Am I the only one who doesn't like the D&D Vampire? (Pointless rant, I suppose)

[Bran Blackbyrd]

I'm partial to the way Anne Rice's vampires work, but translating them to 3E in a way that would do them justice AND work within the confines of the rules would be a chunk of work.
You'd need rules for what abilities are passed to new vampires by their creators, and how their power levels grow over time, how bleeding a lot or making fledglings saps or dilutes the strength of their blood, for the purposes of passing on those powers... Still it would be neat.

I don't particularly care for the vampires in D&D.

 

[SableWyvern]

I think the problem here is with the efficacy of the TSR marketing department. I was DMing for 10 years before I bought my first book of monsters (ICE's Creatures and Treasures).

IMO, the Monster Manual, and the equivalents for other game systems, are for lazy DMs (and note that I own the MM, and am pulling most of the monsters for my current campaign out of it; I have become lazy).

Books full of monsters, Vampires or otherwise, are not core rulebooks. They are crutches. Make your own critters. Use PC race antagonists. Apply the bigger-picture affects of vampire abilities in your campaign, or, if you don't like them, alter what's written.

The Monster Manual is just an adventure module without a plot. It has no import beyond that. Treat it as such, and change what doesn't suit your campaign. Don't give it the same respect that you do the PHB or the DMG.

The D&D vampire is perfectly reasonable. But, it is based on a widespread and varied myth, open to huge interpretation. No matter what WotC did, it was never going fit the archetype, because there is none.


Flame Away.

 

[Marion Poliquin]

For instance, a vampire's preying on a town and drains people left and right, but doesn't kill them. Before you know it, everyone's down to like a Con of 2 or 3 and can't possibly recover. So the vampire can't stick around. He has to leave, as he starts running out of healthy victims. And once he's out of healthy victims, the only thing left is to kill everyone. That's assuming they last that long. If they're so sickly then how can they possibly work, farm, make a living, etc?

Which is exactly why the town is in dire need of heroes to help them.

Damn! You just described a great adventure introduction and you're calling it stupid?

 

[mmadsen]

I'm partial to the way Anne Rice's vampires work, but translating them to 3E in a way that would do them justice AND work within the confines of the rules would be a chunk of work.

I don't think it would be that hard. Make Vampire a class, not a template, and have spawning a new Vampire cost experience.

 

[coyote6]

FWIW, the permanent Con drain can make a great clue that Something Is Up.

When the PCs in my group returned to Oakhurst, and found the townsfolk huddling inside at night, they quickly surmised "vampire". After they killed poor Corkie the gnome cleric-turned-vampire spawn, they noticed that Kerowyn Hucrele was pale and wan from "a lingering illness", got suspicious, detected powerful enchantment magic on her, and quickly concluded that Corkie hadn't been the root of the problem.

In that case, I made the permanent Con loss work for me. Same thing with other characteristics of D&D vampires that I don't really like (e.g., some of the town's constables had lost levels while trying to fight the spawn, and were thus unable to provide any real help; the PCs defeated two spawn in the Sunless Citadel, and ended up having to race to get to their coffins before the pair healed and came back for more -- the PCs, being completely out of spells, most scrolls & the like exhausted, and mostly with about 20-25% hp, were in no shape or mood to fight 'em again).

You can either change the vampire, or accept that D&D vampires are their own special breed (just as Rice, Buffy, VtM, SR, and GURPS vampires are all different) and use how it works to your advantage. Either one is doable.

 

[Darkness]

...

Books full of monsters, Vampires or otherwise, are not core rulebooks. They are crutches. Make your own critters. Use PC race antagonists. Apply the bigger-picture affects of vampire abilities in your campaign, or, if you don't like them, alter what's written.

The Monster Manual is just an adventure module without a plot. It has no import beyond that. Treat it as such, and change what doesn't suit your campaign. Don't give it the same respect that you do the PHB or the DMG.

...

Truer words have seldom been spoken... Rock on, SableWyvern!

 

[Green Knight]

Which is exactly why the town is in dire need of heroes to help them.

Damn! You just described a great adventure introduction and you're calling it stupid?

Yes, because the only way you can help this town is if you can cast the Restoration spell 50 or so times, or have 50+ scrolls with Restoration on them. A town being tormented by a vampire is a good idea, but you don't need to make the CON drain permanent for it to be a good plot idea. And the permanent CON loss makes it pretty much impossible for you to have a situation in which this vampire has been preying on this village for decades or even centuries, and by this time the people are nothing more than sheep. You can't do a story like that because according to the rules as they are, they'd all be dead long before.

and how their power levels grow over time, how bleeding a lot or making fledglings saps or dilutes the strength of their blood, for the purposes of passing on those powers... Still it would be neat.

Actually the Ravenloft book has rules for vampires who become more powerful over time.

And don't vampires need to feed daily? Flipped through the monster manual and didn't see feeding requirements mentioned. But when it comes to the argument of "Those sickly people having kids and feeding on them", that wouldn't work either. First of all, is a woman with Con 3 healthy enough to successfully give birth to a baby? Second, is this vampire gonna wait til the kids 17+ so the kid can have its own kids and the vampire can then feed on him?

