So...I was just told Vampire is a class.

[SangoProduction]

That sounds so cool. Can someone tell me about them?

[masteraleph]

The main problem with Vampires is that, well, they're not very good. The stat array they come with is fine (traditionally Dex and Cha, though there's an alternative I'll mention in a moment). The 2 healing surges thing is manageable, because there are good ways to regain them. But the power selection is pretty bad- ok in Heroic tier, bad in higher tiers. The main flaw there is pretty simple: to do large amounts of damage, strikers need powers with multiple attacks/damage instances, and/or non-standard action attacks, and the Vampire really lacks them.

There are, however, a couple of ways, through poaching stuff from other classes, to make them solid to pretty good strikers-

1) Be STR/DEX instead of DEX/CHA, and multiclass Fighter. Take Novice Power to pick up Rain of Blows (triple attack with the right weapon types), and take Shock Trooper as a Paragon Path (another triple attack).
2) Be DEX/CHA and multiclass Sorcerer. Take Novice Power to pick up Flame Spiral (possibility of multiple damage instances), and take Demonskin Adept as your PP (another triple attack).

Anything else where you get those extra attacks works too. You can frame either of these as pretty vampire-y, while still doing lots of damage.

[WolfLordBran]

Alright first off- are you playing just with friends in a low OP or in a higher OP game? Low to mid OP, Vampires can be damnably tough and actually fulfill a role of off-tanking with some striking thrown in. A vamp is hard to put down- regeneration, temp hp at-will, the entire Blood is Life class feature. A vampire is basically a weird undead meatwall that works great when you have all the other roles set. High OP- yeah he falls off there but higher OP tends to focus on Ranger/Rogue/Rebreather types of builds.

I've run a few games with people playing vampires and they're very good at what they do- get in someone's face and not zoggin die!

[georgie_leech]

Worth noting that it's also a Theme. And sort of a Race. So it's entirely possible to be a Vampire Vampire Vampire, which confusingly gives you three different varieties of vampire powers.

[Kurald Galain]

You were told wrong: vampire is not a class. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanonDiscontinuity)

[neonchameleon]

That sounds so cool. Can someone tell me about them?

Found in Heroes of Shadow or either version of the Character Builder, they are great in a beer and pretzels heroic tier game - but struggle in both paragon tier and at high end optimisation, and you aren't allowed to choose your powers. That said there are a lot of very cool abilities and it's extremely well made for schlock horror and really bad Bella Lugosi impressions. Dex based with +2 to AC while unarmoured means that you can dress like Dracula. Muahahaha. (Of course you need a heavy cloak to go out in sunlight or you take 5 damage a round).

It's basically a Hammer Horror vampire built on rails. With at wills of a hypnotic gaze, a temp hit point gainer, and a forceful slam with a push attached (you get all three) and at fourth level you gain Strength of Blood - +5 to a STR based check or +10 if you spend a healing surge. So even the normally weakest vampire can tear a steel door off its hinges at level 4. (Higher level utilities involve turning into a bat (level 6) and mist (level 10)).

The big thing about them is how they change the healing surge mechanics. A vampire gets a grand total of two healing surges. On the other hand they regenerate when bloodied and their encounter attack 1 and 7 both let them drink blood, doing extra damage on an at will as well as gaining a surge. If they have spare surges at the end of the encounter they lose them - and heal to full. And in a short rest they heal to full if someone donates them a healing surge.

There are also feats to multiclass into a vampire where the big thing is your original class. Unfortunately you generally need two of them; the first gets you baseline vampire traits (darkvision, regeneration, necrotic resistance, radiant and sunlight vulnerability, two healing surges, and being able to drink from a party member to get your hit points back to maximum) - the second allows you to recover healing surges somehow and works based on your power source (one for each source).

(One of my more fun one shot 4e characters was Iron Maiden - a warforged vampire brawler fighter from the mists of time and powered by the blood of its enemies. Nice, friendly, charming, and the rest of the party was a little worried and a little creeped out but very glad it was on their side.)

