive cleaner became a reoccurring legend in our campaigns. Found a room that had been trashed? someone would say "it looks like a pangolin-polar-bear-dragon's been through here". since I had no hair, my scales also turned white, which pissed my character off to no end because she had a personal grudge against white dragons specifically, and hated that she now looked like one.
I feel like Were-bears should differ depending on the species of bear being emulated. For example, a were-sloth bear should be on the chaotic side of things seeing as sloth bears are the most aggressive species of bear.
Avid gardeners, the bearboys are known for cultivating berry fields, fishing ponds and mouse and rat Warren's. As rodents are a large part of a bears diet wererats tend to steer very clear of them. Also a quiet relationship between wb and yondalas children can be loads of fun.
I greatly admire your ability to weave wonderful germs of ideas into each of your "Ecology of" vids. They are always much more than only a pithy description of what, but also of how, why, and even why not. There's at least one adventure at the bottom of every box of "AJ's Ecologies."
Story arc idea: your PC is camping and is approached by a werebear in humanoid form who offers to turn them into a werebear. They go off into the night and the player goes on and is eventually confronted by a pack of werebears who believe the PC to be the murderous werebear who turned them. After resolving the misunderstanding, the party can go off and join the werebears on the hunt.
Its one of my favorite DnD slang terms. Anyone who's played tabletop RPGs immediately know what a murder hobo is without any explanation....unless you are one yourself
With the 5e expansion of Barbarian and the totem animals. I have been using "were" creatures as a possible aspect for some tribe members. It has proven to be interesting. Including one player who spent nearly a month emailing and texting about how awesome and unexpected it was.
I have a funny character, he is a silver dragonborn paladin who is a werebear. In his dragonborn form, he has silver fur down his back on his forearms, chest, shins, as well as as magnificent mane. Currently, he is stuck in the Underdark.
right after learning fireball the wizard in the group decided to burn down a hole forest just for the hell of it. I now plan to have a Werebear dressed in blue pants a hat and wielding a large shovel hunting him down.
I always find myself coming back to you AJ the long seemingly endless lore that I never make the time to play. Everyone seems to have that story " I played for a year " now I'm one of those guys who played for a year under pathfinder . Sometimes using rules found in my 3.5 DND players book . Cause for some reason Pathfinder game seems to leave certain references to the older book.
Hey AJ, great video! I like the social dilemma you presented. Opens up the role playing aspect of the game and gives a chance for people to show off their problem solving skills. Thanks AJ & have a great day.
I had a dream this creature was hunting me, it was terrifying. It was stalking me through the dark woods and I could hear it and sometimes see glowing yellow eyes through the brush. It was about 9 feet tall
Well, I once played a Hengeyokai Kodiak Bear. I was a Martial Artist and a Wu Jin! Imagine a 10 foot tall Kodiak Bear, with the Teeth and Claws of a Kodiak Bear, with +3 hands using Kung Fu close up and hitting you with a Fireball at long range! I was pretty badass. Yes, this was a fairly high level campaign, we were all level 12-15.
A decidedly awesome side effect of insomnia: I'm usually awake right when your new Ecology vids go up! Once again ...thanks for yet another great D&D supplemental vid. M.
if you want to run a setting with a large amount of magical items (because magical items are just a lot of fun) but fear it'll weaken the importance of lycantrhopes being immune to nonmagical weapons here are 3 solutions: 1: don't chance anything, but let other characters try and help. just some guards for example. since they don't have magical weapons they will do nothing, and the lycantrhope knows this and thus will not care about them, so the difficulty of the encounter doesn't change, it's still effectively the party vs the lycantrhopes, the guards are just moving obstacles/cover for the lycantropes and emphasise that the party is cool for being able to deal with the threat. 2: lycantrhopes are resistant to BPS from weapons that aren't silvered. sure, your magical weapons can hurt it, but it's less. this will mean that the lycantrhope can stay in the fight long enough. 3: lycantrhopes are immune to BPS from weapons that aren't silvered. it's very nice that your weapon is magical, but that's irrelevant. to kill a lycantrhope you need a silver bullet, or dagger, or maul, point is you need specialised weapons. this keeps lycantrhopes scary and a monster you need to specially prepare for. and dnd could really do with more of those.
while I am more of a Pathfinder player, I love your videos. well done. you're always looking for suggestions so here are a couple. you have not covered gem dragons yet, nor have you covered the factions of sigil. keep up the good work bro.
