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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dykstrav" data-source="post: 4918923" data-attributes="member: 40522">Perhaps a bit more background and my reasoning for wanting to use a vampire would be insightful.The idea of using a vampire is to place a long-term, but comparatively "minor" villain into the campaign for my thinking players. The ones who enjoy mysteries, investigations, and puzzle-solving. Basically, this vampire hides in the crypts beneath a lonely monastery on the edges of civilization. She gets by feeding on the sick and wounded tended in the hospice and is extremely careful to avoid drinking to deeply from any one person to avoid arousing suspicion (she never uses her fangs on such victims, for example). Every once in a while, however, she thirsts for more substantial prey. That's where the PCs come in.When the characters meet her in the local watering hole, she's a pale redhead dressed as one of the monastery's sisters and nursing a goblet of wine by herself. She stands out because she's the classiest dame in the joint and she's quick to attach herself to the characters as an admirer with insinuations of romantic interest. If she can manage to convince one of the characters to "escort her to the monastery," just to make sure she gets home safely... That PC wakes up weak and listless the next day with no memory of what happened after leaving the town's pallisade. I haven't decided the precise game effects yet (perhaps reducing healing surges), but the PC will definitely know something is up.Characters that visit the Monastery will discover that most of the Sisters have heard of "Sister Angela," but can't seem to remember many details or specifics about her. They can't identify which cell is hers or when she comes to devotions or attends meals. Astute PCs may notice the frescoes and paintings in the monastery contain an image of a pale redhead tending the sick and wounded after battles. The Sisters reveal that it is a common image of their angel of death, the psychopomp that appears to the dying and comforts them during their transition to the next world. None of the Sisters seem to think that any of this is strange. (I admit, it may be a bit of DM fiat to extrapolate the dominating gaze power into such a mental fugue and loss of memory, but I think it works).If the characters find "Sister Angela's" crypt beneath the monastery, she fights until bloodied, then assumes mist form to escape (that's why she's a solo, she needs the hit points to take a few rounds of hits, although I'll consider making her an elite instead). She has several bolt-holes scattered throughout the countryside and even a few in town for such occasions. She plans to lay low until the PCs leave town (for years, if necessary) before returning to her lair.Over the course of the campaign, I intend this vampire to be a recurring, but comparatively minor villain. She might harass the characters indirectly by shadowing their movements and poisoning their food and water supplies. She might try to turn people against them by telling townsfolk that the characters abused her, raped her, killed her parents or whatever and using her powers to cement the idea in their minds. By making her an indirect, from-the-shadows type of villain, she could harass the characters over the course of several levels and make their lives very unpleasant.This is basically true. I'm only playing heroic tier for now. We tried playing paragon tier and the game ground to a halt--the monster and PCs had too many hit points and there were too many options for the PCs, so each round took several minutes as the players deliberated, used immediate interrupts, looked up a finer point of a rule or condition, et cetera. We've discovered that we enjoy heroic tier far more and are therefore mostly sticking to that tier of play.</blockquote>

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