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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next 5e conversion of the 4e Vampire class!



The Ship's dog
2018-02-02, 10:35 PM
Hello and thank you for clicking on this!

Despite it being a frankly terrible class in 4e, I've always loved the Vampire class (maybe it's my inner edgy teenager) and tried desperately to make it work. The thing that I liked about it so much is that it allowed you to play as a vampire of any race, which was really cool, as well as it being a class rather than a template (as it was in 3.Xe) that made your character into an NPC if your DM had any sense.

Along with my Lycanthrope class, I've made the Vampire class in 5e with some adjustments and homebrewed some stuff of my own to tack on to it. I've converted as many of the original class features as possible, however I have moved around the levels that you get them on to hopefully fix the problem that the original Vampire class had (namely very little support in the middle tiers as well as some abilities in weird places) as well as adding the 5e spellcasting system onto it to also help alleviate some of these troubles. I've made most of the class powers into spells as well as adding some more for flavour. The shadowcasting conduit was supposed to be reminiscent of the ki focuses that the original class used.

The idea that I had going into this was making the class more of a sustained fighter that still deals decent, but not rogue-level damage. I've modelled a lot of the decisions of how to convert things off of the Monk class, and as a result, I hope that people who like the Monk will like this class. I've toyed with the damage numbers of the Blood Drinker ability as well as the various Shadow Powers (the equivalent of the 4e At Will powers) quite a lot and I think that I've got them to a reasonable amount.

That's enough faffing around though! Without further ado, here is the class!
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/H1J8yMw6Z
P.S. I've looked over it but there may be spelling and/or grammar mistakes so please point them out to me if there are
P.P.S. THe fluff at the start also isn't finished (honestly I'm having a bit of a writer's block so if anyone would like to help me out then please PM me!

Sariel Vailo
2018-02-03, 06:48 PM
I love this i wanted to be this and try this yayys.

The Ship's dog
2018-02-05, 05:01 AM
I love this i wanted to be this and try this yayys.

Thanks! Do you have any criticisms of it or some of the features? Or perhaps some suggestions or even contributions to the fluff? Literally any sort of constructive feedback about the content of this would be great.

(P.S. Sorry about late reply I've just been very lazy lately)

Sariel Vailo
2018-02-05, 06:05 AM
Out of all the vampire class atempts this is the best and closest.ut fits offers the correct debuff and can synergize well with almost evwry race combination. Almost ala sxourge aasimar youd **** yourself.

nickl_2000
2018-02-05, 08:56 AM
Hi there. this is a very interesting class and something that could gives a great dark, dark feel to a campaign. Here are some things that I see in there that are worth considering. Thanks for sharing you work!


Page 2:

Equipment
You give them access to simple weapons and a Rapier (which seems a little off to me, but hey why not) then you don't actually give the class a weapon in the initial staring gear.


Page 3:
Darkvision
You should have a rider in there that you can either replace the darkvision or add 30ft. Technically based on the way you have it phrased if I were a vampire Elf I would get 90ft Darkvision, not 120.

Light Damage
I believe that you get 15 Radiant damage, then do a saving through. Fail the saving throw and you also get exhaustion. It's a little unclear in your phrasing whether or not you avoid the damage if you succeed the saving throw.


Page 4:
Enduring Soul
At level 2 you could get 7 HP healing every turn (back to half you total HP)? That seems like a lot to me, especially at such a low level for the ability. I wouldn't mind seeing this as a higher level ability, or maybe have a lower cap on the max healing. It just seems like it's to much to quickly. Also, how does this work when a PC is knocked unconscious? Do they just hop back up instantly?


Page 5:
Deceptive Manner
This seems to powerful to me. You already have expertise in deception, are likely to be proficient in it and have a good charisma. Compared to NPCs who are rarely every trained in it. I don't see you failing in this ability ever. I think it needs to have some sort of limited. "You can only do it Charisma bonus times per short rest", "Once you have used it on a creature, they figure out your tricks and you can't use it again against them", or something else like this. It's basically at will advantage.

Aura of Grandeur
It needs a limited as well. Once a creature makes a successful save against the aura they are unaffected by it until they complete a long rest (just preventing the charm, attack, char repeat cycle).

Predatory Splendor
Again should probably have a Once a creature makes a successful save against the aura they are unaffected by it until they complete a long rest.


