Vampires and Dhampirs! [D&D 3.5e] [DM Help]

[adonis53]

Hello all! I'm going to be running a vampire hunter game soon from level 1-X and I was hoping to find a way to introduce vampires from the start without throwing a fully grown vampire at the party. So I was trying to look for all of the different vampires, vampire spawns, etc. throughout the books. I'll take any suggestions as long as they are undead with vampiric qualities! :)

I'd be interested in templates and races alike since both can be used to work in different ways. I was trying to see if I could find a D&D 3.5 dhampir like pathfinders, but sadly no luck yet. I have access to most books, and can get access to all of them(except for voodoo-cursed tomes of death trapped in a tomb with a mummy lord) as well as dragon magazine. I will be keeping this mostly WOTC, but if you know of a balanced 3rd party source, I will look into it(If I allow 3rd party I'll have to allow it to my players to be fair, so I want it to be balanced too. :P)

Thanks in advance for any if there are more than what I've found so far! :)

So far I found:
Half-Vampire Template(Libris Mortis)
Vampire Spawn(MM1)
Vampire Template(Libris Mortis)
Vampire Variants(Libris Mortis) I LOVE THESE!
Vampire Lord Template(WOTC Archive)

[EndocrineBandit]

One of the waterdeep (or maybe one of the old undermountain) modules has some interesting vamps.. there are lycanthropic vamps somewhere, too

[Blue Jay]

You could try using the vampire savage progression from WotC, and make low-powered "vampire initiates" with just the first few levels of the progression to start out the game:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a

[bahamut920]

I mean, there's nothing wrong with just using the Pathfinder dhampir for your NPCs. You're the DM. My group's DM uses Pathfinder monsters all the time.

[ZamielVanWeber]

One of the waterdeep (or maybe one of the old undermountain) modules has some interesting vamps.. there are lycanthropic vamps somewhere, too

RAW vampire can be put on a lycanthrope. The reverse is not true though.

[adonis53]

One of the waterdeep (or maybe one of the old undermountain) modules has some interesting vamps.. there are lycanthropic vamps somewhere, tooHm. I've never actually delved into the old adventure modules for anything because I usually use my custom world that I've been slowly building for years. I'll take a look at the few that I have on hand and see what they've got! Thanks! :)


You could try using the vampire savage progression from WotC, and make low-powered "vampire initiates" with just the first few levels of the progression to start out the game:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824aYou know, I've seen that before and I completely forgot that I could do that! That gives me a LOT more versatility actually. I can make a few that are human + fighter 1 + vampire 1/2 for a good low level fight. Thanks for the idea that I missed completely hah.


I mean, there's nothing wrong with just using the Pathfinder dhampir for your NPCs. You're the DM. My group's DM uses Pathfinder monsters all the time.I know I can, but I'd prefer to do that as a last resort, and really the half-vampire template IS a dhampir, but I wanted to see if there was a race in 3.5 for it first.


RAW vampire can be put on a lycanthrope. The reverse is not true though.Could be interesting. Maybe some abominations(Werepyres) as slaves/bodyguards to vampire nobles? That would actually make a lot of sense because of lycanthropes being so strong already as enemies... why not make them your ally? Though I will limit these very much so. Probably only 2-4 total later in the game as additional enemies for one of the boss fights.

[Axel_690]

If you don't mind 3rd party material, Green Ronin's "Fang and Fury: A Guidebook to Vampires" is an excellent alternative to core vampires.

[adonis53]

I'll be sure to check that out if I can't find more. Thanks!

[ShurikVch]

Some more:

Vampire Bat was an option for Familiar in Dragon #341; it's difficult for Lycanthropy because of Diminutive size, but may be used with Anthropomorphic Animal template

Dragon #348 have Terror Vampire and Shadow Vampire templates; Savage Vampire template (from the same article) have "extended base creatures list": besides the Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid, it may be also applied to Fey or Giant

Mind Flayer, Vampire (Lords of Madness)
Vampiric Dragon template (Draconomicon)

Vampires from Diablo II tabletop adaptation - are nothing like D&D Vampires, but still d20 and published by WotC, so kinda worth mentioning

Also:
Vampiric Ixitxachitl (Monster Manual II)
Vampire Rose Bush (Dungeon #84)
Vampire Dire Wolf (D&D Miniatures: Unhallowed set)
Vampire Cactus (Dangerous Denizens: The Monsters of Tellene)

Fire Vampire and Star Vampire (Call of Cthulhu D20) // book was published by WotC, and have official D&D adaptation section

[Bronk]

There's also the monstrous vampire in Ghostwalk, with an example here:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20061219a

There's also the Vampiric Dragon template in the Draconomicon.

[DrMotives]

You can go looking for bloodsucker-esque critters that aren't actually vampires to fill up variety. Stirges, giant leeches and lamprey are pretty low-level monsters. There are those lamprey-people, Anguillans, from Stormwrack. Although as aberrations they can't be vampires themselves, not even the easier to get into savage vampire.

[D&DPrinceTandem]

There is The Dhampirs and the Blood pawn from Book of Templates 3.5 Deluxe Edition