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We are playing the published adventure
Princes of the Apocalypse, and my players are going to assault the Riverguard Keep,
where they will most certainly encounter a wereboar.
The wereboar has a Tusks attack, which can apply the wereboar lycanthropy curse on the target.
If one of my players gets cursed, how could he possibly remove it? Would Remove Curse work? It does seem "too easy"...
At your touch, all curses affecting on a creature or object end.
From page 206 of the Monster Manual:
A remove curse spell can rid an afflicted lycanthrope of the curse, but a natural born lycanthrope can be freed of the curse only with a wish.
As a strict reading this could mean that only Remove Curse would work to cure someone who wasn't born a lycanthrope. However most spells that inflict a curse also state that magic similar to, or more powerful than, Remove Curse also work so I think any reasonable DM would allow any spell that can lift a curse to work as well - such a spell being Greater Restoration.
But that's just what the books say. A DM has free rein to create their own cures if they see fit, which could be the basis for an entire quest. As Erik suggests in the comments, in older editions eating Belladonna would cure lycanthropy but it was toxic so there was a risk to taking that route. Maybe there's a potion made from rare ingredients that could cure it. The possibilities are left up to the DM's imagination.
The rules are clear that it takes the 3rd level Remove Curse spell, but it's completely up the the DM to embellish the story a little. It's also a lot more fun for the players.
My DM had our party go on a quest to find a rare artifact from antiquity: a magical staff from a priest of some long forgotten god. It was just a staff of healing (modified to include remove curse) and it would take all 10 of its charges to heal the character of lycanthropy, but we had a choice: heal the character and destroy the staff (because it was so ancient, it couldn't take getting drained one more time) OR keep the staff for ourselves and kill off that character.
Personally as a DM I say that if the infected/cursed individual has yet to turn (meaning that they have failed the con save after being attacked by a were-creature but a full moon has yet to change them) anyone with the Remove Curse or Greater Restoration or any other ability that removes a curse can take care of it. Once the individual has turned the curse then become more complex, requiring the help of a high level cleric, druid, shaman, etc. to remove the curse. This makes it easy to deal with if dealt with early but makes for an interesting story once they have turned. I feel it may also change based on the type of lycanthropy and if they were willing or not.
Thank you for your interest in this question.
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