Yeah there is a lot more Sigil material to cover and I will go into more detail on the factions (and the faction war, current state of Faction exile from Sigil, etc.). Gem dragons and Planar dragons, dragons of the Forgotten Realms, also on my to do list :)
I had one in my campaign. He became a normal-sized bear in bear form. He considered his werebear affliction as annoying as some humans consider being afflicted with being a wererat. He liked his bear form because he had a druid and a ranger friend... he could travel with them in that form. He was an NPC and the players discovered his giant form when they f^cked with his druid and ranger friend. That bear was suddenly not the average bear, Boo Boo.
Added a Werebear "Guardian" to the Halfling village my VERY tired, hungry, beaten-down adventurers (who've only recently managed to escape from 3 months in The Underdark)have stumbled into. The local Elves aren't thrilled with the Halflings level of commerce/traffic/and the fact that the Werebear is hunting for them...thus depleting an already scarce deer population. It's essentially the scenario you suggest here; and it's already proving to be a very delicate situation for the player characters as they need to stay in the town at least long enough to heal up and to wait for the items (new boots,cloaks,etc) that the Halfling craftsmen are making for them. But, the Wearbear wants them gone, and the Elves are looking to kick the Halflings out altogether. Wonderful scenario addition, and I am so glad you gave me the idea. Thank you!
right now were playing 3.5 and using rules from this page. archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031114a Were basically doing the old you have to level as your monster thing and it's working pretty nicely so far. Im a huge fan of your videos keep up the good work :)
Looking forward to the Wereboars, AJ. They're among my top ten favorite baddies to through at PCs. I recently switched from D&D 5e to running the Iron Kingdoms RPG in which they don't have "wereboars" per se but rather a race of humanoid pigs called Farrow which are everybit as nasty
AJ: I watch an awful lot of D&D UA-camrs, and your Monster Ecology videos tend to offer better DM advice than a great many videos whose main purpose is DM advice. You rule.
They are the only good lycanthropes and definitely merit respect for their strength and speed. They particularly despise wererats and werewolves . They will protect their territory. Like werecats, they regard lycanthropy as a blessing and not curse. Not being chaotic evil, they will not kill without justification. Thanks, good video. It's very challenging to play a lycanthrope.
Werebear is the best lycanthrope. It is also the most diverse in possible origins and connected community relations as well as even druidic and nature connections. In my campaigns, I have a New World standard scenario based upon the old C64 game "Seven Cities of Gold" where the New World natives have a civil relationship with Werebears and they are considered one with the Bear Totem. Get good with the New World Werebears, you need not fear bears in that land unless you are a d-bag.
Werebears are my favorite lycanthrope to mix things up. I only had one party (a party of dim players) plow into the werebears as an evil enemy to purge. Every other party has had friction, but ultimately role played well the werebear situations to a peaceful end. I grant XP for peaceful encounters too (a tiny bit, but it can be collected quite often).
If they have a strength of 19 that means if you have a strength of 8 it jumps up to 19 but does that mean that say if your strength is 25 hypothetically the transformation would drop your strength to 19? Stupid question im just curious if that would be the case
if I multi-class into druid I want it to be a werebear circle of whatever, the guardian of the forest thing is so dope why would there not be a group of werebears connected to rangers and druids?
I wish they would have used a diety other than Malar. It's inconsistent. Malar is CE. I just picture other werecreatures calling them care bears behind their backs. Way behind.
Kudos on a video well done. I do want to point out a goof: pandas are not really in the 🐻 family; they're actually related to raccoons. But, that's in the real world; in the D&D world, I think that would make a cool playable character (like Po, the Kung Fu Panda). The imagination is a powerful tool to play with. Here's another interesting scenario: if a mage shapechanges (via 9th-lvl spell) in an owlbear, and then gets bitten by a werebear, would he become a were-owlbear? Or would that be too farfetched? Anyway, keep up with the great work you do for the D&D community!!!!
A werebear barbarian with totem spirit bear must be the best tank there is. immun to al non magic damage, resistent to all other types of damage except psycik... possibly a high AC, and have the speed to catch pretty much everyting....
One on one: bear, everytime. A pack of wolves could do better, if they were strong and organized. Natural wolves and bears avoid conflict where their territories overlap for that reason. A wolf wouldn't stand a chance alone, but if the bear killed them they wouldn't come alone and would cause trouble for the bear, if not its death.
