Alternate Vampiric Touch

[Knight-of-Roses]

Looks entirely playable, Sylrae.

But I would suggest removing the 'undead drain you' clause, Necromancers are suppose to be the masters of undead and magic to deal with undead, I would hope they would built their spells so as not to backfire on them if they were forced into combat with undead. Simply having it fail to work on undead is painful enough (the loss of a 3rd level spell and a successful attack roll).

I have actually revised my revision again, so the spell only inflicts half damage on constructs now. It just does not seem that it should be as effective against non-living animates.

 

[Sylrae]

Vampiric Touch
Necromancy
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous/1 hour; see text
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

You must succeed on a melee touch attack. Your touch deals 1d6 points of negative energy damage per two caster levels (maximum 10d6) with a bonus equal to your spellcasting ability Modifier (Intelligence for Wizards, Charisma for Sorcerers, and so on). You heal hit points equal to damage the spell deals (1d6 to 10d6). However, you can’t gain more than the subject’s current hit points +10, which is enough to kill the subject. Any damage left over after the caster is fully healed gives temporary hit points instead. The temporary hit points disappear 1 hour later.

Creatures protected from negative energy (such as by a death ward spell) receive a Will save for no damage and only suffer half damage on a failed save. If used on undead there is not effect. Constructs decay and corrode but do not have true life forces to begin with and as such only take 1/2 damage, but do not provide anything usable to the caster.

- I kindof liked the Idea of undead having the opposite effect. Negative energy heals undead. theyre like anti-life, so if you pump negative energy into them to drain their life what you get back in return is not life, or positive energy, but negative energy, which is what they have. It makes you need to be smart enough to not try to drain the life out of the undead (which sounds like an event caused by an action stupid enough to have dire consequences).

This is a second revision based on your suggestion. The constructs only take half damage, and the undead done drain you when you do it. I think I like the other one better though. It makes my PCs have to pay attention to what theyre doing, and hope they arent using it on an undead disguised as the living. I'm a terrible bastard sometimes.

- Aside - I once sent a party out in search of Orc Raiders to kill. They came upon a number of orcs who seemed ill prepared to fight them but large in number. As they were finishing up killing these orcs, they found out they were just hunter/gatherer types, and thats why they just had animal furs and sticks (It didn't help that the PCs attacked when they were asleep). Anyways, as they were finishing up, the large Orc Raiding party, led by a level 4 Orc Fighter, showed up and had apparently come to raid the orcs the PCs had just slaughtered. You should have seen the expression on the players faces. The fight was going well in their favor so they started wasting spells near the end to do flashy things, assuming they would have time to rest afterwards. The near exhausted party then was shown their actual targets, all at full health. Be careful in what actions you take

 

[Meeki]

I'd rather use the original one from the PH. Untyped damage is one of its great selling points, making it negative energy ruinds the spell IMO.

 

[Kerrick]

There was a thread around here recently about having temp HPs stack and 'bleed off' at a given rate, that would be a good addition to this.

I think that was mine, but it's since fallen off the boards. Here it is again:

Any temporary hit points you gain go away at the rate of 1 per minute, starting the round after they are gained. All temporary hit point stack using this rule; if you already have some from one source and gain more from another, they simply add to the total, and you continue to lose 1/minute. You can have up to 150% of your maximum hit point total; any bonus hit points gained beyond this are lost.

For example: Herne the 9th level cleric casts aid on himself. He gains 1d8+9 hp (we'll say 15). Five minutes later, his friend Bob the 9th-level bard uses his music to inspire greatness. Herne has 10 bonus hit points now, but he gains another 2d10 from the bardic music (we'll say 8), for a total of 18. Assuming he doesn't gain any more bonus hit points, he'll lose all the bonus points he has now in 18 minutes.

Hit points gained from energy/ability drain (undead, or the energy drain spell) are gained as healing, up to your maximum hit points; any bonus hit points gained beyond that point are applied as temporary hit points and follow the same rule as noted above.

So, for example, a wraith drains 6 points of Con from a fighter, gaining 30 hp. The wraith is wounded slightly in the fight - it lost 15 hp - so the first 15 are applied as healing, and the next 15 are applied as bonus hit points, which go away at the rate of 1/minute.

If you follow this line of logic, though, something weird happens when describing the damage type. The spell can't be said to generate negative energy for its damage, because it's not generating energy and you can't reasonably say that the energy is still negative when it affects the caster. The spell doesn't generate positive energy in its attack, because positive energy almost never causes damage unless you're actually in the Positive Energy Plane. The spell sort of... creates a sinkhole in the target's life energy.

Actually, negative energy makes sense - all level/ability-draining undead gain hit points from the levels/ability points they drain, and they use negative energy. Also, as mentioned, giving VT an energy type serves to balance it out admirably. It's a Necromancy spell, so having it use negative energy is not a huge logical jump.

But I would suggest removing the 'undead drain you' clause, Necromancers are suppose to be the masters of undead and magic to deal with undead, I would hope they would built their spells so as not to backfire on them if they were forced into combat with undead. Simply having it fail to work on undead is painful enough (the loss of a 3rd level spell and a successful attack roll).

YMMV, but I think if you're stupid enough to use a negative energy spell against an undead, it should backlash on you. No necromancer would be that dumb - they'd know better. Granted, there are a few cases where the undead doesn't LOOK undead, but that would be a nasty surprise that should be used sparingly.

I rather agree with the idea of constructs taking half damage, though. BUT, if this spell is designed to heal the caster, I think d6s would work just fine instead of d8s - that's a huge boost right there.

 

[Sylrae]

So, Kerrick - does that mean you LIKE my revamp of Vampiric touch?

I think it makes more sense. I also think that using it on undead should cause the backlash. what can I say, I'm evil. >

 

[Aestolia]

There was a recent post on the WotC General Rule FAQ re Vampiric Touch:

If a rogue delivered a sneak attack with the vampiric touch spell, would the extra damage from the sneak attack also give her extra hit points? And could the sneak attack dice allow her to exceed the maximum damage allowed by the spell?

Yes and yes. The spell simply says that you “gain temporary hit points equal to the damage you deal.” The spell doesn’t seem to care how you get to that value (Empower Spell, sneak attack, and so on), so a rogue who delivered 50 points of damage with vampiric touch would gain 50 temporary hit points. The maximum damage listed for the spell only applies to the damage gained by your caster level; it doesn’t take into account any other benefits the character might have, such as sneak attack damage.

Given this potential, bumping it's damage output should be looked at carefully.

 

[Sylrae]

fixed
Damage you deal
has been changed to
damage the spell deals(1d6 to 10d6)