The vampire starts with just 2 healing surges

[RavenBlackthorne]

You're going to hate the paragon path that grants radiant resistance due to their own personal sparkle (usable only in daylight)

 

[webrunner]

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

They've been trying a long time to emulate templates some how for players but never really got it right.

They decided to go Class here because teh vampire they're looking at is defined by all their powers and abilities.. what a vampire DOES, and not who the vampire IS, which would be a racial thing.

 

[kaomera]

I'm having trouble seeing the mechanical problems here. The designers are obviously using the mechanics to promote a certain flavor--something I approve of. They want the vampire to be desperate for blood, which it surely will be.

At the same time, it doesn't seem unbalanced. Assume a typical party only has one leader. That's just two healing surge uses per combat across the whole party, so two surges should be enough for the vampire to get through a combat. (In my campaign, at least, the players almost never use second wind. No dwarves.)

Hard fights happen, though. I've seen a fight, second in the day, where two leaders worth of words (so four total), a multiclass word, three potions, and 5 uses of second wind got used. One of the two characters who where down at the end of the fight (no fatalities, fortunately) didn't get her second wind off before she dropped. Admittedly we did manage to "pull" two encounters and a trap before we where done (so, in other words: totally worth it), but it is quite possible to run out of healing.

That leaves the question of whether the vampire will have enough surges at the beginning of each combat. Well, the blood-drinking power triggers on a hit, and the vampire gets multiple uses of it. Unless the vampire never hits in a combat, it seems pretty straightforward to me. We also don't know other feats or powers the vampire gets that also help.

It's going to depend a bit, IMO, on the at-wills (blood drinker only triggers on a vampire melee at-will). At first level (and IMO probably throughout heroic) I think you can expect to have only one use of blood drinker per encounter. And that's the point when, IME, it's easiest to go from full hit points straight through bloodied to the point that you're "teetering" with less hp left than an average hit is liable to do. Three of those surges in the encounter I mentioned above (which was at second level) happened in rapid succession just after the rogue detected the trap with his face, causing him to grant combat advantage to the goblins who merrily piled on him until he was left with 3 hp. If he had only two surges at that point, he would have been OK. If he only had one, or worse didn't have one and needed a hit to gain one, then the single heal would not have been enough to save him and we most likely would have had a fatality.

The vampire's a bit fragile, but I think he's fragile in a fun way, with flavorful options for mitigating that fragility.

I've got my fingers crossed.

Actually, I kind of wonder if this kind of discussion wasn't somehow the whole purpose of these previews... I bet even Aegeri is anxious to see what we end up with here, and personally I've been waffling between being interested in this book or not since it was first announced...

 

[Aegeri]

Personally I pity the vampire who faces a surge draining skill challenge first up more than anything else. Without anything to attack for their surge regaining mechanic, their focus on skills is actually even more essential than normal. A vampire who can't make endurance checks - probably due to dump statting con - is going to be one of the saddest things ever in some difficult skill challenges. Could easily lose a ton of surges and then start taking direct HP damage (costing further surges) and start an encounter below bloodied in a bad situation (as some endurance skill challenges lead directly into combat in my games).

I'm really keen to see the book and note if the foundations have improved. Unfortunately I know enough about the classes core features to know there isn't really any "miracle" bullet in there. I would love to know how the surge aspect is worded though, which will be the killer to me. If the vampire can just take durable that will save the class, as 4 surges is terrible but it's not so crippling that I would say "God that's useless" like I am now. If it's worded that they *cannot* gain surges from features and similar, then the class is just so swingy that I can't see it working well. Especially again, if you're the kind of DM (and I am) who likes a bit of trap based encounters and endurance skill challenge based hazards.

Edit: I knew I wasn't going crazy with my house/foundation comparison. With the exception of the wording on the surge restriction, all of the vampires features are listed here in a previous preview. So there isn't really anything in the book to see actually beyond the wording. If it is worded to prevent feats like durable doing anything to improve their surge value, I don't see this class having a great deal of stickability in any game. Maybe if the at-wills are damn amazing...

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

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

I think a Theme would have suited vampire nicely, if that's not already what you meant by 'template'.

That way you could choose just how vampiric you wanted to be. Then again, supposedly Vryloka will have a similar mechanic, so maybe that will work, but a theme can apply to any race, which would be nice.

 

[webrunner]

Personally I pity the vampire who faces a surge draining skill challenge first up more than anything else. Without anything to attack for their surge regaining mechanic, their focus on skills is actually even more essential than normal. A vampire who can't make endurance checks - probably due to dump statting con - is going to be one of the saddest things ever in some difficult skill challenges. Could easily lose a ton of surges and then start taking direct HP damage (costing further surges) and start an encounter below bloodied in a bad situation (as some endurance skill challenges lead directly into combat in my games).

I think either we'd end up with a situation where the Vampire needs the help of the party to stay alive through a difficult desert passage, driving home the curse of being a vampire..

or the DM takes pity and lets them use group skill checks instead

 

[DEFCON 1]

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.

Every class is a suboptimal trap if it's played by a moron.

The only difference is that morons will flock to the Vampire (and Necromancer for that matter) 'cuz itz kewl' and they can get out all their 'dark evil bastard loner' fantasies... whereas they wouldn't do that with the Warden.

Mod Edit: Here's a hint for everyone - insulting name-calling is against EN World Rules. Targeting a vaguely defined group doesn't make it acceptable. If you can't treat your fellow gamers with respect, then you probably shouldn't be posting. ~Umbran

 

[Matt James]

They've been trying a long time to emulate templates some how for players but never really got it right.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on what they did not get right. Taking it a step further, is developing a new class a better solution? If you get a moment, read an article I just put up today -> Loremaster - Game Design: Foundational Layers for 4e

 

[Kinneus]

Every class is a suboptimal trap if it's played by a moron.

The only difference is that morons will flock to the Vampire (and Necromancer for that matter) 'cuz itz kewl' and they can get out all their 'dark evil bastard loner' fantasies... whereas they wouldn't do that with the Warden.

I think this is really, really condescending and I just don't get it. Why are "dark evil bastard loner" fantasies any more moronic than "I can control matter with my brain" power fantasies? Or "I'm going to play a Fighter with 20 strength haha who's the jock stuffing nerds into lockers now" fantasies? Or "I'm going to play a bard with 20 Charisma, can I make a roll to seduce the elven princess" fantasies?

Why is one person's preferred flavor of fantasy fun less valid than yours?

 

[Matt James]

Every class is a suboptimal trap if it's played by a moron.

The only difference is that morons will flock to the Vampire (and Necromancer for that matter) 'cuz itz kewl' and they can get out all their 'dark evil bastard loner' fantasies... whereas they wouldn't do that with the Warden.

Call me crazy, but I often play things 'cuz itz kewl'

There are many things I don't understand in this world. Chief amongst them include:

• Why does it matter what other people at the table choose to play, if what they chose is fun for them and not disruptive?
• Why do some people need to vilify how others choose to the play the game (D&D)?
• Why am I not wearing any pants?