E6: The Game Inside D&D

Hrothgar Rannúlfr · Sep 18, 2007

E6 & Characters Becoming Vampires/Liches

joela said:
I'd look into deals with high-level evil creatures and/or incantations if the PCs were, for whatever, interested in such beasts [vampires/liches].

Good suggestion. Though, I still like using the Bone Creature template instead of the lich template, as Ryan suggested, for the lich.

Hrothgar Rannúlfr · Sep 18, 2007

E6 & Level Drains

joela said:
I've seen such recommendations in the past where PCs have to pay off "negative xps" before they start leveling again. That could easily work with E6: a vampire-bitten PC with 15000 of negative xps from a vampire would be 3 feats behind the rest of the party before they could start accruing xps again.

Agreed.

Though, with the level being worth approximately 5 feats... Shouldn't each level drain cost 25,000 XP? Truly nasty, but isn't that the right price?

Hrothgar Rannúlfr · Sep 18, 2007

E6 Lich Adventure Seeds

joela said:
As for lich, I'd either have the NPC make a deal with a high-level devil/demon and use incantation to make the change. This could easily lead to an adventure where the PCs are desperately racing to either prevent the creation of the lich or find some way to reduce its power. (Maybe through another incantation? A deal with good powers? Or temporary feats like a non-permanent Exalted feat to bring the smackdown to the lich on equal levels?)

All good ideas. And, I like ideas that I can use as seeds for adventures.

Hrothgar Rannúlfr · Sep 18, 2007

E6, Vampires, & ECL (Effective Character Level)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Hrothgar Rannúlfr said:

I hope I never need a True Vampire as an option for PC's. To me, Vampires are monsters and they should stay that way. I was just wondering about the best way to build an E6 legal vampire and the Level Adjustment stuck out at me as making True Vampires non-existant.Interesting thoughts about the effect of level drains on the feats beyond sixth. I don't think that's been addressed, yet for E6. I wonder if Ryan's got any thoughts on this?

Click to expand...

I don't think E6 forbids monsters with a CR above 6, just monsters with class levels higher than 6. So a NPC Vampire Fighter6 would have CR 8 (If I remember the CR modifier correctly), and two of these Vampires would make a challenging encounter for a 6th level E6 character.

My hurdle that I was having difficulty getting over was the idea of ECL (Effective Character Level). Vampires have a +8 Level Adjustment and are, therefore, over the E6 Level Limit to begin with... UNLESS, we consider the idea that a 6th level character plus 10 feats is effectively an 8th level character. And, with that line of thinking, there's not really a reason not to use the True Vampire as is with the +8 Level Adjustment and all. It just means that a fighter6 that gets turned into a vampire will go from 6th level plus X feats to ECL 14. And, in that case, I might rule that the character couldn't gain any extra feats until the XP deficit were paid to reach the E6 equivalent of ECL 14 (Minimum total of 215,000 XP or 6th level plus 40 feats where 5 feats/ECL times 8 equals 40 feats)... which would effectively remove any potential advancement of the character for the rest of the campaign.

Is there a better way to rule in the situation?

Hrothgar Rannúlfr · Sep 18, 2007

E6 & Higher CR Vampires

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
If you want the Vampire to have a higher CR, that might be more difficult. You'd need a humanoid race with a higher base CR than player races. But I don't think that's really necessary. If you give the Vampire more hit points (thanks to feats gained after level 6), he should come off pretty dangerous, simply because it takes forever to take him down (Which is a pretty critical benefit if the Vampires keeps his Energy Drain ability)

I think extra feats are pretty much the solution to increasing the CR of the vampire. The problem is in dealing with the 40 feat deficit that a new vampire would have to pay before being able to gain new feats. Perhaps, some sort of E6 version of Savage Species advancement that would allow the E6 Vampire to alternate paying his XP debt with gaining new feats?

Hrothgar Rannúlfr · Sep 18, 2007

Buffy v. the Vampires... E6 Style?

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
(I just have to think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - every Vampire automatically is a Martial Artist that can strike her and can throws her around, but only the _really_ important Vampires survive longer than a few "rounds". They probably all have a similar attack bonus but the important ones got more hit points)

Probably true.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Sep 18, 2007

Hrothgar Rannúlfr said:
My hurdle that I was having difficulty getting over was the idea of ECL (Effective Character Level). Vampires have a +8 Level Adjustment and are, therefore, over the E6 Level Limit to begin with... UNLESS, we consider the idea that a 6th level character plus 10 feats is effectively an 8th level character. And, with that line of thinking, there's not really a reason not to use the True Vampire as is with the +8 Level Adjustment and all. It just means that a fighter6 that gets turned into a vampire will go from 6th level plus X feats to ECL 14. And, in that case, I might rule that the character couldn't gain any extra feats until the XP deficit were paid to reach the E6 equivalent of ECL 14 (215,000 XP or 6th level plus 40 feats where 5 feats/ECL times 8 equals 40 feats)... which would effectively remove any potential advancement of the character for the rest of the campaign.

Is there a better way to rule in the situation?

Well, this is only a problem if a PC is turned Vampire and stays a PC.
Which is not suggested by either the Core nor the E6 rules. For NPCs, the Level Adjustment has no meaning and they (actually the DM) only needs to "worry" about the CR modifier.
(You will run into similar problems with LA races, too.)

shdwrnr · Sep 18, 2007

So I've been milling about with campaign ideas for my first E6 game. Do you guys think Dark Sun E6 would be too much work to convert? It seems like the gritty struggle for survival setting that Dark Sun presents would work well, but upon reviewing the rules, it seems like it might be a bit too deadly; that Dark Sun was created for a higher level range than E6. Any thoughts?

Ry · Sep 18, 2007

There's a few products that have "corpse creature" templates (which isnt' much more than changing to Undead type, honestly), add a sunlight vulnerability, a special "regen to ful when drinking blood" ability, and that's where I'd start for a vampire. From there, I'd make a ritual for turning a living person into a vampire, and then I'd start adding feats to customize the vampire properly.