Vampire and Werewolf PC's

[ArcOfCorinth]

CR does not equal ECL.

Point in case, a drow has a CR of 1 while its ECL is +2.

 

[Dash Dannigan]

Yes, CR usually does not correlate with ECL.

A Vampire has a CR +2 on par with the Half-fiend,-celestial, -dragon, etc. templates so you might want to just go with the +3 ECL. Looks pretty balanced, what with all the weaknesses Vampires get...

 

[alpha prime]

Issue 293 of Dragon Magazine has the ECL's for the creatures in the Monster Manual. The Vampire template is listed as a +5 ECL. In the games I've been in no one has played a vampire, though someone has played a Dhampir from Sword & Sorcery's: Ravenloft Denizens of Darkness.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It says in the template itself that a character must be fifth level to become a vampire, lower than that and they just become vampire spawn.

Strictly speaking, of course, what it says is that a character drained to 0 Constitution or less returns as either spawn or vampire dependent on hit dice.

But the template can be added to any humanoid or monstrous humanoid; compare, say, the Death Knight template, which can be added to any evil humanoid of 6th level or higher. The Death Knight has a restriction on the template itself; the vampire only has a hit dice restriction on vampires created by being drained to 0 Con.

So if there are other ways of becoming a vampire (campaign specific, presumably), for instance: being born a vampire a la Blade; drinking the blood of a vampire and subsequently dying a la Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - then perhaps the hit dice restriction does not apply.

But that's up to a DM. If the only way to gain the vampire template is through Con drain, then yes, only base creatures with more than 5HD will be vampires. But it's not a restriction on the template itself.

-Hyp.

 

[Xarlen]

Touche.

But now you're splitting hairs.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Well, no, not necessarily. I can imagine situations where a DM might want to apply the Vampire template to something with less than 5HD. He doesn't actually have to change the template to do it; he just needs to justify the existence of such 'lesser Vampires' through a method other than Con drain.

-Hyp.

 

[Bastoche]

I've seen anything between +6 to +10 for the vampire.

Having played one myself (in a campaign where I was the only player), I would say something like +15. Damage reduction and impossibility to die. Traveling with your coffin assure you you will never die. Playing a vampire PC (or a lich PC for that matter) was the worst thing to ever happen to me. Boring boring boring. Werewolf is fun though.

 

[hammymchamham]

I think the Dragon Magizine from a few months back had ECL +5, but that is from memory.

 

[Bastoche]

I had a bookmark to a page where there was a guide to calculate ECL. And on that page the vampire had ECL +6 IIRC. In a computer mayhap, I lost that bookmark. So between +5 and +10 then .

Damage reduction 15/+1, 5 free feats, fast healing, etc... makes the vampire unplayable as a PC character. Oh yeah and d12 hit point . What I've seen is that in some cases, the ECL should be very high, +10 something like that, and in other case, much lower as low as +3. The fact that the vampire's power is so high, so a PC, makes it unplayable. On a "disposable" NPC, it works great, but for a PC, it truly is a sucky template.

If all the players played vampires and the campaign was turning around that specific thing (playing a "Vampire: Dark ages" campaign with D&D rules for example) it could work OK, I guess. But mixing a vampire with other characters is a near impossible feat IMO. Truly a bad idea.

 

[Xeoble]

Soldarin's ECL Calculator

http://www.webspawner.com/users/soldarin/