How is a vampire possibly worth +8 LA?

[Question]

The funny thing is i dont see any note in the template that vampires must drain blood or get destroyed in X days or whatever.

The thing is you DONT want an entire army, unless the campaign revolves around evil PCs trying to conquer a kingdom for themselves. They just slow you down. Marching around with legions of canon fodder to go on adventures is not a good idea. You attract attention a LOT faster this way. It SHOULD come back and bite you in the ass. Also masses of vampire spawn made from low level commoners dont really do anything to CR 10+ encounters

In most campaigns the only problem i can see with dominate is if the PC uses it to try and mass dominate people into giving them free stuff, after which they will have a hard time going back as the authorities will probably have a flood of reports that a vampire of so and so description mass-dominated shopkeepers and stole items, it may even result in undead hunters sent after the PC. A smart DM will never say "Yea, you dominate all the shopkeepers in the city, make off with all their gold and valuable items, you now have about 1.5 million in gold with no consequences.".

A wiz 5 ECL 13 vampire cannot do anything to CR 10 encounters, let alone CR 13. The best spell they can cast is fireball. cast Fireball, gaseous form to run away at 20 ft, OWNED BY MAGIC/MAGIC WEAPONS IN ONE HIT, retreat to coffin, get no XP/loot because you did nothing.

Rogues are even worse. The irony is that a human rogue of the same ECL as a vampire rogue has the exact same mods for move silently, hide, so on and so forth, so the vampire isnt better.....its actually worse as the human rogue has better ranks in stuff like diplomacy or disable device. A rogue 5 isnt going to be able to do anything in combat either.......they have +3 BAB at ECL 13!

You are thinking of NPC vampires who CAN pull sneaky tricks off to seriously hurt the party. The problem is PC vampires cannot pull the same tricks off due to what is effectively a 6 level difference in power. All the abilities the vampire template has, barring fast healing and ability score adjustments are much more useful for a NPC, thus the CR should be higher than the LA, because the abilities are not as useful for PCs.

 

[Artoomis]

Hmmm... Here's a different take on this, perhaps:

We'll start with the stats.

Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4 (No Con score, but hit die are changed to 12-sided)

Very unbalanced. What's the general formula here? Unblaanced stats are wqorth an LA, right. Well these are unbalanced times 9!

+8 racial bonus to 7 important skills.

Five free very useful feats.

Cold and Electrical Resistance 10

DR 10 silver AND magic

Fast Healing 5.

Spider climb.

Very, very impressive. If it were not for their weaknesses they'd be LA + I don't know what - some very, very big number.

 

[Sithobi1]

The best spell available is NOT fireball. It is Web, or Glitterdust, or Suggestion, or Haste.

 

[Nail]

So let's modify the original "question" a bit: "What would be the optimum PC vampire?"

Class, race, equipment? (Let's stick with ECL 13, so 5th level class)

My first take? In an urban adventure setting, I'm thinking Bard, with the emphasis on a support role and archery.

 

[Question]

No con score is a disadvantage remember? A disadvantage that only gets higher and higher as your level goes up. 5d12 hp vs 5d10+20 for a 5th level human fighter, 16 con, and improved toughness. You also get worse fort saves.

Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4

This is good, but the placement limits its usefulness somewhat. It seems fighter types benefit most from the stats. Needless to say caster classes are out of the question.

Vampires have a +8 racial bonus on Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot checks.

Lets see they have LA +8 and a +8 racial mod. What does this mean? It means that a human of the same ECL with, say, levels in the rogue class will have the same mods. On the other hand this IS useful if the vampire is a non-rogue type, but not much.....CC skills and a +8 racial mod can only get you so far. In a party the rogue is still likely to be the guy doing the bluffing, sneaking, so on and so forth. This is really only useful as a mediocre "second chance".....the rogue failed his spot save and now its up to the vampire to see if he can spot the ambush.

Vampires gain Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, and Lightning Reflexes,

Alertness, dodge and lighting reflexes are sub-par feats. Combat reflexes is useless if you cannot hit the target anyway. Improved initiative is the only useful one.

a ECL 13 vampire has 2 normal feats(Assuming non-human), 1 good bonus feat, 1 useless feat and 3 sub-par feats.

A ECL 13 non-human PC has 5 normal feats, all of which are either useful or required for entry into a PRC/feat.

Cold and Electrical Resistance 10

Decent, but not much to write home about......ECL 13 tends can throw magic in the form of 60+ in one straight go, and the cleric/wizard should have protection from X spells at the ready.