Page 6:
Hunter's Frenzy - "When you kill a creature or reduce its hit points to equal to half of your maximum hit points"
When you reduce it to half your maximum hit points? Is this a typo? Also this depends on your DM telling you that you reduce it to that. I think that having this just happen when you kill someone is good enough

Shadow Casting
Check your alphabetizing of your spells for cantrips

The Ship's dog
2018-02-05, 10:54 PM
Hi there. this is a very interesting class and something that could gives a great dark, dark feel to a campaign. Here are some things that I see in there that are worth considering. Thanks for sharing you work!


Page 2:

Equipment
You give them access to simple weapons and a Rapier (which seems a little off to me, but hey why not) then you don't actually give the class a weapon in the initial staring gear.


Page 3:
Darkvision
You should have a rider in there that you can either replace the darkvision or add 30ft. Technically based on the way you have it phrased if I were a vampire Elf I would get 90ft Darkvision, not 120.

Light Damage
I believe that you get 15 Radiant damage, then do a saving through. Fail the saving throw and you also get exhaustion. It's a little unclear in your phrasing whether or not you avoid the damage if you succeed the saving throw.


Page 4:
Enduring Soul
At level 2 you could get 7 HP healing every turn (back to half you total HP)? That seems like a lot to me, especially at such a low level for the ability. I wouldn't mind seeing this as a higher level ability, or maybe have a lower cap on the max healing. It just seems like it's to much to quickly. Also, how does this work when a PC is knocked unconscious? Do they just hop back up instantly?


Page 5:
Deceptive Manner
This seems to powerful to me. You already have expertise in deception, are likely to be proficient in it and have a good charisma. Compared to NPCs who are rarely every trained in it. I don't see you failing in this ability ever. I think it needs to have some sort of limited. "You can only do it Charisma bonus times per short rest", "Once you have used it on a creature, they figure out your tricks and you can't use it again against them", or something else like this. It's basically at will advantage.

Aura of Grandeur
It needs a limited as well. Once a creature makes a successful save against the aura they are unaffected by it until they complete a long rest (just preventing the charm, attack, char repeat cycle).

Predatory Splendor
Again should probably have a Once a creature makes a successful save against the aura they are unaffected by it until they complete a long rest.


Page 6:
Hunter's Frenzy - "When you kill a creature or reduce its hit points to equal to half of your maximum hit points"
When you reduce it to half your maximum hit points? Is this a typo? Also this depends on your DM telling you that you reduce it to that. I think that having this just happen when you kill someone is good enough

Shadow Casting
Check your alphabetizing of your spells for cantrips

Thank you so much for the feedback! I am currently away from a computer and using my phone so I can't make any changes until this evening.

Page 2:
Weapons. I gave them those proficiencies mostly because it's a callback to the original class, but also because vampires are classically very rich, and the rapier has always been a dueling weapon that rich men would carry around. Also, not giving them weapons is just a typo, and thanks for pointing it out, there will be quite a few.

Page 3:
Darkvision. Thanks for pointing that out, I will change that, but I may need a bit of help with the wording. I'm thinking something like "you have darkvision to 120ft, if you already have this range of darkvision, extend it by another 30ft.

Light damage. You would take 20 radiant damage and then make a saving throw against exhaustion, but you can only resist the exhaustion and not the radiant damage. Would it be more helpful to say "you take 10 radiant damage (plus any from your radiant vulnerability makes the damage 20), then make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or suffer a point of exhaustion on a fail or nothing on a success. You cannot reduce or resist the radiant damage taken and the saving throw is only against exhaustion.

Page 4
Enduring soul. This is the thing that I thought would be the most problematic to balance honestly as free healing is always a tough one to manage. I agree that it's a bit overturned for the early game, perhaps make it just your proficiency modifier and then have it level up as you go? E.g. At level 7 you add your charisma modifier, at level 15 you add twice your charisma modifier. As to them being on 0 hit points, honestly I think that's fine for them to just get back up again. They won't be on very much hp and a smartish enemy will see that they are getting back up and make a real effort to kill them rather than just knocking them unconscious. With that being said, maybe it could only be done once every long rest or so.

Page 5
Deceptive manner, I think those are pretty fair criticisms and I agree looking back. I like your idea of it only being used once per creature.

Aura of Granduer/Predatory Splendour. All of the aura things need the same thing done to them so thanks for pointing it out!

Page 6
Hunter's Frenzy. This was just me being stupid, just killing a creature should be fine.

Shadow casting. I will look at those and change them!

