You got your paladin in my vampire...

[LVOD]

So im dming a game, and ive got one character whos dead set on being a pally, and another who really wants to be a vampire halfbreed. To make it worse, the vamps quest is to become a full vampire and the pally is an oath of the ancients (sworn to preserve life).

We were trying to figure out a plot where they could conceivably work together. What ive got so far is:
Theyre half brothers, and their shared mother was murdered,
Or theyre cursed so that neither can die without killing the other, and becoming undead will be a nice little work around/loophole,
Or the pally is on a quest to get a weapon to save his village which just so happens to be in the posession of the vamps father.

Any other ideas on what sort of quest could unite a pally and a vamp?

[Sredni Vashtar]

Have them figure it out between them. That way they'll be happy with the outcome (or at least, happier than they may be with a decree from on high), and they may come up with something wholly unexpected.


As for quests, threatening them directly is a good way to have opposites band together. Maybe a BBEG takes umbrage with both of them. A death worshiper would want to end life and destroy undead (who are cheating death) for example.

[Mr.Moron]

So im dming a game, and ive got one character whos dead set on being a pally, and another who really wants to be a vampire halfbreed. To make it worse, the vamps quest is to become a full vampire and the pally is an oath of the ancients (sworn to preserve life).

We were trying to figure out a plot where they could conceivably work together. What ive got so far is:
Theyre half brothers, and their shared mother was murdered,
Or theyre cursed so that neither can die without killing the other, and becoming undead will be a nice little work around/loophole,
Or the pally is on a quest to get a weapon to save his village which just so happens to be in the posession of the vamps father.

Any other ideas on what sort of quest could unite a pally and a vamp?

I feel like anything anything you could come up with would feel contrived an artificial. My first instinctive would be just to tell the vampire player: No you can't be a vampire. Vampires are evil monsters and I don't wanna deal with that **** in this game. Seriously dude, just roll a freaking normal character, if you wanna play Vampire: The Masquerade,. talk to my buddy mike, he loves the vampire ****.

Barring that, just handwave the crap. There is no way to get an irredeemable life-sucking evil with no chance at redemption like a vampire together with an oath of ancients PALADIN and have both be true to the concept. Either ban one concept or both, or just understand the campaign will be roughly "For the Lulz". Either that or be prepared to fundamentally alter the core of what an OoA PALADIN or a vampire is. The default fluffs are totally 100% incomparable with now way to reconcile them. If your players are OK with changing he fluff, i guess go with that. As defalcate you may as well ask superman to work with Luca Blight.

[BootStrapTommy]

A vampire doesn't have be Evil.

If the half-bred was born a vampire, than he had no choice. He could choose to be good. And thus be an ally of the pali.

Seriously. Blade. The solution is for the half-bred to be Wesley Snipes.

[Mr.Moron]

A vampire doesn't have be Evil.

If the half-bred was born a vampire, than he had no choice. He could choose to be good. And thus be an ally of the pali.

Seriously. Blade. The solution is for the half-bred to be Wesley Snipes.

A vampire is a bloodsucker that kills sapient beings as a fundamental part of it's being, it ends human lives as we breathe air or drink water. Trying to ally a paladin and vampire is like trying to ally a mouse and a starving feral cat.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Vampirism can be an affliction as well. (Granted, this guy wants to become a full vampire for some reason, but that reason need not be evil.)

[erradin]

Well, it depends on if your players are willing to work with you. Is the vampire evil, or just vampiric? Would the player accept only feeding off of animals? Could the paladin be persuaded to try and redeem the vampire?

Quest ideas:

The BBEG is a vampire who your vampire needs to kill/drink blood from/ eat the heart of/ etc in order to gain full vampirism and the Paladin wants to kill that vampire anyway. He suspects his new 'friend' has some secret he won't share if the Paladin turns hostile. So they have to work together because neither can defeat the vampire themselves.

