Vampire: Past the Masquerade, How Not to Suck

[Yunru]

Just sn idle thought; can vampires drink their fey beast companions?

 

[MwaO]

Just sn idle thought; can vampires drink their fey beast companions?

No, attacks against non-enemies don't work and a fey beast companion doesn't have a surge to give up.

 

[darkbard]

Great to see this, Mommy! I haven't played in almost a year and, with the dearth of ideas being bandied about on various 'boards these days, I've even stopped checking these more than once every several weeks. It's nice to have something to draw my attention once again!

 

[MwaO]

Great to see this, Mommy! I haven't played in almost a year and, with the dearth of ideas being bandied about on various 'boards these days, I've even stopped checking these more than once every several weeks. It's nice to have something to draw my attention once again!

Thanks! Btw, have a reasonably straightforward 'Vampire Noble' build that should expect to do around 130 damage over the course of 2 rounds on average at 13th with no setup. And then still has one more full-fledged Vampire Slam to dish out.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Random thoughts.

Melee Basic: well, there's a feat for it (Melee Training: Dexterity). It costs you half your Dex mod in damage, but you should be able to make that up if you're any good at optimization.

In addition to the usual class-based MBA replacement powers, don't forget about Power of Skill boosted At-Wills, if you're going all-in on the MCing or Hybrid vampire.

Shadar-Kai: insubstantial for a round in every fight (Shadow Jaunt) saves you a lot of incoming damage throughout your career, and thus synergizes well with the Vampire-as-Tank mentality. Also easy to refluff this as vampire-y, like temporarily turning into mist or a cloud of bats.

MC feats Arcane Vampire, Divine Vampire, etc. If you're going to MC anyway, these give you another way to gain a HS during combat. The bad news is each one only works with powers specifically of their power source, so you'll need to pick up an attack power from that power source.

Implements. Ki Focus solves a lot of problems for you if you can figure out a way to get KF proficiency without screwing up the rest of your build.

Durable feat should be called out as a trap option because it makes Blood is Life harder to use. Similarly, the usual HS-boosting feats (Toughness, Swift Recovery, etc.) are downgraded.

Because of the Vampire HS-during-short-rest mojo, look for Magic Items into which you can dump spare HS that you would otherwise lose. (Sometimes despite your DM's best efforts you're going to end the combat with >= 2 more HS than you started.) For example, Vampire might be one of the few classes that can get use out of those weird items with Power: Healing Surge entries, like Bloodcut Armor or Bracers of Rejuvenation.

There's also self sacrifice items like Clasp of Noble Sacrifice that let you spend a HS to give some benefit to your allies. You can keep these in your pack and pull them out during short rests to use when you would otherwise be losing Vampire-gained HS at the end of the short rest.

Hope this helps.

 

[MwaO]

Melee Basic: well, there's a feat for it (Melee Training: Dexterity). It costs you half your Dex mod in damage, but you should be able to make that up if you're any good at optimization.

Vampire Slam is a Melee Basic. And Blood Drinker only works with Vampire melee powers, so Power of Skill or other choices are kind of irrelevant.

MC feats Arcane Vampire, Divine Vampire, etc. If you're going to MC anyway, these give you another way to gain a HS during combat. The bad news is each one only works with powers specifically of their power source, so you'll need to pick up an attack power from that power source.

Most of these are actually only really relevant if the party refuse to donate surges or you're levels 1-6.

Implements. Ki Focus solves a lot of problems for you if you can figure out a way to get KF proficiency without screwing up the rest of your build.

They get it for free. As well as Holy Symbols. They don't get the any weapon they're proficient with is a focus, though. And the problem is that shards only go on weapons or weapliments.

Durable feat should be called out as a trap option because it makes Blood is Life harder to use. Similarly, the usual HS-boosting feats (Toughness, Swift Recovery, etc.) are downgraded.

Not a problem. Blood is Life set to total HS, not 2. If you have 4 healing surges due durable, Blood is Life keys off of that.

Because of the Vampire HS-during-short-rest mojo, look for Magic Items into which you can dump spare HS that you would otherwise lose.

Good case for Salve of Power.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Wow, I am an idiot. This is what I get for going off memory of a MC'd-into-vampire I played (where the other class brought its own MBA) rather than re-reading the mechanics. *puts bag over head*

Hopefully some of the other advice is useful.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Some slightly more considered thoughts.

Blood Drinker: it specifically says 'extra damage', but lacks the weapon/implement keyword. Something that might be worth calling out for damage optimization.

Swarm of Shadows: The only bad thing about it is ongoing 5 which is piddly by the time you replace this at 15th level. But invisibility until EoYNT is great.

Dark Beckoning: it's a super-accurate attack against a NAD which may be worth calling out.

Hunter's Gaze: Yeah, this got downgraded by the 'we made CA stupidly easy to get' part of 4e. The +4 Intimidate might have some niche use in Intimidomancer builds...?

Feral Assault: I think this is actually red. Terrible power. I can't imagine any plausible situation in which I'd *want* to use this.

