I am Not Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

The dungeon was going well, we had finally found the final clue that would lead us to the beast responsible for the brutal slaughter of innocents in the countryside around the small village on the moor. The DM said it was a werewolf. He then said we could purchase a silver weapon, because the silver will stop its regeneration. I start looking at my inventory and gold, I was about to buy a silver weapon when one player at the table said “don’t buy the silver; it is a werewolf the silver just stops regeneration, but we statistically can beat that with shear damage each round and once the beast hits zero hit points it is dead by the book.” In character I ask, trying to get the players not to meta-game too much, “what about the affliction, the disease that causes one to be a werewolf?” Our chief meta-gamer chimed in again, there is no disease, it is hereditary now. What? Sure enough look up Lycanthropy in the monster manual and you’ll see:

DC 15: Lycanthropy is hereditary… Poop.

Regeneration 5 (if the wererat takes damage from a silver weapon, its regeneration doesn’t function on its next turn)

I used to really fear the werewolf, it made some game sessions fun. You used to be able to beat them up, just like any monster, but man if you got bit by a lycanthrop bad things happened. I used to be afraid to fight these monsters in game because some DMs would take your PC away and you had to start over if you fell victim to lycanthropy. Not any more. Yeah??

We ended the dungeon by tromping off into the moor, finding the lair and pounding it to death. As the meta-gamer predicted regeneration 5 was not an issue. I felt sad for the werewolf, it was not the big bad wolf any more. It was more of a fury lackey that we put down to win the day.

In 4e I am no longer afraid of the big bad wolf.

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