Vampires don't scare me anymore.

[Desdichado]

I think it's more than just knowing or not knowing the monsters. The relative ease and common-ness of spells like restoration, cure xx wounds, even raise dead, etc. take a lot of the fear away. Losing ability points, or even dying outright is more of an inconvienience than anything else. That's why my homebrew addresses the magic system first and foremost.

That's easy enough to houserule away, though. Or even just make it very difficult if not virtually impossible to find someone who can cast those spells, forcing the PCs to either learn them themselves or not use them at all.

Again, though, that's an easy change to make...

 

[Synicism]

You *should* be afraid of vampires, if they're played right. The thing to remember is that a vampire is only slightly scarier than the base creature. So if your vampire is just some schmuck that got bit, then no, he won't be very nasty. If the vampire has some class levels, on the other hand, then it can really be time to start sweating, especially if it's a class that boosts the vampire's unarmed attacks. When those level-draining blows start coming faster and faster, it's time to worry.

 

[phillcalle]

I still enjoy 3E more than 2E, and your story didn't change anything.

As for your main point. It is now much easier to play D&D as if it were a video game. I don't, but I appreciate its new rigor.

I challenge my players. My monsters have brains (if a wolf pack can be cunning, a group of goblins can be too), my NPCs have motives, and my scenarios have bite. I find this all a lot easier to do in 3E than in 2E.

In my campaign, for example, without a lot of investigation, you would not know what kind of creature you were facing. The villagers say "vampire," but perhaps they are exaggerating the threat or misunderstanding it.

And I don't have a friendly cleric on every corner waiting to restore you. The favors of the gods, even the "good" ones, come with a price greater than that of gold pieces. Considering the hooks that clerics, the servants of the gods, get into your soul, you might be better off healing naturally, if you can.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Re: Re: Vampires don't scare me anymore.

snipped many good points

Yeah, I think 3e has the potential to be a heckuva lot more mysterious, with the way templates and class levels can be added to a vampire (as they can be used on any monster).

 

[Davelozzi]

In the creators’ attempts to explain everything and engineer a system that is simple, accessible and logical, they have in my oh so humble opinion stripped away all the mystery and magic of role-playing. It has become a game of numbers first with role-playing a distant second.

I'm starting to feel that way lately. 3e has many, many improvements over 1e & 2e but it is starting to feel like a big game of number crunching latley. I think it's over-engineered. I feel like I spend all my prep time balancing encounters. A big part of the problem, in my opinion is that whole CR/EL system. By trying to balance everything they've made it too rigid. I wish the designers hadn't made assumptions about how many players would be in my party or how much treasure I wanted to give out.

The simplification of the base mechanics was a big step forward, but I'm starting to feel like it was a lot easier to wing it in 2e when everything was looser.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

They still scare me. TPK'd a party of 13th level adventurers last Friday night. Two years (from 1st level to 13th) and now we gotta start over.

 

[Zappo]

If knowledge of the creature's abilities is the problem, then edition isn't the problem. Actually, 3E wins there because in 2E all vampires were less or more the same while now, between class levels and templates, you could memorize the vampire entry in the MM and still you wouldn't know what to expect.

I do agree on the excessive availability of healing. However, also notice that ability drains are much more common. IMC you won't find a cleric willing to help you just by strolling around downtown.

 

[s/LaSH]

Would you be scared if the ultimate encounter in the very first adventure of the campaign was a vampire? How about a high-level sorceress vampire?

Screwing with expectations is one of my stocks-in-trade. I've never really felt bound by guidelines. It's just handy that your example ties in with what I feel gave my campaign a great kick-off. Opposite experiences, huh?

(The aforementioned fight is now chronicled in my webcomic.)

Then again, I've never really paid attention to the 'suggested guidelines' aspect of 3E. I just had a story and wanted to run it. If all goes to plan, maybe I'll be able to chronicle a little more of the campaign in my webcomic soon. It's pure core rules, with just a tiny little twist, but when you find it out you'll be all, "whoah", and stuff.

 

[arwink]

I'm in the more frightening camp.

In 2e, PC's would find corpses drained of blood and wolf attacks, then load up on the stakes and garlic to combat the beastie. It'd come out, there'd be a fight, they'd search for coffins and that'd be the end of it.

In 3e, the PC's find corpses drained of blood and suffer wolf attacks, then load on stakes and garlic to combat the beastie, then discover that some vampire has bitten a medusa/10th level sorcerer/ogre magic etc etc to make the entire job that much harder.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Memorizing 2e stats was easy. You memorized Hit Dice and AC, maybe damage (if they didn't use a weapon), then any special attacks and special qualities. You didn't need to worry about THAC0, saving throws or (usually) bonus hp, since they were based purely on HD.

In 2e, vampires had 8 HD and 3 bonus hit points. They wore armor, so who cares what their base AC was. They (usually) used weapons, so who cared what their damage score was. Now just memorize Intelligence and Strength scores, and that's it. *Sigh* IMO 2e encounters were so boring, especially if I wasn't designing my own monsters. (Usually mine had some weird attack bonus, or actually had decent AC, or had save bonuses or penalties, and you had to make a save vs wands at -3 to resist it's abilities, etc...)

In 3e, you would have to memorize the ability scores, save DCs, etc... and since the vampire is a template, you can't be sure of that. A medusa sorcerer with the vampire template is very different from your "typical" vampire.