Thank you so much for this again, there are many mistakes that hopefully are just teething troubles and can be sorted out easily.

nickl_2000
2018-02-06, 08:29 AM
Thank you so much for the feedback! I am currently away from a computer and using my phone so I can't make any changes until this evening.

Page 3:
Darkvision. Thanks for pointing that out, I will change that, but I may need a bit of help with the wording. I'm thinking something like "you have darkvision to 120ft, if you already have this range of darkvision, extend it by another 30ft.



you gain darkvision up to 120ft, if you already have this range of darkvision from another feature, extend it by another 30ft."



Light damage. You would take 20 radiant damage and then make a saving throw against exhaustion, but you can only resist the exhaustion and not the radiant damage. Would it be more helpful to say "you take 10 radiant damage (plus any from your radiant vulnerability makes the damage 20), then make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or suffer a point of exhaustion on a fail or nothing on a success. You cannot reduce or resist the radiant damage taken and the saving throw is only against exhaustion.


"You take 10 radiant damage (plus extra from radiant vulnerability). After taking the damage make a DC 15 Constitution saving through, on failure also gain 1 level of exhaustion"
This shortens the sentence and clarifies it some (in my opinion).



Page 4
Enduring soul. This is the thing that I thought would be the most problematic to balance honestly as free healing is always a tough one to manage. I agree that it's a bit overturned for the early game, perhaps make it just your proficiency modifier and then have it level up as you go? E.g. At level 7 you add your charisma modifier, at level 15 you add twice your charisma modifier. As to them being on 0 hit points, honestly I think that's fine for them to just get back up again. They won't be on very much hp and a smartish enemy will see that they are getting back up and make a real effort to kill them rather than just knocking them unconscious. With that being said, maybe it could only be done once every long rest or so.


Gaining just proficiency bonus per round when conscious would be enough in my opinion. That's still a lot of healing. The only other class that gets anything like it is the Paladin Oath of Redemption, which gets it at level 16. Sure they get more healing, but they get it at level 16.

Also, if you are healing every round even when unconscious, you will have to be hit 3 times in a round to die. Every time you heal you reset the death saving throws. Make it so this ability requires the PC to be conscious and it solves this problem completely (and puts it in line with how the Paladin does it).

You could also change it so that you don't receive this benefit when making death saving throws. So you regenerate when you are conscious or when you stabilize. Actually, thinking about it more I like it better this way. Stable or Conscious allows you to heal (since undead can't get HP from healing spells), but also allows more of a risk of death. Additionally, it lets you teammates help you by using healing kit or a medicine check to bring you back from the brink of re-death.

The Ship's dog
2018-02-07, 08:31 PM
you gain darkvision up to 120ft, if you already have this range of darkvision from another feature, extend it by another 30ft."

Done, that's the exact wording that I had already changed it to when doing the other changes!


"You take 10 radiant damage (plus extra from radiant vulnerability). After taking the damage make a DC 15 Constitution saving through, on failure also gain 1 level of exhaustion"
This shortens the sentence and clarifies it some (in my opinion).

Yep, I like your wording.


Gaining just proficiency bonus per round when conscious would be enough in my opinion. That's still a lot of healing. The only other class that gets anything like it is the Paladin Oath of Redemption, which gets it at level 16. Sure they get more healing, but they get it at level 16.

Also, if you are healing every round even when unconscious, you will have to be hit 3 times in a round to die. Every time you heal you reset the death saving throws. Make it so this ability requires the PC to be conscious and it solves this problem completely (and puts it in line with how the Paladin does it).

You could also change it so that you don't receive this benefit when making death saving throws. So you regenerate when you are conscious or when you stabilize. Actually, thinking about it more I like it better this way. Stable or Conscious allows you to heal (since undead can't get HP from healing spells), but also allows more of a risk of death. Additionally, it lets you teammates help you by using healing kit or a medicine check to bring you back from the brink of re-death.

I agree with these comments and hadn't even considered the no healing from spells that undead have! I also like it because it makes the cantrip 'spare the dying' just straight up better as well as people actually using medicine checks (yay!).

nickl_2000
2018-02-08, 10:37 AM
I agree with these comments and hadn't even considered the no healing from spells that undead have! I also like it because it makes the cantrip 'spare the dying' just straight up better as well as people actually using medicine checks (yay!).

Spare the dying doesn't actually work on undead either. Your ways to bring this PC back from the brink are either a medicine check of healing kits or a goodberry if you DM allows you to force feed one to someone who is unconscious :)