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Converting Creatures from Other Campaign Settings
- Thread starter Shade
- Start date
Cleon
Legend
Yes, among the differences I see are.
Slightly better AC - that can be put down to a drow's superior Dexterity.
Claws that drain fluids instead of a slam that drain energy levels = two claw attacks with Con drain?
Different alternative form (Spider). I'm thinking it should become a Monstrous Spider of any size from Tiny to Large, not just a "Giant Spider".
Gaseous form is poisonous.
Slightly different SLAs.
Lower Spell Resistance - I think I'd rather leave it the same as a drow.
Immunity to holy damage - not sure I like that idea! Maybe it's only immune when within certain profane underdark areas?
Create Spawn only works on drow elves, other creatures killed by Con drain are just dead.
Vulnerability to rock salt and waterfall water.
Heightened vulnerability to sunlight.
The means to kill one are slightly different (rocksalt stake, sunlight, waterfall).
Cleon
Legend
It looks like we practically have to rebuild the Vampire Template from scratch.
I have a feeling this'll be a long one...
Shade
Monster Junkie
Creating a Drow Vampire
"Drow Vampire" is a template that can be added to any drow (referred to hereafter as the "base creature").
A drow vampire uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to undead (augmented humanoid). Do not recalculate base attack bonus, saves, or skill points. Size is unchanged.
Hit Dice: Increase all current and future Hit Dice to d12s.
Speed: Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the drow vampire retains the ability to swim and is not vulnerable to immersion in running water (see below).
Armor Class: The base creature’s natural armor bonus improves by +6.
Attack: A drow vampire retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains two claw attacks if it didn’t already have them. 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 claw attack or its primary natural weapon (if it has any). A drow vampire armed with a weapon uses its claw or a weapon, as it desires.
Full Attack: A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either its claw attacks (see above) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with a claw or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.
Damage: Drow vampires have claw attacks. If the base creature does not have this attack form, use the appropriate damage value from the table below according to the vampire’s size. Creatures that have other kinds of natural weapons retain their old damage values or use the appropriate value from the table below, whichever is better.
Size Damage
Fine 1
Diminutive 1d2
Tiny 1d3
Small 1d4
Medium 1d6
Large 1d8
Huge 2d6
Gargantuan 2d8
Colossal 4d6
Special Attacks: A drow vampire retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains those described below. Saves have a DC of 10 + 1/2 vampire’s HD + vampire’s Cha modifier unless noted otherwise.
Blood Drain (Ex): A drow vampire can suck blood from a living victim with its fangs by making a successful grapple check. If it pins the foe, it drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained. On each such successful attack, the vampire gains 5 temporary hit points.
Children of the Night (Su): Vampires command the lesser creatures of the world and once per day can call forth 1d6+1 rat swarms, 1d4+1 bat swarms, or a pack of 3d6 wolves as a standard action. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might summon other creatures of similar power.) These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve the vampire for up to 1 hour. Change to various arachnids?
Constitution Drain (Su): Living creatures hit by a drow vampire’s claw attack (or any other natural weapon the vampire might possess) suffer x points of Constitution drain.
Dominate (Su): A drow vampire can crush an opponent’s will just by looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that the vampire must use a standard action, and those merely looking at it are not affected. Anyone the vampire targets must succeed on a Will save or fall instantly under the vampire’s influence as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). The ability has a range of 30 feet.
Create Spawn (Su): A drow slain by a drow vampire’s Con drain rises as a vampire spawn (see the Vampire Spawn entry) 1d4 days after burial.
If the vampire instead drains the victim’s Constitution to 0 or lower, the victim returns as a spawn if it had 4 or less HD and as a vampire if it had 5 or more HD. In either case, the new vampire or spawn is under the command of the vampire that created it and remains enslaved until its master’s destruction. At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed vampires or vampire spawn. A vampire that is enslaved may create and enslave spawn of its own, so a master vampire can control a number of lesser vampires in this fashion. A vampire may voluntarily free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a vampire or vampire spawn cannot be enslaved again.
Special Qualities: A drow vampire retains all the special qualities of the base creature and gains those described below.
Alternate Form (Su): A drow vampire can assume the shape of a monstrous spider of Tiny to Large size as a standard action. While in its alternate form, the drow vampire loses its natural claw attacks and dominate ability, but it gains the natural weapons and extraordinary special attacks of its new form. It can remain in that form until it assumes another or until the next sunrise. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might allow other forms.)
Damage Reduction (Su): A drow vampire has damage reduction 10/silver and magic. A drow vampire’s natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Fast Healing (Ex): A drow vampire heals 5 points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, it automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. It must reach its coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (It can travel up to nine miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to a vampire forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in its coffin, a vampire is helpless. It regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round.
Resistances (Ex): A drow vampire has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.
Spell-Like Abilities: Note the additional/changed SLAs.
Spider Climb (Ex): A drow vampire can climb sheer surfaces as though with a spider climb spell.
Turn Resistance (Ex): A drow vampire has +4 turn resistance.