[MwaO]

The main problem with Vampires is that, well, they're not very good. The stat array they come with is fine (traditionally Dex and Cha, though there's an alternative I'll mention in a moment). The 2 healing surges thing is manageable, because there are good ways to regain them. But the power selection is pretty bad- ok in Heroic tier, bad in higher tiers. The main flaw there is pretty simple: to do large amounts of damage, strikers need powers with multiple attacks/damage instances, and/or non-standard action attacks, and the Vampire really lacks them.

There are, however, a couple of ways, through poaching stuff from other classes, to make them solid to pretty good strikers-

1) Be STR/DEX instead of DEX/CHA, and multiclass Fighter. Take Novice Power to pick up Rain of Blows (triple attack with the right weapon types), and take Shock Trooper as a Paragon Path (another triple attack).
2) Be DEX/CHA and multiclass Sorcerer. Take Novice Power to pick up Flame Spiral (possibility of multiple damage instances), and take Demonskin Adept as your PP (another triple attack).

Anything else where you get those extra attacks works too. You can frame either of these as pretty vampire-y, while still doing lots of damage.

That and a Crusader's Mace is basically their implement of choice if optimizing completely within Vampire. Basically the one weapliment that they're proficient with by default. And of course, you still want the 12 Cha for the MC Fighter. Werewolf/bear for Fighter or Sarifal Feywarden for Sorcerer(or maybe Fighter with elemental damage dagger)

Either of those options will probably blow out a normal-op game and do reasonably well in anything other than a go-crazy optimization game. Kind of a heads up - it just takes one 6 instance attack nova with lots of bonuses to make a table do a complete double take...

[Yakk]

The main flaw there is pretty simple: to do large amounts of damage, strikers need powers with multiple attacks/damage instances, and/or non-standard action attacks, and the Vampire really lacks them.
Strikers can also charge.

---

Note that "in the 4e meta" should be appended. It is perfectly possibly to design a striker that does not rely on multiple attacks/damage instances/non-standard attacks and deals lots of damage.

The 4e designers simply failed at it; or, more accurately, they balanced player damage to become anemic by epic tier (possibly intentionally), and only via those mechanisms have players found ways around it. After they accepted this, they failed to rebalance the "one big hit" strikers, possibly because it would synergize with hybrid/multiclass power poaching too well.

---

To that end, you can make an acceptable vampire by being a hybrid or otherwise power poaching. Basically, don't use vampire powers beyond your standard action (and even then it is questionable), instead poach minor/off-turn powers and the like.

You aren't much of a vampire at that point.

---

The vampire chassis isn't completely salvageable, but I'd have to almost completely rewrite the power scaling to make it work "as intended", plus do some blocking of power-poaching somehow to prevent it from being cheese.

Have something effective to burn Minor actions on (like expend a healing surge to get a large damage boost on vampire attacks), or even off-turn actions (an at-will off-turn attack representing insane vampire speed? Yum.) baked in.

[masteraleph]

Strikers can also charge.

Yes, but they're still better at that when they multi-attack (for example, with the Sword of Assault PP or being a Reincarnate Champion in Epic and taking Gnoll and the associated feats).




[quote]

To that end, you can make an acceptable vampire by being a hybrid or otherwise power poaching. Basically, don't use vampire powers beyond your standard action (and even then it is questionable), instead poach minor/off-turn powers and the like.

You aren't much of a vampire at that point.

---

Depends on what you mean by "much of a vampire." You still have the surges, darkvision, etc. You're not using the powers, that's true, although if you get more than a couple of rounds in you will be.

[MwaO]

To that end, you can make an acceptable vampire by being a hybrid or otherwise power poaching. Basically, don't use vampire powers beyond your standard action (and even then it is questionable), instead poach minor/off-turn powers and the like.

You aren't much of a vampire at that point.

In what sense?

Drelzna, from the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth(S4) in 1982 was a Vampire Fighter. AD&D Monster Manual talks about Vampire Clerics and Vampire Thieves.

