D&D 4E The (Finally Useful) Vampire Class

[Tigris]

Oh I just saw you also have a vampire class! Could you maybe also share your thoughts here?

I also did a vampire class: and I do slight updates from time to time so some thoughts are always useful.

 

[sabrinathecat]

I found the RAW vampire to be perfectly functional. Mind you, I only got it to 14th level. But in a stealth party, the variety of skills was wonderful. Especially once he had bat-form and could scout the area, report on the next encounter, fly back, and then fly in and start from whatever spot he wanted. Sure, it took a couple of short rests, and if there was anything with true sight or that would actually be interested in eating bat, not so hot, but for the vast majority... Also being able to push and pull at-will...
No, the only thing really missing from the RAW vampire class was magic item support, because WotC had already decided to end the edition and market to 5th ed.

 

[Tigris]

I found the RAW vampire to be perfectly functional. Mind you, I only got it to 14th level. But in a stealth party, the variety of skills was wonderful. Especially once he had bat-form and could scout the area, report on the next encounter, fly back, and then fly in and start from whatever spot he wanted. Sure, it took a couple of short rests, and if there was anything with true sight or that would actually be interested in eating bat, not so hot, but for the vast majority... Also being able to push and pull at-will...
No, the only thing really missing from the RAW vampire class was magic item support, because WotC had already decided to end the edition and market to 5th ed.

It is functional for sure, I think it got too much negativity in the beginning and people were underestimating how good it is to be able to not need healing surges yourself.

It just has some things which feel a bit clunky or which make you feel squishy like:

- You have no use for constitution, which makes your HP in low levels quite a bit weak. You can choose one of the backgrounds to fix it, but it should not depend on a specific background.

- Level 3 to level 7 you have 1 way to spend a healing surge but only 1 way to get an additional one, making that option more of a trap. (Which makes a lot of people multiclass and trade the level 3 with another classes power)

- The level 5 ultimate which is risky, but really interesting, never improves which is a bit of a shame

- The level 9 ultimate which is cool feels feels always a bit bad in the sense that you need to

- the level 13 gives an additional healing surge, but because of your level 1 passive you never want to use your own healing surges anyway.

- The really cool level 16 utility power needs a standard action (instead of a minor similar things normally use), which again as a striker you dont really want to use.

- There is no real damage increase from level 12 until level 17, but than at level 17 there is a huge powerspike.

- One of the 2 paragon paths has a really really bad ultimate ability (at level 20) not fitting a striker at all.


I really think the vampire is a cool class, and agree that it is functional (no idea why so many people thought it was not), there are just some small tweaks which make it from a cool "functional" class into a cool great class.

 

[sabrinathecat]

4th Ed suffered greatly from negative publicity. I think people were wanting something else from the vamp class--that it not be a class at all, among other things. But if you wanted a Vamp race, there were the Vryloka.
One of the best ways to improve the Vampire's survival was to take the Durable feat at 1st level, which gave 2 extra surges. In fact, I'd say it was essential to the character's survival.
Thanks to "Auspicious Birth" and "Born Under A Bad Sign," Con was frequently one of my dump stats. Wisdom was usually the other (wise people don't go into dangerous places and put their lives on the line on the off chance that they will be the lucky ones to come home with wealth and fame--only the foolish and/or desperate do that sort of thing)

 

[Tigris]

4th Ed suffered greatly from negative publicity. I think people were wanting something else from the vamp class--that it not be a class at all, among other things. But if you wanted a Vamp race, there were the Vryloka.
One of the best ways to improve the Vampire's survival was to take the Durable feat at 1st level, which gave 2 extra surges. In fact, I'd say it was essential to the character's survival.
Thanks to "Auspicious Birth" and "Born Under A Bad Sign," Con was frequently one of my dump stats. Wisdom was usually the other (wise people don't go into dangerous places and put their lives on the line on the off chance that they will be the lucky ones to come home with wealth and fame--only the foolish and/or desperate do that sort of thing)

I agree about the problem with bad publicity. Especially after Essentials, where Mike Mearls did piss off most 4E fans with the "going old school simple martials", there was even more negativity about 4E and often even cool ideas, like the vampire, did catch stray bullets.


