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TempusCCK
2008-09-21, 11:22 PM
Just like the title says, I'm making the ultimate Vampire Hunter, however, I have a few flavor requirements:

Melee Focused (No Non-Full BAB Classes allowed, Two weapon fighting)

Level 10 (Perferrable with 5 in Ranger for good Favored Enemy, however, others accepted if it's a good build.)

What I have now (You don't have to follow any of this, just what I like):

Ranger 10 (Magic-less Variant from CompWar.)

Feats: Vampire Hunter, Two Weapon Fighting, Track, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Unarmed Strike (Flavor reasons), Mage Slayer, Blind Fight, Pierce Magical Concealment, Pierce Magical Protection.

Flaw: Loner (Trades Animal companion for Bonus Feat.)

Or- Ranger 8, Fighter 2 to add:
Combat Reflexes and Agile Riposte (Dragon). Idea here is "Yeah, come and suck my blood, whoops, missed, THUMP!"

So, how would you guys optimize this idea?

(edit- Forgot to see, any Flaw is acceptable assuming it fits the flavor of the character.)

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-09-21, 11:37 PM
Initiate of Heironeous (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Initiate_of_Heironeous,all). Additional 1d4 or more damage against Evil.
Initiate of Tymora (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Initiate_of_Tymora,all). +5 to hit, save, or check 1 time per day.
Nemisis (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Nemesis,all). +1d6 damage against one Favored Enemy type, sense their presence.

thegurullamen
2008-09-21, 11:47 PM
Commoner 10

"Vampires? Yeah, I killed a few. They kept trying to steal my chickens. I might not know where they come from, but they are mine!"

Vampires have so many weaknesses, it's hard not to kill them.

In all seriousness, I'd go straight cleric or rogue, focusing on "Evil be Damned!" spells and items while also focusing on exploiting weaknesses. As for the rogue, use that item that allows sneak attacks on Undead creatures. After getting that, it's all a matter of sneaking in and finishing the job in the daytime. Or what most rogues refer to as "Adventure fodder."

ocato
2008-09-21, 11:47 PM
I'd grab Jotunbrud (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Jotunbrud,Rac) from races of Faerun, maybe improved grapple and/or trip and go Aasimar (If your DM says you can be a human from X area and still be descended from Celestials). Stick with the casting ranger and charge up a your healing spell to your unarmed strike. Try to sneak up on him, pop out and give him a trip or grapple with a cure serious/critical/whatever wounds attached to an attack. Hold him down/pin him as best you can and then use your Aasimar Daylight ability. Other ranger spells that will keep them in place might help (entangle maybe). Take some throwing feats for throwing stakes and/or holy water as splash weapons. This is largely speculative, but it might work.

Teron
2008-09-21, 11:53 PM
Honestly, it's going to be very difficult to pull off melée full attacks against vampires if they don't want you to, what with all their movement and crowd control abilities. But if you're set on it, that's your business.

Since I see you're using Dragon, the Sworn Slayer prestige class might be to your taste. It narrows the focus of the ranger's favoured enemy feature to killing a specific kind of creature (like vampires or mummies rather than all undead, for instance). My memory's a little fuzzy, but I can check the right issue and get back to you on whether it's actually any good, if you like (needless to say, it is highly specialised, to its detriment against other foes). Come to think of it, I think it may be in the Dragon Compendium.

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-09-22, 02:16 AM
Try the Necropotent feat for a flat +4 damage vs undead.

Grynning
2008-09-22, 02:28 AM
The Ultimate Vampire Hunter is a Cleric with the Sun and Glory domains. Hands down. But if you want to be a full BAB type that fights vamps, there are several ways to do it, as has been pointed out.

You may want to dip 2-5 levels in Paladin for save bonuses and such. There's a feat in Complete Adventurer that lets you stack Pally and Ranger levels for certain things, and picking up Turn Undead for some divine feats might be a good plan. If you go this route you'll probably want your animal companion back, though, since one of things that feat lets you do is combine your pally mount with your animal companion.

Three questions:

Where/what is the "Vampire Hunter" feat? I don't remember ever seeing it.

