The vampire starts with just 2 healing surges

[Skism]

Just be a dwarven vampire with Durability (and dwarven durability at level 11) to have 6 surges

Make it a Mul Vampire, take Mul's Stamina, Durability and, eventually, Dwarven Durability and enjoy 8 surges.

 

[Ourph]

Because maybe just maybe this will weed out the huge swath of player-base who would all want to play Vampires because they're "kewl roxor!"

Yeah, because God knows you wouldn't want huge swaths of your player-base to actually be excited about using the material you are trying to sell them. That way lies disaster.

 

[gyor]

A vampire gets +charisma regen. With rapid regeneraton feat it would have +charisma and +constitution regen when bloodied. There are I believe other feats that boost regen.

So at level one a vampire with 20 charisma would have 5 regeneration. At 28 charisma je would have 9 regen. At that level if he had a con mod of 3 that is regen 12 with rapid regeneration.

Anything that grants temps rocks with vampires. Thps don't interfere with regen.

Also a half elf vampire with dil as twin strike(archery). Use vampire powers for blood drink and where else appritate as well as dailies. Use twin strike when you wish to back away from melee in order to allow your regen to catch up. Twin strike is its own striker feature in a sense so missing out of unnatural might is no biggy.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah, because God knows you wouldn't want huge swaths of your player-base to actually be excited about using the material you are trying to sell them. That way lies disaster.

If all that mattered was class popularity to widest swath of audience with no care of story concerns... D&D's original classes would be 'Pirate', 'Ninja', 'Vampire', 'Werewolf' & 'Zombie'. But they AREN'T... because we all know that placating the lowest common denominator in ANYTHING tends to produce crap that might blow up for about three months... but then flame out quickly.

So while WotC most certainly created a Vampire class because they're the current flavor of the year and will help sell books... they know as well as we know that these ARE NOT meant to be as wide-spread as say the fighter or rogue should be (barring Ravenloft or Gloomwrought campaigns of course). So what better way to stem the tide of crappy, cheap, Mary Sue character ripoffs that make absolutely no sense in the game world by unimaginative players than to make the Vampire class be one where you actually have to think to play?

I have no problem occasionally seeing a Vampire in the game... but I'd want to at least know that the player who is playing it has actually put some thought into designing him, trying to find reasons and ways to make him fit. And by making the class require some thought in combat... it hopefully will eliminate most of those bad players right off the bat. Those players can go back to making crappy, cheap, Mary Sue character ripoff rogues... but at least the rogues will usually make a bit more sense in the game world.

 

[Mengu]

I'd want to at least know that the player who is playing it has actually put some thought into designing him, trying to find reasons and ways to make him fit. And by making the class require some thought in combat... it hopefully will eliminate most of those bad players right off the bat.

Sadly, it's those players who aren't as mechanically and tactically inclined, that end up wanting to play a gnome runepriest, a tiefling seeker, a shadar-kai ardent, etc. I guess a shade vampire can join that crowd and do well.

I don't really expect the system to protect you from making sub-optimal choices (build or tactical). I make plenty of those when building and playing characters. But a certain degree of competency is expected in most groups. The poorly built and played rogue who runs out of surges in the second encounter of every day makes most leaders and defenders rather unhappy. I only hope the vampire doesn't run into this problem more often than the rogue.

 

[Hellzon]

If all that mattered was class popularity to widest swath of audience with no care of story concerns... D&D's original classes would be 'Pirate', 'Assassin', 'Vampire', 'Werewolf' (95% likely to be in the upcoming Feywild book) & 'Revenant'.

You're right, there's no Pirate class yet.

 

[Erudite Frog]

I dont really like this class. Why is it a class? It should have been a template.

 

[Aegeri]

So what better way to stem the tide of crappy, cheap, Mary Sue character ripoffs that make absolutely no sense in the game world by unimaginative players than to make the Vampire class be one where you actually have to think to play?

I was just thinking to myself this morning that 4th edition didn't have enough suboptimal trap options in it.

Clearly Wizards design on this book has been paramount in addressing that important issue.

Edit: On thinking about things, my temptation to gut the rot out of the this class and change it into a theme is intriguing me.

 

[IanB]

This actually looks pretty fun on the surface of things, to me at any rate, which is a big surprise. I had expected the class to go down the 'modern' vampire road, I'm glad they went with the Hammer-style vampire for the theme instead.

Beyond that I think people are getting way, way too ahead of themselves in terms of speculating about how terrible/awesome/whatever the mechanics are going to be. We simply don't know enough.

 

[Matt James]

I spoke about the Vampire in an article I just put up. It would have been better as a template that is applied to an existing character.

Loremaster - Game Design: Foundational Layers for 4e