2) there is an organization which will only allow itself to be headed by a vampire. The paladin needs someone on the inside that they can influence to keep the death-toll down because the organization is too powerful to be taken down without inside help. This new vampire 'friend' may not be likeable, but they are the key to avoiding a much greater evil.

[BootStrapTommy]

A vampire is a bloodsucker that kills sapient beings as a fundamental part of it's being, it ends human lives as we breathe air or drink water. Trying to ally a paladin and vampire is like trying to ally a mouse and a starving feral cat. You've obviously never read the Blade comics, whose main character is basically a vampire paladin...

Sapience is not a necessary qualification of a vampire's bloodlust, according to the MM. It never precludes feeding on nonsapient, nonhumoids at all. It says bloodlust, period. Hell, it never even specifies that vampires even need to feed, just that they desire to.

[Mr.Moron]

You've obviously never read the Blade comics, whose main character is basically a vampire paladin...

Sapience is not a necessary qualification of a vampire's bloodlust, according to the MM. It never precludes feeding on nonsapient, nonhumoids at all. It says bloodlust, period. Hell, it never even specifies that vampires even need to feed, just that they desire to.

That's a pretty lame watering-down of "Vampire" (in my personal opinion), but whatever. If people wanna make a Friday the 13th remake with Freedy Krueger as a sensitive pacifist romcom lead played by Benedict Cumberbatch, more power to them I guess. You gotta admit something of the orginal character of the ithe thing is being lost in it. Though I guess that could certainly be a good thing if you're not invested in "Vampires as horrible monsters" thing.

I mean if you're willing to buy vampires as innocuous person-entities as any other man, woman or dwarf might be you can have them together for any number reasons. Maybe they just both like smooth jazz or whatever.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Assuming someone wants to play them as part of a party of adventurers, I'd wager that they're probably not playing a horrible monster.

Personally, I prefer the irredeemable, monstrous vampire, but not everyone does, and popular culture (as well as folklore) has provided a veritable cornucopia of vampires to choose from. To each their own, or so they say.

[Slipperychicken]

So im dming a game, and ive got one character whos dead set on being a pally, and another who really wants to be a vampire halfbreed. To make it worse, the vamps quest is to become a full vampire and the pally is an oath of the ancients (sworn to preserve life).

We were trying to figure out a plot where they could conceivably work together. What ive got so far is:
Theyre half brothers, and their shared mother was murdered,
Or theyre cursed so that neither can die without killing the other, and becoming undead will be a nice little work around/loophole,
Or the pally is on a quest to get a weapon to save his village which just so happens to be in the posession of the vamps father.

Any other ideas on what sort of quest could unite a pally and a vamp?

Couldn't you just tell the vamp player that monstrous characters aren't appropriate for PCs in this DnD campaign? He could play his half-vampire antihero in VtM, or some other game which is suitable for that.


I mean, one of the main premises of D&D is that a bunch of heroes are setting out to destroy malicious alien creatures. It kind of defeats the point when most of them aren't actually malicious, and some are already batting for the team of goodness and humanity.


Assuming someone wants to play them as part of a party of adventurers, I'd wager that they're probably not playing a horrible monster.


You'd be surprised how many players do just that. They run the gamut from serial murderers, serial rapists, crazy cultists trying to end the world, to unabashedly evil necromancers, literal sociopaths, and even full-fledged evil liches and dragons. I think a lot of them want to play a bad-guy, but their regular group is playing D&D (or that's all they're willing to try). That basically means the only way they know how to achieve a character concept is to ram it into a D&D adventuring party like an oversized round peg into an undersized square hole.

[Sredni Vashtar]

You'd be surprised how many players do just that. They run the gamut from serial murderers, serial rapists, crazy cultists trying to end the world, to unabashedly evil necromancers, literal sociopaths, and even full-fledged evil liches and dragons. I think a lot of them want to play a bad-guy, but their regular group is playing D&D (or that's all they're willing to try). That basically means the only way they know how to achieve a character concept is to ram it into a D&D adventuring party like an oversized round peg into an undersized square hole.

