Werewolf

Werewolves are mythical creatures, typically humans that transform into wolves at the full moon to hunt for human flesh.

Werewolf the Forsaken 2nd Edition
These are house rules used with Werewolf the Forsaken 2nd Edition.

Rage
Rage is a juice stat from Werewolf the Apocalypse from the classic World of Darkness franchise. Unfortunately it was replaced by essence in Werewolf the Forsaken, but I think that there is no reason there couldn't be both.

Pool
Your pool size is equal to resolve plus primal urge. If wrath is your vice, add a permanent plus 1 bonus to this pool.

Starting rage
Rage starts at full capacity, similar to willpower, unless there is a clearly defined amount of time that has passed from one session to the next.

Gaining rage
The werewolf can regain rage through a number of means:
 * Seeing the moon for the first time in a 24 hour cycle.
 * Rolling versus death rage, when the roll is NOT triggered by spending a rage point.
 * Delivering the killing blow to a living being of some sort, provided that the being is significant enough (a human, a spirit of at least rank 2, a wolf, a supernatural being or a werewolf).

Usage
When using a point of rage, the werewolf has to roll versus death rage, taking a penalty to the roll equal to how many points of rage the werewolf has spent during their turn - therefor, the roll versus death rage happens at the end of the werewolf's turn, not immediately after spending rage. Rage can be used to do the following:
 * Grant a +3 bonus to a combat roll, an athletics roll to pursue an enemy, an intimidation roll or a survival roll to track an enemy or prey. Can be combined with willpower, and unlike with willpower, there is no limit to how many rage points the werewolf can essentially spend on a single action.
 * Deal lethal damage with unarmed attacks for the duration of the scene.
 * Immediately switch to another form as a reflexive action.
 * Heal 1 point of lethal damage, downgrade 1 point of aggravated damage to lethal damage (if the damage isn't from silver) or remove all bashing damage.
 * Required to spend 1 point of rage to assume gauru form - always.

Essence
Seeing as Rage has been implemented, what happens to essence? Essence still has a number of uses:
 * Shape-shifting as a reflexive action while in the spirit world.
 * Activating gifts almost always cost at least 1 point of essence - see gift description.
 * Paying chiminage to spirits.
 * Creating a locus.
 * Waking a dormant spirit.
 * Healing - same rate as with rage points, but the wounds do not look healed, they glow with a faint silver light. The spirit form of the werewolf bleeds through and covers what has been lost, the coverage lasts until the wound has healed naturally - accounting for the werewolf's accelerated healing process.

Primal Urge
Primal Urge is the primary werewolf power-stat, and while it is very powerful, it also comes with a weakness. While the balance in harmony describes whether the werewolf is more human or spiritual, the primal urge describes how much of a monster the werewolf truly is inside.

Substitute
Primal urge can be used as a substitute for various abilities, once reaching the third dot. This is done by spending a point of rage, and then the below effects are gained for the duration of the scene, or until the werewolf has had a reasonable distraction from it's pursuits.

Melee
The werewolf can use primal urge as a substitute for melee, provided the werewolf goes all-out on all attacks. The werewolf deals lethal damage regardless of what is otherwise indicated by their weapon and gain a +1 damage modifier from their rage.

Near-death rage
This state closely resembles death rage, and the werewolf does gain minor benefits from the rage - the werewolf ignores bashing attacks that do not exceed the werewolf's stamina rating in damage, and the lethal attacks with a damage modifier of 1 and below are downgraded to bashing damage (but not soaked). If the werewolf is in a rage-quelled Gauru form, then the lethal threshold increases to 2 and below.

Athletics
For the purpose of chasing someone or thrown attacks, primal urge may substitute athletics.

Survival
For the purpose of tracking an escaped enemy or prey in general, primal urge may substitute survival.

Intimidation
For the purpose of intimidating someone, the werewolf may substitute primal urge for Intimidation.

Social modifiers
Primal Urge greatly influences a werewolf's ability to interact with any given society or for that matter any social encounters at all.

