Yuan Ti?

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In our campaign, the group has been fighting a lot of Yaun Ti lately. Anyway, we've decided to take 2 weeks out to train and relax a little. In this time, my character has developed troubles. His skin has peeled off on his arms and neck to reveal scales, and they're spreading onto his shoulders, chest and back. His tongue is starting to become thinner, and he's noticed his legs have shrunk a little. Basically, he's becoming a Yuan Ti. I wasn't aware that being bitten by one caused this. My question is:

Is our DM overstepping the line a little?

 

My opinion: not if he allows this condition to be cured/reversed.

 

My opinion: yes species-wise you'd need a massive magical curse for it to work

 

I can't speak for 3e (if that's what you're playing), but in 2e that's a definite no. The only two ways to be a Yuan-Ti are through breeding (eww) or a specific "blessing" from their snake god like the one that made the original Yuan-Ti; a simple bite wouldn't do it.

 

The way I see it, this ins't like lycanthropy. This is a race change. It just seems impossible.

 

Yuan-ti have a variety of different origins, world dependent, but you can only become a tainted one or brood guard through non-divine/biological means. If he's turning you into a tainted one or brood guard, you'd have to have consumed a magical potion of types before you could change.

 

To my knowledge, I haven't taken any dodgy potions.

 

Well... any chance the DM has decided to give you the snake-blood feat in retrospect? I mean, if you have it it might manifest, but normally players are in control of their character's biographies. Still, it might be his style to "uncover" something like this, and it has potential.
Aside from that, I don't think I've ever seen anything that indicates that a human can become a yuan-ti without being born one, or without divine interference. Baleful polymorph or reincarnation at least (reincarnation must be the wackiest spell of them all...raise dead + a russian roulette).

 

Why argue about how yuan-ti work in canon? I believe that the DM should have the authority to do something like this so long as it's reasonable to get out of it. (Besides, who's to say that your character's transformation is necessarily caused by being bitten by a yuan-ti?)

Again, I don't exactly see much of a difference between this and the DM saying: "Your head feels really light spending time in that cave with the weird mushrooms. You lose one point of Intelligence," so long as this loss can be cured.

If you really have a problem with it, why not just talk with your DM out of the game about it?

[ April 08, 2006, 00:55: Message edited by: Oaz ]

 

@Oaz there has to be a rationale behind it as well for it to be reasonable, i.e. powerful curse, dodgy potion. It's not human to humanoid but human to ophidian completely different genus never mind species.

 

Why is being bitten, in a fantasy setting, lessof a plausible medium of transformation than a curse or potion? Would you object to the historically traditional "if a werewolf/vampire bites you, then you become a werewolf/vampire"? I personally think such a medium of transformation is appropriate thematically.

Also, I seem to remember a reptilian monster from one of the Monster Manual does something like this. Maybe it's connected with the Yuan-Ti.

However, my original answer was not whether this follows setting X in one way or another. I simply said that I didn't think the DM was overstepping his bounds with respect to running the game unless the transformation was permanent.

 

It's not less plausible, and you even show that yourself with the werewolf and vampire examples. But the Yuan-Ti simply don't have those same powers to transfer their curse by bite as others do; that's all there is to it.

However, that does not mean I think the DM is out of line; there's still plenty of wiggle room even in canon. If you remember, one of the ways to become a Yuan-Ti is by the divine "blessing" of their god. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't a lot of clerical 'harming' spells delivered by touch, without any real restriction on what isn't a touch? Maybe the Yuan-Ti was a priest (or simply a "chosen one" or something like that) channeling its god's blessing.

Whatever way it happened, the fact is that it happened. But if CJ doesn't like it, he should take it up with his DM. Players should have some say too, or else the game stops being fun.

 

I've thought about this a lot, and i've decided to see where this goes. I'm at least going to find out what's happening and why, but I might not get it cured if it could be beneficial.

 

I love it when my DM pulls stuff like this on us! It tends to make the centre of the campaign the players in stead of his dungeons or monsters or NPC's. It gives the chance for some excellent roleplaying (does your character tell this to the rest of the party or does he hide it for as long as possible, will he welcome the change into a new race or try to stop it, how does the rest of the party react to this change, do they still trust one of them who is changing itno a possible enemy?) and a character driven plot.

I don't think he is out of line, it would be something I would probably pull on my players, just to motivate the players who aren't in the spotlight a lot (because they get outshined by other players, for example).

Tell us how it works out, won't you?

 

I ended up cured. Confided in the party cleric, and we got it sorted

 

How? By a special quest or a simple Remove Curse? Give us the story