I've had players pull some of that stuff before. That's why I qualified my statement with "probably". I'm an optimist sometimes.

[BootStrapTommy]

That's a pretty lame watering-down of "Vampire" (in my personal opinion), but whatever. If people wanna make a Friday the 13th remake with Freedy Krueger as a sensitive pacifist romcom lead played by Benedict Cumberbatch, more power to them I guess. You gotta admit something of the orginal character of the ithe thing is being lost in it. Though I guess that could certainly be a good thing if you're not invested in "Vampires as horrible monsters" thing.
Yes because a horrible monster that murders as part of it's nature is so much more complex than that same monster being forced to fight a battle with his own bestial nature in order to accomplish Good.

Obviously that's just a watered-down version of "mindless killing machine".

[Mr.Moron]

Yes because a horrible monster that murders as part of it's nature is so much more complex than that same monster being forced to fight a battle with his own bestial nature in order to accomplish Good.

Obviously that's just a watered-down version of "mindless killing machine".

Complexity is not the same thing as "better" sometimes simple ideas are the most evocative, satisfying , interesting, compelling or just otherwise "Good". For my my money I'll take the vampire as something that has to kill to exist, in an existence that can't ultimately be called life. That's what I like and reducing the brutality and tragedy of it for more complexity, nuance or humanity can only be "watering down" in my view, less good and less interesting.

We're arguing taste though at this point so you like your vampires they way you like them. I'll like vampires not at all but tolerate them when they're portrayed a specific way. If the OP wants an opinion I'll give mine based my perspective and you can give yours. It's not like we're arguing ethical matters here, or something so serious as what can be tolerated by the state. It's imaginary undead that turn into bats sometimes there's room for us both to be right, and both be wrong at the same time.

[unwise]

The half-vampire simply lies. He need to kill his sire-vamp to gain his full vampire bloodline. He however cannot raise a hand against the guy, as he is almost auto-charmed by the guy every time he sees him, its a sire-thrall thing. So he needs a paladin to do his dirty work for him.

So he finds some chump who believes in preserving the sanctity of life and tell him that he needs help killing the sire-vamp so that he can regain his full soul. The Paladin can't just put him out of his misery, as then he would die with only half a soul and be in limbo etc.

[Kane0]

I agree on the 'ask them to sit down and come up with something awesome between themselves' idea, then run with that. DMing is more enjoyable when the players are actively helping you out.



I mean, one of the main premises of D&D is that a bunch of heroes are setting out to destroy malicious alien creatures. It kind of defeats the point when most of them aren't actually malicious, and some are already batting for the team of goodness and humanity.

You say that, yet your avatar is of a Flumph :smallamused:

[goto124]

Ask the player why he (OP said half-brothers, so males I suppose) wants to play a vampire.

If it's for the mechanics, a refluff to make the vamp be workable with a paladin. The vamp could feed on monsters and people they killed for other valid reasons anyway. The vamp could have a largely humanlike appearance, to avoid mistrust.

Assuming the player isn't munchkining or such.


To make it worse, the vamps quest is to become a full vampire

Er... why? Tell us more about this vampire's backstory please.

[Slipperychicken]

You say that, yet your avatar is of a Flumph :smallamused:

You got me there. It takes work to make a tentacled space-monster adorable and seemingly non-threatening, but they pulled it off.

[Randomthom]

I used to got a lot of "square peg" characters in my groups when I was a GM. Players used to turn up with these weird concepts for a game session and look at me like "how are you going to make this work with the group?"

Eventually I gave up trying and said "I'm not". The last straw was the Ulitharid Barbarian who's ultimate goal was to suck dry the brains of the greatest warlords in the land. The player wanted me to introduce it to the group like it was a monster. I "borrowed" the character sheet from the player. The group, knowing the 4th player at the table had some mysterious character about whom they knew nothing attacked the DM-controlled Ulitharid Barbarian, all-the-while wondering when the player's new PC was going to show up and join in/intervene.