4e even has multi-class feats that function on the idea that you have power swaps from a different class.

[PoeticDwarf]

I'm interested now too!

So a sorta striker/tank role.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm interested now too!

So a sorta striker/tank role.

Just a weak striker, really. In order to qualify as a tank, you need some kind of marking/punishment mechanism; "standing next to a bad guy and not die" is not a useful class role.

[MwaO]

Just a weak striker, really. In order to qualify as a tank, you need some kind of marking/punishment mechanism; "standing next to a bad guy and not die" is not a useful class role.

Well...that's one of the reasons I like Elven Fighter Vampires :)

Something like this:
Elf Vampire
Paragon Path: Shock Trooper
Str 16, Dex 18, Con 8, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 12
Skills: Acrobatics, Religion, Stealth, Thievery - Athletics, Endurance from Fighter
1: Durable -> Retrain into Martial Vampire at 2nd
2: Battle Awareness
4: Novice Power: Rain of Blows
6: Cunning Stalker
8: Ki Focus Expertise
10: Improved Initiative
11: +2/3/4 Energy Damage feat
12: Improved Defenses
14: Cyclone Warrior(+2 damage bonus to your nova round and a skill)
16: Some kind of damage feat, such as Lasting Frost or Light Blade Expertise

Get the Arkhosia crown to get saves against Daze/Stun

Powers:
E1: Blood Drinker
D1: Swarm of Shadows
U2: Hunter's Gaze
U4: Strength of Blood(ironically, pretty good for this Vampire)
D5: Unfettered Hunger
U6: Tumbling Dodge(Acrobatics)
E7: Blood Drinker
D9: (retrained out to Swarm of Shadows, though that's a judgment call - could be worth it)
U10: Reactive Surge(Endurance)
E13: Made Rain of Blows
D15: Hungry Swarm
U16: Reflexive Dodge(Acrobatics)

That was what I wrote up for a one shot 16 - you might want to move the damage up a little...

Reasonably potent MBAs, gets +4 surges per combat typically, has a punishment mechanism, etc...

[Lhyonnaes]

As has been said and shown, the most effective way to play a Vampire tends to e to get rid of as much Vampire as you can.

Which is sort of goes to show that it's not a particularly effective class, all in all. Its poor reputation is sadly somewhat deserved.

I know that if you want to play a grabbier, bloodsuckier Vampire, I've seen people endorse a grapple-focused fighter with the Vampiric Heritage feat and the Bloodknight paragon path. Much less in the way of the hammy Hammer Horror shenanigans that the Vampire class gets up to, but performs decently well as a single-target-lockdown defender with good self healing capacity.

[MeeposFire]

You can make a vampire that will do fine in many games but in any game where above the designers view of optimal it gets very few options to meet that.

It does have one specail trick that I know about as it combos very well with the artificer. As I recall (it has been a while) the vampire sucks up as many surges as possible in the fight and then gives the artificer all but one of the extra surges. The vampire auto heals to full and goes back down to the normal 2 surges and the artificer gets his heals back with no cost to the rest of the party and artificer heals do not cost healing surges (which also may play nice with the vampire).

As for some simple basic ideas to help a vampire have the player choose a class at character creation which is what he did while living. The vampire can replace the non blood sucking encounter powers with encounter powers from the class and they count as vampire powers (maybe also the dailies though it does have dominates so that part is not all bad). You may decide that is the only class they can officially multiclass into as well. If you loosen the restrictions on the class a little you can get something out of the basic concept. The healing surge part is interesting and different but it really needs help in the damage department

Another option is to change the encounter powers to improve them but that would require some more thought.

Oddly while not being all that good it is still the most playable vampire in D&D (not that it says much as for example in 3e the LA was so high it was almost useless or in previous editions you were likely too powerful).

[MwaO]

As has been said and shown, the most effective way to play a Vampire tends to e to get rid of as much Vampire as you can.