With mortals
With mortals, the effects of primal urge are quite dramatic. The mortals can feel that they are in the presence of a predator. Mortals, in this case, refers to any animals smart enough to understand their situation.

Intimidation
Werewolves add their primal urge to intimidation checks versus mortals.

Persuasion
Werewolves subtract their primal urge from rolls to persuade mortals, due to making them incredibly uneasy and distracted and generally uncomfortable. The notable difference is to seduction rolls, where ever this applies (requires there being a basis for attraction), in which case the werewolf applies the primal urge as a bonus.

Socialize
The size of present company dictates whether the werewolf gains a penalty or a bonus. Werewolves are naturally magnetic and enigmatic - they immediately have the attention of people, and while in the presence of many, the predatory aura they have is clouded and becomes a magnetic pull that gains the attention of people - and often also admiration. The problem is, that the greater the werewolf's primal urge, the larger the crowd needs to be to conceal their aura. The crowd must be equal to or larger than the werewolf's primal urge for the werewolf to gain a bonus - smaller groups result in a penalty divided by the number of people in the crowd rounded up.

With supernaturals
While this certainly doesn't apply to any and all supernaturals, but in quite a few cases there are different social modifiers for when werewolves interact with supernaturals. Supernaturals not mentioned as affected are assumed to be immune to werewolf social modifiers - this is because supernatural creatures do not suffer from the same awed or frightened disposition when faced with something supernatural. It applies to vampires, werewolves, spirits and hosts.

All social rolls
A werewolf applies the difference between their primal urge and the target's power stat (in case of spirits or hosts, the calculation is slightly different: it's the difference between the spirit or host's rank and the werewolf's primal urge and honorary spirit rank). This can either be a penalty or a bonus. This means, that in the case of facing another werewolf, there is double-taxation, because one werewolf takes a penalty while the other gains a bonus.

Merits
Werewolves have unique territory merits.

Territory
Territory as a merit is divided into 3 subcategories, and is a group-merit, meaning that the rating is pooled across the entire group, or doesn't exist on character sheets at all, but is rather a group stat.

Size
At least a single point of size is necessary to even have a territory, and this is always the first step. Size represents the sheer vastness of the pack's territory - 1 is a city-block in an urban setting, or village sized area in a rural setting, and 5 represents entire counties or incredible amounts of a metropolis.

Security
Security details how hard it is to successfully invade and disrupt the territory and it's features. Zero represents no security what so ever - anyone could walk in and mess with the territory. 1 represents that one would need to take the usual precautions when attempting to infringe. 5 represents a fort-knox equivalent.

Location
The quintessential value of the territory from a werewolf perspective. 0 represents a territory in a completely unimportant location - no spirits of notice, no humans of notice - perhaps no humans at all. 1 represents a quiet trailer park or a quiet impoverished neighborhood. 5 could represent having a spirit court directly on the territory, or extremely attractive venues.

Skills
Werewolves do not have inherently different skills than other splats, but they can use some of their skills differently.

Empathy
Empathy can be used on mammals that fall within a wolf's normal prey categories, as well as on any canines or mammal predators in general, rather than using animal ken.

Animal Ken
Animal Ken represents a werewolf's outright command over animals. A werewolf can use animal ken to attempt to give any animal a direct command - depending on the animal's intelligence levels, and successes on the roll, the animal will carry out the command.

Survival
Survival can be used for tracking via olfactory senses. Werewolves gain a bonus to perception checks in addition to any attribute bonuses they gain, depending on their current form. In addition to this, they also gain a bonus to olfactory checks.

Occult
The occult skill also represents the werewolf's formal training in certain spiritual affairs - this skill supplements any rolls to sense a locus, sense a spirit, gaze across the gauntlet, detect resonances and flash their own renown or forcing someone to reveal theirs.

Character creation
Werewolves are not among the strongest supernatural creatures in the world of darkness, but they do start out a great deal stronger than any of the other supernaturals.

Attributes
The werewolf starts with 3 points in every physical attribute, and one point in every other attribute. They then get a pool of 5 points and a pool of 4 points to distribute among social and mental attributes. From either pool, they can steal points and spend on their physical attributes instead.

