# Vampire in play



## pauljathome (Apr 24, 2011)

Somebody brought a Vampire character to yesterdays LFR game, and man is it awful in that context.

I'm not at all talking about the mechanics. I'm talking about the flavour.

First, we had the massive problem of "And why are we adventuring with a vampire and not just killing it on sight?" Its LFR so we just muttered and ignored the problem but it was definitely there.

But the main problem is that the character didn't feel like any vampire out of any fiction that I've ever read (note, I have NOT seen nor read the Eclipse books). 

Some of the issues are arguably build issues. But only really a little.

The character was a 5th level character.  He was supposed to be centuries old. But had, of course, absolutely nothing in game terms to show that. No knowledge of history (admittedly this is a  class skill but that barely helps. If the player had cared to waste the points they could have made the character barely competent at history. Way worse than the Eladrin mage in the party, of course, but at least vaguely competent.

The character had no ability to smell blood (this actually came up on screen). No supernatural senses except for dark vision.

Strength was his dump stat so we have a physically weak vampire.

He has some thematic powers but he desperately needs far more flavourful powers. And unfortunately in D&D where just about EVERYBODY can do weird stuff like push and pull characters around thematic powers like Dark Beckoning become far less interesting

The only thing that made him at all seem like a Vampire was the fact that everybody hated him on sight .

I think that making the Vampire a class was a significant mistake. Heck, I'm not at all sure that making it a PC at all was a good decision. You just cannot create a balanced low level vampire that is going to remotely seem like a vampire.


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 24, 2011)

id venture to say that the player is at fault, not the character. If you wanted to play a vampire effectively in my opinion youd have to go the amnesia or reformed route. That meaning that your character recently just awoke as a vampire with no recollection of their previous life, or that they have spent the majority of their existance in a bloodsoaked haze and has only recently managed to conquer their bloodlust. This means that despite any sort of advanced age they may have does not factor into the fact that they are level 1. If they were going the centuries old route it wouldnt hurt for the character to occasionally bring up historical factoids (i remember when this tomb was built!). Ideally any vampire character to be played well must do so with an aura of mystery and if possible not letting on that they are a vampire at all (like you said, everyone can do those powers) until they become bloodied or turn into a bat.


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## Ryujin (Apr 24, 2011)

A party really must fit, thematically, for it to be believable or even functional, on a role playing level. For example I can't imagine a Vampire living for more than the first few rounds, if he tries to join a party with a Cleric and Paladin of Kelemvor in it. Want to play a Vampire? Then it likely belongs in a darkly-themes party of Assassins, Rogues, Warlocks....


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 24, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> A party really must fit, thematically, for it to be lelievable or even functional, on a role playing level. For example I can't imagine a Vampire living for more than the first few rounds, if he tries to join a party with a Cleric and Paladin of Kelemvor in it. Want to play a Vampire? Then it likely belongs in a darkly-themes party of Assassins, Rogues, Warlocks....




Which is again the theme of HoS. I would like to propose a VERY interesting idea for a vampire character hanging out with a paladin of kelemvor and a cleric of aumantor. What if the character was once a member of the party and they were forced to leave him to die at the hands of vampires, and he has returned as one, but with the desire to cure himself or use his power for good? If the divine PCs are wracked with guilt over being responsible for the PCs condition such a character could coexist in the party, and even create some interesting tension.


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## Ryujin (Apr 24, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> Which is again the theme of HoS. I would like to propose a VERY interesting idea for a vampire character hanging out with a paladin of kelemvor and a cleric of aumantor. What if the character was once a member of the party and they were forced to leave him to die at the hands of vampires, and he has returned as one, but with the desire to cure himself or use his power for good? If the divine PCs are wracked with guilt over being responsible for the PCs condition such a character could coexist in the party, and even create some interesting tension.




I might have suggested just that if it weren't for the fact that Wizards decided to make Vampire a class, rather than a race. Redemption is a rather good character arc but, if everything that the character is and does is based on that fate, how do you 'fix' it?

The only way that I could see, would be running right into Epic and killing Orcus.


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## pauljathome (Apr 24, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> Which is again the theme of HoS. I would like to propose a VERY interesting idea for a vampire character hanging out with a paladin of kelemvor and a cleric of aumantor. What if the character was once a member of the party and they were forced to leave him to die at the hands of vampires, and he has returned as one, but with the desire to cure himself or use his power for good? If the divine PCs are wracked with guilt over being responsible for the PCs condition such a character could coexist in the party, and even create some interesting tension.




I'd have thought that the most appropriate and merciful thing to do would be just to kill the cursed friend so that his soul could go to whatever reward awaits it.


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## Dannager (Apr 24, 2011)

I'm also gonna go with the "This is a player/group problem" line. There are plenty of odd character options out there already that might require an adventuring group to come up with some quick rationalizations to maintain suspension of disbelief.

But, yeah, it sure would be helpful if WotC put out a guide to playing stereotypically evil character options.


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## Dice4Hire (Apr 24, 2011)

Dannager said:


> But, yeah, it sure would be helpful if WotC put out a guide to playing stereotypically evil character options.




Not really. That is really a guide to evil parties or games, not eveil characters in a good party, which is what this thread is about. 

In the end, this is why I did not buy HoS. It does not fit my play style or my group's playstyle, nor, I would argue, D&D's typical playstyle. Sure, it can be done, but making options ofr that segment of the whole playing group is not a good idea.

I'm afraid there will be poor sales of the upcoming books and that will convince WOTC that book sales are not the way to go, kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.


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## Dausuul (Apr 24, 2011)

Dice4Hire said:


> Not really. That is really a guide to evil parties or games, not eveil characters in a good party, which is what this thread is about.
> 
> In the end, this is why I did not buy HoS. It does not fit my play style or my group's playstyle, nor, I would argue, D&D's typical playstyle. Sure, it can be done, but making options ofr that segment of the whole playing group is not a good idea.




Do you know how many obsessive vampire fans there are out there? "Heroes of Shadow" could have been titled "This Book Lets You Play A Vampire" and it would probably sell _better_ for it.

Even setting that aside, the market for dark-themed PCs is and has always been quite strong. Just because you and your group don't like them doesn't mean there aren't plenty of folks who do.


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## Dannager (Apr 24, 2011)

Dice4Hire said:


> Not really. That is really a guide to evil parties or games,




No, it's not. You should probably read the article I linked. The article is about playing a member of a stereotypically evil race, and how to convince people you're _not_ one of those stereotypically evil individuals. It has nothing to do with being part of an evil party, and it has nothing to do with an "evil game". In fact, most of the article is spent giving you tips on how to survive playing a _heroic_ character who happens to be from a monstrous race.


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 24, 2011)

Dannager said:


> No, it's not. You should probably read the article I linked. The article is about playing a member of a stereotypically evil race, and how to convince people you're _not_ one of those stereotypically evil individuals. It has nothing to do with being part of an evil party, and it has nothing to do with an "evil game". In fact, most of the article is spent giving you tips on how to survive playing a _heroic_ character who happens to be from a monstrous race.




Its actually pretty good and quite funny,and they try to avoid the Drizzt card when possible =P. I especially love the idea that the PCs dont have a Monster Manul item in their party, so they may, or may not actually know if said monstrous creature/race is in fact, EVIL. As far as a vamps go, the PCs could only have heard legends and campfire stories, and those could be about evil nightstalkers or about cursed heroes, its up to you to decide that. Hell, the PCs may not even believe that Vampires exist and its only a legend. Besides, if a monster says "wait dont shoot!" theres a halfway decent chance they may listen, then you could use you know, your SKILLS to decide if they are lying to you about being evil.

 Being mr.negative about "WotC is gonna crash and burn" isnt even close to the topic at hand, which is trying to get a vampire PC to fit into a group, and whether or not it is possible under certain circumstances. As far as i see it, you dont need a particularly dark group to have a vamp in your group. If anything, i see vamps as yet another group of odd and interesting characters, like a minotaur or a shardmind, or even a psion, all of which could possibly blow the mind of your average peasant.


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## Argyle King (Apr 25, 2011)

vampires suck!


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## Nyghthawk (Apr 25, 2011)

Johnny3D3D said:


> vampires suck!



Quite literally too!

I haven't got my copy of HoS yet, but you could probably pass a vampire off as a canabalistic rouge until he turns into a bat unless they are very open about their vamparism. If someone thinks the canibalistic thing is disgusting the vampire could say its a custom where they come from. 
Another thing they could do is say that they are trying to find a cure for vampirism, which has already been mentioned but that is probably the best thing to do.
The guide to playing an evil race is probably helpful for a vampire, i've read it over and I like what it says about fitting in with a normal group.


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## Klaus (Apr 25, 2011)

pauljathome said:


> Somebody brought a Vampire character to yesterdays LFR game, and man is it awful in that context.
> 
> I'm not at all talking about the mechanics. I'm talking about the flavour.
> 
> ...



If the player wants to be a centuries-old vampire, he has the burden of reflecting that concept through his build. Taking History as a trained skill is the least he should do. If the player doesn't do even that, the class is not at fault (it *does* offer History as a class skill). He could even go so far as to take the Skill Power feat and take the History skill power that allows the character to replace any knowledge check with a History check.

Re: Strength as a dump stat: a character with Str 8 and Dex 19 can look physically weak (like so many vampires in fiction and movies), but still punch an enemy with the force of a musclebound, hulking barbarian.

Re: Smell Blood: Perception is a class skill for the vampire. A ranger trained in Perception might describe it as a knowledge of tracking, while a vampire chalks it up to acute senses.


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 25, 2011)

Klaus said:


> If the player wants to be a centuries-old vampire, he has the burden of reflecting that concept through his build. Taking History as a trained skill is the least he should do. If the player doesn't do even that, the class is not at fault (it *does* offer History as a class skill). He could even go so far as to take the Skill Power feat and take the History skill power that allows the character to replace any knowledge check with a History check.
> 
> Re: Strength as a dump stat: a character with Str 8 and Dex 19 can look physically weak (like so many vampires in fiction and movies), but still punch an enemy with the force of a musclebound, hulking barbarian.
> 
> Re: Smell Blood: Perception is a class skill for the vampire. A ranger trained in Perception might describe it as a knowledge of tracking, while a vampire chalks it up to acute senses.




Right, which is EXACTLY why 4e calls the skill 'Perception' and not 'Listen' or 'Spot Hidden', etc. 

I can't think of any reason why a weak vampire couldn't work either. Just because some vampire in some movie or book happens to be extraordinarily strong doesn't mean it has to be true for all of them. It could also be explained by say "I refrain from drinking my fill of human blood, therefor I am weak." etc. 

Obviously there are going to be some people that have a problem coming up with a background/fluff that works well with their character, but this is not a vampire issue. At best you might complain WotC could give more ideas on that score, but actually they do a pretty good job.


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## Incenjucar (Apr 25, 2011)

Flavor and fluff is definitely the least of the vampire's concerns. Many players and DMs have expressed difficulty using their imaginations to make things work over the years, such as the group that simply can't wrap their minds around martial dailies or encounter powers.


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 25, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> Flavor and fluff is definitely the least of the vampire's concerns. Many players and DMs have expressed difficulty using their imaginations to make things work over the years, such as the group that simply can't wrap their minds around martial dailies or encounter powers.




I find that people who cant think outside the box are the ones who have trouble adapting play. This could be an undue legacy of video games (you do this or this, and NOTHING ELSE!!!!!). What it comes down to is concentrating less on what is written in the description and more on how you can perceive it. I think there was a great series of articles describing how martial at wills could "work" but for the life of me i dont remember where they are. I also think that people are trying to force the vampire concept from what they see in movies and such (sparkly, evil, etc) when there is a plethora of odd and extravagant ways to reskin your vampire. I love the idea of the cannibalistic rogue, hell, in a dark sun game your Halfling Vampire wouldnt even get noticed until he turns into a bat!


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 25, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> I find that people who cant think outside the box are the ones who have trouble adapting play. This could be an undue legacy of video games (you do this or this, and NOTHING ELSE!!!!!). What it comes down to is concentrating less on what is written in the description and more on how you can perceive it. I think there was a great series of articles describing how martial at wills could "work" but for the life of me i dont remember where they are. I also think that people are trying to force the vampire concept from what they see in movies and such (sparkly, evil, etc) when there is a plethora of odd and extravagant ways to reskin your vampire. I love the idea of the cannibalistic rogue, hell, in a dark sun game your Halfling Vampire wouldnt even get noticed until he turns into a bat!




lol, yeah, who knows? I think those people always existed. 

I'm not sure why everyone is TOO torched about Vampire anyway. Most of its stuff is leveled powers. It can always be expanded. That would be the very simple way to just add more types of vampire that are covered. Every new power opens up a bunch of combinations of options. Other versions could also be alternate builds with different variations of class features. They can pretty much all use some fluffing of the draining blood stuff since they're all some sort of Vampire.


