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Converting Creatures from Other Campaign Settings
- Thread starter Shade
- Start date
Cleon
Legend
Let's see, how about this.:
Slaying a Vampire
Exposure to direct sunlight immediately destroys a drow vampire; direct moonlight or indirect daylight prevents the vampire from fast healing and does 2d6 damage per round; indirect moonlight prevents fast healing and does 1d4 damage per round; starlight prevents the vampire from fast healing but does no damage. Illumination by any spell with the light descriptor has the same effect on a drow vampire as moonlight (for spells of 3rd level or above like daylight) or indirect moonlight (for spells of 2nd level or lower, such as continual flame or light).
Immersing a drow vampire in a waterfall robs it of one-third of its hit points each round until it is destroyed at the end of the third round of immersion. Water drawn directly from a waterfall and splashed at the vampire has the same effect as holy water. Waterfall water loses its harmful properties toward drow vampires as soon as it stops falling.
Driving a rock salt stake through a drow vampire’s heart instantly slays the monster. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to bind the creature's body with silver thread and then it to ash.
Cleon
Legend
Make that last bit "and then burn it to ash" and we're good.
Odd, I had a burn in the draft.
After being reduced to ashes a wind must have blown it away.
I think I'll start a temporary working draft for the In Ravenloft subentry so we don't have to scroll down past the entire drow vampire template every time to see the bit we're working on.
Cleon
Legend
Drow Vampire "In Ravenloft" Working Draft
To be appended to the Drow Vampire Working Draft.
In Ravenloft
The drow vampires of the Lands of Dread differ in some respects from those described above. Use the following rules. Any abilities or statistics that are not covered are the same as the standard drow vampire template.
Attack: A drow vampire retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains a dread touch attack (see special attacks). If the base creature can use weapons, the vampire retains this ability. A creature with natural weapons retains those natural weapons. A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either a dread touch attack or its primary natural weapon (if it has any). A drow vampire armed with a weapon uses its dread touch or a weapon, as it desires.
Full Attack: A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either its dread touch attack (see special attacks) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with its dread touch or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.
Special Attacks: Remove the basic drow vampire's Blood Drain attack and replace it with the Dread Touch attack.
Dread Touch (Ex): A drow vampire can drain the blood and vital fluids from a living creature, dealing 1d6 points of Constitution damage plus 1 point of Constitution drain. This requires a successful touch attack that leaves a bloody welt upon the victim's skin. A drow vampire can also apply its dread touch by making a successful grapple check. This normally deals 1d6 Con damage plus 1 Con drain, but if the grappling drow vampire succeeds in pinning its opponent the dread touch deals 1d6+1 Con drain instead. A pinned opponent continues to take 1d6+1 Con drain each round the pin is maintained.
Alternatively, a drow vampire can inflict its dread touch by hitting with a bite attack (such as that possessed by its Alternative Form of a spider), which does the damage of its bite attack plus 1d6 Con damage and 1 Con drain.
A drow vampire can only use its dread touch once per round whichever method of attack it employs.
The drow vampire gains 2 temporary hit points for every point of Constitution drain it inflicts with a dread touch attack.
Constitution drain caused by dread touch is hard to heal. A character attempting to cast any spell to heal the Con drain must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check or the spell has no effect on the drained ability. The curse only affects the dread touch's Con drain, so any Constitution damage a victim suffers from a dread touch can be healed normally. To eliminate this curse, the effect must be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell) or heal (no CL check required), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to magically cure the Con drain.
Drow Vampire Weaknesses
Drow vampires have a number of weaknesses.
