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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrankTrollman" data-source="post: 1148463" data-attributes="member: 14225">It's in the Monster Manual at the back of the book. There's a list of abilities, look at Ability Damage and Energy Drain. It applies to inflicted negative energy levels and permanent ability drain. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> OK, the most obvious portion of unbalance comes with the low power level of it. I mean, by the time you go through 8 levels without getting a BAB, a skill rank, a hit point, a base save, or a spellcaster level - you just can't do anything to your enemies. You're fairly invulnerable on your home turf, but as an adventurer that almost never applies - and of course the fact that you can't really hope to influence battles at your level makes the entire situation laughable.But there's also the question of high power. If you only take one level of it, you get hit points for inflicting temporary ability damage - which is outside the scope of the normal monster lists and therefore does not appear to have a listed duration. Taking only one level of the class you can get unlimited hit points - from sucking on summoned monsters.And of course, it still references the Monster Manual Vampire rules, which are largely copy/pasted from the 3rd edition ones which didn't work. And they still don't work. There's no way to actually put a stake into the heart of a vampire, so when the template says "subject to the normal staking rules" - it's a slap in the face because there aren't any and never have been.So it's a double edged sword - if you take one level of the class it falls into some weird infinity loops based on poor wording - if you take the whole class the character is monster meat. And of course, it's totally incomprehensible over and over again. Rather than using it - I suggest not using it.-Frank</blockquote>

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