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

[Voadam]

A base template for a vampire makes sense to me for the changes made when you are transformed. If a vampire can develop powers based on effort then a prestige class would work to support that. For making them unique go the ghost route with power choices, for developing power over time go with a half-fiend style devleopment but make it linked to advancement from the introduction of the template. Also the ravenloft, templates of every vampire get more powerful with age even if they just sleep, works well for me as well.

so you could have differences among individual vamps, newly made ones, old ones and active ones.

The problem with a lot of the ravenloft critters is the logistical aspects of their ecology over time, weretigers consume 50 pounds of meat a day, vampires consume lots of blood, etc. It makes a serious difference if they must drain per day or per week.

I do like how the variant ravenloft vampire strains ditch energy drain, unfortunately they pick up stat drains from slam attacks instead of variant drains adding to their blood drinking.

 

[mmadsen]

The objection to a Class or Prestige Class seems to be that it "feels" like training to be a better Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, etc. -- that calling it a "Class" implies that being a Vampire is a bit like being any mundane Class.

Remember though that all the monsters belong to quasi-Classes: Animal, Beast, Construct, Giant, Undead, etc. A Human gaining levels of Vampire would be no different from a Giant gaining levels of Fighter or a Dragon advancing by Hit Dice.

Frankly, the whole rationale for Templates is pretty weak once you have 3E's elegant multiclassing.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Actually, I see Templates as being one of 3e's great innovations to D&D.

As has been pointed out by hong and myself, one could come up with a template for vampires that is more like the Ghost or Half-Fiend templates. The Ghost presents a selection of powers that can be mixed and matched, and the Half-Fiend grants powers more gradually, depending on the level of the creature to which the template has been applied. In effect, the Half-Fiend is sort of like a class itself.

The advantage I see of Templates over Classes is that a Template can be removed a lot more easily. What happens when a Vampire that has been advanced in level (for want of a better term) is somehow brought back to life (something which can happen in D&D, as we all know)? What do those levels become? Are they simply dropped? If so, there are a lot of implications attached to that - for example, should a creature be penalized that heavily for advancing?

 

[mmadsen]

In effect, the Half-Fiend is sort of like a class itself.

Well, right, which leads me to ask why, if it adds Hit Points and powers, advances with levels, increases CR, and so on, isn't it a Class with Levels?

 

[LoneWolf23]

Nothing wrong with the D&D Vampire.

Personally, I see nothing that's really wrong with the Vampire Template as it is in the Monster Manual. Heck, it's more of a traditional vampire then anything else out on the market.

First of all, forget everything Anne Rice or White Wolf ever taught you about Vampires... They're not meant to be Romantic Figures! The original Vampires of Medieval Folklore were created back in the days of the Black Plague, and they were supposed to look like Zombies at best, or Nosferatu at worst. Hell, until Bram Stocker's Dracula, Vampires had a tendancy to avoid social interaction, and just prayed on sleeping victims at night.

And about the Con Drain being permanent... guess what? That's actually how the Myth used to go.

...The reported symptoms of vampiric predation were most often a type of wasting sickness, as the victim's life was drained by the lealous dead. Weakness, paleness, shortness of breath, and other infirtmities were thought to be caused by the creature's attack.

Source: Gurps Blood Types
Sounds an awful lot like a permanent Con Drain, doesn't it? The idea of the Vampire as a creature of Negative Energy and Death that can permanently drain a creature's Lifeforce is actually how it's supposed to go.

Vampires aren't Parasites that can live off a stable population of "Cattle". They're living carriers of the Plague, bringing Death to whole villages. Green Knight's "Ridiculous" scenario about a Vampire slowly draining the inhabitants of a small village until the population starts wasting away, with some of it's dead arising as Vampire Spawns as well. Left Unchecked, Vampirism was supposed to reach Epidemic proportions, much like the Plague did.

Hell, our modern day "Tragic and Romantic" Vampire got popular around the late 80s and early 90s, when another disease, this one transmitted by sharing blood, started gaining epic proportions. You know AIDS, the sickness that was considered "Uncurable" a few years ago still? The one that caused people to lose the ability to recover from other diseases? Now that I think about it, sounds like another Permanent Con Drain.

Now, while I may do as suggested by others and "tweak" the Vampire Template to make it more like the Ghost or Half-Fiend in terms of ability selection, I don't see any reason why to get rid of the Energy and Con Drain abilities. It's just how Vampires work.

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Nothing wrong with the D&D Vampire.

Now, while I may do as suggested by others and "tweak" the Vampire Template to make it more like the Ghost or Half-Fiend in terms of ability selection, I don't see any reason why to get rid of the Energy and Con Drain abilities.

Will you keep the level-draining backhanded slap though?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Well, right, which leads me to ask why, if it adds Hit Points and powers, advances with levels, increases CR, and so on, isn't it a Class with Levels?

Mostly, it seems, so that a relatively powerful or relatively weak critter can obtain a commensurate amount of fiendish power. That is, a half-fiend elephant will have a lot more infernal power than a half-fiend mouse, and the mouse wouldn't be able to eventually "outrank" the elephant fiendishly. A mouse (or just about any critter, really) can only be advanced so far (if at all) unless you add class levels. The Half Fiend template is a quasi-class, I guess, in which you have to advance in some other way to advance in it. I think such a template would be better than a whole new class, since it seems predicated more on what the templated creature is inherently, rather than having it sort of becoming a fiend by vocation. Sort of like how monsters advance in the Monster Manual without classes.

 

[Tiberius]

Re: Re: Nothing wrong with the D&D Vampire.

Will you keep the level-draining backhanded slap though?

Why not? I don't see what's wrong with having the creature be so infused with negative energy that its mere touch (or in this case pimp slap) drains away life energy. Besides, it's always drained energy. Why change what isn't broken?

-Tiberius

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Re: Nothing wrong with the D&D Vampire.

First of all, forget everything Anne Rice or White Wolf ever taught you about Vampires... They're not meant to be Romantic Figures! The original Vampires of Medieval Folklore were created back in the days of the Black Plague, and they were supposed to look like Zombies at best, or Nosferatu at worst.

Exactly. GURPS Horror & Undead have great sections talking about how the vampire myth sprang out of the Black Plague and uncurable disease. I always preferred the evil vampire to the immortal lover in a frilly shirt vampire.

 

[Aaron L]

I myself like the blunt toothed nosferatu types that gnaw through your chest and eat your heart as much as the thin, pale, charming vamp.

I want lots of vampire variants. Look at how many types of vampires there are legends of in our world, (very low magic ) Think of how many types there would be in a high magic world!