Drow vampire

[unimatrix]

Looking for advice.

We are playing an underdark campaign with a high attrition rate and I am already planning my next character. I will play a drow vampire. I will be using the Libris Mortis monster class which will eat up 8 of my levels. I will later buy off the +2 LA for Drow according to UA. What I am looking for is idea on how to fill the remaining 12 levels and keep my character viable. I have rolled rather high stats.

All core books (except psionics) are on the table.

Thanks in advance.

[mabriss lethe]

Looking for advice.

We are playing an underdark campaign with a high attrition rate and I am already planning my next character. I will play a drow vampire. I will be using the Libris Mortis monster class which will eat up 8 of my levels. I will get the +2 LA for drow for free. What I am looking for is idea on how to fill the remaining 12 levels and keep my character viable. I have rolled rather high stats.

All core books (except psionics) are on the table.

Thanks in advance.

I'll be honest. Vampire is probably not the way to go. coming out at level 8 from the class, you're looking at roughly the same combat effectiveness, skill aptitude, and HP as a monk, and actually beginning your proper adventuring class that late will put you way behind on relevance no matter what you choose. If you hit things you can make them pretty dead pretty fast, but landing that hit is not going to be easy for you even with the strength bump. My best advice it to figure out what mechanics you want from it and then look through your available sources for ways to mimic as many of them as possible without losing HD, BAB, CL, Saves, Skill ranks, etc.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

If you want to play a vampire, the LA Assignment Thread determined that the template should actually be worth about +3 LA (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?532012-The-LA-assignment-thread-III-Now-in-HD!&p=22477494&viewfull=1#post22477494) or possibly +4. Ask your DM if you can use that instead of the (frankly crazy) +8 they were given in the Monster Manual.

Apparently there's also a weaker but streamlined version of the template in the 3rd party book Fang & Fury for +2 LA.

You could also break it down into its component parts. If you're looking to be a melee powerhouse with fangs and claws, I'd recommend the Feral template from Savage Species (+1 LA). If you want to be subtle and charismatic, with mysterious powers, Half-Fey (+2 LA) is hard to beat, and even has a savage progression (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) so you can take it one LA at a time like a monster class. Either (or both) could be called a type of vampire pretty easily. Maybe throw in Necropolitan (+0 LA, but you lose an existing level) to become undead.


Regardless, Vampirism give you a wide variety of benefits, and could conceivably benefit most classes. Totemist (a class from Magic of Incarnum all about channeling the souls of magical beasts to harness their powers) in particular goes really nicely with Energy Drain and Blood Drain, with Girallon Arms bound to the totem chakra both giving you four more natural attacks and giving you scaling bonuses to grappling, and Dread Carapace functioning like Power Attack for all your natural weapons. You would need to take the Undead Meldshaping feat, though.

It may also be worth taking the Amphibious template (Stormwrack, +0 LA but -2 Dex) to give yourself a swim speed, making you immune to the Running Water weakness of most vampires.

[Rebel7284]

Ur Priest I guess? Still won't be good, but at least you can contribute.

[Darg]

Being a vampire is a little weird in 2 ways. First is that you have extremely strong abilities and can be really hard to kill and yet at the same time are extremely vulnerable where your abilities don't strengthen you. The second is that the LA is so large it reduces the EPL for the party by 2 levels. This makes the encounters easier for everyone.

The largest demerit (in my opinion) to LA is that you lose out on BAB. For a vampire you are strapped with a -40% chance to hit right off the bat, or -30% with party level deflation. At least with the ability adjustments that becomes -15-20%. Because of this and the abilities that a vampire possesses I would recommend using heavy armor and focusing on grapples. Grapples are touch attacks and it's fairly easy to bump up your grapple checks in comparison to your attack bonus (LA doesn't count when calculating for divine power or transformation).

[Beni-Kujaku]

The thing is, the only way for vampirism to be worth the huge LA is by abusing the Create Spawn ability to have an army of vampires under your control, which gets out of hand really easily and may piss your DM off (they will probably be forced to only pin you against Constructs and Undead to avoid that). Ask if you can reduce the LA by 2 or 3 in exchange for this ability (the LA thread assumes Create Spawn doesn't exist). If not, then do invest in some way to incapacitate your opponent instead of killing them in order to drain them. Irresistible Gaze/Ability Focus will make the DC pretty high. Then you can drain them as you wish and if they're higher than lv5 (I hope so, if you're at least ECL8, you get a buffed out ally out of every humanoid enemy). If your enemy isn't humanoid, then ask your allies to not kill them, or try to inflict nonlethal damage until they fall unconscious (for that, you can take one level of Monk then the rest in Warblade or Swordsage. Use Maneuvers based on your unarmed strike, that you can make deal nonlethal damage. Even one or two hit should be enough. Your allies may deal lethal damage themselves, but it will still have an acceptable range where they will be unconscious and not dead).