Strength of Blood: may be worth calling out it's a minor action, not No Action like a lot of the skill booster powers. Still, +5 is a big bonus. If we were still playing LFR this would be pretty good for all those in-combat skill checks at the Hard DC. In a normal game of course YMMV depending upon DM.

Unfettered Hunger: I think this should be black as long as you use it carefully; i.e. when you're in mop-up phase (and don't need/want to spend HS) or desperate (willing to risk not spending HS because you need the extra damage and mobility). Interestingly, this gives untyped bonuses that don't specify they are only for vampire powers, so it'll work with any attacks you have from any source. Shift your speed as a move action is really good, you usually don't get this for an entire encounter *with* bonus attack/damage also. All things considered I think the strong bonuses with the risk/reward part make it black at worst.

Form of the Bat: Agreed, prime swap-out bait. Unless you're in one of those campaigns where stealthy bat-form scouting is a gamebreaker, but we can't really plan for that.

Night Crawler: climbing at your full speed is surprisingly good, or should I said, climbing at half-speed (normal rule) is surprisingly annoying. Also note that by having a climb speed you become eligible to shift-climb which has niche uses.

Dominating Gaze: woo hoo, you only needed to reach level 9 to be a real vampire. *wink*

Gaseous Form: breaks dungeon exploration over its knee -- speed 8 + phasing is enough to phase across two entire corridors/walls. Or heck, double move and phase 16 squares, you're halfway across the graph paper now. If your DM is at all old-school he will grow to hate this power. Otherwise, power-swap bait.

Hungry Swarm: why is this only dark blue when Swarm of Shadows was light blue? Hungry does better damage and has a better rider (blinded).

Shared Blood: agreed, there are much better ways to give someone temps or a save. Shared Blood is super, super flavorful though.

Unleashed Fury: 4e never did know how to properly scale these types of powers, did they?

Vital Consumption: Sorry, but this is not making me like Unleashed Fury any better.

Gotta run, will comment on the epic level powers / class features later.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Blood Drinker's Pounce over Culling Call (as you have it colored) because the former can be used off-turn while the latter can only be used on-turn.

Energized Blood Drinker: free temps for doing your striker job, sure. Extra free temps if you were already using your temp-granting power, why not. Yet more reason not to dump Cha.

Irresistible Gaze: Aftereffect dazed is pretty nice, you are now guaranteed to have some effect annoying monsters that save at start of turn, etc. I do like your suggestion of having two dominates (this one plus retrained Swarm into Dominating gaze). However one caveat to these dominate powers, they're Ranged, so grab one of the many ways not to provoke with Ranged powers.

Consuming Swarm: awesome power. Might be worth carrying around Staff of the War Mage in your pack if you have staff proficiency just for this power. (Actually not a bad item for your lower-level blasts, too.) Also note that due to wording ('teleport to a square in the zone') you can't be kiboshed by anything that affects your movement speed or teleport speed. Another cool trick: you can use the power to do its then, then leave the zone (you Stealthed, right?), maybe be in position to do something else with your allies, then at the start of your turn *bamf* you teleport back into the zone regardless of where you started (within normal rules for LOS/LOE of course).

 

[MwaO]

Some slightly more considered thoughts.

Blood Drinker: it specifically says 'extra damage', but lacks the weapon/implement keyword. Something that might be worth calling out for damage optimization.

Extra damage never gets to have bonuses added to it. There should be no optimization available as it is not actually an independent damage roll...

Feral Assault: I think this is actually red. Terrible power. I can't imagine any plausible situation in which I'd *want* to use this.

When you ran out of uses of Blood Drinker, haven't power swapped, and you use it without spending an extra surge. Or you're AP'ing and already got Blood Drinker off on your 1st action. Or you know it is the last combat of the day, aren't going to run out of surges, and you want the extra +2d8 or target 2 opponents. It isn't great, but at 11th, it is kind of a 4W attack if you spend a surge which ought to generally be extra. That's obviously not great compared to multi-attacking, but...

Unfettered Hunger: I think this should be black as long as you use it carefully; i.e. when you're in mop-up phase (and don't need/want to spend HS) or desperate (willing to risk not spending HS because you need the extra damage and mobility). Interestingly, this gives untyped bonuses that don't specify they are only for vampire powers, so it'll work with any attacks you have from any source. Shift your speed as a move action is really good, you usually don't get this for an entire encounter *with* bonus attack/damage also. All things considered I think the strong bonuses with the risk/reward part make it black at worst.

I think the problem is that it is a nova power that shouldn't be used in a nova round. And Swam of Shadows is a much better option once you get to 15th. Purple represents that it does need to be used so carefully. Also, similar to many 'do single attack, get bonuses for rest of combat' - it is usually inferior to just 'do multi-attacking right from the start' - which Vampires can't naturally do, but if they MC, they can and then should...

Hungry Swarm: why is this only dark blue when Swarm of Shadows was light blue? Hungry does better damage and has a better rider (blinded).

For a 15th level PC, this isn't a great 15th level power due to only being Close Blast 3. Where Swam of Shadows for a 1st level PC is a great 1st level power given it is Close Blast 3.