Yes thats the 2 Backgrounds I mean and I agree that they help the early game vampire a lot, but needing to rely on backgrounds is definitly a bad design. Especially since not everyone was playing with backgrounds and not every GM allows backgrounds which give other things than skill bonuses, thats why I would make that just a class feature. It does not change the best case (optimizers with this background), but the weak feeling cases (people with any other background).


Durable is not really that good on the vampire though. You never want to use your own healing surges, else you cant make use of your short rest full heal ability (and need to lend healing surges from others), thats the same reason why the level 13 feature is not really useful.

You want to survive a combat with X+1 healing surges, where X is the number of healing surges you have. If you do, then you can heal full in the short rest without needing a healing surge.

And increasing X to a bigger X does not change this fact. If you come out of a combat with less healing surges than X you are in a bad state anyway. And you need to get a healing surge from someone else.

Sure it is a positive if you can go more into depth (X-4 instead of X-2), but the lower you are below X the harder it is to get back to X+1.

This is also why getting the 2nd blood drinker is so important (and why it should be at level 3 not 7), since it makes it a lot easier to get to these X+1 healing surges. (And also the Level 9 and Level 15 daily power help (not sure why the extra healing surge was not on the lvl 1 daily though, that would also help quite a bit.).


I would say at level 1 Toughness would be more helpfull. (5 more max HP). Even if you can retrain it later raising your HP from 22 to 27 (or 28 if you can get 11 in con) or from 28 to 32 (with the backgrounds you meantioned) and the healing surge value from 5 to 6 (or 7) or from 7 to 8.

 

[Moving Pictures]

I thought we were done with the whole "I wanna be a vampire" stuff in the nineties?

Call me a grognard, but vampires should be monsters, not PC "races."

 

[Tigris]

I thought we were done with the whole "I wanna be a vampire" stuff in the nineties?

Call me a grognard, but vampires should be monsters, not PC "races."

Thats why in 4E it is a class and not a race


Why should vampires as a fantasy be gone? Vampires the Maquerade 2 released this year. And we also still have the "Dude who beats enemy with a sword" fantasy and the "that one dude in lord of the rings as a class" fantasy going on and this for much longer.

Vampire is a lot less generic and comes with a big range of powers and abilities one can use.



I dont call people grognard because that verry word comes from a time which should be forgotten as a whole when it comes to games with how much gamedesign evolved the last 25 years.

 

[sabrinathecat]

I thought we were done with the whole "I wanna be a vampire" stuff in the nineties?

Call me a grognard, but vampires should be monsters, not PC "races."

Not even close.
Personally, I preferred "The Nightlife" by Stellar Games. Way less angsty. Alliances weren't based on family ties or who bit whom--a group could consist of a Vampyre, Daemon, Wyght, Inuit, and Were just as easily as a single variety of Kin. The defining characteristic was their collective attitude towards The Herd (humans). Were they uniformed equals, food for slaughter, or too stupid to be allowed to manage their own affairs because they were dead set on destroying the world through political stupidity? Fun game.
I like the Vampire in 4th Ed--I think it's a good, solid class.
If you wanted a quazi Vamp race, there were the Vryloka. Naturally, you could play a Vryloka Vampire--synergized perfectly.

If you want to be a grognard, than I'm a Luddite. (Mostly because I @#*%ing hate "smart"phones and stick to my "DumbPhone").

 

[Neonchameleon]

I thought we were done with the whole "I wanna be a vampire" stuff in the nineties?

Call me a grognard, but vampires should be monsters, not PC "races."

Vampires predate clerics in D&D's pre-history. As in the first cleric in proto-D&D was brought in with vampire hunting powers because "Sir Fang" was overtuned and needed bringing down.

 

[erachima]

The core issue with 4e's Vampire is that it is a class on which they used all their design hours coming up with a custom healing dynamic to make the class extra durable but then forgot to make it a defender.