Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grog" data-source="post: 3049591" data-attributes="member: 6183">With average rolls and a 16 Con (perfectly feasible with items), a 13th level Wizard or Sorceror will have over 70 hit points. Anything that can two-shot them will probably one-shot the vampire. And they'll have a lot more tools for dealing with the threat than the vampire will.Sorry, I just don't see how they're survivable and viable. And I don't see how they can fill any role in a party that can't be filled much better by someone playing a character from a PHB race.Front-line fighter is right out, obviously. 38 hit points won't stand up to CR 13 monsters, even with DR 10. And the vampire fighter only gets one attack vs. three for a standard-race fighter, and his attack bonus will be 5 points less (-8 BAB, +3 Str). The only advantage the vampire has over a standard-race fighter is immunity to crits, but with such low hit points, enemies won't need crits to drop him in a hurry.Archer? Again, his low BAB is going to cripple him. Only one shot per round (or two with rapid shot) compared to three or four for a standard-race archer. And he's -7 to hit compared to our friend the elf (-8 BAB, +1 Dex). His damage per shot might be roughly equal, but that makes no difference since the vampire can't hit anything. His low hit points probably won't be as much of an issue here, since he's away from the front lines, but the first time someone drops a Fireball on the party, there's a good chance that the vampire is toast since his Reflex save bonus is going to suck.Spellcaster? What good is a 5th level spellcaster in a 13th level party? He's basically forced into the role of a buffer, since by this time the party is running into a lot of monsters with SR that the vampire has no chance of penetrating, and even if his spells do affect the monsters, they'll be doing pathetic damage. Sure, he can cast a couple of Hastes and other buffs, but they'll have a crappy duration, be easily dispelled, and it's nothing a 13th level spellcaster couldn't do much, much better.Rogue? The vampire will be very slightly better than a standard-race rogue at some critical rogue skills (and I do mean slightly - we're talking 1 or 2 points at most here), and a hell of a lot worse at other critical rogue skills (as in, 7 or 8 points worse). Who wants a rogue who can't disarm a trap? Plus, any trap he sets off (which will be just about all of them) is going to vaporize him (remember the crappy Reflex save), while a standard-race rogue might be able to escape via Evasion or simply withstanding the damage. Not to mention the extra damage the rest of the party will be taking from the traps he can't disarm. And the vampire is useless in combat.Monk? This is actually one of the best classes to take advantage of the vampire's abilities (negative levels on unarmed attacks), but it doesn't matter how many negative levels he can inflict since he can't hit anything (with his mightly +3 BAB). And his flurry sucks compared to a 13th level monk. And also see the aforementioned problems of going down in one or two hits.Non-combat "talker" type character? The vampire's Bluff and Sense Motive skills may be 1 or 2 points better than a standard-race character, but all his other skills (like Diplomacy, Intimidate, and all the Knowledge skills) are going to suck by comparassion. His Dominate Person ability might help him here, but he's no better off than a human wizard or sorceror (who can also cast Dominate Person) against humanoids, and a hell of a lot worse off against non-humaniods thanks to his crappy skills.And all these vampire characters can't go out in daylight, have to lug their coffins around with them (or never venture too far from home), and can't be healed unless there happens to be a neutral or evil cleric in the party with a liking for Inflict spells (yes, they have Fast Healing, but there's no way for them to get emergency healing in combat should they need it).Vampires certainly don't look viable as characters to me.</blockquote>

Verification