Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition
lycanthropes & lineages

Dhampir (Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft p. 16) Dhampirs are humanoids- not quite undead, but toeing the line. When your PC becomes cursed, it’s walking speed changes to 35 feet, and it can keep its skill proficiencies as well as climbing, flying and/or swimming speeds. If it chooses not to keep those, it can replace them with 2 skill proficiencies. Otherwise, all other racial qualities are lost. The dhampir curse includes darkvision to 60 feet, no need to breathe, climbing speed of 35 feet which improves at 3rd level, a vampiric bite that replenishes your hit points by the damage dealt (1d4 piercing damage) and the amount of piercing damage is added to your next attack roll or ability check (once per long rest you can do this your proficiency bonus number of times), and you attack with advantage with your bite when you are below half your hit points.  

Hexblood (Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft p. 18) Hexblood are the result of making bargains with hags or the like in return for something very powerful. When your PC becomes cursed, its speed is 30 feet, and it can keep its skill proficiencies as well as climbing, flying and/or swimming speeds. If it chooses not to keep those, it can replace them with 2 skill proficiencies. Otherwise, all other racial qualities are lost. The hexblood curse includes darkvision to 60 feet, once per long rest they can cast Disguise Self and Hex, and can remove a part of their body to make an eerie token. The eerie token can be used as a communication device with whoever is given the token, or can be used to allow the hexblood keep an eye on an area where the token is placed, up to 10 miles.

Reborn (Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft p. 20) Reborn have died, but come back from the dead, yet are somehow not undead, but not properly alive either. They don’t remember their past lives apart from possibly little glimmers that break through. They may be more flesh golem or more zombie, but they are definitely not quite right. The reborn curse includes a speed of 30 feet, and it can keep its skill proficiencies as well as climbing, flying and/or swimming speeds. If it chooses not to keep those, it can replace them with 2 skill proficiencies. Otherwise, all other racial qualities are lost. The curse includes advantage on saves against disease and being poisoned, resistance to poison damage, advantage on death saves, don’t need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep (but must be inactive for 4 hours), and can add 1d6 to an ability check your proficiency number of times per long rest.

Redtooth werefox (Monstrous Compendium volume 4: Eldraine Creatures) The Redtooth werefox is being included here for completeness. While this is a case of lycanthropy, it can’t be spread, so there is no way for your PC to become cursed with it. It does exist though, but you can’t get it to become a fox. If you want to become a fox, try rolling up a druid character instead.

Vampire (Ixalan) (Plane Shift: Ixalan p. 13) The Plane Shift resources, while official, are not much discussed, and are pretty sloppy and weird. This one is no exception. Unlike the Zendikar vampire, at least this one is clearly undead, and states that humans are turned into vampires through the Rite of Redemption. If it were mentioned again, we would even know how vampires are made. Seriously unhelpful. Perhaps your DM will make something up to let you use either of these two vampires from Plane Shift, but it’s more likely that they won’t be allowed- I know I won’t be allowing anything from the Plane Shift worlds into my game. These vampires have CHA +2 WIS +1, have a speed of 30 feet, are resistant to necrotic damage, know Vampire, drink blood to injure foes while healing your hit points, and after drinking blood their speed increases by 10 feet and STR & DEX checks are made with advantage for 1 minute. Blood is apparently the vampire version of an energy drink in Ixalan.

Vampire (Zendikar) (Plane Shift: Zendikar p. 14) The Plane Shift resources, while official, are not much discussed, and are pretty sloppy and weird. This one is no exception. The vampires in this book are kind of treated as a race, and we’re told that they are not undead, but are created by the spread of a disease. But then it says that all vampires either arose as the result of some godlike titan (but doesn’t go into what that means) or is spawned by one of the originals (but doesn’t go into what that means either, but it sounds like it’s hinting possibly somewhat at like how we know vampires spread from literature and cinema, maybe a bit) and all of the mythology is just vaguely hinted at, so there’s no way to tell if vampires can turn other humanoids into vampires or if they have babies. It gives stats for making vampire PC’s, but doesn’t tell you how to convert a PC into a vampire. Basically, it’s a hot mess. If your DM allows it though, this is a way to play a weird vampire, I guess? Maybe your DM will sort a way to transform you if that’s what your desire is. This vampire has CHA +2 and INT +1, seem to be largely immortal?, has a speed of 30 feet, darkvision to 60 feet, resistance to necrotic damage, can read Vampire, and can drink blood, which returns lost hit points to the vampire.