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## Lostdwarf (Apr 25, 2011)

I think  at least part of this was probably issues with the player, not the class.  A "hundreds of years old" vampire is at minimum Paragon tier, possibly even Epic.  A level 5 vampire has been around the block a few times, but he is just starting to get into his grove.  By the time the same character is in early paragon many more of those classic vampire abilites would have appeared.

Also, not to type cast, but I have the bad feelling that the guy who shows up at a living campaign game with a Vampire in hand has a higher than average chance of being the kind of guy that in previous editions would be playing the chaotic neutral with evil tendencies rogue and "role playing" his way to total party destruction and group conflict.  Some people just get off on this at some level.  The best solution is to beat them with lengths of rebar.  And I mean the player, not the character.

Also, while I respect the right of people to want to play this kind of stuff, it can present some serious RP issues.  It really, really, has to be the right group.  If you roll up on your standard DnD group with a Dwarven paladin of Moradin and a Cleric of Pelor and say "Hey Guys Im a undead creature of the night, want ot go get some fat xp in the dungeon?"  things  are going to go downhill in a hurry.  Either it has to be a campaign that really is just nothing but dungeon busting and no story, or one set up where complex storytelling can overcome the more obvious confllicts that will arise.


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## Incenjucar (Apr 25, 2011)

I wouldn't blame video games. It may be the result of particular aspects of one's personal background, or simply the nature of the person. Regardless of where it comes from, it's an issue that will continue to occur in the future. Hopefully something will be done to mitigate it a bit - the recent anti-hero article is a good example. More examples could be to have additional lists of reflavoring and story-building ideas. It is, frankly, a shame to feel that the game is limited by to the official text, so alternatives should be made visible for those who simply must follow authority so that the MECHANICS of a thing can be reshaped into new IDEAS that work better for the party. There are dozens of ways to re-imagine the vampire into something else - the only real thing that they're saddled with is being undead, but making sympathetic undead hardly takes any imagination. Plenty of room for Casper.


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## Kinneus (Apr 25, 2011)

Failure of imagination is not a failure of mechanics.

Also; part of the problem is that people who really love vampires expect vampires to be good at _everything_. So... vampires should be strong and know everything about history, _in addition_ to being preternaturally fast, able to mind-control foes, turn into giant black dogs and swarms of bats, turn into mist to escape a foe, jump twenty feet high without a running start, never age, have unnatural toughness and the power to regenerate by feasting on the blood of others... where does it stop?

All-powerful vampires are okay in a setting like Vampire: The Masquerade, where _everybody_ is a vampire, but in D&D, if the vampire in question is expected to share the limelight with some lowly, warm-blooded mortals, they should be prepared to accept some mechanical drawbacks. Not being super-smart and not being super-strong (in exchange for having tons of shapeshifting powers, regeneration, and super-speed) seems fair and the most themeatically consistant of all possible drawbacks.


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## Dausuul (Apr 25, 2011)

Lostdwarf said:


> I think  at least part of this was probably issues with the player, not the class.  A "hundreds of years old" vampire is at minimum Paragon tier, possibly even Epic.  A level 5 vampire has been around the block a few times, but he is just starting to get into his grove.  By the time the same character is in early paragon many more of those classic vampire abilites would have appeared.




This is exactly right. Playing a 1st-level vampire and saying "I'm centuries old" is like playing a 1st-level cleric and saying "I'm the high priest of my religion," or playing a 1st-level fighter and saying "My armor is made from the scales of the elder dragon I killed." It is not the fault of the mechanics if your heroic-tier stats can't back up your epic-tier concept.


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## ppaladin123 (Apr 25, 2011)

I can certainly imagine a centuries old vampire who, suffering from ennui and alienation, essentially abandons his ties to the world and stops paying attention to the trifling affairs of mortals. Such a vampire might have a quite poor grasp of history; it never seemed worth his time.


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## Nork (Apr 25, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> A party really must fit, thematically, for it to be lelievable or even functional, on a role playing level. For example I can't imagine a Vampire living for more than the first few rounds, if he tries to join a party with a Cleric and Paladin of Kelemvor in it. Want to play a Vampire? Then it likely belongs in a darkly-themes party of Assassins, Rogues, Warlocks....




At first glance yes, but at second glance no.

The problem with 'I am going to attack you because your _evil_!!!!!' paladins and clerics is that they wouldn't last two microseconds in a group of people.  People might not _like_ someone, even have deep reservations about their character/goals, and they might argue constantly or even have it escalate into a fist fight in a particularly bad point, but it is a quantum leap to anything beyond that.

It is a quantum leap because being the one to actually turn on a member of a group is going to get you backballed by that group so fast it will make your head spin.  So if a group has a vampire and a paladin, and the vampire can keep their hands to themselves and the paladin can not, then the group has a vampire.  The one thing that a group or an organization will not tolerate is a traitor.


As for how to explain a vampire in a party, well that is honestly pretty easy.  Adversity makes strange bedfellows, and once someone has proven their loyalty it takes a lot to break that bond (i.e. turning on the others, and if the paladin does it first, the paladin is done).  Even if none of them can stand each other.


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## Ryujin (Apr 25, 2011)

Nork said:


> At first glance yes, but at second glance no.
> 
> The problem with 'I am going to attack you because your _evil_!!!!!' paladins and clerics is that they wouldn't last two microseconds in a group of people.  People might not _like_ someone, even have deep reservations about their character/goals, and they might argue constantly or even have it escalate into a fist fight in a particularly bad point, but it is a quantum leap to anything beyond that.
> 
> ...




But just HOW is that 'undead creature' a part of the party? It isn't necessarily about the character being evil, as much as it is about it being unnatural. The characters who are morally opposed to the idea of the undead aren't necessarily against them, based on an alignment difference.

I could perhaps see such characters seeing a need to help a treasured friend, to overcome his 'curse', but how do you explain the vampire who just walks into a party (pardon the expression) cold? It just ain't gonna happen. At best, he'll be turned away; worst, he'll be set on fire. That's not "turning on a member of the group" because he most definitely isn't a member of the group, in role playing terms.

You're making an assumption that the vampire somehow has ties to the party that simply don't exist, unless they've somehow been built. I would say that it's the duty of the player who wants to play such a character, to come up with a reasonable background as to why he would be accepted.



Kinneus said:


> Failure of imagination is not a failure of mechanics.
> 
> Also; part of the problem is that people who really love vampires expect vampires to be good at _everything_. So... vampires should be strong and know everything about history, _in addition_ to being preternaturally fast, able to mind-control foes, turn into giant black dogs and swarms of bats, turn into mist to escape a foe, jump twenty feet high without a running start, never age, have unnatural toughness and the power to regenerate by feasting on the blood of others... where does it stop?
> 
> All-powerful vampires are okay in a setting like Vampire: The Masquerade, where _everybody_ is a vampire, but in D&D, if the vampire in question is expected to share the limelight with some lowly, warm-blooded mortals, they should be prepared to accept some mechanical drawbacks. Not being super-smart and not being super-strong (in exchange for having tons of shapeshifting powers, regeneration, and super-speed) seems fair and the most themeatically consistant of all possible drawbacks.




Oddly enough my experience with "Vampire: The Masquerade" had the completely opposite effect, on my belief in the invincible vampire.  The characters were the weakest things around, aside from regular humans. I lost count of the number of times that other vampires or weres tossed me through a wall, leaving me inches from torpor. No matter who you are, there's always someone tougher.

*EDIT* Oh, and spam reported.


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## wayne62682 (Apr 25, 2011)

In a normal campaign I could see some issues with a vampire PC.  But in LFR it's basically a mismatched assortment of oddballs every time, so a vampire doesn't strike me as that odd unless the party also had a religious type of Kelemvor who might not like the walking dead being around them.

The OP's post sounds more like a problem with a group that were all like "Lawl new Vampire class what a scrub".  Now the class itself might be underpowered but all I got from the initial post is that the other players (keep in mind this was an LFR game so it's random who turns up) were being stupid and trying to come up with reasons to screw over the vampire PC _simply_ because he was a vampire PC.


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## TwoSix (Apr 25, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> I find that people who cant think outside the box are the ones who have trouble adapting play. This could be an undue legacy of video games (you do this or this, and NOTHING ELSE!!!!!). What it comes down to is concentrating less on what is written in the description and more on how you can perceive it. I think there was a great series of articles describing how martial at wills could "work" but for the life of me i dont remember where they are. I also think that people are trying to force the vampire concept from what they see in movies and such (sparkly, evil, etc) when there is a plethora of odd and extravagant ways to reskin your vampire. I love the idea of the cannibalistic rogue, hell, in a dark sun game your Halfling Vampire wouldnt even get noticed until he turns into a bat!




Yea, calcified expectations are everywhere.  I know several old-school players who can't handle things like Book of Nine Swords for the same reason (fighters can't use spells!).


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## Obryn (Apr 25, 2011)

wayne62682 said:


> The OP's post sounds more like a problem with a group that were all like "Lawl new Vampire class what a scrub".  Now the class itself might be underpowered but all I got from the initial post is that the other players (keep in mind this was an LFR game so it's random who turns up) were being stupid and trying to come up with reasons to screw over the vampire PC _simply_ because he was a vampire PC.



I'm sure it was much more jarring than all the Rogues and Thieves who picked up proficiency in a weapon they will never use to qualify for a paragon path they mostly won't use in order to get its L16 feature and nothing else.

I mean, that makes a lot more sense than a vampire! 

-O


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## GMforPowergamers (Apr 25, 2011)

I wonder what those same palidns that hate undead did when revrents entered the party??

or worse, what if oneplayer hadan infernal warlock... i mean they draw power from a deal with devils...big nono

or OMG a Drow Dark Warlock...

or heck a drow anything... becus ethose guys get such good press in the realms.


Good thing the vampire is the first time WotC published something that made players have to work with things not perfectly in line with there characters... or we would have hd 3 years of problems...


This is really starting to bug me now. If I want to play angel (who was far from a historian, even being hundreds of years old) and you are playing a paliden who hates undead... maybe your being he problem not me. I showed up with my character to have fun, you chowed up with yours dislikeing BOTH an excaptable race and Class... 



Infact If I were running an LFR game I would ask the paliden to leave the table or switch to a non disruptive character... becuse being ANTI another player is bad form.  Now if there are no Drow PCs and you hate drow, fine... but if there are other PCs playing drow then check that at the door.


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## pauljathome (Apr 25, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, which is EXACTLY why 4e calls the skill 'Perception' and not 'Listen' or 'Spot Hidden', etc.
> 
> Obviously there are going to be some people that have a problem coming up with a background/fluff that works well with their character, but this is not a vampire issue. At best you might complain WotC could give more ideas on that score, but actually they do a pretty good job.




Replying to several posts at once :

I disagree with this. Yes, the player could have gimped his character and bought up wisdom and intelligence a little and bought skills that don't actually synergize with the mechanics of a striker very well.

And if he'd done that he'd STILL be worse at perception than the human cleric who trains in perception and STILL be worse at history than the human wizard who trains history.

Personally, I find it hard to accept fluff that says "I have this really, really good sense of smell" when the rules say "No, you actually don't".

And I find it hard to believe that my vampire character is strong when he can't smash open a door or open a jar of peanuts .

As for that WOTC article, suddenly because there is a Vampire PC the world shifts and my 5th level character with Arcana and Religion as trained skills doesn't know anything about vampires? Yeah, right.

I definitely understand that vampires are the in thing right now. I (mostly) think that implementing them as a class wasn't the right design choice. I think the old 3rd edition method of applying a template was just better (albeit it had lots of problems). And yes, this DOES mean that a starting 1st level character cannot be a vampire. Deal.


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## pauljathome (Apr 25, 2011)

wayne62682 said:


> In a normal campaign I could see some issues with a vampire PC.  But in LFR it's basically a mismatched assortment of oddballs every time, so a vampire doesn't strike me as that odd unless the party also had a religious type of Kelemvor who might not like the walking dead being around them.
> 
> The OP's post sounds more like a problem with a group that were all like "Lawl new Vampire class what a scrub".  Now the class itself might be underpowered but all I got from the initial post is that the other players (keep in mind this was an LFR game so it's random who turns up) were being stupid and trying to come up with reasons to screw over the vampire PC _simply_ because he was a vampire PC.




The exact opposite, actually. We were going through gyrations trying to figure out WHY we weren't killing the Vampire. In character (I'm playing a Good aligned druid) of COURSE I'd kill a vampire. They're evil bloodsucking abominations against nature. Why the heck would I ever go adventuring with one? At best I'd pass on this mission and go on the next mission that comes along.

Part of the problem is that a vampire is more obviously a vampire than things like revenants are instantly obvious. Even commoners recognized one pretty easily.

In game we just totally ignored this. In LFR one has little choice but to do that. But it was a glaring disconnect. 