You can also take Improved Energy Drain, but I do not recommend going that route, since Vampire slams suck, as does your grapple, since you have low BAB and are Medium. Don't try to drain anyone before they're already unconscious.


If your DM agrees to reduce the LA, initiator classes are still really good, and Improved Domination from Dungeon 128 is a must-have at high level (requirements: Intimidate 18 ranks, Charisma 21; Benefit: Your Domination special attack can affect any type of creature with a mind).

[CIDE]

I would almost think you'd need to have undead HD to fill those Vampire levels rather than just an empty LA at a bare minimum. Unless you're looking at some inside epic thing like Paragon creature then high LA's just don't cut it.

Question for everyone else since I'm AFB but wasn't the Vampire Lord template a notoriously low LA/ECL to offset the unreasonably high LA of Vampire?

[mabriss lethe]

I would almost think you'd need to have undead HD to fill those Vampire levels rather than just an empty LA at a bare minimum. Unless you're looking at some inside epic thing like Paragon creature then high LA's just don't cut it.

Question for everyone else since I'm AFB but wasn't the Vampire Lord template a notoriously low LA/ECL to offset the unreasonably high LA of Vampire?

I'm also AFB, but what I can recall is that there's some pretty strict fluff that a Vampire is supposed to adhere to before the template becomes available, (being over a century in age, having a certain number of spawn, killing the vampire that created you, and surviving a similar attempt by one of your own brood) and doesn't have a listed LA or the LA- that indicates it isn't suitable for PCs. So it's very much in the domain of DM arbitration.

[Darg]

I'm also AFB, but what I can recall is that there's some pretty strict fluff that a Vampire is supposed to adhere to before the template becomes available, (being over a century in age, having a certain number of spawn, killing the vampire that created you, and surviving a similar attempt by one of your own brood) and doesn't have a listed LA or the LA- that indicates it isn't suitable for PCs. So it's very much in the domain of DM arbitration.


Vampire lords are those few vampires who meet a strict set of requirements. They each have lived as a vampire for at least 100 years, and have acquired 10 or more class levels or Hit Dice. They tend to possess levels of arcane spellcasting classes, but not always. A vampire lord was formerly a vampire under the control of another vampire (not a vampire lord) and has slain its creator. Further, the vampire lord must have created at least 10 vampires and survived an assassination attempt by one of its subjects before achieving vampire lord status.


Vampire lord is a template that can be applied to any humanoid or monstrous humanoid creature with a character level of at least 10 that has already had the vampire template applied to it (hereafter referred to as the "base vampire"). So, make a vampire, and then apply this template to it. The creature uses all the special abilities of the base vampire, except as noted below.

Vampire Lord is a template applied to a template that basically says, "Cower and feel despair." It doesn't get rid of the vampire LA though, but it is a free upgrade if you can go through the RP requirements.

[Malphegor]

Drow vampires have the benefit of if they know a local cleric the Drow domain has the spell Cloak of Dark Power with is one of the less ‘cover yourself in a thick poisonous paste that makes you look gross’ methods of ignoring that hateful sun that is one of your biggest threats.

Plus it makes you look black and white and hazy except around your eyes, I assume as it doesn’t cause any issues with vision, you look like literally the black and white draculas

[Beni-Kujaku]

Vampire Lord is a template applied to a template that basically says, "Cower and feel despair." It doesn't get rid of the vampire LA though, but it is a free upgrade if you can go through the RP requirements.

Honestly, with how much shenanigans you can pull off with at-will Wild Shape, the infinite Children of the Night, the at-will Control Weather, and all the goodies that can make you almost immortal (at least if you're using the 3.0 rules for damage reduction, but also pretty good in 3.5), I feel like Vampire Lord is a worthy LA+8. If you're starting at very high level (near level 18, in fact), then it is a good way to be pretty strong while not asking much adjudication from your DM.