Help with making a lifesteal/vampirism 6th level character

[Shambolaz]

Hey folks, I want to make a character for an upcoming campaign that heals on attacks (similar to lifesteal/vampirism effects from games like League of Legends, Warcraft, etc). This could be through temporary HP like the vampirism enchant, or heal flat / percent of damage, all that stuff. Here's the facts: We're starting at 6th level with 6500 gold, and everything's book price. My idea is to go crusader, as I'd have Crusader's Stike, Revitalizing Strike, and Martial Spirit. Sporadic (except the stance) but unlimited uses. Is this my best bet? What would you suggest?

[Yorrin]

I've been wondering about builds like this for a long time myself. My opti-fu hasn't quite figured out anything better than a crusader. And sadly Vampire itself is a terrible choice for this sort of thing. Thief of Life and Necrocarnate both drain the soul energy of corpses, but that's not an active lifesteal in combat, which is what I believe we're both looking for.

[Shambolaz]

Yeah there's a limited selection which is too bad. I've also thought about Psychic Warrior with Claws of the Vampire/Claws of the Beast, but it's pretty limited usage/day (on the former).

[Yorrin]

The best thing I can think of is to take a spell like Vampiric Touch, use some shenanigans to make it divine instead of arcane, and use DMM: persist.

[Fenryr]

Lifedrinking crystals? Magic Item Compendium. Temporal HP from Stone Power?

[Shambolaz]

Alternatively, there's battle sorcerer with a spell storing weapon, which would be pretty cool, but I couldn't afford it starting out.

[Shambolaz]

Whoa cool never heard of life drinking crystals till now. Not super powerful but does fit what I'm going for.

[Urpriest]

A high Cha, Life Drain, and some method of getting an Energy Drain attack (lots available) come to mind.

Duskblades can really optimize Vampiric Touch.

[Dusk Eclipse]

If you get vampiric touch, buy a bloodstone weapon, free empower is extremely good.

[Shambolaz]

Hot dang bloodstone is pretty brutal. Thanks for the tips everyone, by the way.

[Vanitas]

How about Soul Eater from Book of Vile Darkness?
You can qualify at level 5 as long as you are not a humanoid (so neraph and elan are good LA +0 alternatives). You need a natural weapon, but that's trivially eays to get - mighty arms graft gets you one for just 1000gp, Deformity (clawed hands), soulmelds... use your imagination. You could always be a Wildshape Ranger as well - that gets you natural weapons.
Take Life Drain as soon as you qualify and happy soul feasting. :smallsmile:

[Shambolaz]

Yeah Soul Eater would work, and meeting the requirements would be pretty easy with a warforged. I'll have to think about it... they're just so evil, ya know?

[Vanitas]

Yeah Soul Eater would work, and meeting the requirements would be pretty easy with a warforged. I'll have to think about it... they're just so evil, ya know?

Well, lifestealing/vampirism is pretty evil as well :smallwink:

[Feint's End]

2 good ways I can tell you off. Use a king of smack style build or a tashalatora psywar/ardent. You can get the base damage up to about 16d8ish with fists (depending on optimization you want to use you can get much higher) /12d6 with claws

Now buff vampiric claws which heals you for half of the base damage of your attacks. See where I'm going with this? So even just using claws you will heal for an average of 21 per attack on level 20. You can get pretty crazy with fists (like up to more than 100 healing per attack)

[Shambolaz]

@Feint: That's a good build, but this campaign will only be going to ~level 8. Although I don't know enough about psychic warriors to say whether that would be comparable to going straight crusader.

@Vanitas: True, but non-soul-eating lifesteal can always be re-flavored with "this guy's so good, he draws strength from beating the tar out of bad guys" or some such.

[Vanitas]

@Vanitas: True, but non-soul-eating lifesteal can always be re-flavored with "this guy's so good, he draws strength from beating the tar out of bad guys" or some such.

But then you're not stealing life. I thought that was what you wanted? :smallconfused:
If you just want to hit people and get a few hit points from it, Crusader really is the way to go.

[Shambolaz]

Well, I am just looking for ways to hit people and get HP out of it, and lifesteal is one way of doing it. Regarding Soul Eater, that is an option but I'd rather go something else, especially since I already have an idea for a Soul Eater in a different campaign more suited towards that.

[gorfnab]

Azurin (MoI) Generic Expert (UA) 1/ Thief of Life (FoE) 5 - Borrow Vigor nets you temp hp and essentia. Continue on with the build to Generic Expert 1/ Thief of Life 10/ Umbral Disciple 9 for a sneaky essentia and life stealing character.