And then, as a "reward", we got to play with a character that just didn't "feel" like a vampire in any meaningful way. The player didn't really enjoy it because he couldn't do the "cool" flavourful things that he wanted to do (be centuries old, smell blood were the things that came up during the session).


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 25, 2011)

pauljathome said:


> And if he'd done that he'd STILL be worse at perception than the human cleric who trains in perception and STILL be worse at history than the human wizard who trains history.




This has nothing to do with the vampire class at all. This is a genral design flaw of the skill proficiency system.

Classes should give bonuses to certain skills just like Races do. Skill training should only give another +2 bonus. Classes should increase their main skills with some little bonuses per tier.

So you should get +2 from race, maximum +5 from atttribute and at least +3 for being a class skill. and another +2 from skill training and maybe another +2 from skill focus. You should get only a small number of skill trainings at level 1 and bonus feats to get skill training/fokus at some numbered levels (maybe X3, X6 and X9)

+2 bonus to class skills at level 11 and 21.

This way you would allow anyone who is from the right class to have its +5 bonus without effort. And other classes can only get to +7 maximum (eladrin education to arcana and shade stealth training as the only exceptions coming to my mind)

the +2 bonus per tier makes sure classes with perfect stats for the skill are not surpassing your classes bonuses.


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## Zaran (Apr 25, 2011)

I haven't looked at the class but does it actuallly have sufficient skill slots to pick skills like History and Perception?

Even though I'm a HoS-Hater, I haven't seen any real design flaws with the Vampire because like it's been mentioned, they have access to both Perception and History.  

Then again, if he actually had a backstory thought up like it sounds (being hundreds of years old)  that's more than I have seen with alot of players.  Most players I have seen make the Class first and then come up with a backstory after several sessions.   The fact that this guy had a story and was trying to roleplay a few hundred year old vampire shouldn't be derided for not having the skill slots for History.


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## Moorcrys (Apr 25, 2011)

I play LFR. It's a carnival of unthemed races and classes jammed together session after session. I don't see why your party would be so against playing with a vampire in your group in LFR... I have to run around with gnolls, orcs, and minotaurs frequently. What's the difference? And revenants are ok? 

"Oh, well, that's the good undead abomination with us... not the bloodsucking undead abomination... there's a HUGE difference you see."


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## Klaus (Apr 25, 2011)

pauljathome said:


> Replying to several posts at once :
> 
> I disagree with this. Yes, the player could have gimped his character and bought up wisdom and intelligence a little and bought skills that don't actually synergize with the mechanics of a striker very well.
> 
> ...



If you think training Perception and History is "gimping" the character, the class is not at fault.

And you seem to be forgetting the Level 4 utility that lets a vampire make Strength, Athletics and Endurance checks with a +5 bonus (+10 if you spend a healing surge). That means your wimpy vampire can batter down a door as if he were a fighter with Strength 20 (or a Strength 30 giant if he spends a surge).

You also must remember that a Wisdom 20 cleric trained in Perception isn't a regular Joe. That's a divinely-powered character whose senses expand into the Astral Sea. The Intelligence 20 wizard is a genius with perfect recall that has pored over books for most of his life. You can match either simply by being who you are. It's like Dracula matching wits with Van Helsing, or Angel discussing magic with Giles or Willow.


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## pauljathome (Apr 25, 2011)

Klaus said:


> If you think training Perception and History is "gimping" the character, the class is not at fault.
> 
> And you seem to be forgetting the Level 4 utility that lets a vampire make Strength, Athletics and Endurance checks with a +5 bonus (+10 if you spend a healing surge). That means your wimpy vampire can batter down a door as if he were a fighter with Strength 20 (or a Strength 30 giant if he spends a surge).
> 
> You also must remember that a Wisdom 20 cleric trained in Perception isn't a regular Joe. That's a divinely-powered character whose senses expand into the Astral Sea. The Intelligence 20 wizard is a genius with perfect recall that has pored over books for most of his life. You can match either simply by being who you are. It's like Dracula matching wits with Van Helsing, or Angel discussing magic with Giles or Willow.




The gimping is way more putting points into intelligence and wisdom than buying the skills. Without a decent stat bonus the difference between trained and untrained skills is basically "Well, I suck a little less".

I wasn't playing the vampire so I didn't know about the utility. That does help somewhat.


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## CelticMutt (Apr 25, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> I might have suggested just that if it weren't for the fact that Wizards decided to make Vampire a class, rather than a race. Redemption is a rather good character arc but, if everything that the character is and does is based on that fate, how do you 'fix' it?
> 
> The only way that I could see, would be running right into Epic and killing Orcus.



They DID make a vampire race - the Vryloka.  It's in the same book as the class.


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## pauljathome (Apr 25, 2011)

Moorcrys said:


> I play LFR. It's a carnival of unthemed races and classes jammed together session after session. I don't see why your party would be so against playing with a vampire in your group in LFR... I have to run around with gnolls, orcs, and minotaurs frequently. What's the difference? And revenants are ok?
> 
> "Oh, well, that's the good undead abomination with us... not the bloodsucking undead abomination... there's a HUGE difference you see."




I haven't played that much LFR but from what I've seen its nowhere near that bad around here. There has been one revenant character but my character didn't know it was a revenant until AFTER we'd done the PC bonding thing. 

I just glanced at the compendium for Revenants. Its extremely contradictory in how it describes revenants. They first say that "Revenants do not appear as undead horrors" and then describe an appearance that is pretty clearly that  of, uh, an undead horror.

The player was assuming that he could pass for human and I never realized until just now that maybe that wasn't quite so obvious.

I'm probably showing my age but "Vampire" also has a LOT more emotional resonance and baggage with me than "revenant". 

I also was NOT the only one at the table to have the same reaction. Even the player of the revenant (he was playing a different character) reacted in a similar fashion. As did the GM.

For the record, I've always thought that 4th edition has gone WAY too far in making monstrous races socially acceptable. I played in the Giant modules when Drow were first invented. The reaction to a Drow walking into a bar should be one of sheer panic. Kill it if you can, flee if you can't. The vampire just brings out that reaction in spades.


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## Ryujin (Apr 25, 2011)

CelticMutt said:


> They DID make a vampire race - the Vryloka.  It's in the same book as the class.




More of a creature with a vampiric bloodline, but that doesn't seem to be what we're discussing here. We're talking about the Vampire class.

But how would you handle a Vryloka (race) Vampire (class) getting rid of his 'curse', anyway?


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## P1NBACK (Apr 25, 2011)

I don't get why a vampire would be trained in History just because they have lived for a long time... I can barely remember what happened to me 10 years ago, let alone 100s of years.


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## abyssaldeath (Apr 25, 2011)

P1NBACK said:


> I don't get why would a vampire be trained in History just because they lived for a long time... I can barely remember what happened to me 10 years ago, let alone 100s of years.




Agree'd. A long lived Vampire is no different than a long lived Elf.


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## Klaus (Apr 25, 2011)

Here's a vampire geared towards "centuries-old, heightened senses":



> ====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
> Human, Vampire
> Human Power Selection Option: Heroic Effort
> Human - Ancestral Holdings (+2 to History)
> ...




Disciple of Shadows gives Darkvision 2, and Alertness gives immunity to surprise and +2 Perception. These represent the vampire's heightened senses.

Legend Lore (Utility 2) is an Encounter power that turns a knowledge check into a History check. Skill Power was in order to take Blunding Leap, meaning the vampire can make jumps without a running start and with a +5 bonus, and the distance can exceed the vampire's speed. Skill Power can be exchanged for Durable for the faint of heart. 

The abilities reflect a normal human (Str, Con and Int 10), changed by his vampiric nature. The background reflects the old origin of the character.


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## Klaus (Apr 25, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> More of a creature with a vampiric bloodline, but that doesn't seem to be what we're discussing here. We're talking about the Vampire class.
> 
> But how would you handle a Vryloka (race) Vampire (class) getting rid of his 'curse', anyway?



I'd build the character again as a human <something>, and when the character fulfills his arc, I'd change characters to reflect the untainted nature.


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## Incenjucar (Apr 25, 2011)

While I understand the perspective of those who find monster races "wrong," I have quite the opposite perspective, having read enough fantasy literature with monster races as main characters, and not being under the impression that D&D is fantasy Europe.

There are some serious mental gymnastics going on here to justify keeping a character out of the party. There is significant irony in a paladin, which once had to be lawful good, being viewed as unable to suffer non-evil undead to "live." In my mind's eye I see a self-righteous paladin murdering a vampire in the streets after catching him flying in bat form to save a kid's puppy from a burning building.


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## Ryujin (Apr 25, 2011)

Klaus said:


> I'd build the character again as a human <something>, and when the character fulfills his arc, I'd change characters to reflect the untainted nature.




That's sort of my point though. To reflect the "redemption", you'd have to create a completely different character. Going the other way, by say altering a character to a Revenant, is trivial by comparison.


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## Incenjucar (Apr 25, 2011)

Which you would also have to do if you redeemed a warlock.


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## the Jester (Apr 25, 2011)

pauljathome said:


> For the record, I've always thought that 4th edition has gone WAY too far in making monstrous races socially acceptable. I played in the Giant modules when Drow were first invented. The reaction to a Drow walking into a bar should be one of sheer panic. Kill it if you can, flee if you can't. The vampire just brings out that reaction in spades.




I 100% agree- but with the caveat that this is a matter of preference and playstyle, not _doing it right._ Still, it's a longstanding joke imc that a player will ask, "Hey, can I play a Drow?" or "...a Drow _____?".  They all know the answer.


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 25, 2011)

the Jester said:


> I 100% agree- but with the caveat that this is a matter of preference and playstyle, not _doing it right._ Still, it's a longstanding joke imc that a player will ask, "Hey, can I play a Drow?" or "...a Drow _____?".  They all know the answer.




I think the issues is that when people are playing those races that they arent being properly "stimulated" by being that race. By this i mean the GM isnt having people run and panic, or the barkeep saying "we dont serve your kind here, youre Drow!" Which removes the stigma of playing said character.

Now on the flipside....

Being a GM with a game containing a Shardar Kai and a Minotaur, i have tended to ignore that fact only because it distracts from the gameplay and story i had planned. The players did not select those races for their monstery evilness, they did it more for stats and style (a la WoW). As a GM ive decided to roll with it until i have wrapped up the current play arc and they have actually learned how to RP, THEN i will challenge them. This would be more interesting imo when they are powerful and famous adventurers who saved the land, only to have kids throw rocks at them, since they didnt give the "second class PC races" a second glance until they managed to make themselves known.


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## Ryujin (Apr 25, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> Which you would also have to do if you redeemed a warlock.




I haven't heard of anyone wanting to play a Warlock in need of redemption yet though whereas it's a meme, where vampires are concerned.


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## Mirtek (Apr 25, 2011)

Nork said:


> At first glance yes, but at second glance no.
> 
> The problem with 'I am going to attack you because your _evil_!!!!!' paladins and clerics is that they wouldn't last two microseconds in a group of people



 The problem is that these are not "'I am going to attack you because your _evil_!!!!!' paladins and clerics" but "'I am going to attack you because I serve the deity of death who commands that all things dead stay dead and that anyone defying this edict is a walking affront to his divine will!!!!!' paladins and clerics".

It's a pitty that LFR allows both fanatical hunters of the dead as well as undead PCs and that both could find themselves in the same group. However this ship already sailed with revenants


GMforPowergamers said:


> I wonder what those same palidns that hate undead did when revrents entered the party??



 Well, there were passionate threads about this very problem at the LFR boards.


GMforPowergamers said:


> or worse, what if oneplayer hadan infernal warlock... i mean they draw power from a deal with devils...big nono



 Actually no problem at all. The deity is unaligned and actually deals with devils himself quite often. It's just that he's lord of death and has decreed how dead people have to behave. And anyone defying this edict gets target by one of his many undead-hunting-orders.


GMforPowergamers said:


> Now if there are no Drow PCs and you hate drow, fine...



 To be fair, Kelemvorites were in LFR long before any undead PCs were possible


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## GMforPowergamers (Apr 25, 2011)

[/QUOTE]
 To be fair, Kelemvorites were in LFR long before any undead PCs were possible[/QUOTE]

ok, maybe I am taking this too personaly (I no longer play LFR becuse all 3 games I was in are full of bullies who tell people what they can and cant play)

I just have to say, If your PC has a problem with my PC then we can deal with it one of two ways... you just assume the answer is I not play mine...


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## Klaus (Apr 25, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> That's sort of my point though. To reflect the "redemption", you'd have to create a completely different character. Going the other way, by say altering a character to a Revenant, is trivial by comparison.



Sure, but do you "need" a redemption arc? You could have the character redeem his *soul*, and when he finally dies, he goes to his eternal reward.


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## Incenjucar (Apr 25, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> I haven't heard of anyone wanting to play a Warlock in need of redemption yet though whereas it's a meme, where vampires are concerned.




Warlocks sell their souls to (often infernal) powers from beyond the world in exchange for power.

