The Vampie Class preview

[Kingreaper]

That's got nothing to do with house rules, that's the DM being an arbitrary dick. A house rule is a rule, as in, applied consistently: If you roll a 1 on an attack, your cloak blows aside and you take a round's worth of sunlight damage.

The problem with that is the "weakened (save ends)"

If you were weakened only while in sunlight, it wouldn't be too bad. But for a striker, getting "weakened (save ends)" based on your cloak blowing aside is going to really, really, hurt. The 10 damage is unimportant in comparison.


Hopefully there'll be a feat that removes the radiant/sunlight vulnerability, so when playing with GMs who want the cloak to be an unreliable technique, you can just grab that. (Call it Daywalker or something)

 

[Hellzon]

Can I take my shirt off and sparkle in the sunlight as an epic destiny?

A 10:th level Deva Vampire has resist 10 radiant, taking no damage from sunlight (still weakened and loses regeneration, though). Sparkle all you want.

 

[Almacov]

A 10:th level Deva Vampire has resist 10 radiant, taking no damage from sunlight (still weakened and loses regeneration, though)

And now I really want to play a Pacifist Cleric/Vampire.
Hm... what else provides resist radiant?..

 

[Walking Dad]

Various armors

PH1
Sunleaf armor 7

AV
Armor of Night 14
Armor of Starlight 13
Pelaurum 4 (only as heavy armor)
Spiritlink 15 (only chain)
Whiteflame 3 (only as heavy armor)

for example. If not noted otherwise they are available as cloth armor, too.


For neck I found only a warforged only item:
Disk of Energy Resistance

Arms
AV2
Bracelets of the Radiant Storm (Part of an item set. Having all gives another nice bonus: saving throws to negate all radiant damage)

Ring
AV
Ring of Spectral Hand 19

 

[I'm A Banana]

The race-class combos for vampires are already getting weird.

Actually, I think all this talk about builds and race combos and Radiant resistance is evidence that the class is really well-designed. It's inspiring people to go out and use the rule, which is evidence that the rule is useful. Which is what I think we want from ANY additional rule.

I'm pumped! There's a lot of interesting Vampire ideas out there.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

This is the first preview in a long while that didn't degenerate into a chorus of "this SUCKS!!!" or "it's BROKEN! 4e is ruined! OMG!!!"

So that's a good sign!

 

[airwalkrr]

Not that I don't understand WotC's game design philosophy, I do. I understand it all too well. But a whole class designed to let players be vampires is yet another example of making the game less fantastic by making fantasy elements of D&D mundane. You can already be a dragon, a demon, an orc, a goblin, an angel, a plant, a giant, a crystal, a construct, an elemental, and the list goes on. What's next? The ooze class so that player characters can be oozes? Where do we draw the line? 4th edition, for all of its excellent mechanical features, is really taking a huge chunk of the "soul" out of the game.

But for those out there who have always wanted to play a vampire in 4e and finally have an "official" version, this is all probably meaningless rambling. I just miss the days when dragons were fantastic creatures you didn't run into every day, orcs were evil monsters you killed on sight, and becoming a vampire meant the DM would take your character away.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You speak the truth...

you should however not look at the rpg.net thread...

i like the deva daywalker vampire^^ and actually, this combination seems like the right start to create something like that.

 

[Incenjucar]

I just miss the days

To be frank, a large portion of today's fantasy audience has moved on from "fantasy as the other" and has instead embraced it as an expression of the self. There are probably people who are still upset that you can play dwarves and elves and gnomes and halflings, but as a whole I feel that fantasy is best served by options instead of limitations. Limitations can still be placed by the DM or by the constraints of campaign settings, as with Dark Sun.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Not that I don't understand WotC's game design philosophy, I do. I understand it all too well. But a whole class designed to let players be vampires is yet another example of making the game less fantastic by making fantasy elements of D&D mundane. You can already be a dragon, a demon, an orc, a goblin, an angel, a plant, a giant, a crystal, a construct, an elemental, and the list goes on. What's next? The ooze class so that player characters can be oozes? Where do we draw the line? 4th edition, for all of its excellent mechanical features, is really taking a huge chunk of the "soul" out of the game.

But for those out there who have always wanted to play a vampire in 4e and finally have an "official" version, this is all probably meaningless rambling. I just miss the days when dragons were fantastic creatures you didn't run into every day, orcs were evil monsters you killed on sight, and becoming a vampire meant the DM would take your character away.

The possibility to play a vampire was already there in 3.5. 3.5 really started to allow every player to play any monster...

But level adjustment, caster level and the way hp were generated made vampires more or less unplayable. If you, as a DM, decide to allow vampires, you should have some good rules to back this decision up.

Vampire as a class seems like a good choice for that, as you circumvent most unexpected synergy. Most races have special synergies with most classes (like dwarf wardens or halfling artful dodgers)