Vampire (Monster Manual p. 295) This is a very powerful being, and to become one you need to be slain by a vampire, buried, then rise as a vampire spawn, which is a slave to the vampire who created it. Most vampire spawn are kept as slaves (because why wouldn’t you?) but sometimes a vampire will allow a spawn to drink some of its blood and then it will become a full vampire. This is obviously extremely rare, because now instead of free help, the vampire has competition. If the vampire dies without letting the spawn drink its blood, the vampire spawn gains its freedom, but still doesn’t become a vampire. So it’s very, very difficult AND unlikely that a PC will be turned into a vampire. If that does somehow happen, the PC becomes a lawful evil character which is GROSSLY overpowered compared to the rest of the party, unless they are level 20 perhaps. At that point the DM should probably take the character sheet and play it as an NPC (even the Monster Manual suggests doing this) as it will cause major problems within the party. Basically, this is hard to happen, so as DM make a point to not let this happen. It’s a party killer. When a PC turns into a vampire, vampires are cursed with: STR, DEX, & CON 18 if their score isn’t higher already, gain darkvision to 120 feet, have resistance to necrotic damage and nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, attack & damage rolls are STR based, get all of the vampire traits from the vampire stats (shapechanger, legendary resistance 3/day, misty escape, regeneration, spider climb), its few weaknesses (running water, stake through the heart, extreme sunlight sensitivity, must be invited in), and its actions (multiattack, unarmed strike, bite, charm, and children of the night). Having a PC like this in the party is going to make the other players unhappy, and if they are roleplaying evil characters that must drink blood constantly it’s going to be disastrous. Stake that story progression in the heart before it starts.

Vampire spawn (Monster Manual p. 295) Vampire spawn are humanoids killed by a vampire which rise from the dead as the vampire’s slave. The slave part should be enough to keep PC’s from wanting to become one. If not, the reality of being a slave later will take a lot of the shine off of it. Like the vampire, this is too overpowered (even though nowhere near as bad as the vampire). Don’t do it, unless the plan is to keep it from progressing further and to use it as a plot enhancement device (You must save your friend and cure the vampirism before the next full moon or he will be lost to you forever!) Vampire spawn are cursed with STR, DEX, and CON 16 if their score isn’t already higher, gain darkvision to 60 feet, have resistance to necrotic damage and nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, attack & damage rolls are STR based, get all of the vampire traits from the vampire spawn stats (regeneration, spider climb), it’s few weaknesses (running water, stake through the heart, extreme sunlight sensitivity, must be invited in), and its actions (multiattack, claws, and bite). it’s much weaker than the vampire, but still not a good fit as a party member. Don’t do it.

Werebat (Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage p. 317) Werebat lycanthropes are cursed with DEX 17 if their score isn’t higher already, immunity from nonmagical/non-silvered attacks which deal bludgeoning, slashing, or piercing damage, their attack & damage rolls for natural weapons are STR or DEX based, whichever is higher, they gain advantage on Perception checks involving hearing, they have darkvision to 60 feet, and sunlight sensitivity (disadvantage on attack rolls and Perception checks based on vision when in sunlight). Their hybrid and bat forms have 60 feet fly movement and echolocation to 60 feet (which is essentially blindsight, but involves hearing so it doesn’t work if they are deafened), as well as a bite attack (+5 to hit, deals 1d6+3 piercing damage) which gives the werebat temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt and which can spread their lycanthropy. In their humanoid form they can take the Disengage and Hide actions as bonus actions, and when in their hybrid forms they can make two attacks with the same weapon (or in hybrid form can instead choose to make a bite attack and a melee weapon attack). Their fully transformed form is a giant bat.

Werebear (Monster Manual p.207) Werebear lycanthropes are cursed with STR 19 if their score isn’t higher already, attack & damage rolls for natural weapons are STR based, get advantage on Perception checks based on smell, gets one Relentless (if brought to 0 HP with an attack dealing 14 or less damage, it is instead brought to 1 HP) per short/long rest, and they are immune to nonmagical/non-silvered bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing attacks. In bear and hybrid forms they gain +1 to AC, they move at 40 feet and have a climb speed of 30 feet, have a bite attack (2d10+ STR modifier piercing damage) which can spread the lycanthropy, and have a claw attack (2d8+ STR modifier slashing damage). In bear or hybrid form (some Large sized bear species) they get a multiattack of 2 claw attacks. 

