Barbarian: Path of the Lycan

You have suffered the trauma of being bitten by a lycan. Or perhaps there was lycanthropic blood in your lineage. Regardless, a lycan’s initial instinct is to kill indiscriminately but for some reason you have decided to fight those urges. As a barbarian you have been trained by the hardships of nature and tribal life. You have slowly gained control of your lycanthropy curse to a certain degree, and you have learned to weaponize your transformations as rages. Whenever you rage your body shifts into your full lycanthrope form. The breed of your Lycan path is determined by the lycan you were bitten by or descendant of.

Vulnerability to Silver. Silvered weapons overcome your resistances and do normal damage to you.

Half-Transform

Starting at 3rd level, You can use a bonus action to change between your half-transformed and normal forms. Your half-transformation augments your otherwise humanoid form with a few beast-like aspects (if applicable) such as claws, fangs, a tail, animal like eyes, patches of fur/scales and pointed ears.

As part of being a lycan, these abilities also surface any time you transform fully with rage. When half-transformed You gain the following benefits:
- You grow natural weapons such as claws (slashing), fangs (piercing) and/or a tail (bludgeoning) that do 1d6 damage. - While you are fighting unarmed you may perform a natural weapon attack as a bonus action. - You gain 60ft darkvision. If you have darkvision as a racial ability or from another class, your darkvision extends an additional 30ft instead. - Your animal like senses give you proficiency in the perception skill. If you are already proficient in the skill, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.

Essence of the Moon

At 6th level your natural weapons count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. In addition, While half-transformed or raging, the lycanthropy coursing through your blood gives you one of the following benefits based on your lycan species.
- Rat: You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned. - Wolf: You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened. - Bear: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed. - Panther: You have a climbing speed equal to your movement speed. Any fall damage you take is reduced by an amount equal to your character level. - Bat: You may choose to be under the effect of the feather fall spell whenever you want (This does not count as a spell for the purpose of antimagic fields, counterspell or other things that end spells). You must not be restrained, grappled, or prone and need at least 5 feet on either side to spread your wings in order to use this ability. - Croc: You gain a swim speed equal to your movement speed, and you can hold your breath an additional number of minutes equal to your proficiency modifier.

Beast Touched

At 10th level your beast senses are starting to leak through to your humanoid form. you can cast Speak with Animals and Locate Animals or Plants, but only as rituals.

Animal Instincts

Starting at 14th level you have become so attuned with your animal side, that when you rage you have begun developing some of the natural instincts of the lycan species you were bitten by. If an attack requires a saving throw, the DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength.
- Rat: You gain immunity to the poisoned status condition. Once per round whenever you successfully hit with a bite attack, you regain hit points equal to your constitution modifier. - Wolf: You gain immunity to the frightened status condition. Once per round whenever you successfully hit with an unarmed attack, your opponent must succeed on a strength saving throw or be knocked prone. - Bear: You gain immunity to the charmed status condition. Once per round whenever you successfully hit with a bite attack, your opponent must succeed on a strength saving throw or be grappled. (this does not occupy your arms) The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. - Panther: Any fall damage you take is reduced by an amount equal to twice your character level. Once per round whenever you successfully hit with an unarmed attack, your opponent must succeed on a strength saving throw or be knocked prone. - Bat: You gain a flying speed equal to your movement speed. While flying you may not use your hands (wings) to hold on to anything. You may carry things with your feet, but are not dexterous enough to use these items. Once per round whenever you successfully hit with a bite attack, you regain hit points equal to your constitution modifier. - Croc: You gain the ability to breathe underwater. Once per round whenever you successfully hit with a bite attack, your opponent must succeed on a strength saving throw or be grappled. (this does not occupy your arms) The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. \page

Optional Lycanthropic Tendencies

Optional: You may use the Lycan Path Quirks table to determine a personality quirk for a Lycan character or to inspire a unique mannerism.

d12	Quirk
1	Vegetables make you gag.
2	Churches and Clerics make you uncomfortable, like they can see what you are.
3	You can’t sleep well unless you’re outside.
4	You enjoy your meat raw.
5	You have a vague smell of wet animal that won’t wash out.
6	You have nightmares about your experience being bitten, your true nature being discovered, or transforming.
7	Personal space doesn’t exist for you.
8	Sometimes you find yourself subconsciously smelling things and people if they are close enough.
9	You are easily distracted by shiny or moving objects.
10	You find it hard to focus on one thing to listen to. Sometimes in a room full of voices your companions might need to get your attention to speak to you.
11	You only blink about a third as often as most, and sometimes people find this unnerving.
12	You would rather sleep while half-transformed.

Optional Rules: You and your DM should agree on these optional rules ahead of time. On nights with a full moon your DM may choose to control your character through the duration of the night. You will not do things against your alignment during this time. The following morning you wake up as normal, fully rested. Your DM may choose to tell you what happened. For example you may have killed 1d4 wild animals, ran through the woods and woke up somewhere different or other lycanthrope/animal type things. Your DM may decide if your character sleeps under the full moon they only need 4 hours of sleep.

Gritty Realism: If you want to make the transformation hard to control you may have the character do a DC (20 minus proficiency bonus) wisdom save each time they land a crit, are hit by a crit, or are exposed to the full moon for the first time during that day. After which they have to transform and attack the closest target until it dies or they manage to fight off the blood lust. If there are multiple targets, the player may pick one. They may perform the save at the end of each of their turns, after which they regain full control.

#### Speak with Animals *1st-level divination (ritual)* ___ - **Casting Time:** 1 action - **Range:** Self - **Components:** V, S - **Duration:** 10 minutes You gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration. The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at minimum, beasts can give you information about nearby locations and monsters, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the past day. You might be able to persuade a beast to perform a small favor for you, at the DM’s discretion. #### Locate Animals or Plants *2nd-level divination (ritual)* ___ - **Casting Time:** 1 action - **Range:** Self - **Components:** V, S - **Duration:** Instantaneous Describe or name a specific kind of beast or plant. Concentrating on the voice of nature in your surroundings, you learn the direction and distance to the closest creature or plant of that kind within 5 miles, if any are present.

Author's note:The author of this subclass encourages users and DMs to refluff any animal species they want (as long as it makes sense). For example you might refluff bat into bird; wolf into hyena; croc into snake. Other ideas might be reflavoring croc lycan barbarian as a yuan-ti pureblood with stronger blood that can turn into a yuan-ti halfblood (snake yuan-ti). Also I have included the two spells this class uses for your convenience. ~Victoria

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