Venomous Gaseous Form (Su): As a standard action, a drow vampire can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. Need to spell out the venoumous part.
Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4. As an undead creature, a drow vampire has no Constitution score.
Skills: Drow vampires have a +8 racial bonus on Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot checks. Otherwise same as the base creature.
Feats: Drow vampires gain Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, and Lightning Reflexes, assuming the base creature meets the prerequisites and doesn’t already have these feats.
Environment: Any, usually same as base creature.
Organization: Solitary, pair, gang (3–5), or troupe (1–2 plus 2–5 vampire spawn).
Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature + 2.
Treasure: Double standard.
Alignment: Always evil (any).
Advancement: By character class.
Level Adjustment: Same as the base creature +8.
Drow Vampire Weaknesses
For all their power, drow vampires have a number of weaknesses.
Repelling a Vampire: Vampires cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from a mirror or a strongly presented holy symbol. These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the mirror or holy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
Vampires are also unable to cross running water, although they can be carried over it while resting in their coffins or aboard a ship.
They are utterly unable to enter a home or other building unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so. They may freely enter public places, since these are by definition open to all.
Slaying a Vampire: Reducing a drow vampire’s hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn’t always destroy it (see the note on fast healing). However, certain attacks can slay vampires.
Exposing any drow vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape. Similarly, immersing a vampire in running water robs it of one-third of its hit points each round until it is destroyed at the end of the third round of immersion.
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 cut off the creature’s head and fill its mouth with holy wafers (or their equivalent).
"Drow Vampire" is a template that can be added to any drow (referred to hereafter as the "base creature").
A drow vampire uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to undead (augmented humanoid). Do not recalculate base attack bonus, saves, or skill points. Size is unchanged.
Hit Dice: Increase all current and future Hit Dice to d12s.
Speed: Same as the base creature. If the base creature has a swim speed, the drow vampire retains the ability to swim and is not vulnerable to immersion in running water (see below).
Armor Class: The base creature’s natural armor bonus improves by +6.
Attack: A drow vampire retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains two claw attacks if it didn’t already have them. 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 claw attack or its primary natural weapon (if it has any). A drow vampire armed with a weapon uses its claw or a weapon, as it desires.
Full Attack: A drow vampire fighting without weapons uses either its claw attacks (see above) or its natural weapons (if it has any). If armed with a weapon, it usually uses the weapon as its primary attack along with a claw or other natural weapon as a natural secondary attack.
Damage: Drow vampires have claw attacks. If the base creature does not have this attack form, use the appropriate damage value from the table below according to the vampire’s size. Creatures that have other kinds of natural weapons retain their old damage values or use the appropriate value from the table below, whichever is better.
Size Damage
Fine 1
Diminutive 1d2
Tiny 1d3
Small 1d4
Medium 1d6
Large 1d8
Huge 2d6
Gargantuan 2d8
Colossal 4d6
Special Attacks: A drow vampire retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains those described below. Saves have a DC of 10 + 1/2 vampire’s HD + vampire’s Cha modifier unless noted otherwise.
Blood Drain (Ex): A drow vampire can suck blood from a living victim with its fangs by making a successful grapple check. If it pins the foe, it drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained. On each such successful attack, the vampire gains 5 temporary hit points.
Children of the Night (Su): Vampires command the lesser creatures of the world and once per day can call forth 1d6+1 rat swarms, 1d4+1 bat swarms, or a pack of 3d6 wolves as a standard action. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might summon other creatures of similar power.) These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve the vampire for up to 1 hour. Change to various arachnids?
Constitution Drain (Su): Living creatures hit by a drow vampire’s claw attack (or any other natural weapon the vampire might possess) suffer x points of Constitution drain.
Dominate (Su): A drow vampire can crush an opponent’s will just by looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that the vampire must use a standard action, and those merely looking at it are not affected. Anyone the vampire targets must succeed on a Will save or fall instantly under the vampire’s influence as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). The ability has a range of 30 feet.
Create Spawn (Su): A drow slain by a drow vampire’s Con drain rises as a vampire spawn (see the Vampire Spawn entry) 1d4 days after burial.
If the vampire instead drains the victim’s Constitution to 0 or lower, the victim returns as a spawn if it had 4 or less HD and as a vampire if it had 5 or more HD. In either case, the new vampire or spawn is under the command of the vampire that created it and remains enslaved until its master’s destruction. At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice; any spawn it creates that would exceed this limit are created as free-willed vampires or vampire spawn. A vampire that is enslaved may create and enslave spawn of its own, so a master vampire can control a number of lesser vampires in this fashion. A vampire may voluntarily free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a vampire or vampire spawn cannot be enslaved again.
Special Qualities: A drow vampire retains all the special qualities of the base creature and gains those described below.
Alternate Form (Su): A drow vampire can assume the shape of a monstrous spider of Tiny to Large size as a standard action. While in its alternate form, the drow vampire loses its natural claw attacks and dominate ability, but it gains the natural weapons and extraordinary special attacks of its new form. It can remain in that form until it assumes another or until the next sunrise. (If the base creature is not terrestrial, this power might allow other forms.)