+AJ Pickett (The Mighty Gluestick) docs.google.com/document/d/1vzzUFk6-hA4Rm_k7ZTh60C0lCMFagzY8yTOTOKdPeJ0/edit?usp=drive_web i made a pdf for it dont mind the first page its just world lore and my characters backstory :)
I'm quite impressed with those feats, they are well considered and closely fit the nature of the Werebear.. also, that art work on the second page is kick ass!
I know this one quy who played a werebear cleric, si i'd say shure, but your DM might have another opinion on that. it's all about what your narrator to your game says flys and what doesn't.
I agree with Miner. If your DM is ok with you playing one. Then its fine. As for spell casting I'd say no. However for mental consternation spells. That you have to make saves for. I'd say yes. Again this is all up to your DM.
Well, you'd have to be in human or hybrid form at least to cast spells. If you can speak the language of magic, able to do the hand and body gestures needed, and have the material components, then here's nothing stopping a werebear from casting spells.
Good Morning to all... I seen in the comments about maybe running out of monsters one day. Maybe transfer monster over to D&D from over games. One nasty set of monsters I'm working on bring to D&D life is the Skaven Plauge Monk's from Warhammer.
dnd-5e-homebrew.tumblr.com/post/136137424070/skaven-monsters-by-joshthegent , check this link out AJ, its D&D homebrew. Another sub gave me this link. They didn't have plague monks, cant wait for them to add them, love to see stats.
That would be awesome. I know parts of D&D are heavily influenced by Lovecraft. But I don't see it discussed that often, sure Mindflayer and a couple of others are there but I want to get into the juicy stuff that ties all that together. I just recently started DMing and I'd love to hear more about cosmic horrors in the world of D&D. I've been playing your monster ecology series while painting all week. Such an in depth series. Great work!
Animals generally are not monsters. Evil traits usually only get passed onto animals by contact with sentient creatures like humans. Suppose this is why werewolves are such monsters and werebears are not. Men have always had a strong affinity for wolves. So maybe there is more man in werewolves then in werebears.
I once had a player who insisted on being a werebear. I refused his demand and it resulted in a four hour argument. The player quit the group shortly after. The reason I refused is a simple one. The player only wanted the fringe benefits of the werebear and had no interest in the role play there of. He was also well known for" not playing by the rules", as the microwaving his dice, among other things, was an indication. He just could not, or more to the point would not, understand that it would be grossly unbalanced to allow him to be a werebear while the rest of the group were level one zero exp adventures.
If the group works, the rules become less and less important as the story takes over, but for new groups, rules are very important, and anyone who expects the DM of a new group to make extraordinary exceptions for their sole benefit should expect refusal. Also, arriving at a game with a preconception of what your character is, before the DM has even talked about the campaign setting, really misses the point of co-operative story telling, mutual participation and that understanding of your character being a part of the setting, not the setting conforming to your character.
Microwaving dice?
Elderos5 you could have allowed him to get what he wanted. The way to make him regret his choice is by having him hunted by ones that fear and loath lycanthropes. And after this continues time and time again disrupting what he thought would be neat,I believe he might have regretted the decision. You can also put a level cap on classes for lycanthropes as well. Or really piss him of to always have his character being pursued by big ugly yet sweet lady were-bears great for the amusement of all....i don't like letting people walk away angry from what's supposed to be a fun,social experience for everyone! 🐻
Elderos5, you should really look into "deal with the devil" tactics of DM'ing. When a player is pushy and demanding for something, I allow it. I never just allow it privately, I tell him to bring it up in a group gathering. That is so my veteran players can react when I shrug and say "fine, you want it so bad, so be it. Just tell me, are you sure?" That's usually when half my veteran players jump in and advise him against it and the other half giggle and say "do it, this should be good!" For a Werebear, I would give cursed conditions as the price for the player wanting one just for the benefits. An experience point penalty for every time he role plays or acts in defiance of a werebear persona. No experience gained for any combat that he, as a werebear, would not do. If he did eat as much as a werebear should, he involuntarily transforms into his bear form and hunts for food as an NPC until he gets his fill. If he keeps acting not very werebear-ish, other werebears will hunt him down to kill him. If there are gods related to werebears, every round of combat has a 25% chance of the god cursing the player character if the combat was started for a reason a werebear would not do (vulnerability to non-silver, 4pt to attack, damage and armor class penalty, or lethargy [slowed as the revered Haste spell]). Plus, the general experience point penalty of getting no experience points from combat if the player character is never at all at risk by being in combat.