The player was slightly pissed when they killed it but I was past caring really.

Point is, the GM's job is to create the world and the NPCs that fill it and to react to the PCs actions, it is not their job to take your weird and wonderful abomination PC and make the world accept it. They have enough on their plate as it is without players adding additional burdens to their load.

In my games, if a player has a doesn't-quite-fit character concept then they can speak to me about how it'll work within the group dynamic but expect to have to make changes to make it work. I once helped a player who wanted to play a good-aligned Drow rogue (in 3.5) on the surface by encouraging them to max their disguise skill and spend a good portion of their starting gold on disguise-related make-up etc so they could pass for a surface elf. It turned out being a very interesting character. The other players didn't know for 5-6 sessions by which point the rogue was a valued party member. It then became an interesting subplot when in civilized areas.

[Gnaeus]

Have them figure it out between them. That way they'll be happy with the outcome (or at least, happier than they may be with a decree from on high), and they may come up with something wholly unexpected.


This, or ban one concept. If they can't work it out, tell them they can roll off, and low roller gets to make a concept that fits with the other guy. Loser plays their character next campaign, when winner will make a supportive concept to that.

I hate sitting at a table with PCs that my PC just wants to kill, or worse, just has no darn reason not to leave behind, with no IC reason to be together. My last campaign blew up over this. And the rediculous thing is, it could ALL have been avoided with some OOC talk on the front end.

[Vogonjeltz]

So im dming a game, and ive got one character whos dead set on being a pally, and another who really wants to be a vampire halfbreed. To make it worse, the vamps quest is to become a full vampire and the pally is an oath of the ancients (sworn to preserve life).

We were trying to figure out a plot where they could conceivably work together. What ive got so far is:
Theyre half brothers, and their shared mother was murdered,
Or theyre cursed so that neither can die without killing the other, and becoming undead will be a nice little work around/loophole,
Or the pally is on a quest to get a weapon to save his village which just so happens to be in the posession of the vamps father.

Any other ideas on what sort of quest could unite a pally and a vamp?

Well, as long as the players don't care, just handwave it.
I mean the vampire aspirant can try to get turned, but it's more likely that the vampire just eats them.

Up until that time, the Paladin could use their time trying to convince the aspirant of the folly of that quest. In the denoument, should the vampire wannabe succeed in their quest the Paladin might kill them to protect life itself from the threat they would present.

Otherwise I'd just follow the advice in the MM and avoid having players play things that are monsters that the entire game world wants to kill.

[Sigreid]

If you're game for it, do whatever you like. Personally I'd never do the half vampire thing. What is half undead? Really sick? Comatose? As for the vampire paladin, I'd only allow it for an oath breaker. Any other type of paladin would loose their paladinhood as soon as they surrendered to the beast, so to speak.

[Mrglee]

Honestly, my biggest complaint about allowing Vampirelike PCs is the rules for vampire spawns are pretty annoying. Like, the whole template is dumb and stuff. However, conceptually, I feel the concept is fine, at least for most parties, the paladin of ancients does make fitting it into this one challenging. The big thing about vampires, in this edition at least, is physical representations of what they long to feel again. I don't think a vampire who desires companionship would be out of place in an adventuring party, or one hunting objects of his desire(art, tomes of the past, etc).
That being said, I have a hard time figuring the paladin and vampire will get a long, and am more willing to say no to the vampire cause seriously, that template is stupid.

[JackOfAllBuilds]

If any of you haven't seen Dracula: Untold, I heavily recommend that as an idea for this situation, and all your arguments at "watering down" a vampire.

Yes, he is already sort of a monster as the Lord Impaler, but he was forced into that role. And he seeks the power of a vampire as a way of protecting his people and his family.

He resists feeding until the abduction of his son and the death of his wife, who with her last breath encouraged him to drink her blood (despite setting free the one who turned him) to make his powers permanent and save their son.