Vampires get bitten by some random jerk.

Which one actually needs to be _redeemed_?

--

Redemption actually makes for a nice epic destiny.


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## Ryujin (Apr 25, 2011)

Klaus said:


> Sure, but do you "need" a redemption arc? You could have the character redeem his *soul*, and when he finally dies, he goes to his eternal reward.




Right; level 30. Long arc.


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## Mirtek (Apr 25, 2011)

GMforPowergamers said:


> ok, maybe I am taking this too personaly (I no longer play LFR becuse all 3 games I was in are full of bullies who tell people what they can and cant play)



Well, I am sorry to hear that your LFR experience was so negative, but without knowing the specifics I have to add that there are/were several things that you could indeed not play in LFR. Not because of some jerk reactions of fellow players, but because it simply was not allowed in the campaign. E.g. no monster manual races (except Orc and Tengu and until 2011 these two only if you actually have a certain reward card) . So depending with what you arrived at the table it may be that there was no malice intended, but rather a just not so diplomatic but well meant pointer to the campaign rules.


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## bganon (Apr 25, 2011)

Mirtek said:


> It's a pitty that LFR allows both fanatical hunters of the dead as well as undead PCs and that both could find themselves in the same group. However this ship already sailed with revenants




The ship sailed from the start, as LFR allows fanatical devotees of Erathis in the same party as fanatical devotees of Melora.  "Tame the wilderness" and "protect the wild places" are not exactly easily compatible goals.

The solution is the same as it's always been: don't be so fanatical, and find a way to work together despite your differences.  Not bad lessons to learn.


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## jbear (Apr 25, 2011)

Joining this conversation a bit late. I can see how a vampire character would be a bit off in a game where people who don't know each other can roll up with any character they like as long as it is 'oficially legal'. 

In a home brew campaign with people who knew each other this would be a totally different story.

However the player, with even a small amount of forethought, could have made such an off putting character slot into the story much more smoothly. Like, by not revealing he is a vampire for example. And by the time the other PCs discover that he has had a chance to prove his worth, and maybe they give him enough time to explain why they should let him live, and keep them with him.

As for non-typical vampire tropes in fantast literature ... anyone here read the Geralt De Rivia Saga? Well, to cut a long story short, the main character is a Warlock, which in the story is a professional monster hunter basically. He ends up travelling with a Vampire, a creature he would normally hunt and kill. The vampire doesn't drink blood. He doesn't frighten animals. He smells of herbs and spices. Okay ... he does know a lot of history ... and he is kind, well mannered, loyal and above all not seeking redemption. The saga is well worth reading. I'd even go so far as to say it is a masterpiece. And I don't say that lightly.

So, in short vampires don't have to be Count Dracula or Buffy Vampires, but I think this takes effort on the part of the DM and Players to make it work. LFR as a campaign world is probably not a good fit for such characters. All the characters/options in Heores of Shadow seem to be along those lines. 

I was more interested to read how the Vampire played out mechanically. How it dealt with the issue of Surge Shortage etc. 

Nevermind.


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## GMforPowergamers (Apr 25, 2011)

Mirtek said:


> Well, I am sorry to hear that your LFR experience was so negative, but without knowing the specifics I have to add that there are/were several things that you could indeed not play in LFR. Not because of some jerk reactions of fellow players, but because it simply was not allowed in the campaign. E.g. no monster manual races (except Orc and Tengu and until 2011 these two only if you actually have a certain reward card) . So depending with what you arrived at the table it may be that there was no malice intended, but rather a just not so diplomatic but well meant pointer to the campaign rules.




Ok I had a (started at lv 1) swordmag half elf who multi into wizard ( scorch burst and magic missle @1st) but around 12th or 13 th level when I paragon Multi class  these guys from the dms home game  started playing... Even driving away 1 newish guy and his girlfriend and they all do char op... I was told I was a sub opt defender and a piss poor controller too. After 2 levels of being told I was feed up and went to my flgs manager who told me the 4 in question are " putting his son through collage" so he didn't want to say anything... So we started our own lv 1 Lfr where I played my human assassin  it went 3 games before one of the others showed up and after his  1 time at level 2 with a two axe weding ranger calling as much damage as the rest of us put together on Avg we quit Lfr and only do home games now


So Lfr was just to op based( atleast around here) and  2 of the last 3 cons we went to had people "helping" us op our characters... Even though o do theory craft on the op board I do not ever want to play those builds...



Now the vamp thing is hitting the same cord, don't play x in my group because of y


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## Mirtek (Apr 25, 2011)

bganon said:


> The ship sailed from the start, as LFR allows fanatical devotees of Erathis in the same party as fanatical devotees of Melora.  "Tame the wilderness" and "protect the wild places" are not exactly easily compatible goals.



Actually LFR allows neither since PoL-Deities are not allowed at all (you have to use FR deities) 

But in general your certainly right. The problem in this case is that it wasn't something that was there from the beginning nor something that was foreseen. It arrived out of the blue about one year after the campaign started and the Kelemvorite character had been created (and Kelemvor doesn't have that much else going for him). Targeting undead seemed as save as you can get if you have to target something.


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## GMforPowergamers (Apr 25, 2011)

Mirtek said:


> Actually LFR allows neither since PoL-Deities are not allowed at all (you have to use FR deities)
> 
> But in general your certainly right. The problem in this case is that it wasn't something that was there from the beginning nor something that was foreseen. It arrived out of the blue about one year after the campaign started and the Kelemvorite character had been created (and Kelemvor doesn't have that much else going for him). Targeting undead seemed as save as you can get if you have to target something.




So Maybe kelemvorite (was he the one dating midnight?) has an exception that some vampires can fight there nature... maybe there is even some sorta angel like profacy about a vamp with a soul saving the world... or mayb the cleric just learns in between adventures that this one vamp is diffrent...


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 26, 2011)

GMforPowergamers said:


> So Maybe kelemvorite (was he the one dating midnight?) has an exception that some vampires can fight there nature... maybe there is even some sorta angel like profacy about a vamp with a soul saving the world... or mayb the cleric just learns in between adventures that this one vamp is diffrent...




Well.....Kelemvor was under a nasty curse that made it so he could not be the selfless hero he wanted to be. Any time he did something for free he turned into a murderous panther that had to kill before he returned to normal. I think of all the gods out there Kelemvor would support a Vampire who wants to be a selfless hero, using their curse to some advantage, maybe even looking for a cure they desperately want. Lets say when the Doomguide goes to smite said vampire he gets no power, and it is a clear message to his worshiper that this vampire is an exception. Besides, all Kelevorites would know of their deities odd history, maybe even about his curse.

Thats sounds pretty good actually, i may use that in a game! Multiclass Vampire/Cleric of Kelemvor here i come!


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## CelticMutt (Apr 26, 2011)

pauljathome said:


> I just glanced at the compendium for Revenants. Its extremely contradictory in how it describes revenants. They first say that "Revenants do not appear as undead horrors" and then describe an appearance that is pretty clearly that  of, uh, an undead horror.



The arms and legs thing aren't that undead - more bird like in appearance.  It's really only the face, and that can be covered.

In teh original Dragon article there was a nice section about how the default appearance wasn't the only option, how you could look like a rotting critter like WoW's Forsaken, or look like you did in life instead.  Sorta wish that had been included.



Klaus said:


> Disciple of Shadows gives Darkvision 2, and Alertness gives immunity to  surprise and +2 Perception. These represent the vampire's heightened  senses.



Er .... why on earth would a Vampire, who gets unlimited range Darkvision at level one, want to take Disciple of Shadows, which gives Darkvision with a range of 2 squares?


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## Mad Hamish (Apr 26, 2011)

pauljathome said:


> Replying to several posts at once :
> 
> I disagree with this. Yes, the player could have gimped his character and bought up wisdom and intelligence a little and bought skills that don't actually synergize with the mechanics of a striker very well.




picking up 1 out of 4 or 5 skills hardly gimps a character.



pauljathome said:


> Replying to several posts at once :
> 
> And if he'd done that he'd STILL be worse at perception than the human cleric who trains in perception and STILL be worse at history than the human wizard who trains history.
> 
> ...




where exactly does the fluff for the vampire say it has "a really, really good sense of smell"?

Is the vampire being worse at history than the wizard really worse than the cleric being worse than the wizard at religion?


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## cignus_pfaccari (Apr 26, 2011)

Mad Hamish said:


> Is the vampire being worse at history than the wizard really worse than the cleric being worse than the wizard at religion?




1)  Perhaps said vampire spent most of his time hunting young maidens in alleys and didn't actually pay attention to the world around him.

Which is, in the case of a PC, probably _remarkably_ accurate.

2)  Clerics being worse than wizards at religion really irritates me.

Brad


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## Klaus (Apr 26, 2011)

CelticMutt said:


> Er .... why on earth would a Vampire, who gets unlimited range Darkvision at level one, want to take Disciple of Shadows, which gives Darkvision with a range of 2 squares?



Because I'm crazy, that's why!

But hey, now my hypothetical vampire is swimming in feats!


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## Siberys (Apr 26, 2011)

Re: Clerics worse than Wizards at Religion; as a knowledge skill, this actually makes sense to me. Religion is a wide-covering skill representing knowledge about all sorts of religions, plus myths and the undead. The Cleric should know more about *his* religion - represented by a circumstance bonus - but about other religions or the undead? Not necessarily.


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## Rex Blunder (Apr 27, 2011)

A player just played a vampire in my group. It actually worked pretty well. He didn't tell the other characters he was a vampire, even going to the point of obfuscating his class to the other players: "What class are you playing?" "Um, I'm basically a rogue." When people asked why he was drinking the blood of his enemies, he changed his tune and said he was a barbarian. It was pretty funny.

Our vampire actually took one PC into his confidence, and always had to come up with a reason to split the party, ending up alone with that character, whenever he needed healing via a blood transfusion. Notes were passed to the DM.

I think that's the way to play the vampire. It needs to be center staged a little, but most people who want to play vampires are going to enjoy those kind of dramatics.


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## WalterKovacs (Apr 28, 2011)

Rex Blunder said:


> A player just played a vampire in my group. It actually worked pretty well. He didn't tell the other characters he was a vampire, even going to the point of obfuscating his class to the other players: "What class are you playing?" "Um, I'm basically a rogue." When people asked why he was drinking the blood of his enemies, he changed his tune and said he was a barbarian. It was pretty funny.




Group - "Wait, aren't you unarmed and unarmored?"

Vampire - "... I'm a monk?"

Having played in a group as a chameleon assassin who the group knows as an elven deckhand that teleports around and manipulates shadow magic ... I totally approve of the whole "never identify yourself" technique. All the players _know_ I'm a changeling assassin, so it does become a running gag that the PC's don't know, especially as one of the BBEG's is a Oni Mage. Whenever it appears, my chameleon often goes into tirades about hating shapeshifters. As a liar with 9 intelligence, that seems to be the best way to convince people you aren't one


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 28, 2011)

WalterKovacs said:


> Group - "Wait, aren't you unarmed and unarmored?"
> 
> Vampire - "... I'm a monk?"
> 
> Having played in a group as a chameleon assassin who the group knows as an elven deckhand that teleports around and manipulates shadow magic ... I totally approve of the whole "never identify yourself" technique. All the players _know_ I'm a changeling assassin, so it does become a running gag that the PC's don't know, especially as one of the BBEG's is a Oni Mage. Whenever it appears, my chameleon often goes into tirades about hating shapeshifters. As a liar with 9 intelligence, that seems to be the best way to convince people you aren't one




kinda like when big "sexually secure" men hate gays? =P 

I like the idea, alot, and i think a Monk or a barbarian is the best way to go as far as hiding your true identity as a vampire, you just gotta hope the rest of the players want to play along.


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## WalterKovacs (Apr 28, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> I like the idea, alot, and i think a Monk or a barbarian is the best way to go as far as hiding your true identity as a vampire, you just gotta hope the rest of the players want to play along.




Claiming to be a Revenant Monk that dables in druid (for the changing into different animal bits) is probably enough to explain most of the stuff (the Rev part pertaining to why the cleric's turn undead hurts him). As long as one party member is in on it and willing to give up the surges (and elp with the lying), they can probably get away with most. Heck the whole biting thing can even be explained as the primal beast form "coming out".


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 28, 2011)

WalterKovacs said:


> Claiming to be a Revenant Monk that dables in druid (for the changing into different animal bits) is probably enough to explain most of the stuff (the Rev part pertaining to why the cleric's turn undead hurts him). As long as one party member is in on it and willing to give up the surges (and elp with the lying), they can probably get away with most. Heck the whole biting thing can even be explained as the primal beast form "coming out".




Here's my question though, why would CHARACTERS need to be told anything like that? Do the characters have a list of classes? Maybe they run around with a PHB1-3 and an HotFL and a DDI subscription on their laptop (getting Internet must be a bitch). 