I have many house rules that I made over the decades. In my campaigns, I allow anything. I encourage imaginative players. I have regulations for the power mongers and the absurd so all players can enjoy the sessions. The player you commented about would easily fall under my "deal with the devil" house rule to bring about balance.
You could alternatively make him buy racial feats per level gained but I doubt he would agree to have a mutated progressive form of something everyone else gets just by getting infected ("cursed").
So hes a douchebag got it
Werebears are Smarter Than Average Bear but they have a weakness for Picnic Baskets :)
The also have to watch out for those forest Rangers.
And they hate wild fires
Lol
_"To be fair, although they're rare, you should beware the were-bears there"_
Halfling werebears, that look like werebadgers when shapeshifted. Just because.
That is ridiculous... I must put this in my game immediately.
Ewoks
Why I feel personally attacked by this
halfling werebears would turn into Teddy Bears when shapeshifted.
Would a gnome with eccentric hair color turn into a care bear?
A werebear paladin with Oath of the Ancients would be interesting. But I think a werebear druid would be more likely. But I can't get this mental image of a werebear barbarian with a polar bear look that has the Path of the Tundra Storm Herald. A humanoid polar bear moving toward you relentlessly, with swirling cloud of freezing mist swirling around it. Ice sickles hanging off parts of its armor and great axe which is resting over its should Conan style. Just like a polar bear stalking you on the tundra, not running but walking. Relentlessly coming with a disturbingly calm fury freezing the world around it.
Have you ever played Volibear before?
my first ever game of D&D my character got turned into a werebear by her (my) complete stupidity
Everyone in the group other than the DM was brand new to the game so he had made an NPC druid/wizard character to help us out. My character had found a huge stash of potions in the last dungeon and brought them all to her and asked her to help identify what they were since she had connections to the place where they were found. we identified all but one, and the druid told me that she had no idea what this last one was (the DM knew, but the druid didn't roll high enough to figure it out). I asked the DM how do we figure it out, because I had no idea what metagaming was or that what I was doing was against the rules lol.
through the druid (and pretending that my character had asked that), He replies sarcastically "Guess you just have to drink it to find out."
So me, being terrible at reading sarcasm, did exactly that. The druid starts freaking out, "YOU CAN'T JUST DRINK MYSTERY POTIONS, IT WAS A JOKE!"
as it turns out, it was a potion of lycanthropy (I don't know if these are actually a thing since we were using homebrew rules, but he had used dice rolls to determine what it was). The DM asks me to roll to see what the phase the moon currently was, and sure enough, it was full, so right before our poor, sobbing druid, I start to shift. The DM is very scared and asked me to roll a D100 to see what I was going to turn into. We were currently on a ship, so that was almost certainly going to be very very bad since everything on that table was listed as chaotic evil except the bear. I roll whatever the bear was and from that day on, my character was a were-polar bear. I was playing a Dragonborn so we decided that when in my hybrid form, some of my hair stuck together and still resembled scales, and when we actually got someone to draw it, we realised she looked like a pangolin.I also didn't really understand alignments so when he told me I was lawful good in this form, I thought that just meant I was a goody-two-shoes type character, so every time she shifted, I made her compulsively clean, but because she was so big and kind of clumsy, she usually just made more of mess in the process. DM thought it was too funny to correct. So the pangolin-polar-bear-dragon who was a compulsive cleaner became a reoccurring legend in our campaigns. Found a room that had been trashed? someone would say "it looks like a pangolin-polar-bear-dragon's been through here". since I had no hair, my scales also turned white, which pissed my character off to no end because she had a personal grudge against white dragons specifically, and hated that she now looked like one.
huh, did that go anywere or?
This was so beautiful😂thanks for sharing❤
Werebears believe that Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires :)
Omg that would make a fantastic werebear , Smokey the druidic werebear.
@@antwan1357 he should have water-based spells so he can put out the fires
blake smith a water bending werebear... fascinating.🤔
I upvoted this. I'm going to Dad Joke hell now.
@@blakesmith1949 or rip apart people who start fires to use blood to put them out
I'd imagine the werebear would be more likely to worship Selûne seeing as she's the goddess of good lycanthropes.