Using humans as cattle won't work, as humans age so slowly. Nine months to give birth, 14 or so years before you're able to have your own children, and you expect the vampire to wait that long? That's assuming the women actually survive the child birth, thanks to their poor Con.

A blood drain is a blood drain. I don't see why it should be any different then when you give blood, except of course it's more violent and you lose a lot more. Eventually your body produces more blood and your back up to snuff, again. Yeah, the D&D vampire is a composite of various vampire legends, but I have yet to see any mention anywhere of a vampire bite staying with you forever.

Going back to the village example, whenever you see stories of sickly villagers, it's because the vampire feeds off the same victims over and over again. He feeds off Villager A, draining him to CON 3 and making him sick. He then feeds off Villager B who's in full health, draining her to CON 2. As soon as Villager A recovers, he feeds on him, again. And so on and so on.

BTW: I know I can change it to suit my tastes (Namely no stupid slam attack, no permanent CON drain, and more involved vampire creation process). Just felt like ranting about the vampire as it is in the Monster Manual.

 

[Darkness]

Yes, because the only way you can help this town is if you can cast the Restoration spell 50 or so times, or have 50+ scrolls with Restoration on them. A town being tormented by a vampire is a good idea, but you don't need to make the CON drain permanent for it to be a good plot idea. And the permanent CON loss makes it pretty much impossible for you to have a situation in which this vampire has been preying on this village for decades or even centuries, and by this time the people are nothing more than sheep. You can't do a story like that because according to the rules as they are, they'd all be dead long before.

...

And don't vampires need to feed daily? Flipped through the monster manual and didn't see feeding requirements mentioned. But when it comes to the argument of "Those sickly people having kids and feeding on them", that wouldn't work either. First of all, is a woman with Con 3 healthy enough to successfully give birth to a baby? Second, is this vampire gonna wait til the kids 17+ so the kid can have its own kids and the vampire can then feed on him?

Using humans as cattle won't work, as humans age so slowly. Nine months to give birth, 14 or so years before you're able to have your own children, and you expect the vampire to wait that long? That's assuming the women actually survive the child birth, thanks to their poor Con.

A blood drain is a blood drain. I don't see why it should be any different then when you give blood, except of course it's more violent and you lose a lot more. Eventually your body produces more blood and your back up to snuff, again. Yeah, the D&D vampire is a composite of various vampire legends, but I have yet to see any mention anywhere of a vampire bite staying with you forever.

Going back to the village example, whenever you see stories of sickly villagers, it's because the vampire feeds off the same victims over and over again. He feeds off Villager A, draining him to CON 3 and making him sick. He then feeds off Villager B who's in full health, draining her to CON 2. As soon as Villager A recovers, he feeds on him, again. And so on and so on.

...

The Monster Manual doesn't say how often a vampire needs to feed... Daily seems a bit much to me, though.
Hmm... Weekly sounds best IMNSHO. Which would mean 52 times a year. Assuming an average of 10-11 Con, a vampire will be able to feed on a given person three times before killing him or her. Some people will die from other causes before the vampire can feed for the third time on them, I think, though.

Also, when the vampire is haunting a small village, he'll probably feed on travelers whenever possible, too.


(Note: My own feelings on the vampire's permanent Con drain are quite negative - but I'm willing to give the rule a chance if that seems possible... )

 

[mmadsen]

I got 3 beefs with the vampire.

And yet you list four...

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

1) Slam Attack - What the hell is this? They slam into you? And how exactly is it that this drains levels out of you? I'd appreciate it if someone can explaint his to me, because I don't get it.

As coyote6 pointed out, a "slam" is any bludgeoning attack with a natural weapon. That said, it still makes little sense. If I want kung-fu vampires, I'll make up some kung-fu vampires. That shouldn't be the default.

(Similarly, I don't like the idea of Zombies "slamming" either. I prefer that they grapple then rend or bite. Maybe I've just watched too many Romero movies...)

And, I agree, I don't see why this should drain levels (or "life force" or whatever). Is there any vampire myth where they slap the life force out of their victims?

2) Blood Drain - Ok, draining CON points makes perfect sense. But PERMANENTLY? They can't be serious! A vampire bites you once and you NEVER recover from it? This makes no sense.

I'm not too concerned about that, but, yeah, I think they should return more quickly than never. At least Restoration works.

3) Vampire Spawn - ...
4) Vampire Creation - ...

As I said before, I think making Vampire a class can solve some of those problems. I especially don't see the point in a static template for something you can advance in, and vampires seem to progress from weak spawn to more powerful vampires over time.

 

[Corinth]

The use of the template for vampires is a good idea for handling the differences that occur when someone's transformed into one of them. Using the class mechanic to advance their powers over time, OTOH, is the ideal method to handle the concept that those vampires become more powerful over time. Both are applicable.