In the GAME WORLD there are no classes. There are no defined lists of powers that are packaged together. All the characters have to go on is what they see and what they think they know. So yeah, the vampire might be trying to pretend to be 'not a vampire' and claiming to be "from the monastery over by Bigtown" might be a good cover, or not. 

Also, as far as party acceptance, I'd consider that most adventurers seem to have some sort of background that includes not exactly fitting in with the rest of civilization. It is a good chunk of why they're adventuring. A vampire might be a little far out, but he's just another misfit. In a crazy magical world there's not that much of a reason why the party should be rejecting someone who's an oddball.


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## generalchaos34 (Apr 28, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Here's my question though, why would CHARACTERS need to be told anything like that? Do the characters have a list of classes? Maybe they run around with a PHB1-3 and an HotFL and a DDI subscription on their laptop (getting Internet must be a bitch).
> 
> In the GAME WORLD there are no classes. There are no defined lists of powers that are packaged together. All the characters have to go on is what they see and what they think they know. So yeah, the vampire might be trying to pretend to be 'not a vampire' and claiming to be "from the monastery over by Bigtown" might be a good cover, or not.
> 
> Also, as far as party acceptance, I'd consider that most adventurers seem to have some sort of background that includes not exactly fitting in with the rest of civilization. It is a good chunk of why they're adventuring. A vampire might be a little far out, but he's just another misfit. In a crazy magical world there's not that much of a reason why the party should be rejecting someone who's an oddball.




The whole reason we are spitballing ideas on acceptance is because the OPs group did not want to accept the vamp into their party, so we are trying interesting and fun ways to integrate a character into that kind of game, plus its kinda fun! 

And while there arent classes per se in the game world, im sure people in the game world still get referred to by their profession, i.e. "That damned paladin" or "go hire the ranger looking typer by the bar" or "we'll need a capable fighter to make sure we have plenty of protection"


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 28, 2011)

generalchaos34 said:


> The whole reason we are spitballing ideas on acceptance is because the OPs group did not want to accept the vamp into their party, so we are trying interesting and fun ways to integrate a character into that kind of game, plus its kinda fun!
> 
> And while there arent classes per se in the game world, im sure people in the game world still get referred to by their profession, i.e. "That damned paladin" or "go hire the ranger looking typer by the bar" or "we'll need a capable fighter to make sure we have plenty of protection"




I suspect it would be a lot more grey than that. It can be amusing too. There is an NPC organization in the setting I am running my current campaign in. During the last campaign I ran in the same setting the players were quite surprised that the Rangers of Otillis weren't particularly 'ranger-like'. Some of them are wilderness types, which is a focus of the organization, but often they're priests, wizards, fighters, etc. Even then they're NPCs so they don't work by class rules anyway. 

So, calling someone a 'ranger' would imply very little about their capabilities in that setting. Probably little more than calling someone a 'salesman' does in the real world. Sure, a guy who blasts things with magic probably gets labeled 'wizard' in game, but that could cover a LOT of different classes, including all the arcane ones as well as possibly things like invoker, and possibly others like shaman or druid as well. Given that NPCs can have any eclectic mix of powers I think it would be pretty hard to pigeonhole anyone down to the level of what class they are.

In other words there'd never realistically be a question of "How does that Monk do that? Monks don't do that." in the game world. I think you'd more likely identify people in some fashion in a positive fashion (IE that guy drinks blook, he's a vampire) and the same character might easily be labeled in quite different ways in different contexts.


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## Ryujin (Apr 28, 2011)

Perhaps, but calling someone a "blood-sucking undead fiend" is pretty universal


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## AbdulAlhazred (Apr 28, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> Perhaps, but calling someone a "blood-sucking undead fiend" is pretty universal




I'm just saying, it is a positive identification. Nobody is going to say "gosh, that guy turned into a bat, he can't possibly be a monk." If someone cops onto your vampire's dietary preferences, sure they'll probably call him a vampire. They might put 2 and 2 together from lesser clues and decide you're a vampire as well. OTOH evincing one or two abilities that don't happen to match with something in PHB3 isn't likely going to do the trick. Things in game are always a lot more ambiguous than they are at the table to the players. The point being there should be plenty of scope for players to play their characters in such a way that they don't have to run around staking each other. They MAY run into problems, but it isn't clear that they will inevitably. This can be plenty of fun. The cleric of Pelor might eventually be getting suspicious of the pale stranger who joined the party last week, but there could be a long phase of doubt and uncertainty about exactly what he's dealing with.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 30, 2011)

I would think a class that uses holy symbols would have an easier time blending with clerics and pallies. 
They of Kelemvor? So are you, invested as an undead hunter on the path of redemption.

Or maybe youre a Deathless.

Or maybe you're evil but you're not a dick so they'll work with you.

Lets not pretend this is even a challenge. So long as youre playing realistic characters a way can be always be found.


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## hbnetto (May 4, 2011)

down


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## hbnetto (May 4, 2011)

Whatabout gnoll, thri-kreen or a cannibal darksun halfling? They would just eat their enemies!


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## Nyghthawk (May 5, 2011)

It's been noted already a couple times, thanks for trying though.

I actually think that this is the best idea for "blending in" if you're a vampire.


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## mudlock (May 5, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> I haven't heard of anyone wanting to play a Warlock in need of redemption yet though




I have. Tiefling warlock. Was rebuilt as a human sorcerer after being "cleansed" (although it was a relatively early arc in the story; 6th level I think was when he did the rebuild).

Actually, that game had a lot of "rebuilding after dramatic plot points"... there was a cleric who became an avenger, too.

(The proximate release of PH2 was of course just a coincidence, I'm sure  But that can't cover the tiefling->human bit.)


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## Saeviomagy (May 5, 2011)

pauljathome said:


> As for that WOTC article, suddenly because there is a Vampire PC the world shifts and my 5th level character with Arcana and Religion as trained skills doesn't know anything about vampires? Yeah, right.




No, your 5th level character with arcana and religion knows that despite being compelled to drink blood, there are vampires out there that resist their bestial nature and are heroes, and therefore deciding "hey, let's kill this guy because he's a vampire" is completely not a heroic path to take.


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## Salamandyr (May 9, 2011)

I've got a different problem.  I typically play morally ambiguous sword and sorcery types who, while never trusting the vampire, would not have too much trouble working together for some mutual goal.  At least until this exchange happens.

Vampire "Oh man, I'm still wounded from that last fight.  Give me a healing surge so I can heal up".

Me "What exactly does that entail?"

Vampire "Oh in game, you're letting my character feed on you.  It's cool, your character and mine are friends.  Friends would totally do that for each other."

Me "Uh...no.  I'm pretty sure my character wouldn't let his friends do that to him, and I'm pretty sure nobody he considers would ask him to.  That's horrible.".

I love vampires, I'd probably love to play one, but I have a little trouble playing a character who feeds off the others like they're cattle, and even more the assumption that the other characters would _be_ _cool_ with it.


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## Incenjucar (May 9, 2011)

If it's a big enough concern, you can always just say that the vampire feeds through touch instead of through blood, which just makes them kind of a reverse paladin.

That said, relatively few cultures nibble on their cattle's necks and then fight zombies with them afterwards.


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## Salamandyr (May 9, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> If it's a big enough concern, you can always just say that the vampire feeds through touch instead of through blood, which just makes them kind of a reverse paladin.
> 
> That said, relatively few cultures nibble on their cattle's necks and then fight zombies with them afterwards.




So in other words, the solution is for the vampire to not actually _be_ a vampire?

I think I would have instead preferred if they had designed the class assuming that the vampire instead bites people _he doesn't like_, instead of assuming that he casually feeds off his companions.


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## Incenjucar (May 9, 2011)

Energy vampirism is still vampirism. They can still bite unwilling victims to force them to give up energy. It works mechanically and thematically. Of the alternatives, barring WotC producing biting-ally-free rules, it's the one that requires the least compromise. WotC obviously assumed that people would be more upset with vampires being magically unable to bite their allies.


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## GMforPowergamers (May 9, 2011)

Salamandyr said:


> I've got a different problem.  I typically play morally ambiguous sword and sorcery types who, while never trusting the vampire, would not have too much trouble working together for some mutual goal.  At least until this exchange happens.
> 
> Vampire "Oh man, I'm still wounded from that last fight.  Give me a healing surge so I can heal up".
> 
> ...




ok...so I can see it both ways.

On one hand the idea of the vampire needing blood and the compainion  giving it freely is just iconic...

but not every fight...not 250 times in your story...


As far as a D&D playable vampire it works well enough


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## Aegeri (May 9, 2011)

With durable and multiple uses of blood drinker, it shouldn't be very often that the vampire should need to do that (because they can have extra surges to spare and remember that they lose extra surges anyway). Vampires are really only worried about surge draining skill challenges (wilderness ones for example) and trap based encounters (where they can't get surges).

So I don't think if a party wasn't happy with a vampire feeding off them, it would entirely cripple them (again, assuming durable).


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## ForeverSlayer (May 9, 2011)

Durable actually makes it a bit harder to gain those extra surges in order to regain full HP when you rest unless you don't use any.  Just have two surges and having to worry about getting those back and some extra was easy enough but now with Durable your normal surges are now 4 instead of two so it's harder.  Also wait until you get higher level and you gain a few more surges.


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## Mika (May 9, 2011)

The simplest way to integrate a vampire into a party is to make him relatively young (as a vampire) and give him a connection with at least one other party member.  It is one thing to want to want to destroy all of those blood sucking monsters -- it is quite another to want to destroy your best friend from childhood who had the misfortune to be transformed by a curse -- and you know that he does try really hard not to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it....


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## ForeverSlayer (May 9, 2011)

The vampire class is something that should be discussed with the group and the DM before bringing it to the table.  I wouldn't advise just showing up at the table with a vampire and expecting everyone to be okay with it.  Sure you have some groups that only focus on the mechanics and really don't care, but you also have groups that care about the role play and want characters coming in to actually fit the campaign.  

I think the biggest problem with the class is the requirement to feed from your companions.  I don't understand why the rules weren't written a little different.  I could see the vampire knocking an enemy unconscious and feeding from the victim after the fight is over, or Dominating say a towns person, taking just enough and then letting them go with no memory of it.  

In my opinion the designers created a controversial class.


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## Ryujin (May 9, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Durable actually makes it a bit harder to gain those extra surges in order to regain full HP when you rest unless you don't use any.  Just have two surges and having to worry about getting those back and some extra was easy enough but now with Durable your normal surges are now 4 instead of two so it's harder.  Also wait until you get higher level and you gain a few more surges.




I'm not sure I follow on how it would make it more difficult, to gain extra surges. It seems to me that it wouldn't be any more difficult, while giving you an additional buffer for situations that go all pear shaped.


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## Zaran (May 9, 2011)

Don't forget that if a companion gives a vampire healing surges three times they must mc to vampire themselves.


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## KidSnide (May 9, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> The vampire class is something that should be discussed with the group and the DM before bringing it to the table.  I wouldn't advise just showing up at the table with a vampire and expecting everyone to be okay with it.  Sure you have some groups that only focus on the mechanics and really don't care, but you also have groups that care about the role play and want characters coming in to actually fit the campaign.
> 
> In my opinion the designers created a controversial class.



Agreed.  The designers absolutely created a controversial class that requires special inter-personal dynamics with the rest of the group.  

That was the objective.

I don't think the designers wanted vampires who meshed seamlessly with ordinary adventurers.  They wanted vampires who had a unique (i.e. dark, exploitive, icky and/or angst-ridden) relationship with their adventuring companions.

-KS


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## ForeverSlayer (May 9, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> I'm not sure I follow on how it would make it more difficult, to gain extra surges. It seems to me that it wouldn't be any more difficult, while giving you an additional buffer for situations that go all pear shaped.




Think about this for a moment. If your normal amount of healing surges is two and you use one, all you need to do is gain two in order to have extra.  

Now, if you take Durable and you increase that amount to four and you use up three then you have to gain four in order to bring you to that extra limit.


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## Ryujin (May 9, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Think about this for a moment. If your normal amount of healing surges is two and you use one, all you need to do is gain two in order to have extra.
> 
> Now, if you take Durable and you increase that amount to four and you use up three then you have to gain four in order to bring you to that extra limit.




And if you have two, but use three.....? Sorry, I just don't see it. As I said it's a buffer. As with Microsoft, "It's a feature, not a bug."


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## UngeheuerLich (May 9, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> The vampire class is something that should be discussed with the group and the DM before bringing it to the table.  I wouldn't advise just showing up at the table with a vampire and expecting everyone to be okay with it.  Sure you have some groups that only focus on the mechanics and really don't care, but you also have groups that care about the role play and want characters coming in to actually fit the campaign.
> 
> I think the biggest problem with the class is the requirement to feed from your companions.  I don't understand why the rules weren't written a little different.  I could see the vampire knocking an enemy unconscious and feeding from the victim after the fight is over, or Dominating say a towns person, taking just enough and then letting them go with no memory of it.
> 
> In my opinion the designers created a controversial class.