Were bears are just interested in the simple bear necessity’s.
I feel like Were-bears should differ depending on the species of bear being emulated. For example, a were-sloth bear should be on the chaotic side of things seeing as sloth bears are the most aggressive species of bear.
You hear a word like "werebear" and you think boss fight. Watching this video makes me think druid NPC. My druid PC is gonna love this, thank you AJ 👍
I got a War Cleric of Thor, being a real Norse beserker or “Bear shirt” would be a wet dream
Avid gardeners, the bearboys are known for cultivating berry fields, fishing ponds and mouse and rat Warren's. As rodents are a large part of a bears diet wererats tend to steer very clear of them. Also a quiet relationship between wb and yondalas children can be loads of fun.
I greatly admire your ability to weave wonderful germs of ideas into each of your "Ecology of" vids. They are always much more than only a pithy description of what, but also of how, why, and even why not. There's at least one adventure at the bottom of every box of "AJ's Ecologies."
Aww shucks.. thanks James!
The BEST werebear is the prehistoric "shortfaced" bear damn they're big, 3500 lbs in bear form.
It would come with a dex penalty as the cave bear couldn't make sharp turns. Its colossal weight would have crushed its legs if it turned too tightly.
Story arc idea: your PC is camping and is approached by a werebear in humanoid form who offers to turn them into a werebear. They go off into the night and the player goes on and is eventually confronted by a pack of werebears who believe the PC to be the murderous werebear who turned them. After resolving the misunderstanding, the party can go off and join the werebears on the hunt.
Protecting a community makes me think about golems around minecraft villagers haha
And We're Bears and We're Wolves can have a great friendship!
Everytime I hear you say something about murder hobos I laugh really hard. I've never heard the term until watching your videos. I love it
Its one of my favorite DnD slang terms. Anyone who's played tabletop RPGs immediately know what a murder hobo is without any explanation....unless you are one yourself
With the 5e expansion of Barbarian and the totem animals. I have been using "were" creatures as a possible aspect for some tribe members. It has proven to be interesting. Including one player who spent nearly a month emailing and texting about how awesome and unexpected it was.
This video is more than I can Bear :)
I think the alignment comes from them being inspired by the beornings from the hobbit
Which were in turn inspired by the berserkers from Norse mythology
The image of the bear and dog from Balto put a massive smile on my face.
I have a funny character, he is a silver dragonborn paladin who is a werebear. In his dragonborn form, he has silver fur down his back on his forearms, chest, shins, as well as as magnificent mane. Currently, he is stuck in the Underdark.
right after learning fireball the wizard in the group decided to burn down a hole forest just for the hell of it. I now plan to have a Werebear dressed in blue pants a hat and wielding a large shovel hunting him down.
Bam, Werebear! I've been waiting on this one for a long time. Thanks for covering it.
My list has a lot of monsters crossed off, but still many to go!
I always find myself coming back to you AJ the long seemingly endless lore that I never make the time to play. Everyone seems to have that story " I played for a year " now I'm one of those guys who played for a year under pathfinder . Sometimes using rules found in my 3.5 DND players book . Cause for some reason Pathfinder game seems to leave certain references to the older book.
werebear care werebear share
Werebear shed and werebear tear.
The werebear stare is their ultimate offense 😂
Hey AJ, great video! I like the social dilemma you presented. Opens up the role playing aspect of the game and gives a chance for people to show off their problem solving skills.
Thanks AJ & have a great day.
If my Bugbear fighter gets bitten does he become a Werebugbear or a Bugwerebear .
Werebearbugbear? Bugwerebear?
Like Bjorn
.The man can B reasoned with .
The Were Bear cannot.
great video AJ, keep at it!
Until I run out of monsters... and then have to make new ones.
Werebear Bugbear because....bear.
I had a dream this creature was hunting me, it was terrifying. It was stalking me through the dark woods and I could hear it and sometimes see glowing yellow eyes through the brush. It was about 9 feet tall
In conclusion... werepanda. Shut up and take my character sheet!
Well, I once played a Hengeyokai Kodiak Bear. I was a Martial Artist and a Wu Jin! Imagine a 10 foot tall Kodiak Bear, with the Teeth and Claws of a Kodiak Bear, with +3 hands using Kung Fu close up and hitting you with a Fireball at long range! I was pretty badass. Yes, this was a fairly high level campaign, we were all level 12-15.
