Using Vampires In P6?

[Vrock_Summoner]

Pretty straightforward and YMMV question, but I wanted people's opinions. Vampires have this whole thing where if you have 5 HD/levels or less when killed by them you become a generic Vampire Spawn, while if you have 6 or more you become a full-fledged vampire. In E6, only the strongest people in the setting cross the threshold. Would y'all suggest keeping it that way, limiting true vampirism to the very strongest characters in the setting, or would it be better to focus more on the proportions and lower the threshold to, say, 3rd-level characters (so that a character with the +2 CR vampire template will always have a higher CR than the CR4 generic spawn)? On the one hand lower-level true vampires allows a bit more hierarchy and variety among the vampires, but on the other hand perhaps the vampire template's abilities combined with a few class levels are too strong for a CR5 encounter in general? All opinions and suggestions appreciated.

[Zanos]

Vampires are incredibly strong in E6 because they have a laundry list of powerful abilities that don't scale with hit dice, like at will dominate person, spawn creation, excellent dr, and are functionally immortal unless extreme measures are taken, which E6 characters will likely not have access to. Vampiric weaknesses are largely irrelevant to NPCs because they do very little about their most dangerous abilities or depend on conditions that cannot be easily manipulated(or manipulated at all) by PCs. Holding up a mirror or garlic does not prevent a vampire from dominating you, casting spells on you, or even shooting you with a bow. If a vampire is hunting people at night you either have to confront it at night, at which point sunlight will not be useful, or in it's lair, where it has home field advantage.

Due to how powerful they are and how difficult they are to eliminate I think it makes perfect sense to limit such abilities to only the most powerful characters in an E6 campaign; a vampire should be a very difficult and unique villain that requires careful planning to permanently eliminate.

[Crake]

Vampires are incredibly strong in E6 because they have a laundry list of powerful abilities that don't scale with hit dice, like at will dominate person, spawn creation, excellent dr, and are functionally immortal unless extreme measures are taken, which E6 characters will likely not have access to. Vampiric weaknesses are largely irrelevant to NPCs because they do very little about their most dangerous abilities or depend on conditions that cannot be easily manipulated(or manipulated at all) by PCs. Holding up a mirror or garlic does not prevent a vampire from dominating you, casting spells on you, or even shooting you with a bow. If a vampire is hunting people at night you either have to confront it at night, at which point sunlight will not be useful, or in it's lair, where it has home field advantage.

Due to how powerful they are and how difficult they are to eliminate I think it makes perfect sense to limit such abilities to only the most powerful characters in an E6 campaign; a vampire should be a very difficult and unique villain that requires careful planning to permanently eliminate.

To limit the power, you could use the 3.5 savage progression for vampires, but instead of costing levels, make it cost feats. That way you can have up to 9 different “levels” of vampires and vampire strengths (0-8 feats invested), and it limits full strength vampires not only to level 6 characters, but SEASONED level 6 characters

[Vrock_Summoner]

I suppose a good alternative might be to use the nerfed Dreamscarred Press vampire template intended for PC usage, at least for most vampires. That changes or removes a lot of the things that make default vampires overpowered end boss material in E6 (i.e. removing their nigh-impossibility to kill, replacing the numerous high powered abilities like summoning a ton of animals and at-will Dominate with a choice between things like an animal companion or a 2/day Charm Person/Animal/Monster, etc). And it intrinsically increases variety bc its level minimum for the mortal being turned is only two and it permanently drains one of their levels. So maybe most people become the weaker kind of vampire (replacing the Vampire Spawn as a monster type), and then it's just the tiny number of level-capped mortals who are turned into the super dangerous endboss tier "true" vampires.