I think, the greater problem is, that you may want to have an all vampire party, but all of them would be more or less the same, and the drain surges from a member would be getting funny. mutual blood letting...

but as a single person in a not so good party, this class could work...


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## Ryujin (May 9, 2011)

I keep getting this picture in my head of a party with 4 Vampire characters, and one 16 Healing Surge sword-and-board Fighter


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 9, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> The vampire class is something that should be discussed with the group and the DM before bringing it to the table.  I wouldn't advise just showing up at the table with a vampire and expecting everyone to be okay with it.  Sure you have some groups that only focus on the mechanics and really don't care, but you also have groups that care about the role play and want characters coming in to actually fit the campaign.
> 
> I think the biggest problem with the class is the requirement to feed from your companions.  I don't understand why the rules weren't written a little different.  I could see the vampire knocking an enemy unconscious and feeding from the victim after the fight is over, or Dominating say a towns person, taking just enough and then letting them go with no memory of it.
> 
> In my opinion the designers created a controversial class.




I'd answer this two ways:

1) There's no REQUIREMENT that the character ever feed off his allies. His low healing surge number means there are probably going to be SOME situations where that is a good option. OTOH remember, he does have regen 5 while bloodied, so most of the time the character can lay back in that kind of situation if he really has to and avoid ever sucking on his allies at all. Taking toughness (and durable might help as well) doesn't TOTALLY mitigate the problem, but it goes a long ways. I mean there are classes that have 6 surges and no way at all to gain more, and they're perfectly viable. A Vampire with 4 surges, surges that work better than normal in some instances, the ability to get more surges, and regen 5 while bloodied is actually probably better off than your average wizard even BEFORE you talk about sucking on your allies. It really isn't that dependent on this one feature.

2) It is meant to be controversial, yes. As I've said in a lot of other places, and probably up further in this thread, a vampire that fails to embody the concept of a vampire merely because it would be inconvenient or is tricky to play or balance with other classes is fail. It isn't a vampire, so why even bother to make it? There's no point in having a Smurphpire class. A vampire needs to be a VAMPIRE to justify its existence as a game element. In any case you can take the Dhampyr bloodline feat, the Vryloka race, etc. and be a milder form of vampire if you want, which is fine. The Vampire class is "I'm Dracula baby".

As to how much hand wringing has to go into bringing it into a game, that will kind of depend on the group. Personally I'd feel slighted if the players all showed up at the table for a new campaign and singled out my choice of character as being an issue (regardless of what that choice was). OTOH there are dick players that will make a vampire simply to be troublesome as well. Reasonable players will accommodate each other's wishes. It shouldn't be a big deal most of the time, and if the DM has restrictions on what he wants to see played in his game, well those really should be up front.


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## Mithreinmaethor (May 9, 2011)

The best thing to do is to quit bitching and moaning about the class design and just play one.

I have seen 5 different Vampires at levels between 1st and 8th level being played.  And not one of them EVER had to borrow a surge from one of the players.

As a matter of fact no one of them ever used one of their 2 surges.  They used the surge they gained from using one of their powers to empower a power but that is all.


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## ForeverSlayer (May 9, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> And if you have two, but use three.....? Sorry, I just don't see it. As I said it's a buffer. As with Microsoft, "It's a feature, not a bug."




When you have lots and lots of ammo you don't really bother to aim that well if you shoot something, but if you have only ten bullets you are going to choose carefully what you shoot and make your shots count.  

By having only 2 surges you are careful about using them up to add the extra effects to some of your powers.  Now if you have four, you become a little more active in using your surges because you know you have more to burn.  

Having two and burning one is easy to get back, but if you have four and you burn three then thats a little bit harder.


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## ForeverSlayer (May 9, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'd answer this two ways:
> 
> 1) There's no REQUIREMENT that the character ever feed off his allies. His low healing surge number means there are probably going to be SOME situations where that is a good option. OTOH remember, he does have regen 5 while bloodied, so most of the time the character can lay back in that kind of situation if he really has to and avoid ever sucking on his allies at all. Taking toughness (and durable might help as well) doesn't TOTALLY mitigate the problem, but it goes a long ways. I mean there are classes that have 6 surges and no way at all to gain more, and they're perfectly viable. A Vampire with 4 surges, surges that work better than normal in some instances, the ability to get more surges, and regen 5 while bloodied is actually probably better off than your average wizard even BEFORE you talk about sucking on your allies. It really isn't that dependent on this one feature.
> 
> ...




Here is the problem.  Wizard's is the one that singled out your character, not the group.  They implemented a mechanic that essentially feeds off of the other characters and requires their cooperation.  

So now it is your responsibility to let the other player's know and they can decide if they want to play with you or not, or if they will allow you to drain a surge.  

The main point is, don't bring a vampire to a game and automatically expect that you will be able to play it.  If the vamp didn't have that mechanic then there would be no problem.


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## Blastin (May 9, 2011)

Mithreinmaethor said:


> The best thing to do is to quit bitching and moaning about the class design and just play one.




This.....

although I guess all the angst and hand wringing in a thread about vampires shouldn't surprise me


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## Ryujin (May 9, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> When you have lots and lots of ammo you don't really bother to aim that well if you shoot something, but if you have only ten bullets you are going to choose carefully what you shoot and make your shots count.
> 
> By having only 2 surges you are careful about using them up to add the extra effects to some of your powers.  Now if you have four, you become a little more active in using your surges because you know you have more to burn.
> 
> Having two and burning one is easy to get back, but if you have four and you burn three then thats a little bit harder.




Sorry, I'm just not going to agree with you. You are implying that having more resources somehow automatically results in poor decision making, or reduced options. Far from it.


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## ForeverSlayer (May 9, 2011)

Mithreinmaethor said:


> The best thing to do is to quit bitching and moaning about the class design and just play one.
> 
> I have seen 5 different Vampires at levels between 1st and 8th level being played.  And not one of them EVER had to borrow a surge from one of the players.
> 
> As a matter of fact no one of them ever used one of their 2 surges.  They used the surge they gained from using one of their powers to empower a power but that is all.




So we are supposed to just keep our mouth shut, pretend like everything is okay, and not point out things we don't like about a system?

Wow you are a corporation's best sucker......oh I mean friend.


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## ForeverSlayer (May 9, 2011)

Ryujin said:


> Sorry, I'm just not going to agree with you. You are implying that having more resources somehow automatically results in poor decision making, or reduced options. Far from it.




Take a good look at the vampire.  Okay, by spending surges you are able to boost certain abilities.  Now, when you only have two surges you are less likely to use those surges unless you really really really feel that you need to, like most item daily powers.  

Now the more surges you have the more comfortable you feel spending them on those abilities because by boosting your powers you contribute more to the combat and you have surges to burn.  

Nobody said anything about having more resources automatically makes you more inclined to make bad decisions, but a good many people will be more inclined to take that risk.


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## Mithreinmaethor (May 9, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> So we are supposed to just keep our mouth shut, pretend like everything is okay, and not point out things we don't like about a system?
> 
> Wow you are a corporation's best sucker......oh I mean friend.




Thats funny I have both played a Vampire and seen several Vampires being played and do not have a problem with their design.

And neither my Vampire nor any of the Vampires I have seen played have ever taken Durable as a feat.  Not even at later levels.


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## ForeverSlayer (May 10, 2011)

Mithreinmaethor said:


> Thats funny I have both played a Vampire and seen several Vampires being played and do not have a problem with their design.
> 
> And neither my Vampire nor any of the Vampires I have seen played have ever taken Durable as a feat.  Not even at later levels.




So because you say you had no trouble with the vampire then that means everything is okay?  

Wow that deserves the ignore list.


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## Incenjucar (May 10, 2011)

Mithreinmaethor said:


> Thats funny I have both played a Vampire and seen several Vampires being played and do not have a problem with their design.
> 
> And neither my Vampire nor any of the Vampires I have seen played have ever taken Durable as a feat.  Not even at later levels.




Anecdotal evidence doesn't really make for an argument, especially over... what has it been, a whole month since the vampire was released?


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## Mithreinmaethor (May 10, 2011)

Actually play experience will trump number crunching and no play experience at all dont ya think?

You can argue until the sky falls by just reading it and numbers crunching it. But until you play or or observe it in play over a period of time you cant get a feel for how it works.


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## Incenjucar (May 10, 2011)

Numbers can be compared more easily than individual games, due to a vast difference in how specific DMs and groups work. There are games in which knights don't have a hard time at all, but that certainly wouldn't be a game I was running - in my last session the fighter spent an _entire encounter_ doing nothing because he neglected to pick up a throwing weapon - making him an honorary knight - and ran into a xivort netcaster. The same issues will hit vampires.


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## Aegeri (May 10, 2011)

Mithreinmaethor, I've already been playing the vampire to test various things and seen it in play now. I wonder what tier you've seen these at? Because by paragon tier a 2 surge vampire isn't getting very far. Even in my own games, without durable vampires haven't done very well whatsoever at heroic tier - in fact a good deal of them haven't got through the one shot adventures we run without durable (bad luck and 2 surges makes me sad ). In my own games, I tend to use a good deal of skill challenges and traps to mix up encounters, neither of which provide vampires with options for getting back surges. So durable was pretty much a must have feat otherwise they really struggled very hard.

Personally though with durable as a safety net, I've yet to see a vampire have the same "Oops, I had a bad day and it is time for a new character". So I have no problem giving vampires in my games durable for free as a houserule and calling it a day. 4 surges is still pretty sucky, but because of their mechanics for getting back surges it works out very well. Also it means by paragon they actually have surges to spare for throwing onto their powers for extra damage. Given how incredibly poor the vampires damage compares to other strikers by paragon, this is a much needed boost to their ability to function as a striker.


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## Tanstaafl_au (May 10, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Here is the problem. Wizard's is the one that singled out your character, not the group. They implemented a mechanic that essentially feeds off of the other characters and requires their cooperation.
> 
> So now it is your responsibility to let the other player's know and they can decide if they want to play with you or not, or if they will allow you to drain a surge.
> 
> The main point is, don't bring a vampire to a game and automatically expect that you will be able to play it. If the vamp didn't have that mechanic then there would be no problem.




I'm sure some would still have issues with Vampire PCS even without that one gaming mechanic.

I dont see how losing that one thing would equal no problems.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 10, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Here is the problem.  Wizard's is the one that singled out your character, not the group.  They implemented a mechanic that essentially feeds off of the other characters and requires their cooperation.
> 
> So now it is your responsibility to let the other player's know and they can decide if they want to play with you or not, or if they will allow you to drain a surge.
> 
> The main point is, don't bring a vampire to a game and automatically expect that you will be able to play it.  If the vamp didn't have that mechanic then there would be no problem.




So, you actually read my whole post? I'm wondering because I already answered this. Making a 'Smurphpire' class because the real thing might., GASP!, offend some hypothetical uptight player somewhere is the good design choice.

Sorry, that would just be stupid. Do I get to kick and scream about your devil-pacted warlock? Your ASSASSIN (yeah, the guy who's whole shtick is based on murdering people)? Come now. 

Don't get me wrong, the vampire is clearly someone you can potentially have issues with. However, that can be FUN. As other people have already pointed out there are plenty of different sorts of backstory and character interrelationships which can be worked out such that the players can create an acceptable justification for why ANY particular group of adventurers might band together. Heck, literature, movies, TV, etc are replete with these kinds of stories.

So, yeah, if I come to the table with MY character, then I mostly expect the other players to accept that. Likewise, I don't go out of my way to make it hard for them to play their chosen concepts even when it means I have to bend a little either. I've been playing RPGs for a LONG time, almost as long as they've existed. When I sit down at the table to run a game I expect the players can be mature and reasonable enough to make it work and make it fun. If we're going to do a game where certain character concepts won't fit in then I'm going to make sure the players know that up front. In all those years I have yet to see that fail to work. 

I'd also finally note that you didn't see WotC tossing vampires out there as a major character concept on day one. 3 years into the run of 4e they've covered all the nice safe standard hero themes (and a good bit more). So, they now include rules for some things they don't expect a lot of people to consider as their most obvious character choice. Yet it is a valid choice that can add an interesting dimension to the game. They're now bad game designers because they're willing to open up the range of options enough for this kind of thing? Sorry, I'm just not buying it. Don't play it if you don't want to, don't even allow it at your table if you're that bent about it, but really, some of us are capable of handling it and having fun.


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## KidSnide (May 10, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Here is the problem.  Wizard's is the one that singled out your character, not the group.  They implemented a mechanic that essentially feeds off of the other characters and requires their cooperation.
> 
> So now it is your responsibility to let the other player's know and they can decide if they want to play with you or not, or if they will allow you to drain a surge.
> 
> The main point is, don't bring a vampire to a game and automatically expect that you will be able to play it.  If the vamp didn't have that mechanic then there would be no problem.