Damage Reduction (Su): A drow vampire has damage reduction 10/silver and magic. A drow vampire’s natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Fast Healing (Ex): A drow vampire heals 5 points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, it automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. It must reach its coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (It can travel up to nine miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to a vampire forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in its coffin, a vampire is helpless. It regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round.
Resistances (Ex): A drow vampire has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.
Spell-Like Abilities: Note the additional/changed SLAs.
Spider Climb (Ex): A drow vampire can climb sheer surfaces as though with a spider climb spell.
Turn Resistance (Ex): A drow vampire has +4 turn resistance.
Venomous Gaseous Form (Su): As a standard action, a drow vampire can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. Need to spell out the venoumous part.
Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4. As an undead creature, a drow vampire has no Constitution score.
Skills: Drow vampires have a +8 racial bonus on Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot checks. Otherwise same as the base creature.
Feats: Drow vampires gain Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, and Lightning Reflexes, assuming the base creature meets the prerequisites and doesn’t already have these feats.
Environment: Any, usually same as base creature.
Organization: Solitary, pair, gang (3–5), or troupe (1–2 plus 2–5 vampire spawn).
Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature + 2.
Treasure: Double standard.
Alignment: Always evil (any).
Advancement: By character class.
Level Adjustment: Same as the base creature +8.
Drow Vampire Weaknesses
For all their power, drow vampires have a number of weaknesses.
Repelling a Vampire: Vampires cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from a mirror or a strongly presented holy symbol. These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the mirror or holy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
Vampires are also unable to cross running water, although they can be carried over it while resting in their coffins or aboard a ship.
They are utterly unable to enter a home or other building unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so. They may freely enter public places, since these are by definition open to all.
Slaying a Vampire: Reducing a drow vampire’s hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn’t always destroy it (see the note on fast healing). However, certain attacks can slay vampires.
Exposing any drow vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape. Similarly, immersing a vampire in running water robs it of one-third of its hit points each round until it is destroyed at the end of the third round of immersion.
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 cut off the creature’s head and fill its mouth with holy wafers (or their equivalent).
Cleon
Legend
Children of the Night definitely should be changed to arachnids, since the AD&D Drow Vampire has an impressive summon spider ability.
Maybe change the name to "Children of the Spider Queen?".
1d4 drain for the Constitution Drain special attack? I'd either drop the Blood Drain or make it do more damage than its Con Draining claws. I prefer the latter, since it'd make its bite in spider form more effective.
Something like...
Blood Drain (Ex): A drow vampire can suck blood from a living victim with its fangs by making a successful grapple check or bite attack. If it pins the foe, it drains blood, dealing 1d6 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained. On each such successful attack, the vampire gains 5 temporary hit points. A drow vampire in spider form (see Alternative Form) can use blood drain by making a successful bite attack.
Constitution Drain (Su): Living creatures hit by a drow vampire's claw attack (or any other natural weapon the vampire might possess except for a bite, which does Blood Drain instead) suffer 1d3 points of Constitution drain.
It's easier folding the two into the same power. Oh, and note that the Drow Vampire's also gets vampiric healing from its claw attacks, and presumably any other fluid-draining natural weapons it has.
Blood Drain (Ex): Any living creature struck by a drow vampire's natural weapons suffers 1d3 points of Constitution Drain (or 1d6 Con drain with its fangs). To drain blood with its fangs, a drow vampire must succeed at a bite attack (such as that possessed by its Alternative Form of a spider), or make a successful grapple check (in which case it drains 1d6 Con for every round it can maintain a pin). The drow vampire heals 3? hit points of damage for every point of Constitution it drains. A fully healed drow vampire gains 3 temporary hit points for every point of drained Constitution.
Mortis
First Post
I would suggest 'Children of the Web' but it conjures up images of spotty faced geeks sitting in from of their PC playing Warcraft.
Regards
Mortis
Cleon
Legend
It probably wouldn't surprise you to hear I suspected you were going to do that.
Oh, and I think you meant ability drain, not level drain, like the SRD Wraith.
I forgot to mention the original's "Fluid Drain" specifically didn't increase the Drow Vampire's HPs above its normal max, but I was reluctant to make it even fiddlier.
I'm wondering whether 3 hit points per Con point is too much, the normal Vampire's Blood Drain (1d4 Con for 5 temporary hit points) works out to average 2 hit points per Con point:
Blood Drain (Ex): Any living creature struck by a drow vampire's natural weapons suffers 1d3 points of Constitution Drain (or 1d6 Con drain with its fangs). To drain blood with its fangs, a drow vampire must hit with a bite attack (such as that possessed by its Alternative Form of a spider), or make a successful grapple check (in which case it drains 1d6 Con for every round it can maintain a pin). For each point of Constitution drained, the drow vampire gains 2 temporary hit points.
That looks satisfactory to me.