Just learnt that wereapes are a thing in dnd.... Why did no one tell me that I could turn into a god damn sasquatch until now?
A decidedly awesome side effect of insomnia: I'm usually awake right when your new Ecology vids go up! Once again ...thanks for yet another great D&D supplemental vid. M.
Most welcome! (note to self, put sound of night forest or ocean waves at end of next video)
:)
if you want to run a setting with a large amount of magical items (because magical items are just a lot of fun) but fear it'll weaken the importance of lycantrhopes being immune to nonmagical weapons here are 3 solutions:
1: don't chance anything, but let other characters try and help. just some guards for example. since they don't have magical weapons they will do nothing, and the lycantrhope knows this and thus will not care about them, so the difficulty of the encounter doesn't change, it's still effectively the party vs the lycantrhopes, the guards are just moving obstacles/cover for the lycantropes and emphasise that the party is cool for being able to deal with the threat.
2: lycantrhopes are resistant to BPS from weapons that aren't silvered. sure, your magical weapons can hurt it, but it's less. this will mean that the lycantrhope can stay in the fight long enough.
3: lycantrhopes are immune to BPS from weapons that aren't silvered. it's very nice that your weapon is magical, but that's irrelevant. to kill a lycantrhope you need a silver bullet, or dagger, or maul, point is you need specialised weapons. this keeps lycantrhopes scary and a monster you need to specially prepare for. and dnd could really do with more of those.
Halfling/gnome werebeasts are fantasy Ewoks, change my mind :P
Why would we want to?
i think barbarian werebear would be absolute perfect warrior
Phenomenal job yet again aj.
I made an NPC that was a werebear. His name was Ben Gentleheart who ran a free inn for weary travelers.
Werebear Countdown! Wearbear Stare! Could a wearbear have the insignia of Malar on its tummy?
www.cassandrebolan.com/uploads/6/5/6/4/6564856/983653.jpg?688
LoL!
Nice doggie...
Werebears actually harken back to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. You can even see an example of one in The Hobbit movie by Peter Jacvkson.
while I am more of a Pathfinder player, I love your videos. well done. you're always looking for suggestions so here are a couple. you have not covered gem dragons yet, nor have you covered the factions of sigil. keep up the good work bro.
Yeah there is a lot more Sigil material to cover and I will go into more detail on the factions (and the faction war, current state of Faction exile from Sigil, etc.). Gem dragons and Planar dragons, dragons of the Forgotten Realms, also on my to do list :)
Giant werebear... just imagine
I had one in my campaign. He became a normal-sized bear in bear form. He considered his werebear affliction as annoying as some humans consider being afflicted with being a wererat. He liked his bear form because he had a druid and a ranger friend... he could travel with them in that form. He was an NPC and the players discovered his giant form when they f^cked with his druid and ranger friend. That bear was suddenly not the average bear, Boo Boo.
Added a Werebear "Guardian" to the Halfling village my VERY tired, hungry, beaten-down adventurers (who've only recently managed to escape from 3 months in The Underdark)have stumbled into. The local Elves aren't thrilled with the Halflings level of commerce/traffic/and the fact that the Werebear is hunting for them...thus depleting an already scarce deer population. It's essentially the scenario you suggest here; and it's already proving to be a very delicate situation for the player characters as they need to stay in the town at least long enough to heal up and to wait for the items (new boots,cloaks,etc) that the Halfling craftsmen are making for them. But, the Wearbear wants them gone, and the Elves are looking to kick the Halflings out altogether. Wonderful scenario addition, and I am so glad you gave me the idea. Thank you!
Perfect (*rubs hands together like cunning Raccoon*) bwuahahahaha
Crazy Question: What if a Bugbear was born with or contracted this lycanthropy curse?
Ive watched your video like 50 times now. It's really helping me. In a campaign im playing in my character is a werebear so thank you.
Most welcome Zack :)How does the DM handle your character's damage resistances?
right now were playing 3.5 and using rules from this page. archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031114a
Were basically doing the old you have to level as your monster thing and it's working pretty nicely so far. Im a huge fan of your videos keep up the good work :)
Thanks Zack, will do!
Looking forward to the Wereboars, AJ. They're among my top ten favorite baddies to through at PCs.