DR 10 silver AND magic

Not bad, but its not going to do much to stop you from getting one hit.....and is anyone missing the idea that vampire hunters, a very likely foe the DM will use against any PC vampire, WILL have silver and magic weapons?

Fast Healing 5.

1 hit, gaseous form, coffin time.

Spider climb.

What are you going to do with this? Climb a tall building in a city and throw rotten tomatoes at the crowd below?

Sithobi : The best 3rd level damage spell, as its the wiz 5 vamprie PC vs an encounter(as far as i can tell, this was what the poster meant).

A 13th level human bard is better than the 5th level vampire bard at support(Better songs, better spells), can actually hit someone with a bow. Not only that but the human bard will not get one hit KOed, can be active in both the day and night, does not need a coffin, does not have issues with crossing running water, so on and so forth.

 

[Wolfwood2]

The funny thing is i dont see any note in the template that vampires must drain blood or get destroyed in X days or whatever.

The thing is you DONT want an entire army, unless the campaign revolves around evil PCs trying to conquer a kingdom for themselves. They just slow you down. Marching around with legions of canon fodder to go on adventures is not a good idea. You attract attention a LOT faster this way. It SHOULD come back and bite you in the ass. Also masses of vampire spawn made from low level commoners dont really do anything to CR 10+ encounters

Your arguments seem to be based around that idea that players won't be clever in their use of Dominate. To the contrary, I find that most players will be extremely creative and innovative with the use of their character's abilities.

No you don't want a permanently dominated army around, but for extreme short term dominating a lot of people at need can be darn useful. I'm not even talking about for combat. Need to get something hidden somewhere in a castle? Dominate somebody who works there and have them tell you all about the layout. Want to ambush somebody? Dominate a few of his flunkies and servants and have them slip poison into his wine then lead him into a trap. Need to establish a cover identity for a few days? Dominate somebody and have them vouch for you as their long-lost cousin.

I defy you to lay out for me an adventure involving humanoids where the ability to lay out Dominates at will won't help. No it's not a combat ability primarily. Combat is only a small component of its many uses.

As for Vampire Spawn, you don't want them for the long term. However with a little time to prepare they can still be pretty potent cannon fodder. You keep talking about "CR 10 challenges", but remember that CR is calculated for an open battlefield fighting on relatively even terms. Lost of vampire abilities give PCs the ability to do "set up work" that will tip the odds in their favor when the fight finally occurs.

In most campaigns the only problem i can see with dominate is if the PC uses it to try and mass dominate people into giving them free stuff, after which they will have a hard time going back as the authorities will probably have a flood of reports that a vampire of so and so description mass-dominated shopkeepers and stole items, it may even result in undead hunters sent after the PC. A smart DM will never say "Yea, you dominate all the shopkeepers in the city, make off with all their gold and valuable items, you now have about 1.5 million in gold with no consequences.".

Again, what a lack of creativity! You don't dominate the shopkeeper. You dominate the daughter of the shopkeeper, have her swipe the stuff, and then slit her throat in a thoroughly non-vampiric fashion afterwards. No muss and no way to trace it to your undead activities.

But that's just off the top of my head. Give me a few days to think about it, as the player of a vampire PC will, and I'd come up with something better and designed to account for available divinatory magic.

Man, Dominate Person at will + Gaseous Form at will could lead to so many great scams and tricks.

A wiz 5 ECL 13 vampire cannot do anything to CR 10 encounters, let alone CR 13. The best spell they can cast is fireball. cast Fireball, gaseous form to run away at 20 ft, OWNED BY MAGIC/MAGIC WEAPONS IN ONE HIT, retreat to coffin, get no XP/loot because you did nothing.

I agree that's a problem when the vampire PC is engaging in typical D&D straight up fights. That's why I'm suggesting altering the template so that they're better in straight-up fights and much worse at being able to do sneaky set-up stuff.

Rogues are even worse. The irony is that a human rogue of the same ECL as a vampire rogue has the exact same mods for move silently, hide, so on and so forth, so the vampire isnt better.....its actually worse as the human rogue has better ranks in stuff like diplomacy or disable device. A rogue 5 isnt going to be able to do anything in combat either.......they have +3 BAB at ECL 13!

Actually with the +4 to Dexterity in addition to the racial skill mods means the vampire will be better. Don't ignore the stat mods. They're excellent.