Do you really have to go TWF Ranger? While favored enemy is decent, there's lots of other ways to get bonus damage, and TWF is pretty sub-par in 3rd, unless you're either a Rogue or using ToB, which leads to my next question...

Do you have access to and are you allowed to use Tome of Battle?

mabriss lethe
2008-09-22, 08:20 AM
pick up levels in a class that gives you turn/rebuke undead, pick up the Sun devotion feat. (viable without turning, but nasty vs Undead with.) turn your rebukes into extra melee damage vs undead, at a minute a pop.

TempusCCK
2008-09-22, 11:30 AM
Vampire Hunter Feat: http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Vampire_Hunter,LM

Unerringly determine a vampire in the vicinity and grants immunity to their gaze attack? Yes please! That feat kills two of the vampires biggest weapons against you.

Other issues.

I'm not a fan of ToB, so I'm going to skip out on that. Two weapon fighting is just fun, I'm not playing in a super-hyper-optimized campaign. Flavor > Optimization.

Necropotent is nice, especially since flat bonuses are better than say, the Dice from Nemesis, but the prerequisites are just too damn heavy. (A major issue with most melee'rs in 3.x, want to do that cool thing, you need this this this and this. Oh wait, no one can use the feat now because the requisites are impossible to meet, oh well, blame it on Monte Cook and call it a day!)

To the Cleric/Divine/Paladin people:
Yes, I know a magic user can kill a vampire easily, hell, a cleric or Wizard with two Summon Monster spells can take out a vampire in a matter of rounds, the point is that this guy is a Vampire Hunter who doesn't use magic or divinity.

Nerfing myself? Yes. Going to be cool anyway? Hell Yes.

Thank you for the option of the Sworn Slayer, I'll have to check that out.

Grynning
2008-09-22, 11:45 AM
That is a pretty nifty feat.

I still recommend dipping Paladin, because A) I think it would fit your flavor, and B) it has some nice mechanical options, mainly in the form of divine feats.

Paladin 4/Ranger 6 would get you turn undead, and your two TWF feats. You won't use Turn Undead to actually try to turn, instead you'll want to get the Sacred Vengeance feat from Complete Warrior. Blow a turn attempt as a free action to add another +2d6 to every swing with your full attack against a vamp. Makes this more viable. Plus, if you have decent Charisma you'll have a good bonus to saves and a small amount of healing each day, plus a smite you can use when you can't make a full attack.

If you don't want to be a LG Paladin, I'm pretty sure most DM's are OK with the Chaotic version found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinofFreedomClassF eatures). That might actually be even better, since their aura is against compulsion rather than fear, which would help keep your allies from getting dominated. Also you'd be immune to their dominate by default, so that vampire hunter feat wouldn't be necessary, you could just rely on the hefty bonuses from Favored Enemy and your Paladin Detect Evil to sniff out vampires.

Edit: To sum up: CG Ranger 6/Paladin of Freedom 4
Highest Stat in Str, secondary Dex and Cha, then Con and Wis. Dump Int.
Feats: Sacred Vengeance, Ranger Bonus Feats, maybe Two-Weapon Pounce from PHBII to make your TWF a little better. The rest is up to you, keep the Pierce Magical Concealment line I suppose.

BRC
2008-09-22, 12:10 PM
I would do a level dip in cleric or pally and stock up on scrolls of nitfty things. Get that Holy water dispenser from LM and wear a garlic necklace.
Be a Warforged or a necropolitan so they can't drink your blood.

TempusCCK
2008-09-22, 12:16 PM
That's a fair bit of twinking Gynning.

I suppose the Paladin works, with a littel reflavoring, I just want to have the "Kill Vampires" feel rather than the "Good will defeat Evil" feel.

If you combined the Vengence feat with Nemisis that's a D8+3D6 + STR + 6 for six attacks on a full attack, averaging about 4+9+2 (ish)+6= 21 damage on each strike, average, which isn't horrible for the level of optimization involved.

Isn't there also a feat somewhere that lets you add your favored enemy bonus to hit? Improved Favored Enemy? That'd negate the suckiness of TWF quite a bit, and since this is such a specialized warrior, no worries about not being effective against a wide range of things.

Also, does anyone have a link to the Sworn Slayer class online? Or can someone give me the highlight of the class?

