Lion's Tactical Guide to the Wolfwere

Wolfweres are, as the name might suggest, wolves that turn into humans rather than humanoids that turn into wolves a la werewolves. Despite this, they are actually listed as humanoids with the “Beast” and “Shapechanger'' tags, which introduces a curious bug in their tactics that I’ll go over later. The scenarios in which these cunning predators can be encountered vary considerably: some your party might encounter operating on their own as a hunter or while infiltrating a humanoid settlement, some your party might encounter in familial bands led by a wolfwere alpha, and some your party might encounter leading a pack of wolves or worgs as their intelligent canine overlord. Each of these different scenarios presents different tactical opportunities for the wolfwere, meaning that each of them will have to be examined.

Wolfweres’ highest ability scores are their excellent Strength and their above average Dexterity, while their Constitution is slightly above-average, their Intelligence is average, and their Wisdom is below-average, leaving them indiscriminate in target selection. Interestingly, their Charisma is as high as their Dexterity, although without any social skill proficiencies, they can’t make very good use of it to pull off any of the deceiving shenanigans they get up to according to the flavor text, which makes it a point to note that they like to take on the form of a beautiful human or elf to lure in prey. Aside from transforming into a human or elf, they can also take on a hybrid form similar to werewolves, which is the only one with access to their full Multiattack of one Bite attack (which knocks enemies prone on a failed Strength save) and one attack with their Claws. Regardless of which form they take on, however, they have immunity to damage from nonmagical weapons not made out of iron, the Pack Tactics trait, and the Keen Hearing and Smell trait to give them advantage on Perception checks which rely on hearing or smell. Their humanoid form comes equipped with a Longsword attack and a unique ability in Lethargic Song, a magical melody which functions as a 10 minute, DC 13 Slow spell without requiring concentration and affecting all humanoids in a radius of 200 feet around the wolfwere. What’s more, although saving against the effect confers immunity to it for the next twenty-four hours, that immunity only applies to the Lethargic Song of one wolfwere, not all of them. The bug I mentioned earlier is that it doesn’t provide an exception that makes wolfweres immune to their buddies’ Lethargic Songs, so to get around that when running a group of them, I’d simply assume that they started the day using their Lethargic Songs on each other until they saved against the effect and became immune, thereby allowing them to stay close to each other without having to worry about getting caught in the massive radius.

When it comes to combat, a wolfwere acting alone will kick off with their humanoid disguise tactics and play Lethargic Song as their opening move before using their first turn to transform into their hybrid form and move into melee range. From there, they focus on a single target, using their Bite attack in hopes of knocking them prone so that they get advantage on their follow-up Claw attack, then rinsing and repeating until somebody’s dead. At that point, they’ve got what they came for and will begin dragging the body off, transforming into their true form in order to get a boost in speed before using their action on follow up turns to Dash with the body in tow. They also do this as soon as they’re reduced to 22 hit points or less, using their action to Disengage before shifting into their true form and dashing away with or without food.

Wolfweres acting as the leader of a pack of wolves or worgs will fight similarly, not possessing the caution required to limit their targets only to those they can greatly outnumber. They kick things off with Lethargic Song and shift into hybrid form as their canine buddies jump in to double-team everyone affected by it, taking advantage of both the advantage conferred by Pack Tactics and the -2 penalty to their targets’ Armor Class due to the slowing effect. Once shifted, the wolfwere focuses on finishing off the slowed opponents before they can break out of it so that the wolves attacking them are freed up to go after the rest of their foes. Once the wolfwere is forced to retreat, they bark out a signal for the rest of the pack to follow suit, with the wolfwere acting as a rearguard to make sure that their buddies are able to get away.

Wolfwere alphas are tougher customers than the average wolfwere, with nearly twice as many hit points, even greater Strength, and slightly higher Charisma. They also have an extra use of Claws in their Multiattack, and their Lethargic Song forces a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. Wolfwere alphas start off combat with their pack of wolfweres already in hybrid form, while they appear before their targets in humanoid form in order to hit them with Lethargic Song right out the gate. After that, the fight can potentially play out like a fight with a wolfwere and their pack of wolves or worgs would play out: the alpha shifts into hybrid form on the first turn while their wolfwere pack-mates double up on their slowed prey, then the alpha joins in to finish the slowed prey off so that they can take out the rest. Another possible tactic, however, could be having the wolfwere alpha and their wolfwere pack-mates pose as human and elven bandits, sacrificing their Multiattack in exchange for giving all of the wolfweres the option to let off another Lethargic Song if all of their slowed targets shake off the first one. True, the DC will be lower and more easily resisted, but the effect is too potent to not try using if they can, and someone’s bound to flub a roll eventually. Wolfwere alphas and their pack-mates always use their longswords two-handed when fighting in this manner in order to deal as much damage as possible. Regardless of how they fight, once the wolfwere alpha is reduced to 41 hit points or less, they order their pack to flee, acting as a rearguard so that their fellow wolfweres can get away.