That's a feature, not a bug.  Vampires are supposed to be the sort of characters where you can't automatically expect a group of normal "good" PCs to want to adventure with you.  Mechanics that reinforce this dynamic is a laudable design goal.

-KS


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## GMforPowergamers (May 10, 2011)

Ok so let's go back to day 1... First 4 e game your group ever played... Play a and b sat down and made a half elf cleric of pelor and an elf paladin of pelor (half brothers) and player c made a non discript trifling wizard... And player d made a human infernal pact warlock... Then I will be the
Dm...


When they sit down and the cleric and paladin why they would ever travil with a demon, and someone who sold ther soul to one... Who is the problem:

A divine players
B other 2 players
Or
C wotc



Now what if we swap out paladin for avenger and cleric for invoked then swap the wizard for a volyka vampire... And the infernal lock for a dark pact lock What does it change?


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## Mithreinmaethor (May 10, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Mithreinmaethor, I've already been playing the vampire to test various things and seen it in play now. I wonder what tier you've seen these at? Because by paragon tier a 2 surge vampire isn't getting very far. Even in my own games, without durable vampires haven't done very well whatsoever at heroic tier - in fact a good deal of them haven't got through the one shot adventures we run without durable (bad luck and 2 surges makes me sad ). In my own games, I tend to use a good deal of skill challenges and traps to mix up encounters, neither of which provide vampires with options for getting back surges. So durable was pretty much a must have feat otherwise they really struggled very hard.
> 
> Personally though with durable as a safety net, I've yet to see a vampire have the same "Oops, I had a bad day and it is time for a new character". So I have no problem giving vampires in my games durable for free as a houserule and calling it a day. 4 surges is still pretty sucky, but because of their mechanics for getting back surges it works out very well. Also it means by paragon they actually have surges to spare for throwing onto their powers for extra damage. Given how incredibly poor the vampires damage compares to other strikers by paragon, this is a much needed boost to their ability to function as a striker.




I have played between 35 and 40 sessions with a Vampire or playing a Vampire.  Only about 5 or 6 of those were in Paragon (11th and 12th).

_Edit: To answer bargle0 I am currently unemployed and am a VT Beta tester. So I have had the ability to play a lot _


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## Herschel (May 10, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Personally though with durable as a safety net, I've yet to see a vampire have the same "Oops, I had a bad day and it is time for a new character".




I think it's not only dependent on the game but the player's attitude also. I can definitely see two surges being a big issue, I can also see it not being one easily enough. In the game I'm most likely to face one, well, lets just say they aren't the most attached to their characters anyway. 

Were I to play one, I'd want the safety net but that's just me as a player.


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## Rel (May 10, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> So because you say you had no trouble with the vampire then that means everything is okay?
> 
> Wow that deserves the ignore list.




This is pretty rude.  If you want to put somebody on Ignore then feel free to do so.  There is no need to go rubbing it in their face.


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## UngeheuerLich (May 11, 2011)

So in some groups the vampire works without durable, in some groups it does not. And durable as a buffer most surely helps.

Looks like any other class... Many casters need to take unarmored agility, some dtrikers need to get chain... There are some good feats for most classes, that could be considered must haves.

I personally would not give it out for free, as you will see a lot of players reasoning, why class xx needs just this one feat to become viable...


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## ForeverSlayer (May 11, 2011)

Would the vampire become a better striker if it were able to add it's riders more often during battle because it has more healing surges to burn?


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 11, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Would the vampire become a better striker if it were able to add it's riders more often during battle because it has more healing surges to burn?




Well, it wouldn't make a huge difference since all the 'use a surge' powers are encounter powers or daily powers. It makes SOME difference since you're more likely to have the spare surges to use those powers/kickers. It won't boost your DPR incredibly though.

The thing is vampires are fine in heroic tier. They can dish out a pretty fair amount of damage, and are quite accurate. They just lack a lot of ways to access the traditional optimizations that earlier classes use to crank that up. There aren't multi-attacks or minor action attack powers and you're using either a holy symbol or a ki focus, neither of which are known for having incredibly damage enhancing enchantments. You CAN optimize, but not a lot. Given you have very few power choices either you can't easily access swaps that would get you something extra. A half-elf can pick up Twin Strike of course, and using a ki focus you could use it fairly effectively, but that only gains you a little bit. 

Honestly my feeling is that for the most part vampire is more in line with the original intended power curve where there are some decent options but they just can't be piled one atop the other with multi-attack tricks to get DPR sky high. You'll note too that other Essential style strikers like the Slayer have some similar issues, though not to the same degree.


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## ForeverSlayer (May 11, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, it wouldn't make a huge difference since all the 'use a surge' powers are encounter powers or daily powers. It makes SOME difference since you're more likely to have the spare surges to use those powers/kickers. It won't boost your DPR incredibly though.
> 
> The thing is vampires are fine in heroic tier. They can dish out a pretty fair amount of damage, and are quite accurate. They just lack a lot of ways to access the traditional optimizations that earlier classes use to crank that up. There aren't multi-attacks or minor action attack powers and you're using either a holy symbol or a ki focus, neither of which are known for having incredibly damage enhancing enchantments. You CAN optimize, but not a lot. Given you have very few power choices either you can't easily access swaps that would get you something extra. A half-elf can pick up Twin Strike of course, and using a ki focus you could use it fairly effectively, but that only gains you a little bit.
> 
> Honestly my feeling is that for the most part vampire is more in line with the original intended power curve where there are some decent options but they just can't be piled one atop the other with multi-attack tricks to get DPR sky high. You'll note too that other Essential style strikers like the Slayer have some similar issues, though not to the same degree.




I think the vampire would have been better if it was a weapon using class instead of a predetermined damage class.  Then you could apply holy symbols like the "Fist of Kord" on top of the weapon pluses and feats.

Well I would have given it at least one weapon using At-will, encounter and Daily power to choose from.  The vamp could essentially wield a one handed weapon and still attack with his bare hand.  You don't have to hold a holy symbol or a Ki focus.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> Would the vampire become a better striker if it were able to add it's riders more often during battle because it has more healing surges to burn?



Not really. It brings them above OAssassin levels, but not much else as they only can do this limited times (encounter powers and some dailies allow it). 


			
				AbdulAlhazred said:
			
		

> You'll note too that other Essential style strikers like the Slayer have some similar issues, though not to the same degree.



Slayers have nowhere near the problems that vampires do and pull ridiculous DPR with trivial amounts of optimization. For one thing, Slayers can take huge die weapons, like d12 mordenkrads, fullblades or the gouge. The slayer is _ridiculously_ accurate: I've been able to get a 80% even chance to hit a monster of the same level _trivially_ and this is without CA. Slayers are naturally one of the _best_ chargers in 4E, with a stance that gives +2 accuracy on charging and +2 speed (this is really the major factor that makes them ridiculously good at this). Charging at +3 to hit all day? With all the delicious delicious charge cheese in 4E? That's not good. That is flat out _amazing_.

Not to mention that slayers have a very effective damage scaling bonus, stances that add extra damage that scale very well (though in fairness, many slayers will just abuse the +2 to hit and speed on charging stance), they can get rain of blows for a strong multiple attack at higher levels and on top of all this, they add dex onto all of their attacks too. Take surprising charge - conveniently enough there is a 2d6 brutal 1 spear AND axe in the game just for that - did I mention expertise that adds +1/+2/+3 damage on that  as well on charging? - for charges that do 4d6 brutal 1 natively (from heroic tier pretty much) and later in epic 6d6 brutal 1 natively. That's your basic charge, doing 3[W] with beyond ridiculous accuracy to boot. You'll notice I've not even mentioned power strike, but by epic that right there is _12d6 brutal 1_ on a charge (as power strike will add a flat 3[W]). If we don't assume the gouge is available, you'll still get 5d12 with something like a fullblade - plus is more accurate (as it's +3). So scaling wise, the slayer is flying into epic with huge horrible teeth - the vampire is limping in and is barely able to keep up.

Quite frankly, the slayer is nowhere near in the same ballpark as the vampire when you are *that* built for charging. Of course you might argue that charging needs to be looked at in general, because if you are built to use charging in any manner it's just ridiculous how much better you are than someone not built for charging. Then again, the slayer feels like it was made to abuse charging. The slayer isn't known for having problems inflicting ridiculous amounts of damage. I mean I think the slayer is boring, but I'll _never_ criticize its ability to deal damage. The only thing more obscene for pure base every single round effectiveness is the thief. Both of whom with the feat article last month have options for minor action attacks or multiple attacks too.

The question of course is, where does the vampire go wrong? This is actually simple to answer:

1) The vampire has no native accuracy boosting feature, unlike the Slayer and Rogue (who gain a natural +1 bonus to pretty much everything they want to do). The vampire does get its choice of NADs, but the Thief can turn all of his attacks into targeting reflex and with his ridiculous accuracy as well.

2) The vampire uses implement attacks. This means he's restricted to smaller dice, except on a precious few encounter powers and similar. You can't make the same use out of the options like charging that the slayer can (and the slayer frankly, also enjoys +2 accuracy from the charge stance as well).

3) The vampires secondary damage mechanics don't scale anywhere near that of essentials strikers. 

4) The vampire relies heavily on being able to burn surges for extra damage - hence why durable is really important. More surges = more burning = better encounter nova. Of course the best encounter novas of the vampire are getting into territory of the worst efforts of some of the other strikers - which is why they get so criticized on this (especially towards paragon). Durable solves this though in fairness, but it's one of the other reasons its so important aside from low level survival.

5) The vampire, as you mentioned Abdul, doesn't have the options for multiple attacks and minor actions/interrupts that some others do. Now the slayer/thief aren't great at this either, but they make up for it with so much ridiculous front loading that they don't have to care. Slayers and thieves don't approach multiple attacking strikers, but oh boy do they hold their own easily. The vampire does not.

My solutions now I've seen enough of Mr. Vampy:

1) Give the vampire a much bigger static increase to damage as he levels up. Vampires can't abuse charging. They can't get many multiple attacks and they are entirely locked into a linear route. Giving them a better damage scaling mechanic would work wonders. Blood drinker IMO could go to 2d8/3d8/4d8 in fact (instead of 1d8/2d8/3d8 as it is now). I mean that's not the biggest increase in the world, but it's something at least on top of their charisma (which I think should get a bigger static bonus to help their damage).

2) I would like to see them get more ways of burning surges for extra damage in general. Maybe just another power or so where they can spend a surge, to throw on some d10s onto an attack. It would still fit the mechanics of the class and really enforce their desperation to get surges.

3) I am unsure if vampires or anything in these essentials books will ever get class feats, but a bunch of class feats to give them more accuracy, or higher damage or _something_ could go such a long way to helping the vampire. Part of the reason slayers/thieves really are not equivalent in problems to the vampire is _all that previous support_. Surprising charge for example, is plainly ridiculous for a slayer and was published a really long time ago (martial power in fact). Vampires have 0 support in terms of feats, which is partly why they fall so far behind as slayers/thieves have the genius move of being fighters/rogues. They get delicious delicious support, so it's little wonder that slayers and thieves have the options to pull their damage ahead, despite things we'd think of as "problems" with optimizing damage. Again the lack of immediate interrupts, minor action attacks and multiple attacks don't bother the slayer/thief at all. They front load literally everything so much they get away with it. This should be the approach the vampire should take.

The vampire could use a lot of support and does in fact really need it at paragon and above. This is about the time that the OAssassin becomes laughably bad as well (coincidence? I think not). I think most of the vampires damage issues could be easily solved, but it's up to wizards to do it with good focused support where it needs it. As we've seen with the Runepriest or Seeker though - it's not a good idea to count on support fixing your class. 

But in fairness, at least the vampire isn't the binder!


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## ForeverSlayer (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Not really. It brings them above OAssassin levels, but not much else as they only can do this limited times (encounter powers and some dailies allow it).
> Slayers have nowhere near the problems that vampires do and pull ridiculous DPR with trivial amounts of optimization. For one thing, Slayers can take huge die weapons, like d12 mordenkrads, fullblades or the gouge. The slayer is _ridiculously_ accurate: I've been able to get a 80% even chance to hit a monster of the same level _trivially_ and this is without CA. Slayers are naturally one of the _best_ chargers in 4E, with a stance that gives +2 accuracy on charging and +2 speed (this is really the major factor that makes them ridiculously good at this). Charging at +3 to hit all day? With all the delicious delicious charge cheese in 4E? That's not good. That is flat out _amazing_.
> 
> Not to mention that slayers have a very effective damage scaling bonus, stances that add extra damage that scale very well (though in fairness, many slayers will just abuse the +2 to hit and speed on charging stance), they can get rain of blows for a strong multiple attack at higher levels and on top of all this, they add dex onto all of their attacks too. Take surprising charge - conveniently enough there is a 2d6 brutal 1 spear AND axe in the game just for that - did I mention expertise that adds +1/+2/+3 damage on that  as well on charging? - for charges that do 4d6 brutal 1 natively (from heroic tier pretty much) and later in epic 6d6 brutal 1 natively. That's your basic charge, doing 3[W] with beyond ridiculous accuracy to boot. You'll notice I've not even mentioned power strike, but by epic that right there is _12d6 brutal 1_ on a charge (as power strike will add a flat 3[W]). If we don't assume the gouge is available, you'll still get 5d12 with something like a fullblade - plus is more accurate (as it's +3). So scaling wise, the slayer is flying into epic with huge horrible teeth - the vampire is limping in and is barely able to keep up.
> ...