Grynning
2008-09-22, 12:24 PM
That's a fair bit of twinking Gynning.

I suppose the Paladin works, with a littel reflavoring, I just want to have the "Kill Vampires" feel rather than the "Good will defeat Evil" feel.

If you combined the Vengence feat with Nemisis that's a D8+3D6 + STR + 6 for six attacks on a full attack, averaging about 4+9+2 (ish)+6= 21 damage on each strike, average, which isn't horrible for the level of optimization involved.

Isn't there also a feat somewhere that lets you add your favored enemy bonus to hit? Improved Favored Enemy? That'd negate the suckiness of TWF quite a bit, and since this is such a specialized warrior, no worries about not being effective against a wide range of things.

Also, does anyone have a link to the Sworn Slayer class online? Or can someone give me the highlight of the class?

The Sworn Slayer is not in the Dragon Compendium, a quick Google search told me that it's from Dragon 324, but the full class does not seem to be available online.

Improved Favored Enemy adds extra damage, as far as I know there is nothing that gives you +to hit against favored enemies. However, since you are full BAB, hitting shouldn't be too much trouble, as long as you can actually get in position for a full attack (which is harder than it sounds, which is why I was recommending ToB for TWF'ing, since it has several attacks that are standard/attack actions with both weapons). Again, I'd take the Two-Weapon Pounce feat - sense a Vamp via Nemesis, Sense Evil, whatever, activate Sacred Vengeance, charge it with Two-Weapon Pounce, then hopefully it will it stay in one place long enough for you to full attack.

Also, Paladins aren't necessarily all Boy Scouts who think good always wins. They can be as hard-bitten, jaded and/or angsty as you want them to be, as long as they follow their alignment and code of conduct at the end of the day. Again, I also recommend the Paladin of Freedom in this case, so you don't need to take that Vampire Hunter feat (Nemesis is much better, and PoF gives you the immunity to compulsion), so remember that there would be a Chaotic rather than lawful bent to your do-goodery. You do good however you damn well please :smalltongue:

averagejoe
2008-09-22, 12:28 PM
Also, does anyone have a link to the Sworn Slayer class online? Or can someone give me the highlight of the class?

It basically just gives you a greater favored enemy bonus against that one foe, as well as bonuses to saves against its whatever, which might not be too useful anyways because of that vampire hunter feat. I doubt it would be worth it.

TempusCCK
2008-09-22, 03:47 PM
The Sworn Slayer is not in the Dragon Compendium, a quick Google search told me that it's from Dragon 324, but the full class does not seem to be available online.

Improved Favored Enemy adds extra damage, as far as I know there is nothing that gives you +to hit against favored enemies. However, since you are full BAB, hitting shouldn't be too much trouble, as long as you can actually get in position for a full attack (which is harder than it sounds, which is why I was recommending ToB for TWF'ing, since it has several attacks that are standard/attack actions with both weapons). Again, I'd take the Two-Weapon Pounce feat - sense a Vamp via Nemesis, Sense Evil, whatever, activate Sacred Vengeance, charge it with Two-Weapon Pounce, then hopefully it will it stay in one place long enough for you to full attack.

Also, Paladins aren't necessarily all Boy Scouts who think good always wins. They can be as hard-bitten, jaded and/or angsty as you want them to be, as long as they follow their alignment and code of conduct at the end of the day. Again, I also recommend the Paladin of Freedom in this case, so you don't need to take that Vampire Hunter feat (Nemesis is much better, and PoF gives you the immunity to compulsion), so remember that there would be a Chaotic rather than lawful bent to your do-goodery. You do good however you damn well please :smalltongue:

Only problem with Nemisis is that it's exalted. But there may be a way to work around that. And the Aura thing is the a problem too, flavorwise, I might just have to redo all of the Paladin stuff and gank the bonus to saves, Full BAB and Turn Undead. Then the compulsion resistence for the party isn't divine, it's just an inspiration, when he's around an almost supernatural resistence to vampires words exudes from him.

But then again, if I'm reworking the Paladin class, I might as well throw in the Vengence and make it a brand new prestige class. And all of a sudden this thread belongs in the Homebrew section.