I'd note that the Vampires described to a large extent are perfectly functional with an MC feat, an MC feat specifically designed for Vampires, one power swap and a paragon path choice. And then because Vampires are extremely tough and have a strong MBA, they're very good at that point. Taking advantage of Skill Powers make them a lot better, but...

But, if you want to go simpler than that, Vampire who has a Crusader's Mace allows for a lot of MBA optimization as it is basically the one Vampire weapliment that does radiant damage. It is possible to get damage done into the low 50s by 13th using the Vampire Noble paragon path, which is perfectly acceptable striker damage without using crazy stuff.

[Lhyonnaes]

But that doesn't make a compelling argument for the class as a whole.

The vast majority - if not the entirety - of the 4E class pool can be built so to be effective in a non-crazy-optimized party. The question is, how well do the class's innate features function? How many ways are there to get good results out of them? How well do these ways align with the flavor of the class as presented?

Saying that a Vampire can be good if they lean on their MBA and multiclass and paragon out of Vampire, or that a Vampire can be good if they decide to optimize themselves for swinging around a holy mace of undead smiting, that is damning with faint praise.

[Kurald Galain]

Saying that a Vampire can be good if they lean on their MBA and multiclass and paragon out of Vampire, or that a Vampire can be good if they decide to optimize themselves for swinging around a holy mace of undead smiting, that is damning with faint praise.

I'm afraid so, yes. If a vampire (which is normally pretty weak) can be optimized to be a baseline striker, imagine what optimization could accomplish for a class which is already good out of the box.

[MwaO]

I'm afraid so, yes. If a vampire (which is normally pretty weak) can be optimized to be a baseline striker, imagine what optimization could accomplish for a class which is already good out of the box.

Except they're not really all that weak. They lack a nova and strong power choices, but the base chassis of being perhaps the toughest class in the game, having actual AEDU powers(unlike the rest of the Essential Strikers), and having a strong MBA goes a long way.

They're not hard at all to optimize past baseline striker because of that.

[Yakk]

AED powers that deal a smidgen more damage than a basic attack yet lack basic attack optimization options are not a damage-dealing feature.

4e assumed that 7[W] damage at level 30 was actually high damage.

Using a d12 damage weapon, this works out to 5*6.5=32.5 damage more than a basic attack.

A level 30 foe has 264 HP, so this is about 1/8th the HP of the foe in damage difference. It is *half a healing surge*. That isn't a heavy blow. That is a blow that is a feather heavier than a basic attack.

I can even get how they did this. Have a baseline damage model, additional damage per encounter power model, additional damage per daily, and a presumed number of rounds. In order for you to use all of your powers, they presume you use an increasing number of encounter and daily powers, then fall back on your at-wills.

At end of paragon you have 4 encounter attack powers of level (17 13 11 7) and 4 dailiy attack powers of level (20 19 15 9).

At end of epic you have 4 encounter attack powers (27 23 17 11) plus an epic encounter-ish feature, and 4 daily attack powers (29 25 20 19) plus an epic daily-ish feature.

If we assume 4 encounters/day (so 1.25 daily powers/encounter) and 2 at-will-only turns/encounter and 4 encounter-power turns/encounter we get 2+4+1.25 = 7.25 round long combats.

If encounter power use does 1.5x at will, and daily deals 2x at-will, we get 1.25*2 + 4*1.5 + 2 = 10.5 at-wills worth of damage.

At ~2/3 accuracy this comes to ~7 at-wills worth of damage.

This makes at-wills deal ~37 damage per hit, encounters deal ~55 damage and dailies deal ~74 damage.

(Note a d12 weapon with 6 enhance, 9 stat, 3 feat, 6 item deals 31 damage per hit. Throw in +secondary stat to damage and you hit 37. Easy peasy.).

Which lines up roughly with what 4e does.

Problem is, 7 round combats *on average* are really, really long. Level 1 combats, with 1 encounter power, 0.25 daily powers, and 2-3 at-wills are half as long. And that doesn't take into account that the powers tend to be more complex as well.

