Need help with creating a vampire campaign.

[KindOfGoodGuy]

I plan on running a game for 4 players. The premise is that thousands of years ago, vampires ruled the world. But like all things, it eventually came to an end. Fast forward thousands of years, and virtually no one remembers vampires even existing. The players wake up in some long forgotten location, finding that they have become vampires. Their sire is the last true vampire, and he gives the party the command to go out and conquer the world. Said sire then goes back into his coffin, because he is so unfathomably old that he has almost no strength to help them.

I come asking for help with designing the mechanics that the 4 players will have access to. My players and I played Pathfinder enough that just creating characters and slapping on the vampire template wouldn't really do it for us. I was thinking of taking some inspiration from Vampire: The Masquerade, and Warhammer Fantasy, to create 4 different classes that the players could pick from at character creation. Each class would represent a different kind of vampire, and be similar to one of the main classes in Pathfinder. They would have different kinds of strengths and weaknesses, although all the classes are meant to be more powerful than average. So far I was thinking of them being:


The Lord: Similar to a fighter but also the party face. They would have the mind control/charm powers that vampires are known for. Additionally, they are the one that could create ample amounts of vampire spawn.

The Night Haunter: Similar to a rogue. They are the expert at stealth, and have shadow powers. This might include large bonuses to stealth while in shadows, dimension door from shadow to shadow, turning an area pitch black, and even turning into a shadow (the monster).

The Blood Mage: Similar to a sorcerer, but with blood-themed abilities. This is the trickiest one for me. I can't tell how to do the spellcasting. Should I use a pool of points like the Magus? Should there be empowered spellcasting if blood can be provided as a material component? And what kind of blood powers would be apt as class abilities/features?

The Apex Predator: Similar to a barbarian, but considerably more brutal. This is the easiest, as it would simply include the highest DR, the largest amount of fast healing, increased speed, generous bonuses to perception, improved physical stats, etc...


As for weaknesses, the three ones to look out for would be The Sun, Holy Damage, and Silver. The Lord and The Blood Mage would take 1.5x damage from holy damage, while the others simply have it bypass DR and find it disturbing. The Apex Predator takes 1.5x damage from Silver, while the others simply have it bypass DR and find it disturbing. The sun works as per normal Pathfinder rules for the Night Haunter, while it only fatigues the others. Over an hour of exposure though will turn the fatigue into exhaustion though.


I know I am laying out a lot here, but I really want to give a unique experience for my players. Could you all help me with designing and fleshing out the classes?

[Arkain]

For starters, a bit of what you describe with your classes sounds like what Pathfinder already provides via the "vampiric breeds". Moroi are the classic vampires, nobles essentially. Nosferatu are the more magical ones, vrykolakas serve as the ghoulish brute variant and aswang could be an option for the rogue-ish, deceptive kind, as they are shapeshifting daywalkers. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find much on Aswang them on the fly. Jiang-shi might be an interesting alternative there (maybe remove the hopping, though), with vetala as another option for a bit of variation on the bloodsucking vampire motif, very much like the kuei-jin from Masquerade, if you happen to know of them.
You could instead or additionally flavor as a Legacy of Kain style vampirism, where the player characters undergo a process of (d-)evolution every now and then and come out of it stronger, with new abilities, but less human. Maybe start them off as basic vampires and then slowly allow them to change towards more specific directions, maybe even take some inspiration from the Summoner's Eidolon in terms of what to add. If you do this, it might also explain how they could all be sired by one, but turn out so differently after a while.

[KindOfGoodGuy]

Huh. I missed the mention of the different templates when I last looked on the Vampire page. That's interesting. Thank you!

[Arkain]

There's even an entire book, Blood of the Night, dealing with vampire varieties (in this case moroi, nosferatu, vetala and jiang-shi) and characters. Maybe it's worth checking out.

[KindOfGoodGuy]

Thank you for pointing that out. I am kind of surprised that I never heard of it before. I will certainly be looking into this.

[Psyren]

Blood of the Night was already pointed out, so I'd advise other vampiric sources for inspiration - e.g. VTM, and reading up on areas of Golarion that are prone to vampires like Geb, Ustalav, Nidal etc.

[Efrate]

DSP Lords of the Night has a simpler and more usable vampire template, and a lot of information on how they should work in society. It also is much lower powered so could be useful as a base to then evolve into stronger types given time. There is also the dhampir race which has a ton of variations if you want to tweak that to better suit your players or their concepts.

[Eldonauran]

I have a custom campaign that I run that deals with the players being undead, and the vampire race comes up quite often. I borrow heavily from the 3.5 D&D book Libris Mortis for the undead progressions, and create a pseudo-gestalt progression where the characters gain the listed abilities as they level. You can look to it for some inspiration as well. I encourage you to tweak it to suit your campaign.