Repelling a Drow Vampire
Drow vampires cannot tolerate salt and are unable to cross an unbroken line of salt. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented lump of pure salt. To repulse a drow vampire, a lump of salt must weigh at least one ounce and either be a single piece of natural rock salt (costs 1 sp) or a piece of salt that has been blessed in a temple (costs 1 gp and can be used by a cleric or paladin to turn drow vampires). These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from the creature holding the salt and cannot touch or make melee attacks against that creature for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
Slaying a Drow Vampire
Exposure to direct sunlight immediately destroys a drow vampire; direct moonlight or indirect daylight prevents the vampire from fast healing and does 2d6 damage per round; indirect moonlight prevents fast healing and does 1d4 damage per round; starlight prevents the vampire from fast healing but does no damage. Illumination by any spell with the light descriptor has the same effect on a drow vampire as moonlight (for spells of 3rd level or above like daylight) or indirect moonlight (for spells of 2nd level or lower, such as continual flame or light).
Immersing a drow vampire in a waterfall robs it of one-third of its hit points each round until it is destroyed at the end of the third round of immersion. Water drawn directly from a waterfall and splashed at the vampire has the same effect as holy water. Waterfall water loses its harmful properties toward drow vampires as soon as it stops falling.
Driving a rock salt stake through a drow vampire’s heart instantly slays the monster. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to bind the creature's body with silver thread and then burn it to ash.
To be appended to the Drow Vampire Working Draft.
In Ravenloft
The drow vampires of the Lands of Dread differ in some respects from those described above. Use the following rules. Any abilities or statistics that are not covered are the same as the standard drow vampire template.
Attack: A drow vampire retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains a dread touch attack (see special attacks). If the base creature can use weapons, the vampire retains this ability. A creature with natural weapons retains those natural weapons. A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either a dread touch attack or its primary natural weapon (if it has any). A drow vampire armed with a weapon uses its dread touch or a weapon, as it desires.
Full Attack: A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either its dread touch attack (see special attacks) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with its dread touch or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.
Special Attacks: Remove the basic drow vampire's Blood Drain attack and replace it with the Dread Touch attack.
Dread Touch (Ex): A drow vampire can drain the blood and vital fluids from a living creature, dealing 1d6 points of Constitution damage plus 1 point of Constitution drain. This requires a successful touch attack that leaves a bloody welt upon the victim's skin. A drow vampire can also apply its dread touch by making a successful grapple check. This normally deals 1d6 Con damage plus 1 Con drain, but if the grappling drow vampire succeeds in pinning its opponent the dread touch deals 1d6+1 Con drain instead. A pinned opponent continues to take 1d6+1 Con drain each round the pin is maintained.
Alternatively, a drow vampire can inflict its dread touch by hitting with a bite attack (such as that possessed by its Alternative Form of a spider), which does the damage of its bite attack plus 1d6 Con damage and 1 Con drain.
A drow vampire can only use its dread touch once per round whichever method of attack it employs.
The drow vampire gains 2 temporary hit points for every point of Constitution drain it inflicts with a dread touch attack.
Constitution drain caused by dread touch is hard to heal. A character attempting to cast any spell to heal the Con drain must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check or the spell has no effect on the drained ability. The curse only affects the dread touch's Con drain, so any Constitution damage a victim suffers from a dread touch can be healed normally. To eliminate this curse, the effect must be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell) or heal (no CL check required), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to magically cure the Con drain.
Drow Vampire Weaknesses
Drow vampires have a number of weaknesses.
Repelling a Drow Vampire
Drow vampires cannot tolerate salt and are unable to cross an unbroken line of salt. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented lump of pure salt. To repulse a drow vampire, a lump of salt must weigh at least one ounce and either be a single piece of natural rock salt (costs 1 sp) or a piece of salt that has been blessed in a temple (costs 1 gp and can be used by a cleric or paladin to turn drow vampires). These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from the creature holding the salt and cannot touch or make melee attacks against that creature for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
Slaying a Drow Vampire
Exposure to direct sunlight immediately destroys a drow vampire; direct moonlight or indirect daylight prevents the vampire from fast healing and does 2d6 damage per round; indirect moonlight prevents fast healing and does 1d4 damage per round; starlight prevents the vampire from fast healing but does no damage. Illumination by any spell with the light descriptor has the same effect on a drow vampire as moonlight (for spells of 3rd level or above like daylight) or indirect moonlight (for spells of 2nd level or lower, such as continual flame or light).