Vampire may be reasonably balanced by this standard, but even here it is pretty meh. It isn't dealing 7[W] with half on miss -- it is dealing a similar number of dice, but the dice are teeny-tiny. And players found 7 rounds was slow, and found ways around the 4e baseline damage math. Vampires don't provide many of these hooks, so you are forced to bypass the class to try to get at them.

---


This is one of the reasons why "get an extra basic-damage-level attack" is among the best damage dealing powers. As [E] seems budgeted at ~1.5[@], [@]+[B] ends up being > [E].

In my theorycrunching heartbreaker, I aim for a consistent number of rounds and decision points from level 1 up to end-balance point in a "typical" combat.

If it keeps the @EDU structure, that means by endgame you rarely if every use @s if you don't go for off-action Es or @-boosting Es. Or I reduce E count inflation.

If we keep monster HP and @EDU model the same we change encounter duration budget to 4 rounds, while boosting [E] to 2[@] and [D] to 3[@] we get:

264 = (2/3) * (2.75 [E] + 1.25[D]
396 = 2.75 [E] + 1.25[D]
396 = 5.5 [@] + 3.75[@]
396 = 9.25[@]
[@] = 42

We get 42 damage at-wills, 84 damage encounter powers and 126 damage dailies and 4 round combats. This actually lines up with optimized 4e closer than the above.

Assuming 2 striker 1 defender 1 leader 1 controller... strikers can deal 1.25 budget, defenders and leaders 0.75, and controllers 1.0.

If we value damage to the nth target at 1/nth the damage to the first target, we get:
2 Target = 67%
3 Target = 55%
4 Target = 48%
5 Target = 44%
of baseline damage. (total damage goes up, but it is spread out which sucks).

Anyhow...

[MwaO]

AED powers that deal a smidgen more damage than a basic attack yet lack basic attack optimization options are not a damage-dealing feature.

4e assumed that 7[W] damage at level 30 was actually high damage.

Using a d12 damage weapon, this works out to 5*6.5=32.5 damage more than a basic attack.

Vampires have basic attack optimization options. By default, they ought to get around +15 bonus damage to their MBA(+Cha+6). And then they can add +3d10(+16.5) damage 3/combat on a hit. Assuming the Vampire Paragon Path, they get another +3 damage. +34.5 damage kicks that into the vicinity of the 7W attack that you describe. 2d10+34.5+6+9+3+6 = 69.5 damage.

i.e. 69.5*3+54.5 = 263 without critical hits - basically, they should just kill a typical at-level 30 opponent with about 4 hits on average. Which is 5 rounds most combats and that resource completely recharges with a short rest except for the AP. And they will heal to full from doing so without surge loss. And note, they can do that 69.5 damage on a granted MBA...

Again, Vampires are perfectly respectable - they're just lacking a nova and they have a bad encounter power just asking to be traded out. And there's no particular reason that they shouldn't make that trade given that all the seriously dangerous D&D Vampires by default are Vampire Xs. Strahd is a Vampire Necromancer. Drelzna is a Vampire Fighter. 3e stats out Vampire Monks who are far more dangerous than typical Vampires. Etc...

[BayardSPSR]

entirely possible to be a Vampire Vampire Vampire, which confusingly gives you

Wait. Hang on. How the hell does that work?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Wait. Hang on. How the hell does that work?

By picking the vampire race, the vampire class and the vampire theme.

GW

[MwaO]

By picking the vampire race, the vampire class and the vampire theme.

GW

There's no theme, but there is a feat. A Vrylocka Vampire with the Vampiric Heritage feat.

[Inevitability]

Wait. Hang on. How the hell does that work?

Well, first you are a pseudo-vampiric humanoid, who because of a grandparent's weird reproductive choices ends up related to a different kind of pseudo-vampires, and finally gets turned into a 'real' vampire.

[darkdragoon]

They don't even get to do their shtick as often as the other e-classes, which feels like an even bigger goof when a whole section of their powers and even some gear is built on surges from Blood Drinker.