I recently switched from D&D 5e to running the Iron Kingdoms RPG in which they don't have "wereboars" per se but rather a race of humanoid pigs called Farrow which are everybit as nasty
My good friend runs Iron Kingdoms, I have not had a chance to play, but it sounds like a rich setting!
AJ: I watch an awful lot of D&D UA-camrs, and your Monster Ecology videos tend to offer better DM advice than a great many videos whose main purpose is DM advice. You rule.
Thank you, that made my morning
I wish swanmays were in 5e
Oh good gods. A giant bear with two huge axs flying out at you.
Werebear dwarf
They are the only good lycanthropes and definitely merit respect for their strength and speed. They particularly despise wererats and werewolves . They will protect their territory. Like werecats, they regard lycanthropy as a blessing and not curse. Not being chaotic evil, they will not kill without justification. Thanks, good video. It's very challenging to play a lycanthrope.
Are they the only good lycanthropes? Hmmm, I feel this is worth investigating.
I'm aware that Wereravens are good as well
3:00 I like how the human form looks like the type of Bear you would see at a gay bar.
Werebear is my Favorite.
Werebear is the best lycanthrope. It is also the most diverse in possible origins and connected community relations as well as even druidic and nature connections. In my campaigns, I have a New World standard scenario based upon the old C64 game "Seven Cities of Gold" where the New World natives have a civil relationship with Werebears and they are considered one with the Bear Totem. Get good with the New World Werebears, you need not fear bears in that land unless you are a d-bag.
So what happens if a werebear bites a centaur? I'm just going to leave that there
Trouble not the Bear in his forest, for you are Crunchy and good with Ketchup (or vegimite, if that's your...taste(!?)).
Imo whearbears should be weak against copper instead because silver usually hurts evil stuff
A bear slays all over predators in the wild
im playing a werebear barbarian in my first full campaign!! im super excited to be playing my bear boy :))
go werebears
I'm loving that profile pic!
My favorite werebear must be Iorek Byrnison from Chronicles of Narnia
I like the monk/werebear mix image, but I need to search the image out.
Werebears are my favorite lycanthrope to mix things up. I only had one party (a party of dim players) plow into the werebears as an evil enemy to purge. Every other party has had friction, but ultimately role played well the werebear situations to a peaceful end. I grant XP for peaceful encounters too (a tiny bit, but it can be collected quite often).
I vaguely remember reading about Legendary Animal's in the old 3.5 Era Epic Level handbook.
Imagine a Were Legendary Bear! xD That'd be ridiculous!
Zulu one of my Dog's was a Were Bear we miss him terribly !
Zulus brother was a Were Wolf and wEre wolf's can be good friends..
I think they were Chaotic good in AD&D 1st Ed..
If they have a strength of 19 that means if you have a strength of 8 it jumps up to 19 but does that mean that say if your strength is 25 hypothetically the transformation would drop your strength to 19? Stupid question im just curious if that would be the case
If the being in question had a strength beyond 19, I would leave it alone.
Can Direhalflings be werebears? Asking for a friend who's fond of orchards and mead.
lol... that would be a Yes.
So I wonder if an evil character gets turned, they suddenly can't resist doing good deeds and stuff
Sounds like the werebear's are in control of their form.
I wish to be a were bear totem barbarin
GUys, guys! Remember, we're Werebears, not Swearbears.
if I multi-class into druid I want it to be a werebear circle of whatever, the guardian of the forest thing is so dope why would there not be a group of werebears connected to rangers and druids?
werebears are the guardians of the forest. I can see this causing a conflict.😆
Werebear vs Shambling Mound!
Reason why werebears are so protective of the forest? Dryads.
Meh I prefer werelions haha
Pfff nerd. Everyone knows that weredust bunnies are the best
I wish they would have used a diety other than Malar. It's inconsistent. Malar is CE. I just picture other werecreatures calling them care bears behind their backs. Way behind.
Kudos on a video well done. I do want to point out a goof: pandas are not really in the 🐻 family; they're actually related to raccoons. But, that's in the real world; in the D&D world, I think that would make a cool playable character (like Po, the Kung Fu Panda). The imagination is a powerful tool to play with. Here's another interesting scenario: if a mage shapechanges (via 9th-lvl spell) in an owlbear, and then gets bitten by a werebear, would he become a were-owlbear? Or would that be too farfetched? Anyway, keep up with the great work you do for the D&D community!!!!