Immersing a drow vampire in a waterfall robs it of one-third of its hit points each round until it is destroyed at the end of the third round of immersion. Water drawn directly from a waterfall and splashed at the vampire has the same effect as holy water. Waterfall water loses its harmful properties toward drow vampires as soon as it stops falling.
Driving a rock salt stake through a drow vampire’s heart instantly slays the monster. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to bind the creature's body with silver thread and then burn it to ash.
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freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
For "repelling," we had
Drow vampires cannot tolerate salt and are unable to cross a line of salt. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented lump of rock salt. These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from the creature holding the salt and cannot touch or make melee attacks against that creature for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
Drow vampires cannot tolerate salt and are unable to cross a line of salt. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented lump of rock salt. These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from the creature holding the salt and cannot touch or make melee attacks against that creature for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
Cleon
Legend
As I said before, I think we should specify a minimum weight for the "lump of salt".
The original text says they "find pure salt repugnant" so do we want to make any mention of purity? I'm thinking we might as well.
Oh, and it also says the line of salt doesn't work if there are any breaks in it, so we'd better include that.
How's this:
Drow vampires cannot tolerate salt and are unable to cross an unbroken line of salt. Similarly, they recoil from a strongly presented lump of pure salt. To repulse a drow vampire, a lump of salt must weigh at least one ounce and either be a single piece of natural rock salt (costs 1 sp) or a piece of salt that has been blessed in a temple (costs 1 gp and can be used by a cleric or paladin to turn drow vampires). These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from the creature holding the salt and cannot touch or make melee attacks against that creature for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
I used used the price of a wooden holy symbol for the cost of the "blessed salt".
I wondered about allowing the "purified" salt to rebuke as well as turn, so it's usable by evil clerics. e.g. "been consecrated or desecrated in a temple (costs 1 gp and can be used as a holy or unholy symbol to turn or rebuke drow vampires, depending on the alignment of the temple.)"
It seems better to keep it "blessed salt" based on positive energy though. A regular vampire isn't repulsed by an unholy symbol, after all!
Cleon
Legend
I'd fancy giving them an alternative natural attack that's closer to the fluid draining "dread touch" of the AD&D version.
I'll post a proposal later.
Cleon
Legend
Okay, here's what the original drow vampire has:
The dread touch of the vampire drow drains the very fluids from its victim’s body. Each successful unarmed melee attack enables the undead drow to drain 1d6+1 hit points from its victim. Each time the vampire uses this hideous attack, the victim permanently loses 1 hit point. Such draining is excruciatingly painful and leaves a small welt where the drow touched its victim’s flesh. Only the heal spell will remove these angry welts that the drow refer to as Lolth’s caress. The vampire can absorb any hit points it drains from its victims in this manner, although the creature will never have more than its maximum number of hit points. Any drow brought to 0 hit points by this attack becomes a vampire. Victims of other races merely die in unendurable agony, sacrifices to Lolth and her vampire minion.
I'm inclined to forget about the last two sentences and keep the current Create Spawn ability, but would like to give the "In Ravenloft" version a natural attack akin to the original's fluid-draining ability.
Attack: A drow vampire retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains a dread touch attack (see special attacks). If the base creature can use weapons, the vampire retains this ability. A creature with natural weapons retains those natural weapons. A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either a dread touch attack or its primary natural weapon (if it has any). A drow vampire armed with a weapon uses its dread touch or a weapon, as it desires.
Full Attack: A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either its dread touch attack (see special attacks) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with its dread touch or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.
Special Attacks: Remove the basic drow vampire's Blood Drain attack and replace it with the Dread Touch attack.
