Fear the Night - Vampire Builds

[Drakevarg]

Vampires are up there with dragons, demons and squid as the most dreaded threats in fantasy. But while their presentation in D&D is indeed fairly powerful, they're not really in the same league as the others. CR +2 doesn't really do much to inspire fear beyond what their mortal selves would have. So I'd like to figure out some way to improve on that. Templates, PrCs, whatever works. I'm not really building any specific NPCs at the moment, I just want to spitball the idea a bit.

I'm playing E6 with gestalt rules, using the books listed in my signature and a relatively low-magic setting, so no casters besides half-casting PrCs (4 or 5 spell levels). Since I'm DM, I'm willing to fudge entry requirements a bit if it makes sense to me (for example, I can't think of any specific reason why a vampire's alternate form shouldn't qualify for Warshaper, but a barghest's change shape does, besides "because the devs said so"). The objective here is to come up with ways to empower a vampire in ways that specifically play up the vampiric identity.

Ideas so far:

Swarm-Shifter Template, LM
Evolved Undead Template, LM (duh)
Master Vampire PrC, LM (again, duh)
Assassin PrC, DMG
Blackguard PrC, DMG
Warshaper PrC, CWar
Ghost-Faced Killer PrC, CAdv

I feel like I'm not being nearly imaginative enough here. I want to make vampires scary enough that the mention of one will give even veteran monster hunters pause before they ever learn the specifics of the vampire in question, beyond the simple reason of "high-level NPC."

[Crake]

Vampires are already terrifying in e6. 3 straight hits with the energy drain will instantly kill a PC, and with the vampire's bonuses to hit, it's not going to be missing very often. Not to mention a dominating gaze that it can use against the players, or to add minions to it's forces before any fight with the PCs. Adding things ontop of all that will just be making the vampire overkill.

To even think about fighting vampires in e6, the players pretty much require the following feats: Vampire hunter, endurance, enduring life, lasting life [optional: font of life]. In order, these make the players able to identify vampires within 30ft, as well as make them immune to their dominating gaze, a feat tax, allow the players to ignore the effects of negative levels for a number of minutes equal to their con modifier, allow the players to spend a standard action to attempt to remove a negative level, and the optional feat allows players a fortitude save upon initially recieving a negative level, success meaning they shrug off the negative level before it has a chance to affect them.

[DrKerosene]

Would Racial Hit Dice limit the number of Class Hit Dice in your game? Because a Bugbear with 6 Class Levels would have 9 Hit Dice for skill limits (plus racial bonus to sneaking) before adding the Vampire Bonus. Good for a Ninja, Ranger, Scout, or Rogue. Monk/Swordsage/Setting Sun Ninja could be an option too.

If you're willing to fudge entry requirements a Vampire Spawn, combo'd with the Emancipated Spawn PrC, might be able to take 3 levels of something between levels 2 and 3 of Emancipated Spawn. Potentially resulting in 16 Hit Dice. (BaseClass6/ UndeadHD4/ Emancipated Spawn 2/ OtherClass3/ Emancipated Spawn+1)

A Human or Changeling could enter the Chameleon PrC, which would kinda go against your "no fullcasters" thing, but it would emphasize a mastery of magic to just pull out cleric and wizard spells. As well as familiarity with all the hero tropes from a long lifespan (out living such fools).

I want to suggest Cancer Mage, but I can't think of way to make a disease stick to a Vampire. If this wasn't E6, I'd suggest taking all 10 levels of Blood Magus.

I think a Vampire with the Dungeon Lord prestige class is pretty cool, but you'd still have to fudge things.

[Drakevarg]

Vampires are already terrifying in e6. 3 straight hits with the energy drain will instantly kill a PC, and with the vampire's bonuses to hit, it's not going to be missing very often. Not to mention a dominating gaze that it can use against the players, or to add minions to it's forces before any fight with the PCs. Adding things ontop of all that will just be making the vampire overkill.

Hm... good point. Now I'm left considering how to simultaneously attain my original goal (more impressive vampires), while also nerfing them slightly so they can't kill a player in a few slaps (which I gotta say is a weird power from a vampire lore stantpoint; I can't think of any other setting (besides maybe Elder Scrolls, due to mechanical considerations) where vampires suck the life out of you via uppercut). Maybe combining the Vampire and Mummy templates, replace energy drain with a mummy rot that can be turned off (while making sure there's an incantation or something that can deal with it, obviously).