Skills
A werewolf starts with 1 point in Brawl, Athletics, Survival and Occult.

Specialties
A werewolf starts with a free specialty in the following:
 * Running
 * Tracking
 * Spirits/Uratha lore
 * Natural weapons.

Merits
In a campaign where the players have to pay for group merits with their own points, each character starts with 3 extra merit points that may only be used on group merits.

Shapeshifting
Until the werewolf reaches Primal Urge 3, at which point the werewolf is no longer considered a "pup", all of the forms are not available to the werewolf. The werewolf begins the game with at least 1 point of primal urge and can optionally start with as many as 3 points of Primal Urge from character creation.

Unlocking the forms

 * 1) At primal urge 1, the werewolf unlocks the Dalu form.
 * 2) At primal urge 2, the werewolf unlocks the urshul form.
 * 3) At primal urge three, the werewolf unlocks the urhan form.
 * 4) At primal urge 4, the werewolf gains the ability to quell their rage in gauru form - read more about this under Gauru Form.

Gauru Form
The Gauru Form has been significantly boosted from Werewolf the Forsaken 1st Edition, where it was actually very weak, and potentially weaker than the urshul and dalu forms. In Werewolf the Apocalypse, werewolves could be in their equivalent of the Gauru form (the Crinos form) indefinitely if they wanted, but not only was that removed from Gauru form in 1st Edition, but it was also just in general not a particularly powerful form, due to the game-changing introduction of fighting styles, and how defense works. I personally felt that the 2nd Edition Gauru form was better straight out of the book, but still needed some modifications.

Assuming the form
When a werewolf wants to take the Gauru form, the werewolf pays a point of rage, rolls versus death-rage with at least a minus one penalty (may be more depending on how much rage the werewolf has otherwise spent in that same turn), and regardless of whether the werewolf falls into death rage or not, the werewolf will assume the gauru form. If the werewolf falls into death rage, the transition is instant, if not, the werewolf rolls resolve+primal urge, a dramatic success indicates that the werewolf immediately changes form - a success otherwise results in the werewolf assuming the form next turn - taking the gauru form is a reflexive action, but doesn't necessarily happen instantly - this means that the werewolf can take other actions during their turn, before their transformation begins. Failure means that the werewolf at least assumes the dalu form at the beginning of next turn, or the urshul form (even if it isn't unlocked) optionally, and then rerolls to change, or rolls versus death rage to try to "regret" their decision.

Duration
The werewolf can stay in Gauru form for a number of turns equal to Resolve+Primal Urge+1. This means an average werewolf has 6 turns in Gauru form, before they are forced to revert to another form or fall into death-rage. During Death Rage the duration of Gauru form is indefinite.

Modifiers
The werewolf, while in normal gauru form, cannot receive an equipment bonus from using a weapon, greater than 3 dice, they cannot use fighting styles, they cannot gain special advantages from their particular choice of weapon and are restricted to thrown weapons and melee weapons. Every time they take an action other than attacking or otherwise combat related, they must roll versus death rage. The werewolf must always go all-out, but gains a +1 bonus to all-out attacks, and ignores lethal weaponry with a damage modifier of less than 3 and entirely ignore bashing damage - they heal all their lethal damage gained throughout the round at the beginning of their turn.

Rage-quelled form
In the rage-quelled form, the above modifiers do not apply - the werewolf is free to take any actions they wish without rolling versus death rage as normal, they can use fighting styles, weapons and what not to their full extent and can use their defense as they see fit - however the werewolf only heals 1 point of lethal damage per turn, but heals all of it's bashing damage at the start of the round. Most importantly, there is no duration limit on the rage-quelled gauru form.

Quelling the rage
The werewolf makes an extended death-rage roll after assuming gauru form, and if the werewolf achieves more successes than the werewolf has available rage points at the time, the roll passes and the werewolf has assumed the rage-quelled gauru form. If one of the extended rolls fail, that means the werewolf falls into death rage however, unless the werewolf spends a willpower to negate the immediate effect.

Custom Setting
This is custom setting material used with any werewolf game.