Vampire CR/Level Adjustment: huh?

[Bad Paper]

<=> is usually used to return -1, 0, or 1 if the first item is less than, equal to, or greater than the first item.

You are an incurable dork, and this comment does not make sense.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You are an incurable dork, and this comment does not make sense.

Why?

<> and != return True (1) or False (0)*.

<=> returns Low (-1), Equal (0), High (1).

It's a shorthand for a longer set of nested if-then statements.

* - The value of True and False depends on the programming language, of course.

 

[Errant]

Cool, thanks. Makes MUCH more sense now. Well at least the CR v ECL issue does.

Cheers.

 

[Drowbane]

Quite simply the LA is way too high

I consider it closer to +5 or +6. No way in hell a Vampire Fighter 2 is equivelent to Anything lvl 10. Especially vs Clerics....

Now a Vampire Fighter 12... perhaps this is close to a lvl 20. But I'd still say closer to 16/17.

 

[Squire James]

The LA is so much higher than the CR adjustment because the Vampire has a LOT of abilities the PC's can abuse for their entire adventuring careers, while "monster" Vampires can only abuse them 1-3 times before the PC's finally defeat them.

Fast Healing is a common culprit. Monsters with Fast Healing may last a couple more rounds. PC's with Fast Healing can pause for a few minutes after most encounters and meet the next one with full HP. Dominating people and assuming gaseous form at will are pretty powerful too. A smart vampire will rarely have an actual need to fight... let the beefiest enemy with a poor Will save do the messy stuff!

PC's can bypass many of a vampire's limitations with a small amount of cleverness. A Bag of Holding for the coffin makes them much more mobile (they can even sleep inside the coffin in the bag if they want, since air isn't a problem).

In short, playing a vampire as a thug does not make full use of the +8 LA. A vampire rogue with a dominated fire giant is much closer to what you ought to be looking at here!