A werebear barbarian with totem spirit bear must be the best tank there is. immun to al non magic damage, resistent to all other types of damage except psycik... possibly a high AC, and have the speed to catch pretty much everyting....
Elf how dare you talk to me like that
Man bloody rude
What's the most powerful Were-creature?
Ony Xerxes
Since werebears are good, wouldn't it make sense for them to attack and infect evil humanoids like orcs and goblins as a way to redeem them?
Sounds like a good plot twist.
were-owlbear
Werebear of Malar or Selune?
Werepanda is possible then?
Yes.
who would win werebear or werewolf
Werebear.
you got to have a pack of werewolf's to be on even grounds with a werebear.
One on one: bear, everytime. A pack of wolves could do better, if they were strong and organized. Natural wolves and bears avoid conflict where their territories overlap for that reason. A wolf wouldn't stand a chance alone, but if the bear killed them they wouldn't come alone and would cause trouble for the bear, if not its death.
I require a vegetarian werepanda monk NPC now
we ended up switching to 5e so i switch to a totem barbarian with some homebrew feats. its working really nicly.
I just bought a PDF off DrivethruRPG called "Fifth Edition Feats" by TPK Games.. so, you can tell I like homebrew feats!
+AJ Pickett (The Mighty Gluestick) if you want i could show you what me and my dm came up with i think its pretty neat.
Absolutely, post away!
+AJ Pickett (The Mighty Gluestick) docs.google.com/document/d/1vzzUFk6-hA4Rm_k7ZTh60C0lCMFagzY8yTOTOKdPeJ0/edit?usp=drive_web
i made a pdf for it dont mind the first page its just world lore and my characters backstory :)
I'm quite impressed with those feats, they are well considered and closely fit the nature of the Werebear.. also, that art work on the second page is kick ass!
Do they hibernate?
I don't think so, but that would be funny.
personally i thinks weres in general as any alignment
especially with werewolfs i don't see why they all have to be evil
If I am a wizard and I am a werebear as well. Can I still use magic in werebear form.
I know this one quy who played a werebear cleric, si i'd say shure, but your DM might have another opinion on that. it's all about what your narrator to your game says flys and what doesn't.
Not really as your character have to speak to cast most of the spells and bear cant talk.
I agree with Miner. If your DM is ok with you playing one. Then its fine. As for spell casting I'd say no. However for mental consternation spells. That you have to make saves for. I'd say yes. Again this is all up to your DM.
Well, you'd have to be in human or hybrid form at least to cast spells. If you can speak the language of magic, able to do the hand and body gestures needed, and have the material components, then here's nothing stopping a werebear from casting spells.
Nice. Doing a video on wereboars at some point?
lol
Nevermind. Should have waited til your last sentence. (whistles nonchalantly)
koalas just imagine a hybrid human koala
Oh yea that's a good plot hook
I'm curious, do you write any fantasy???
Like, stories? Not exactly.
Good Morning to all... I seen in the comments about maybe running out of monsters one day. Maybe transfer monster over to D&D from over games. One nasty set of monsters I'm working on bring to D&D life is the Skaven Plauge Monk's from Warhammer.
Oh man, I love Skaven, they make the Drow look kind and lovely by comparison.
dnd-5e-homebrew.tumblr.com/post/136137424070/skaven-monsters-by-joshthegent , check this link out AJ, its D&D homebrew. Another sub gave me this link. They didn't have plague monks, cant wait for them to add them, love to see stats.
Would you consider doing something on lovecraftian horrors? Maybe how to incorporate that into your games? Thanks, I really enjoy these videos.
I think I can go one better and talk about how Lovecraftian cosmic horror was woven into the game very early on, and has always been a part of it :D
That would be awesome. I know parts of D&D are heavily influenced by Lovecraft. But I don't see it discussed that often, sure Mindflayer and a couple of others are there but I want to get into the juicy stuff that ties all that together. I just recently started DMing and I'd love to hear more about cosmic horrors in the world of D&D. I've been playing your monster ecology series while painting all week. Such an in depth series. Great work!
Animals generally are not monsters. Evil traits usually only get passed onto animals by contact with sentient creatures like humans. Suppose this is why werewolves are such monsters and werebears are not. Men have always had a strong affinity for wolves. So maybe there is more man in werewolves then in werebears.
i believe in skyrim special edition 3 werebears ??