Wereboar (Monster Manual p. 207) Wereboar lycanthropes are cursed with STR 17 if their score isn’t higher already, attack & damage rolls for natural weapons are STR based, and they are immune to nonmagical/non-silvered bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing attacks. In their boar or hybrid form they have +1 to AC, they get a charge attack (if they move 15+ feet & hit it with tusks they do an additional 2d6 slashing damage & the target must succeed on a STR (the DC is 8 + proficiency bonus + STR modifier) save or be knocked prone), and get a tusk attack (2d6+ STR modifier slashing damage) which can spread their lycanthropy. In boar form their speed is 40 feet. In hybrid form they get two attacks, only one of which can be from the tusks.

Werejaguar (Tales From the Yawning Portal p. 79) Werejaguar lycanthropy is a weird one. There is only one mention of them in D&D 5E, on one page in Tales From The Yawning Portal, where it says simply to use the weretiger stats for it. However, it is a weird situation in that it is also petrified, then becomes unpetrified, and is missing its heart and so it’s got other, non-lycanthropy stuff going on there. Which makes sense, because I have worked with both jaguars and tigers, and I can tell you that the two species are definitely NOT even close to being as dangerous as each other. So if you want to use a werejaguar, I guess you can just use the weretiger stats, but I personally am not going to do that. This one is a hot mess.

Wererat (Monster Manual p. 207) Wererat lycanthropes are cursed with DEX 15 if their score isn’t higher already, they are immune to nonmagical/non-silvered bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing attacks, they get advantage on Perception checks based on smell, and attack & damage rolls for natural weapons are STR or DEX based, whichever is higher. In their giant rat or hybrid form they get a bite attack (1d4+ modifier) which can spread their lycanthropy. In their hybrid form they get a multiattack, only 1 of which can be a bite attack. In their giant rat form they get darkvision to 60 feet.

Wereraven (Curse of Strahd p.242) Wereraven lycanthropes are cursed with DEX 15 if their score isn’t higher already, can mimic simple sounds, and their pecking beak attack (which deals 1 piercing damage as a raven and 1d4+ modifier as a hybrid) can  spread the curse of wereraven lycanthropy. Their beak damage roll as a hybrid and beak attack roll for hybrid or raven form is made with either STR or DEX, whichever is higher. Wereravens have a flying speed of 50 feet in raven and hybrid forms. Hybrid forms have a multiattack. Their fully transformed form is a raven.

Weretiger (Monster Manual p. 207) Weretiger lycanthropes are cursed with STR 17 if their score isn’t already higher, they are immune to nonmagical/non-silvered bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing attacks, they get darkvision to 60 feet, attack & damage rolls for natural weapons are STR based, and they get advantage on Perception checks for hearing or smell. In their tiger or hybrid forms they get a bite attack (1d10+ STR modifier) which can spread their lycanthropy, a claw attack (1d8+ STR modifier), and a pounce (if it moves at least 15 feet and then hits a creature with a claw attack, the creature must make a STR save (DC 8 + proficiency bonus + STR modifier) or be knocked prone, and if it is prone the weretiger can make a bonus action bite attack). Hybrid forms can make a multiattack of two melee, two ranged weapon, or two claw attacks. The tiger form has a speed of 40 feet.

Werevulture (The Book of Many Things p. 184) Werevultures are being included here for completeness. While a werevulture bite can lead to a PC being turned into a werevulture, if the cursed PC drops to 0 HP, there are no stats given for how you change the PC’s stats once that happens. Presumably that is because the stats for the werevulture make it clear that when a PC becomes a werevulture, the DM takes over that PC and it becomes a NPC. Presumably that is because the werevulture’s curse is fiendish in nature, turning its victims into fiends? Regardless, there is no way to currently turn into a werevulture and play it as well.

Werewolf (Monster Manual p. 207) Werewolf lycanthropes are cursed with STR 15 if their score isn’t higher already, attack & damage rolls for natural weapons are STR based, have advantage on Perception checks for hearing or smell, and they are immune to nonmagical/non-silvered bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing attacks. In wolf or hybrid forms they get +1 to AC and they get a bite attack (1d8+ STR modifier piercing damage) which can spread their lycanthropy. The hybrid form gets a claw attack (2d4+ STR modifier slashing damage) and gets a multiattack consisting of one bite and one claw attack. In wolf form their speed is 40 feet