Twilight Jack
2009-08-03, 01:46 PM
I've always tried to avoid using vampires in my D&D games, mainly because I've already got a game for dealing with bloodsucking undead, and also because the crunch for vampires in the D&D books doesn't really fit my conception of them, even within a medieval fantasy setting.
But I've gotten over it and am intending to utilize a vampire antagonist in an upcoming arc. I just want to make one change to the single aspect of their mechanics that bothers me most.
I'm dropping the energy drain.
I cannot think of a single mythological or fictional source in which the merest touch of a vampire saps the lifeforce of the living (well, at least not the sources in which the vampires also sustain themselves on the blood of the living). It works for other types of undead, but I honestly feel that the energy drain was thrown onto vampires just to make them arbitrarily more dangerous, without any concern for whether it made sense.
So my question to the Playgrounders is whether the loss of that single ability has any appreciable effect on their proper CR, and/or whether they should get something to make up for the loss.
But I've gotten over it and am intending to utilize a vampire antagonist in an upcoming arc. I just want to make one change to the single aspect of their mechanics that bothers me most.
I'm dropping the energy drain.
I cannot think of a single mythological or fictional source in which the merest touch of a vampire saps the lifeforce of the living (well, at least not the sources in which the vampires also sustain themselves on the blood of the living). It works for other types of undead, but I honestly feel that the energy drain was thrown onto vampires just to make them arbitrarily more dangerous, without any concern for whether it made sense.
So my question to the Playgrounders is whether the loss of that single ability has any appreciable effect on their proper CR, and/or whether they should get something to make up for the loss.