[4e] Vampires

[Luzahn]

I was writing a campaign, featuring the PCs fighting a vampire at lv 1 as a primary villain. However, my Monster manual only featured Vampire Lords and spawn. Are there any official specs for some sort of moderately-powered vampire, not a lord or a minion?

[Ichneumon]

I believe there are rules in the DM for making monsters more or less powerful. You could use those.

[Luzahn]

True, but it gets kind of ridiculous when scaling a Vampire lord to 1st level.

[Ichneumon]

How so? :smallconfused:<white text>

[Grogmir]

Don't need to go all the way down to 1st level.

If its a BBEG - should be a few levels ahead of the party.

[Luzahn]

Well, I suppose I could manually scale powers to appropriate levels.


Don't need to go all the way down to 1st level.

If its a BBEG - should be a few levels ahead of the party.

Yeah, but I'm having it initially face a single pc, with more possibly assisting.

[KillianHawkeye]

Just apply the Vampire Lord template from the DMG to a Level 3 or 4 humanoid monster.

[Boci]

Yeah, but I'm having it initially face a single pc, with more possibly assisting.

Can't it be one of his minions?

[Faleldir]

You don't have to call it a vampire lord, you know.

[Grogmir]

Well, I suppose I could manually scale powers to appropriate levels.



Yeah, but I'm having it initially face a single pc, with more possibly assisting.

Then I would suggest just taking one of the lower level undead - reskinning the powers and calling it a Vampire runt - or something like that.

Good luck, Grog

[hamishspence]

Or have vampire characters high enough level to cast the ritual for creating vampires, be Vampire Lords, lower level ones are Vampires, and minions are Vampire Spawn.

Given that Vampire Lord was an upgrade template on the WoTC site, this would fit.

[taltamir]

Just make sure they don't personally meet the vampire lord in first level...
They can get a good few levels fighting off its minions, over multiple sessions.

[Galdor Miriel]

I used the monster builder in adventure tools from DDI to change a whole bunch of vampire monsters to make them level appropriate and it worked fine.

Using that tool you can adjust the level of a vampire lord, or give vampire powers to level 3 creatures to get the effect that you want, the rest is then just fluff. When you are happy you can print out a pdf or copy the rtf section into a campaign document. God I love computers.

GM

[Oracle_Hunter]

Make your own monster using the Monster Builder (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Tool.aspx?x=dnd/4new/tool/adventuretools). If you don't currently have a DDI subscription, shell out $10 and update 3 Character Builders while you're at it.

It's super easy to use.

EDIT: Goddamn ninjas! :smallmad:

Also, Cute PDF (http://www.cutepdf.com/) is a handy tool for converting DDI files into PDFs.

[Doug Lampert]

Make your own monster using the Monster Builder (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Tool.aspx?x=dnd/4new/tool/adventuretools). If you don't currently have a DDI subscription, shell out $10 and update 3 Character Builders while you're at it.

It's super easy to use.

EDIT: Goddamn ninjas! :smallmad:

Also, Cute PDF (http://www.cutepdf.com/) is a handy tool for converting DDI files into PDFs.

Or you can copy them as RTF directly from the monster builder and paste into anything, that requires a bit of reformating, but nothing too onerous.

However, PCs can deal with enemies up to 7 levels higher per the DMG, scale down a MM vampire lord to level 6 and it works fine. It will kill a single PC, but I'm not really sure WHY you expect a single level 1 PC to beat a full powered vampire? Use a level 5 minion if you want something they can crush that easily.

[NotScaryBats]

There's also no reason your bad guys can't grow in power between encounters. So, if they fight the bad guy as a level 5 monster now, they could fight that same vampire a few levels later as a level 7 creature. I often do that and haven't had any complaints.

[Luzahn]

All right, thanks for the comments, should be able to make it work.