And what does the vampire care about diplomacy or disable device? He's got Dominate and undead immunity to poison instead.

You are thinking of NPC vampires who CAN pull sneaky tricks off to seriously hurt the party. The problem is PC vampires cannot pull the same tricks off due to what is effectively a 6 level difference in power. All the abilities the vampire template has, barring fast healing and ability score adjustments are much more useful for a NPC, thus the CR should be higher than the LA, because the abilities are not as useful for PCs.

In a straight up fight, the Vampire PC will be smoked.

Given a more mission-oriented, "go make this happen" style mission where combat is but one tool in the bag of tricks, and the vampire PC will do much better. After all, if you slip past the CR 15 obstacle, take care of the mission, and depart, how is that not a win even if you never fought it?

 

[Deset Gled]

The concept behind a vampire is also horrible for any group situation. Vampires will want to feed off of their companions, and create minions instead. Even the iconic (and horribly overdone) "good" vampire is always portrayed as a loner, hiding in the shadows, talking to no one except when completely necessary. Vampires also suffer from the problem of being almost invincible except for one or two weaknesses, which forces the DM to be called "too lenient" half of the time, and a "rat bastard" the other half.

Vampires have no place as a PC, unless your in an entirely undead, evil party, in which everyone will have a high LA anyway. IMNSHO, the LA given in the MM was just put there to shut up all the wanna-be goth RPers who would complain endlessly if it wasn't there.

 

[Nail]

No con score is a disadvantage remember? ... You also get worse fort saves.

No argument about the hit points, but the Fort saves? A vampire is immune to most things requiring Fort saves, remember?

Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4

This is good, but the placement limits its usefulness somewhat. It seems fighter types benefit most from the stats. Needless to say caster classes are out of the question.

No so fast. For a "support role" PC, those look pretty good! Think about that Cha bonus, for example. I'm thinking: cohorts!

Vampires gain Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, and Lightning Reflexes,

Alertness, dodge and lighting reflexes are sub-par feats. Combat reflexes is useless if you cannot hit the target anyway. Improved initiative is the only useful one.

Those feats are not required; a vampire may take any feat he or she wishes. If you read the SRD text, it even looks as if those feats are bonus feats, and don't take up feat slots.

Cold and Electrical Resistance 10

Decent, but not much to write home about......ECL 13 tends can throw magic in the form of 60+ in one straight go, and the cleric/wizard should have protection from X spells at the ready.

A damage spell at this level does about 13d6. That's an average of 46 hp of damage, save for half. That's a bit less than 60+

DR 10 silver AND magic

Not bad, but its not going to do much to stop you from getting one hit.....and is anyone missing the idea that vampire hunters, a very likely foe the DM will use against any PC vampire, WILL have silver and magic weapons?

True. But if *all* the foes have silver weapons, the DM's not playing very fair.

Fast Healing 5.

This is huge. If you survive a hit, you can get back up to full without wasting party resources. That's a Big Deal (tm).

 

[Question]

Dominate is non-abusable because a DM can account for it. You also say it like, people can actually suceed on the will save. Its 10+half/hd + cha mod. Unless you build your vampire PC to maximise DC on it it will fail. Its a DC of 18 with starting cha of 18+4 from template, for a ECL 13 thats not very impressive.

Oh and i guess you better hope the campaign your DM is running is fairly combat light. I cant imagine a vampire PC in, say, age of worms, or even red hand of doom. All those "investigative" uses are only really useful if your DM is running a campaign focusing on solving a mystery or sneak/subeterfuge.

 

[Question]

Yes a vampire is immune to MOST things that require a fort save. Disintegrate is one of those things that notably affects undead.

Any support role PC you can build will be far inferior to a flat, ECL 13 support role PC. You cant even have leadership at level 5.

A vampire gets 5 bonus feats, which are listed, yes i do realise this. Those 5 feats do not really compensate for the 8 levels worth of feats that a normal PC could otherwise have. I realise its not supposed to, but most of those feats are not suited for a vamprie PC, or do not do much anyway.

Empowered lighting bolts or whatever, its nice to have cold and electric resist 10, but its not exactly major.

I never said all foes would have silver and magic. Its useful, but nothing to write home about, and ironically just when the vampire needs his DR the most, he wont get it.

Its not a big deal because the vampire will never survive even one round with 5d12 hp at ECL 13. Unless NOBODY attacks him, or he gets targetted by archers doing 1d8 damage...then yea.....but otherwise hes completely screwed. One maximised fireball and BAM.