Dread Touch (Ex): A drow vampire can drain the blood and vital fluids from a living creature, dealing 1d6 points of Constitution damage plus 1 point of Constitution drain. This requires a successful touch attack that leaves a bloody welt upon the victim's skin. A drow vampire can also apply its dread touch by making a successful grapple check. This normally deals 1d6 Con damage plus 1 Con drain, but if the grappling drow vampire succeeds in pinning its opponent the dread touch deals 1d6+1 Con drain instead. A pinned opponent continues to take 1d6+1 Con drain each round the pin is maintained.
Alternatively, a drow vampire can inflict its dread touch by hitting with a bite attack (such as that possessed by its Alternative Form of a spider), which does the damage of its bite attack plus 1d6 Con damage and 1 Con drain.
A drow vampire can only use its dread touch once per round whichever method of attack it employs.
The drow vampire gains 2 temporary hit points for every point of Constitution drain it inflicts with a dread touch attack.
Constitution drain caused by dread touch is hard to heal. A character attempting to cast any spell to heal the Con drain must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check or the spell has no effect on the drained ability. The curse only affects the dread touch's Con drain, so any Constitution damage a victim suffers from a dread touch can be healed normally. To eliminate this curse, the effect must be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell) or heal (no CL check required), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to magically cure the Con drain.
The dread touch of the vampire drow drains the very fluids from its victim’s body. Each successful unarmed melee attack enables the undead drow to drain 1d6+1 hit points from its victim. Each time the vampire uses this hideous attack, the victim permanently loses 1 hit point. Such draining is excruciatingly painful and leaves a small welt where the drow touched its victim’s flesh. Only the heal spell will remove these angry welts that the drow refer to as Lolth’s caress. The vampire can absorb any hit points it drains from its victims in this manner, although the creature will never have more than its maximum number of hit points. Any drow brought to 0 hit points by this attack becomes a vampire. Victims of other races merely die in unendurable agony, sacrifices to Lolth and her vampire minion.
I'm inclined to forget about the last two sentences and keep the current Create Spawn ability, but would like to give the "In Ravenloft" version a natural attack akin to the original's fluid-draining ability.
Attack: A drow vampire retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains a dread touch attack (see special attacks). If the base creature can use weapons, the vampire retains this ability. A creature with natural weapons retains those natural weapons. A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either a dread touch attack or its primary natural weapon (if it has any). A drow vampire armed with a weapon uses its dread touch or a weapon, as it desires.
Full Attack: A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either its dread touch attack (see special attacks) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with its dread touch or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.
Special Attacks: Remove the basic drow vampire's Blood Drain attack and replace it with the Dread Touch attack.
Dread Touch (Ex): A drow vampire can drain the blood and vital fluids from a living creature, dealing 1d6 points of Constitution damage plus 1 point of Constitution drain. This requires a successful touch attack that leaves a bloody welt upon the victim's skin. A drow vampire can also apply its dread touch by making a successful grapple check. This normally deals 1d6 Con damage plus 1 Con drain, but if the grappling drow vampire succeeds in pinning its opponent the dread touch deals 1d6+1 Con drain instead. A pinned opponent continues to take 1d6+1 Con drain each round the pin is maintained.
Alternatively, a drow vampire can inflict its dread touch by hitting with a bite attack (such as that possessed by its Alternative Form of a spider), which does the damage of its bite attack plus 1d6 Con damage and 1 Con drain.
A drow vampire can only use its dread touch once per round whichever method of attack it employs.
The drow vampire gains 2 temporary hit points for every point of Constitution drain it inflicts with a dread touch attack.
Constitution drain caused by dread touch is hard to heal. A character attempting to cast any spell to heal the Con drain must succeed on a DC 20 caster level check or the spell has no effect on the drained ability. The curse only affects the dread touch's Con drain, so any Constitution damage a victim suffers from a dread touch can be healed normally. To eliminate this curse, the effect must be broken with break enchantment or remove curse (requiring a DC 20 caster level check for either spell) or heal (no CL check required), after which a caster level check is no longer necessary to magically cure the Con drain.
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