There is also a priest in the movie who originally loathes and attacks Vlad, but helps save his son in the end, though he still is wary of Vlad's power.

[Vogonjeltz]

If any of you haven't seen Dracula: Untold, I heavily recommend that as an idea for this situation, and all your arguments at "watering down" a vampire.

Yes, he is already sort of a monster as the Lord Impaler, but he was forced into that role. And he seeks the power of a vampire as a way of protecting his people and his family.

He resists feeding until the abduction of his son and the death of his wife, who with her last breath encouraged him to drink her blood (despite setting free the one who turned him) to make his powers permanent and save their son.

There is also a priest in the movie who originally loathes and attacks Vlad, but helps save his son in the end, though he still is wary of Vlad's power.

And everyone (his subjects, people who owe him fealty) who Vlad tries to save ultimately turns into bloodthirsty vampire that just wants to eat his son.

So...I'm saying it's not the best role model for a vampire getting along with anyone else.

[djreynolds]

So im dming a game, and ive got one character whos dead set on being a pally, and another who really wants to be a vampire halfbreed. To make it worse, the vamps quest is to become a full vampire and the pally is an oath of the ancients (sworn to preserve life).

We were trying to figure out a plot where they could conceivably work together. What ive got so far is:
Theyre half brothers, and their shared mother was murdered,
Or theyre cursed so that neither can die without killing the other, and becoming undead will be a nice little work around/loophole,
Or the pally is on a quest to get a weapon to save his village which just so happens to be in the posession of the vamps father.

Any other ideas on what sort of quest could unite a pally and a vamp?


Read C.S. Freidman, Dark Sun Rising. Cold Fire Trilogy. Good read anyhow. Trust me. Good and Evil working together. Very engaging books.

[Rhaegar14]

A lot of the posters I see above are forgetting that the vampire player is starting out as a dhampir, a half-vampire. That's not something the individual has chosen and even in the strictest vampires-are-monsters interpretations I've never seen a dhampir portrayed as completely irredeemable by the simple fact of what they are.

So, to the op, the really critical missing information is this: WHY does the dhampir want to become full-blooded, and how hellbent on this path are they?


Up until that time, the Paladin could use their time trying to convince the aspirant of the folly of that quest. In the denoument, should the vampire wannabe succeed in their quest the Paladin might kill them to protect life itself from the threat they would present.

Vogonjeltz's suggestion is a really good one. They could even be friends, with the Paladin constantly agonizing that the day may come when they will have to strike their friend down. A friend and I had a concept for a similar pairing with a Paladin and a Warlock. However, I also agree that the best result will come from letting the players work it out themselves.

If it comes down to it, I agree that you shouldn't try to force it. Ban the dhampir if you must. Even without the Paladin, a straight-evil dhampir is going to have a very hard time fitting in with an archetypically good-aligned party.

On a tangential note, if you need help with racial statistics, you could look at Pathfinder's dhampir race (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-dhampir) for some mechanical inspiration.

[JackOfAllBuilds]

And everyone (his subjects, people who owe him fealty) who Vlad tries to save ultimately turns into bloodthirsty vampire that just wants to eat his son.

So...I'm saying it's not the best role model for a vampire getting along with anyone else.

True, but he then impales one of his former subjects that is hell-bent on killing/feeding from Vlad's son. This intimidates all the others for just long enough that the Priest came in (cleric/paladin) and kept them at bay with his cross (Turn Undead anyone?) to retrieve the boy and get him out of there.

Meanwhile Vlad disperses the cloud-cover he had summoned, burning all of his irredeemably evil vampire-subjects to ashes, and accepting his own destruction...til an npc saves him

So yeah all the other vampires are blood-hungry and evil, but he is more nuanced and battles with his nature. So the player from OP obviously can make it do-able, if he does the correct things

[goto124]

How well do you know the dhampir player?

Do you trust the dhampir player?

Should we be asking questions about the paladin player as well?

