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Specter
2017-04-05, 11:30 AM
HALF-VAMPIRE
A vampire that has recently consumed a significant quantity of blood gains the ability to breed successfully with living humanoids. And in the unusual case of a pregnant humanoid who survives a vampire's blood drain, the child may be born tainted by the attacker's vampirism. In these cases, a half-vampire is born.

Regardless of their origin, the children produced by such events are typically branded as outcasts, welcome neither among the living nor the undead. A half-vampire is drawn to other living creatures, and feels comfortable when living in towns or cities. Still, half-vampires know that they must keep their identities secret or else risk the hatred and violence of others.

Half-vampires are physically attractive and persuasive. They have a natural, even if unnerving, way around people. Their skin is pale, even ashen in color, and their hair is similar to their humanoid parent’s.

Half-Vampire Names
Half-vampires are usually raised in urban settings, so they follow their humanoid parent's naming tradition. Some half-vampires, usually those content with their evil nature, will gladly mention their kinship to their vampire parent as a title.

Half-Vampire Traits
Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Dexterity and Strenght scores increase by 1.

Age: Half-vampires mature at the same rate as their humanoid, but can live up to 50 years longer than them, and show less signs of aging.

Alignment: Half-vampires have no innate tendency towards evil, but being treated as a demon or an outcast due to their blood craving makes many of them grow hateful or insensitive. Still, they may follow whatever whim their hearts possess.

Speed: Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and another language of your choice.

Darkvision: You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Gravetouched: You have resistance to necrotic damage.

Vampiric Charm: You know the friends cantrip. You can also cast the charm person spell once with this trait, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Furtive: You have proficiency in the Stealth skill.

Children of the Night: You have advantage on any ability check made to deal with rats, wolves and bats. Additionally, these creatures will refrain from attacking you unless you harm them.

Vampiric Slam: Your unarmed strikes use a d4 for damage.

Blood Drain: You have the ability to drain blood from other humanoids as an unarmed attack. This attack can only be made against a willing, incapacitated or restrained humanoid. You add your proficiency modifier and your Strenght modifier to the roll. On a hit, the creature takes 1d4 necrotic damage plus your Strenght modifier, and its hit point maximum is reduced by the amount of damage taken. This reduction lasts until the creature finishes a long rest. You regain hit points equal to that damage. You can only benefit from this healing once per long rest.

Blood Craving: Half-vampires do not need blood to survive, but their vitality is severely hampered without it. You gain one level of exhaustion if you go through an entire day without drinking blood from a live humanoid. This exhaustion is not cumulative with itself, but it can't be removed by finishing a long rest.

Unholy Flesh: You take 1 point of fire damage if your skin is in direct sunlight at the start of your turn. This damage cannot reduce your hit points below 1.

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JNAProductions
2017-04-05, 11:45 PM
It doesn't feel overpowered, but it does fail the Bag of Rats test.

Pantomath
2017-04-06, 12:00 AM
Blood Drain: You have the ability to drain blood from other creatures as an unarmed attack. This attack can only be made against a willing creature, or one that is grappled by you, incapacitated or restrained. You add your proficiency modifier and your Strenght or Dexterity modifier to the roll. On a hit, the creature takes 1d6 necrotic damage, and its hit point maximum is reduced by the amount of damage taken. You regain hit points equal to that damage. At 5th level, this damage increases to 1d8.


*Strength


It doesn't feel overpowered, but it does fail the Bag of Rats test.

Does a vampire in general?

JNAProductions
2017-04-06, 12:07 AM
Vampires aren't meant to be PCs. The bag of rats test is irrelevant for them, for the most part.

Ziegander
2017-04-06, 01:41 AM
Honestly, though, in an actual pen-and-paper game, in real-life, where do all these PCs keep getting bags filled with an arbitrarily large number of rats?

Steampunkette
2017-04-06, 02:57 AM
Honestly, though, in an actual pen-and-paper game, in real-life, where do all these PCs keep getting bags filled with an arbitrarily large number of rats?

Bait shops, pet shops, and mystical emporiums.

Gotta have test subjects for new spells, after all.

Logosloki
2017-04-06, 07:35 AM
Honestly, though, in an actual pen-and-paper game, in real-life, where do all these PCs keep getting bags filled with an arbitrarily large number of rats?

If there is a need for a process or product, humans will do it and do it to make money off of it. Honestly an easier way to do this is to take the noble variant background and use one or all of your three retainers as blood bags. Certainly I would allow this in a game.

JNAProductions
2017-04-06, 08:17 AM
More likely, let's say you fight 5 goblins. You take them all out, but only instakill one, meaning the others are just KOed.

You then nom on them, gaining back 4d6 HP. That's really damn good for a racial feature.

Ziegander
2017-04-06, 01:20 PM
More likely, let's say you fight 5 goblins. You take them all out, but only instakill one, meaning the others are just KOed.

You then nom on them, gaining back 4d6 HP. That's really damn good for a racial feature.

That's true.

Dralnu
2017-04-06, 02:59 PM
If we compare it to Half-Elf, you get the same amount of ASI but the Half-Elf has more flexibility, same walking speed, same darkvision, necrotic resistance is likely going to be more relevant than fey ancestry but not significantly so, Skill Versatility vs. Vampiric Charm + Furtive is fine, the extra Languages vs. Children of the Night + Vampiric Charm is fine. All good.

I would cap the benefit of Blood Drain to be once per long rest. You can use it as many times as you want, but you can only benefit from its healing one time.

Personally I would just cut Blood Drain / Blood Craving / Unholy Flesh. The race is a standard length up until that point and then there's these extra fiddly bits at the end that I don't care for. But if that's what people want from a half-vampire race then fine.

Specter
2017-04-09, 10:21 AM
It doesn't feel overpowered, but it does fail the Bag of Rats test.

I have no idea what that is.


More likely, let's say you fight 5 goblins. You take them all out, but only instakill one, meaning the others are just KOed.

You then nom on them, gaining back 4d6 HP. That's really damn good for a racial feature.

The DM would be the one to determine whether the goblins are alive (since he may assign death saves only to 'important NPCs', as by the book). Otherwise, 0hp = dead.


If we compare it to Half-Elf, you get the same amount of ASI but the Half-Elf has more flexibility, same walking speed, same darkvision, necrotic resistance is likely going to be more relevant than fey ancestry but not significantly so, Skill Versatility vs. Vampiric Charm + Furtive is fine, the extra Languages vs. Children of the Night + Vampiric Charm is fine. All good.

I would cap the benefit of Blood Drain to be once per long rest. You can use it as many times as you want, but you can only benefit from its healing one time.

Personally I would just cut Blood Drain / Blood Craving / Unholy Flesh. The race is a standard length up until that point and then there's these extra fiddly bits at the end that I don't care for. But if that's what people want from a half-vampire race then fine.

Good call. I'll add a 'once per rest' clause.