D&D 4E Why Vampires Suck in 3.X, and How 4e Can Fix Them

[grimslade]

I don't understand why you'd want to take away the option of playing a vampire (or any other sort of 'monster' PC) when clearly people want to have that option. If you don't want to allow it in your game, that's your call. But saying no one should have the option is a little short sighted.

I think for me it's more of 'I hope they don't waste development time on MM1 and PHB1 to create a playable vampire for a small subset of players'. Down the road, let them rock your socks off, but out of the gate I don't think 4E should bother.

To create a playable vampire class/race will take a very subtle balance to not piss everyone off. I would rather they took their time and learn from the Warlock class, then apply it to vampire PCs, ghoul PCs, and Chimeric Half-Fiend Illithid PCs in a future supplement. One a lot more in depth than Savage Species.

 

[Insight]

Here's the problem with that line of thinking. In 3.x, people playing monsters as PCs wasn't planned very well, and the designers had to create a system (LA) to allow people to do it. If the system had been designed to allow for it from the beginning, LA or the equivalent would have been implemented much more cleanly.

I have no problem with vampire characters not being available in the PHB or the MM1, but the designers should build the system with the idea in mind that PCs might take on templates or whatever the 4e equivalent happens to be. What I don't want to see is another system that's stapled on because the designers didn't foresee changes that might come.

 

[Scribble]

And in many of the old stories, vampires flee from humans attacking them. Even completely ordinary humans can fight with vampires without getting immediately killed by their "superhuman strength". Buffy and Blade and the like have popularized the vampire as the brute, but in the early stories, they were more about their shapeshifting, passing through walls

While I will admit he did in fact use more guile, and trickery in the book then outright strength, Van Helsing describes Dracula as having the strength of twenty men.

I think the point of it was they knew they couldn't defeat him by shear strength, so they had to sue human ingenuity...

 

[grimslade]

Here's the problem with that line of thinking. In 3.x, people playing monsters as PCs wasn't planned very well, and the designers had to create a system (LA) to allow people to do it. If the system had been designed to allow for it from the beginning, LA or the equivalent would have been implemented much more cleanly.

I have no problem with vampire characters not being available in the PHB or the MM1, but the designers should build the system with the idea in mind that PCs might take on templates or whatever the 4e equivalent happens to be. What I don't want to see is another system that's stapled on because the designers didn't foresee changes that might come.

I am hoping that the underlying mechanics of 4E will be able to accomplish this. The problem with a 3.X solution is it is stapled on PrCs, LA, and even the racial class thing in Libris Mortis are new mechanics tacked on to 3E's existing mechanics.

Depending on how robust the incorporation of racial feats/talent trees are, vampire PCs could be created seamlessly into existing mechanics. It all depends on how granular you can make a vampire. The break down of abilities into powers at certain levels will be a herculean task. It will be a necessary task, however, to create a viable vampire PC.

 

[Anthtriel]

The break down of abilities into powers at certain levels will be a herculean task. It will be a necessary task, however, to create a viable vampire PC.

Not necessarily "herculean", as long as the number of powers are strongly limited (no one says it must be possible to have nothing but vampire powers), but it would definitely take additional effort that they most likely won't put in. But it would be possible and is possible in splatbooks.

 

[lukelightning]

Van Helsing describes Dracula as having the strength of twenty men.

I have the strength of twenty men too. Just not twenty men at the same time.

 

[Seeten]

I have the strength of twenty men too. Just not twenty men at the same time.

Or 20 wussy men.

 

[Imp]

Vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer start pretty ineffectual, too. Dangerous to a average commoner, but not to a skilled fighter who is ready for one.

Erng, not really, they have all their "powers" such as they are right offhand... they just get cannier and very very gradually stronger with age ( = gaining regular levels through experience)... but Buffy vampires are super stylized and there's a bit of power inflation amongst the protagonists in general through the course of the series. The vamps don't spend days discovering a loathing for light, craving for blood, ability to fly, etc... they pop out of the grave quite literally swinging.

 

[pemerton]

When someone becomes a vampire, they don't just become a little stronger with a niggling dislike of sunlike, and slowly gain their strength, reflexes, and vulnerabilities over the course of weeks or months. They go all in. They die, they rise again as vampires, and they immediately get the whole shebang.

As Anthtriel has said, this can be modelled by a Vampire Spawn template/monster for commoners etc. It doesn't have to apply to PCs.

And in general, I don't quite follow your certitude as to the abilities and vulnerabilities that a vampire must have. As Anthtriel has pointed out, these can be quite varied across fictional sources (eg Dracula is not destroyed by sunlight).

That just throws up another problem. For that to work, vampires would have to be barred from using magic items. Otherwise, you'd have a guy who's a vampire as well as all the usual equipment for a character of his level, and once again he's overpowered. But on the other hand, there's no justification whatsoever for saying that a vampire can't use magic items.

The GM could make sure the vampire doesn't have items eg by not handing any out, or by requiring the vampire PC to pay a "tithe" (perhaps justified as purchasing the rare ingredients necessary to maintain a degree of un-health, or whateverk), or by other techniques that I haven't thought of yet, but that every other game in which items must be paid for using character points has used.

These things you say can't be done - other game systems do them. Why can't D&D?

 

[DM_Matt]

Erng, not really, they have all their "powers" such as they are right offhand... they just get cannier and very very gradually stronger with age ( = gaining regular levels through experience)... but Buffy vampires are super stylized and there's a bit of power inflation amongst the protagonists in general through the course of the series. The vamps don't spend days discovering a loathing for light, craving for blood, ability to fly, etc... they pop out of the grave quite literally swinging.

Agreed. Its all about class levels. Lots of fighter levels for Spike, Angel, Darla, Sunday, etc, wizard levels for Dracula (he had the same power set as DnD vampires, and it was attributed to his knowledge of gypsy magic), Drusila, etc. Only ridiculously old vamps like The Master and Kakistos changed with age.