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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 5336098" data-attributes="member: 41584">Nope, just the opinion of a GM who doesn't dislike his players.  If one of them has a neat idea, and no rules contradict it, and it's not terribly unbalancing, why the hell would I oppose it? Similarly, as GM, I can put whatever I want into the game world, and I try to stick to the same guidelines.  Is it crazy unbalanced?  Is it forbidden by some mechanic somewhere?  Even if it is forbidden, is there a clear and consistent reason *that applies in the game world as I'm using it,* that would cause me to say 'no' when I could instead be saying 'yes?' It's a game of imagination.  Even if the rules did forbid something, there are some of us who look at that and think, 'Why not?'  Monte Cook mentioned the same thing in his write up of the Rage Mage prestige class.  There was a blanket rule that someone who was raging could not cast spells, and he thought, 'Why not?  What would it break?'  And so the Rage Mage PrC was formed. The same logic led to the creation of the Battle Dancer class in the Best of Dragon, a 'chaotic monk,' or the Herald, a 'lawful bard.'  And, unlike the vampire druid, those things are actually explicitly forbidden. Since vampires can be NE, and Druids can be NE, no rules exceptions need to be made to make a vampire druid.  Indeed, someone cutting themselves off from something, in order to better study it, preserve it, etc. is a fairly common trope.  Mastery through denial. The ascetic attempts to deny his passions, and through them claims mastery of physical and worldly things, saying that through his vows of abstinence and diet of bread and water, he is mastering the flesh (when all he's really doing is avoiding it). The bodhisatva denies his own entry into nirvana, that he might remain behind and counsel others. This logic is common to many faiths, if not most faiths, and even creeps into physical training, military training, (no pain, no gain), etc. that, by removing ourselves from something, or purging ourselves of human weakness, or the body of frailty, we become more spiritually pure. It's a great role-playing opportunity for a player in the sort of game where someone with the vampire template wouldn't be utterly ludicrous, or an interesting villain for the party to encounter, someone who has protected these woods for centuries, through bloodshed and 'Wild Hunts,' in his antlered helmet astride his red-eyed steed. Like Bram Stoker's Dracula, he commands the elements of the natural world, calling up storms and pulling down the lightning from the howling night sky, and pitting the natural beasts of the world against those who come against him, changing his very form to become more beast than man, stalking in the form of the wolf, or soaring in the form of the bat. Indeed, Dracula, with his weather control, animal control and shapeshifting into animal forms, seems like a natural to have some druid levels!</blockquote>

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