the size of your average lycanthrope is determined i coreleation to the size class of its counterpart in nature, a were rat is small because a rat is small a wolf is a mid sized lycanthrope, and then you have the realy towering things like were tigers and such classified as large, in some rules ive heard they can give giants a run for the money, well the smaller giantkin anyway.

But in the systems where werecreatures are massive (15 feet or more) wererats seldom get larger than the average man... or in some cases shrink.

Hah! I call bull. Its gm discretion in games, in fact we had a 8ft female were mouse in the game o was in last month, and with high charisma too boot.

but I'm not talking about GM discretion, I'm talking about the written rule. if you have a GM that is ok with you playing a medium sized were rat, or a small sized werewolf, that's great - but by the WRITTEN RULES wererats are small, werewolves are medium, werebears are large, and for an added dose of stupidity: creatures more than 1 size category larger or smaller than the lycanthrope that attacks it, it is COMPLETELY IMMUNE TO IT'S LYCANTHROPY.

I dunno if there are other systems that, by their written rule, handle werecreatures better, but D&D and Pathfinder do not.

There are settings with some real massive Rodents of Unusual Size, but never get to see a large wererat. My main problem is when similar sized animals get to be big, or a real anger is when the were-form of a wererat is smaller than a regular human.

In Werewolf:Apocalypse, Wererats are bigger than the human form, but they're by far the smaller of the hybrid forms(in that game you have 5 shapes from Human to whole Rat) and the weakest in physical terms, with only the werecrows being slightly better.
They make it with a lot of illness attacks.

Well, technically they only grow about a foot larger than normal. Ratkin really only get 3 forms, with the Glabro and Hispo equivalents gained depending on what breed you were born and if you get that gift. That and the Ratkin have constantly gotten the shaft. The end times the extent of what they got was a line in the countdown timer on WW's webpage, and a cybernetic infused ratkin that joins the Glasswalkers in the Apocalypse book. Ignored basically all the fluff in their book, and the bits on how they were waiting for the chaos they would cause in the end times in cities, nothing on the curse on the Garou proclaimed at the field of nettles with the dying breath of the last ratkin bard.

Then you had the W20 and the changing breed books where half their gifts were given to the garou and other Fera at lower levels, and even more of their fluff and nuances boiled down to the view of what The Rat Race Twitchers are like. The Bastet get the majority of the love.

That and I can never find anyone that runs cWoD stuff that allows ratkin as playable :( and my local group only knows nWoD.

Aw...a real shame, it's always fun to test everything in a game but I guess it can get a little problematic to join all the different kins together in the same group.
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I need my old WH books and make a Skaven RP NOW

Thats the bit that bothered me the most with the newest edition. While ratkin don't exactly play well with others, it says that some often tend to hire themselves out as mercenaries. The newest edition doesn't bring that up at all, and in doing so makes them even less appealing to allow them in with everything else.

Funny enough to add to the weirdness, wererats actually aren’t the smallest in that game. Werefoxes as the smallest and weakest in their hybrid form. Were spiders have a form that can be twice as big as a werebear. It’s like you’re making them all arbitrary sizes anyway, why not have the war forms all be big hulking monsters around the same size. They still all have unique gifts, weaknesses, and cultures to differentiate them.

Rats and cats are not the same size???

I didn't say they're the same size :V I said "Aren't really a whole lot smaller".
An average rat is roughly the same proportional size to a cat as a cat would be to a wolf, but werewolves and werecats are the same size.

Oh, I misunderstood the point you were making.

I just changed a bunch of the text, weh :v

I thought werewolves retained Medium size :o

Maybe? I forgot and am too lazy to look things up right now.

I thought I was writing them wrong is all XP
Still, holy rats o.o

Nevermind, I'm a big dumb liar :v
Maybe I was thinking of World of Darkness.

Yeah, the Werewolves in the Apocalypse grow in their hybrid form to huge critters

And you're not dumb :U

*S-SWOON*

Still one of my favorite pictures

Side note, Min you should Link to this account. Given its the one for my wererat x3

YOU HAVE TOO MANY D:

That's actually pretty cute looking. Really like the hair, mane...whatever you wanna call it. Also nice job with the human's face. Simplified but very effective.