Vampires: How to turn a non-humanoid into one?

[Erywin]

Ok so I had a few random thoughts last night and was wondering if there was any way of turning a non-humanoid into a vampire like creature via templates or anything else. I am pretty open on whats available. Mainly looking to turn monstrous creatures like trolls, minotaurs, ogres, etc into vamp spawns.

Thoughts and suggestions?

Cheers,
E

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

“Vampire” is an acquired template that can be added to any humanoid or monstrous humanoid creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Minotaurs are monstrous humanoids, so no change necessary!

 

[Erywin]

Heh thanks I am still recovering from a very long weekend in Vancouver, guess I glossed over that.

 

[blargney the second]

I can't believe I'm saying this, since you're my DM, but here goes: just do it and don't worry about the prereqs. Do be sure to check the numbers afterwards to make sure they're not stupid powerful in unforeseen ways...

 

[Alzrius]

The dread vampire in Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary can be added to any living creature, so that should get the job done. It's more powerful than the standard vampire, to boot.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Giant Type: A giant is a humanoid-shaped creature of great strength, usually of at least Large size.

And the giant type counts for werewolves. Personally, I'd be willing to accept that anything humanoid-shaped could qualify, which nets you humanoid, monstrous humanoid, giant, and miscellaneous bits of other types on a case-by-case basis. Then you just apply the vampire template.

And if I may suggest one - vampire Ettin!

 

[Erywin]

The dread vampire in Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary can be added to any living creature, so that should get the job done. It's more powerful than the standard vampire, to boot.

EXACTLY what I was looking for Thanks

 

[phindar]

If you want my advice-- and no one does-- I'd say just expand the the vampiric template to giants, and that'll give you trolls and ogres as well as, well, giants. It seems to me like this very issue was covered in some capacity over at the Wizards site on Elite Opponents or Fight Club. But that's either just sticking the vamp template on a demon even though its the wrong type, or making a half-vampiric tauric elf manticore, which is just wacky-sounding. If they had a cool, simple name like, I don't know, Slirges, it wouldn't be so bad, but the whole template-piling-on ends up sounding like some wonky version of a bad D&D political-correctness satire: I'm a half-vampire-tauric-elf-manticore-American type thing. Which, granted, would be virtually assured a spot on the local news team, but that's not what we're debating right now.

There are some templates that might help you, though. Half-troll was mentioned as a way to make a troll (part) humanoid. If I am misremembering that, I apologize, but its from a book I don't own. (Fiend Folio maybe?)

 

[IanB]

Note that WotC themselves cheat from time to time (cf. D&D Minis Unhallowed set, Vampiric Dire Wolf), so if it works flavor-wise and doesn't cause any broken rules issues, I say go for it.

Sticking to RAW, I'm not sure a vampire equivalent of the ghost brute template exists, but I have a nagging feeling like I've seen one somewhere. I'm pretty sure there is at least a vampire dragon template in Draconomicon.

 

[Drowbane]

As the DM, feel free to ignore the "types allowed" list at the top of Templates, they're just guidelines anyways...

This goes for just about any "inconvenient" rule you can think of ... its good to be the DM.

Note that WotC themselves cheat from time to time (cf. D&D Minis Unhallowed set, Vampiric Dire Wolf), so if it works flavor-wise and doesn't cause any broken rules issues, I say go for it...

Vampiric dire wolf mini: not a vampire in wolf form?