Defiant Rake Vampire Lord

[Ingolf]

Tear this apart, it took me about 5 minutes and I probably made a mistake or three along the way. I first increased the level 7 Defiant Rake to level 11 and then applied the Vampire Lord template.

Oddities include - no adjustment listed in the article for increasing skills/initiative scores. I went with the assumption that only the increased stat modifiers (1 per 2 levels) would apply. Also, I was not sure how many hit points/level to give a skirmisher - I guessed that 6 would be about right so I went with that.

Defiant Rake Vampire Lord
Level 11 Skirmisher
Humanoid (undead) Elite

Initiative +9 Senses: Perception +4, Darkvision
HP 208; Bloodied 104
AC 27; Fortitude 20, Reflex 24, Will 23 Speed 6
Immune: Disease, Poison Resist: 10 Necrotic
Vulnerable: Radiant 10
Saving Throws: +2
Action Points: 1
Regeneration 10 (regeneration does not function while the vampire lord is exposed to direct sunlight)
POWERS
m Rapier (standard; at-will) • Weapon +16 vs. AC; 1d8+7 damage.

r Hand Crossbow (standard; at-will) • Weapon Range 10/20; +16 vs. AC; 1d6+7 damage.

Sneak Attack +2d6 damage when the defiant rake has combat advantage.

Snap Shot (minor; recharge 5,6) • Weapon Requires hand crossbow; Make a hand crossbow attack.

Wicked Dodge (immediate reaction, when target of melee attack; recharge 5,6) +14 vs. Will; attack automatically misses or instead targets any other creature within attacker’s reach (your choice).

m Blood Drain (standard, encounter; recharges when an adjacent creature becomes bloodied) Healing
Requires combat advantage. Level + 2 vs. Fortitude; 2d12 + Charisma modifier damage, and the target is weakened (save ends), and the vampire lord heals 52 hit points.

Dominating Gaze (minor, recharge 6) Charm
Ranged 5; Level + 2 vs. Will; the target is dominated (save ends, with a –2 penalty to the saving throw). Aftereffect: The target is dazed (save ends). The vampire lord can dominate only one creature at a time.

Mist Form (standard; encounter) Polymorph
The vampire lord becomes insubstantial and gains a fly speed of 12, but cannot make attacks. The vampire lord can remain in mist form for up to 1 hour or end the effect as a minor action.

Skills Bluff +13, Stealth +14, Thievery +14
Str 10 (+4) Dex 20 (+9) Wis 10 (+4) Con 12 (+5) Int 12(+5) Cha 18 (+8)

ETA: Darkvision, readability

 

[Cam Banks]

It's not explicitly stated in the excerpt, but if you're increasing the creature's level then you'd also increase all the skills, wouldn't you?

May need to be clarified eventually!

Good work, either way. It's like Lestat!

Cheers,
Cam

 

[hong]

Good work, either way. It's like Lestat!

Trust him, he's a lestatistician?

 

[Ingolf]

It's not explicitly stated in the excerpt, but if you're increasing the creature's level then you'd also increase all the skills, wouldn't you?

That is what I did; I bumped Initiative and the three trained skills by 2 as a consequence of adding 4 levels to the Defiant Rake. I'm fairly certain that's the correct thing to do even though it's not explicit in the article.

Glad you liked it, I was about to template the Dwarven Warlord but then I figured, why not make even more work for myself and do both - advance a lower-level monster AND add a template. Much better chance of breaking the system that way

 

[keterys]

Hey, you were already doomed by using a DDM mini's stats Skirmishers get 8 hp per level (plus a +1 kicker normally) so an 11th level templated elite skirmisher would have 23*8+2*Con hp... or 208/104 hp. And it heals 52 when it blood drains. Pretty rude.

 

[Ingolf]

Hey, you were already doomed by using a DDM mini's stats Skirmishers get 8 hp per level (plus a +1 kicker normally) so an 11th level templated elite skirmisher would have 23*8+2*Con hp... or 208/104 hp. And it heals 52 when it blood drains. Pretty rude.

I'll take your word for it, but that puts its Hp well out of line with the other 10th/11th level examples we have to work from.

Or should I assume that anything derived from DDM stats is suspect?

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Or should I assume that anything derived from DDM stats is suspect?

*ding*

I remember Logan Bonner's Blog post froom when he did them. In November. He basically said they were dodgy THEN.

 

[Ingolf]

*ding*

I remember Logan Bonner's Blog post froom when he did them. In November. He basically said they were dodgy THEN.

That makes sense, but even the recently released 4th Ed RPG stats* for an 11th level elite don't jive with Keterys' numbers. He's positing 208 Hp for an 11th level elite skirmisher and the 11th level Elite Brute "Ascendant Hellsword" only has 126.

I think there is a disconnect here somewhere, unless a monster that gains "Elite" status via a template is automatically that much tougher than a "naturally" Elite monster.

*from the Dungeons of Dread .pdf on Wizard's site.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

When have we seen anything other than DDM stats for the Ascendant Hellsword?

Oh I see... you ARE talking about the DDM stats. That's what Keterys is saying: Even the RPG stats from the Minis is out of date.

Fitz

 

[Snarls-at-Fleas]

That's great!
My 3.75 party just entered the catacombs of Castle Ravenloft. It's time for them to meet Strahd's rage.