I dunno, maybe I can just leave well enough alone. Something just rubs me the wrong way about the mookification of one of the most iconic monsters in fiction. I never use the vampire spawn for that very reason.


Would Racial Hit Dice limit the number of Class Hit Dice in your game? Because a Bugbear with 6 Class Levels would have 9 Hit Dice for skill limits (plus racial bonus to sneaking) before adding the Vampire Bonus. Good for a Ninja, Ranger, Scout, or Rogue. Monk/Swordsage/Setting Sun Ninja could be an option too.

I rule that the 6-level cap applies only to class levels. Races with RHD always be hardier than their equivalently-trained human counterparts.


If you're willing to fudge entry requirements a Vampire Spawn, combo'd with the Emancipated Spawn PrC, might be able to take 3 levels of something between levels 2 and 3 of Emancipated Spawn. Potentially resulting in 16 Hit Dice. (BaseClass6/ UndeadHD4/ Emancipated Spawn 2/ OtherClass3/ Emancipated Spawn+1)

Certainly an idea, though I generally don't like using Vampire Spawn (or any other untemplated undead, for that matter).


-snip-

All from books I don't own.

[Axel_690]

Psion(Telepath). Play up the mind control aspects of their lore.
Swordsage for Shadow Hand maneuvers.
Soul Eater from Book of Vile Darkness. I believe there's a vampire prc in there too, Life Drinker iirc.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Harpy Vampires (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?458441-Vampire-build-help#5)

[Blackhawk748]

Avoiding the energy drain is simple, the Vamp uses a sword, cuz they're classy like that

[Psyren]

You could always tweak the energy drain to be its own unique attack (rather than triggering on every punch/slam they make) or just remove it entirely.

Remember also that the vampire's CR is based on its considerable weaknesses too. If those weaknesses never come into play, the Vampire may as well not have them, in which case you effectively have a Vampire Lord rather than a vampire.

[Crake]

Avoiding the energy drain is simple, the Vamp uses a sword, cuz they're classy like that

It can still use it's slam as a secondary attack in addition to it's normal full attack routine. Also, a vampire wouldn't avoid using their slam for the sake of class, because according to libris mortis, they have an inescapable craving for using their energy drain, that the actually need to satiate once per day, vs their blood drain, which is actually only once every three days.


You could always tweak the energy drain to be its own unique attack (rather than triggering on every punch/slam they make) or just remove it entirely.

Remember also that the vampire's CR is based on its considerable weaknesses too. If those weaknesses never come into play, the Vampire may as well not have them, in which case you effectively have a Vampire Lord rather than a vampire.

A vampire at it's lair shouldn't really run into any of the weaknesses. Exploiting those weaknesses is up to the players, since a vampire would naturally avoid any circumstance where they would arise.

[Gemini476]

Well, you could always just slap the Vampire Lord template (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a)on it.

Just be aware that it might be a bit overkill. (You might also want to tone down the "drain 3 levels per hit" bit, because ooof.)

[Psyren]

A vampire at it's lair shouldn't really run into any of the weaknesses. Exploiting those weaknesses is up to the players, since a vampire would naturally avoid any circumstance where they would arise.

Certainly it's up to the players to execute, but the possibility of that exploitation should still be there.

As far as the vampire avoiding them - garlic and mirrors are portable, and if the vampire is doing anything above ground, sunlight and running water are potential threats there too.

[Drakevarg]

You could always tweak the energy drain to be its own unique attack (rather than triggering on every punch/slam they make) or just remove it entirely.

I was thinking of replacing/combining their blood drain with energy drain. It'll still kill an E6 character as quickly as drowning, but the vampire has to go out of their way to do it.

[Crake]

I was thinking of replacing/combining their blood drain with energy drain. It'll still kill an E6 character as quickly as drowning, but the vampire has to go out of their way to do it.

That's an interesting idea, make the blood drain also inflict 2 negative levels?

[Drakevarg]

That's an interesting idea, make the blood drain also inflict 2 negative levels?

That'd be one way to do it. Combination vs. replacement would be a matter of whether doing so would a) make up for not draining on a slam attack, b) be redundant as the energy drain makes the CON damage largely superfluous, or c) become excessively lethal.