[Kajorma]

I think the TV Show "Being Human" is a really good reference here.
(Please watch the British Version, rather than the American one. It is simply far better.)

Anyway, the "mechanic" for Vampires in that world is basically drug addicts. The Vampire does well for a while, but once he feeds for any reason, his addiction takes over and he goes on a bender. He requires the help of his friends to drag him back from being a homicidal rage-beast.

The entire concept of the show is a Vampire, a Werewolf, and a Ghost who live together and support each other trying to live lives that are as normal as possible.
Thus the title.

A thing to remember about creatures like this is that they were once human, and before their afflictions had normal human thoughts and desires.

As for wanting to become a full-vampire: Is that what the quest is about, or is it about wanting to kill the guy who turned him. Because like blood, revenge can be one hell of a drug.

[Shining Wrath]

Let's roll with the OP's request. I agree with Mr. Moron that a not-murderous vampire is not a vampire at all but some aberration that probably sparkles in sunlight. However, I do not agree that it is 100% impossible for there to be some story - some odd set of circumstances - where the paladin and the vampire could work things out.

Many parties are wandering murder hobos, killing "monsters" that need killing and taking their treasure. The first request the paladin makes of the vampire, then, is that the vampire limit blood-drinking to those that the party is going to kill anyway as a part of "business".

The party needs a noble goal, something where the paladin can be plausibly convinced that letting the undead horror not only exist but gain power is an acceptable price to pay for the vampire's aid in achieving the goal. This obviously has to be both very important and very "good".

The hard part is coming up with a reason why the vampire wants to achieve this noble goal. The goal must meet the needs of the vampire as well as those of the paladin. A uber-vampire deity that was going to somehow remove all blood from the world (obviously a bad thing for the living AND the bloodthirsty) might work. The vampire is essential for fighting the uber-vampire because only those already dead can last for long in the deity's demiplane of dread - and this means the paladin has to let the vampire out of sight while the vampire conducts reconnaissance.

[djreynolds]

Cold Fire Trilogy is specifically about a Paladin, called a knight of the church, and vampire caster type working together to save the world. The Knight must indulge the vampire's weakness on feeding on innocents to accomplish the mission and torn between the greater good and the ends justifying the means.

[Gnaeus]

Read C.S. Freidman, Dark Sun Rising. Cold Fire Trilogy. Good read anyhow. Trust me. Good and Evil working together. Very engaging books.

Side note: One of the most fun I ever had in a RPG was walking into a larp with Celia Friedman when she encounters a player playing a vampire named Gerald Terrant. The conversation ran like:
"The rules state that you cannot use a copyrighted character without permission from the author, which I know you do not have, because I am the author! Rename your character and rewrite your background immediately, or I will make sure you the player are banned from the game!"

[1Forge]

Same thing in my game I have a teifling warlock who sold 1/20th of his soul to an imp, who is trying to obtain lichdom. The worst part is we have 2 clerics of life, 1 devotion paladin, and 1 vengeance paladin! (both paladins had loved ones who died to undead) To make matters worse we have an eladrin joining in a few weeks who has an arc devil's soul bound inside him.

We worked around this by 1st changing some rules of liches/devils. Then we gave the warlock a legal loophole (he plans to pull it up in court vs the paladins to get a celestial restraining order) the eladrin has been trying to cure the devil, but clerics discovered they couldn't get rid of it without killing him painfully (if he dies naturally it will be released) That pretty much covered the clerics and devotion paladin, and so for the vengeance paladin we took advantage of the sworn enemy bit (he is seeking the greater evil first and using the lesser evil to help him temporarily)

You could probably do something similar... like maybe as long as he doesn't kill anyone, or break any laws to become a vampire then he could accuse the paladins of racism. Hope things work out :)

(maybe he can survive on the blood of animals in a pinch? In my game some liches don't need the souls of innocents because a greater power gives them a type of life force umbilical cord, maybe the party has a blood time share or something...)