There is also giving the Slayer a Vanguard Executioners Axe, Iron Armbands and a Horned Helm for even more damage with a charge.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

Actually you don't need Iron Armbands as you can simply make or buy Bracers of Mighty Striking, which are a common item that does the exact same thing for you. Only cheaper and you don't need to rely on your DM giving you it, as Iron Armbands are a uncommon item. This also means you can leave the Iron Armbands for another party member who isn't going to be spamming MBAs and could really use it more.


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## cignus_pfaccari (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> 3) The vampires secondary damage mechanics don't scale anywhere near that of essentials strikers.




I was building a leech and noticed that, at 5th level, its damage was about the same as my psion's.  

This seemed rather absurdly low.

(I think that I could get a two-point advantage on the vampire had I not spent a feat on Durable.)

Brad


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Not really. It brings them above OAssassin levels, but not much else as they only can do this limited times (encounter powers and some dailies allow it).
> Slayers have nowhere near the problems that vampires do and pull ridiculous DPR with trivial amounts of optimization. For one thing, Slayers can take huge die weapons, like d12 mordenkrads, fullblades or the gouge. The slayer is _ridiculously_ accurate: I've been able to get a 80% even chance to hit a monster of the same level _trivially_ and this is without CA. Slayers are naturally one of the _best_ chargers in 4E, with a stance that gives +2 accuracy on charging and +2 speed (this is really the major factor that makes them ridiculously good at this). Charging at +3 to hit all day? With all the delicious delicious charge cheese in 4E? That's not good. That is flat out _amazing_.
> 
> Not to mention that slayers have a very effective damage scaling bonus, stances that add extra damage that scale very well (though in fairness, many slayers will just abuse the +2 to hit and speed on charging stance), they can get rain of blows for a strong multiple attack at higher levels and on top of all this, they add dex onto all of their attacks too. Take surprising charge - conveniently enough there is a 2d6 brutal 1 spear AND axe in the game just for that - did I mention expertise that adds +1/+2/+3 damage on that  as well on charging? - for charges that do 4d6 brutal 1 natively (from heroic tier pretty much) and later in epic 6d6 brutal 1 natively. That's your basic charge, doing 3[W] with beyond ridiculous accuracy to boot. You'll notice I've not even mentioned power strike, but by epic that right there is _12d6 brutal 1_ on a charge (as power strike will add a flat 3[W]). If we don't assume the gouge is available, you'll still get 5d12 with something like a fullblade - plus is more accurate (as it's +3). So scaling wise, the slayer is flying into epic with huge horrible teeth - the vampire is limping in and is barely able to keep up.
> ...




It's a fine analysis. I didn't mean to imply that the Slayer was in the same ballpark with the Vampire, only that they share a trait in common in lacking access to certain types of damage stacking. The common accepted wisdom in these parts also being that they do fall somewhat short of the top tier of striker damage at high levels, though they're quiet respectable. Chargers also have a habit of being hot and cold, either you're in a situation where you can charge and you do great, or you're not and you don't, at which point the Slayer is still pretty good, but definitely falls quite far behind the top tier strikers. 

In any case I think the jury is out on what support we'll see for the Vampire. If players clamor for more support then I think we'll see it. While class and race specific feats GENERALLY are being deemphasized I don't think we should write them off as dead yet. They're still likely to appear in specific contexts where they're a good fit. We could also see more powers and entire additional builds for vampires (perhaps alternative traditional variations of vampire, there are a lot of them out there).

Another thing that I think is true with the vampire, and a couple other classes to some extent, is that they are just very straightforward and there isn't much to optimize. This definitely makes them boring for people who like to tinker around with optimization. I think charops often runs into a problem where they hate something simply because they can't do much with it, not because it is intrinsically bad.

As far as binders go, I've seen a couple of perfectly competent builds, even right up to 30. The real issue with them isn't that they're bad, it is just that you can build a hexblade or PHB1 warlock that is better and can manage pretty much the same concept. There's also a perception in charops that only the 'hardest' control options matter. Thematically the binder is very solid. Honestly the binder is what the warlock should have been in many ways, but in an attempt to justify its existence it ended up with a fairly rotten 'curse' mechanic and a sub-par accuracy feature. Honestly I think they'd have been best off to have just said "this is now the warlock" slapped curse on it, provided the other existing pact types for it, given it access to all the existing powers, and called it a day.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

Now you're saying what I do about the binder!  Which is basically that the original Warlock does everything it does, with better control and more damage. That's what makes the binder awful, because it just doesn't do anything in the game that another class doesn't do better. At least the Vampire unequivocally deserves its own little unique niche in the game.

Plus the Warlock is about to get a boost to its damage dealing power soon anyway!


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## Saracenus (May 12, 2011)

So, I have finally played a vampire in my first D&D Encounters (DDE) session. Granted DDE has its own little quirks that a home game doesn't but experience is experience.

First off, with my wife playing a Human Blackguard of Fury my Human Vampire doesn't pump out the vomitius amounts of damage she does (he does alright). But I had a blast role-playing him with the rest of the group.

I played up the cheezy Eastern European accent and made some obligatory snarky comments about not sparkling...

Mine was a tragic story, Zlatrazar was from a long line of vampire hunters and his father and brothers took him on a "mission" to blood him... unfortunately things didn't go well and in an act of cruelty the vampire his family was hunting turned the tables on them and turned Zlatrazar in front of his father and siblings before killing them.

Zaltrazar was a horrible hunter, he is even less of a vampire. Left to fend for himself he now tries to figure out his new powers and dreams of a time when he can kill the very vampire that turned him...

Yep, I definitely took Durable because I was not sure who was going to show up at the table. Good thing I did, we had the following:

Human Blackguard (Paladin)
Human Cavalier (Paladin)
Human Executioner (Assassin)
Shade Star Pact Binder (Warlock)
and my Human Vamp...

Here is my PC, Zlatrazar:

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Human, Vampire
Human Power Selection Option: Heroic Effort

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
STR 10, CON 12, DEX 18, INT 10, WIS 10, CHA 16

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
STR 10, CON 12, DEX 16, INT 10, WIS 10, CHA 16


AC: 16 Fort: 13 Ref: 15 Will: 15
HP: 24 Surges: 4 Surge Value: 6

TRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +9, Bluff +8, Stealth +9, Religion +5, Thievery +9

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +0, Athletics +0, Diplomacy +3, Dungeoneering +0, Endurance +1, Heal +0, History +0, Insight +0, Intimidate +3, Nature +0, Perception +0, Streetwise +3

POWERS
Basic Attack: Melee Basic Attack
Basic Attack: Ranged Basic Attack
Human Racial Power: Heroic Effort
Vampire Attack: Blood Drinker
Vampire Attack 1: Swarm of Shadows
Vampire Attack 1: Dark Beckoning
Vampire Attack 1: Taste of Life
Vampire Attack 1: Vampire Slam

FEATS
Level 1: Durable
Level 1: Ki Focus Expertise

ITEMS
Ki Focus x1
Cloth Armor (Basic Clothing) x1
Crossbow x1
Adventurer's Kit
Crossbow Bolts
Thieves' Tools
Holy Symbol
====== End ======


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## Incenjucar (May 12, 2011)

Since people like anecdotes: Tonight, at Encounters, the DM killed the first PC he has EVER killed after years of gaming. The halfling vampire. While fighting an even level skirmisher.

My badly-designed Evoker who started the encounter off adjacent to a +2 level lurker that moved with him (thus making him unable to with more than a stick) survived and was vastly more effective.

So yay to anecdotal evidence.


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## Saracenus (May 12, 2011)

Incenjucar said:


> Since people like anecdotes: Tonight, at Encounters, the DM killed the first PC he has EVER killed after years of gaming. The halfling vampire. While fighting an even level skirmisher.
> 
> My badly-designed Evoker who started the encounter off adjacent to a +2 level lurker that moved with him (thus making him unable to with more than a stick) survived and was vastly more effective.
> 
> So yay to anecdotal evidence.




On the flip side, at my table I had 5 temp hp, an extra surge to heal with if need be. I killed on animated gargoyle and set up the party Paladin to finish off a 2nd. My vamp was never touched.

Granted, the Paladin had 7 hp left by the end of the encounter and my wife's blackguard was bloodied (which she milked for more damage on each hit). I think the Executioner was also untouched and the poor binder had his shadow sucked out and was hurting...

Yay anecdotal evidence...


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## WalterKovacs (May 12, 2011)

A couple things:

(a) You still need to get C/A for suprising charge. Sure, there are easy ways to get it, but charging into C/A does make it a little more difficult (you need to be able to move into position if you intend to charge into a flank, or get the enemy alone for cunning stalker).

(b) Gouge + Suprising Charge is, like the twin strike + immediate reactions/minor actions, sort of set the DPR standard at ridiculous levels. When basically optimization for a striker is: Can you charge? Ok, then you need 17 Dex, multiclass into fighter or rogue (preferably fighter 13 STR/WIS to get the immediate reaction attack in order to increase the DPR) and take suprising charge with a gouge (unless you need to use a light blade, in which case rapier is fine) ... OR go with two weapons, get twin-strike as an elf, multiclass into something that gives you access to more minor/interupt/etc attacks than your class gives you natively ... That's a bit absurd. And thus, if the striker doesn't use weapons, it really has no hope. 

Really, not matter WHAT they give a striker, if it's impement based, they aren't going to get Gouge Charging or multi-attacking DPR. The best they can hope for is going the monk/sorceror direction and getting lots of damage via attacking tons of targets. I don't think the vampire stood a chance, especially when they didn't want it to turn into an axe wielding charger or a whirling dervish. 

One of the big questions is what exactly is the 'expected' DPR for strikers and the like? In June they are doing an "official" rules update, and sooner or later we'll see the ranger (with his twin strike, etc) getting some updates as well. It's possible that the Vampire is expected to have DPR that while a bit on the low side, but that the top end DPR will be brought down to be more in line with the 'expectation'. It does seem that with the 1/rnd quarry damage/sneak attack/curse and the "no ability modifier" damage for twin strike that they underestimated the value of multi attacks and off standard attacks (the ranger is one of the best DPR in the game and that has pretty much NOTHING to do with their quarry striker mechanic ...) Heck the ammount of nerfing put onto multi-attacks (especially ones that target the same person on each attack) has been nerfed a lot.


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

WalterKovacs said:


> A couple things:
> 
> (a) You still need to get C/A for suprising charge. Sure, there are easy ways to get it, but charging into C/A does make it a little more difficult (you need to be able to move into position if you intend to charge into a flank, or get the enemy alone for cunning stalker).



This is actually rather trivial. Cunning stalker will 9/10 do the trick and enemies that group up are asking to be wrecked by controllers. Anything else there is flanking and status effects. Getting CA a lot of the time is actually pretty easy. It's also not like it makes a huge difference to them in the end. It's delicious icing on an incredibly delicious cake: Not a required part of abusing charging (just adds to it).

Really the reason the slayer builds for charging is because they are strength/dex and have a stance for +2 accuracy on charging (which is where they get most of their DPR in reality - accuracy). The +2 accuracy, combined with +1 for charging is what makes it absurd. When you're getting 80%+ chances to hit and this is before any CA, you know there is trouble.


> Really, not matter WHAT they give a striker, if it's impement based, they aren't going to get Gouge Charging or multi-attacking DPR.



Which is why they need much bigger bonuses! It's difficult to determine what the expected DPR the vampire should be doing is, but it is pretty clear now that when the vampire is failing to out-damage many non-strikers - there is a massive problem.

Sadly even with the rules update coming, there isn't much hope this edition for fixing the problem with multiple attacks against single ones. It's a flaw that is baked into the system and would take a huge rewrite to fix. I would expect something to be done about twin strike, because it's a highlighted problem again and again (especially half-elven avengers pinching it to abuse crit fishing). Charging is something I hope will get a serious look at though.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Now you're saying what I do about the binder!  Which is basically that the original Warlock does everything it does, with better control and more damage. That's what makes the binder awful, because it just doesn't do anything in the game that another class doesn't do better. At least the Vampire unequivocally deserves its own little unique niche in the game.
> 
> Plus the Warlock is about to get a boost to its damage dealing power soon anyway!




Except it doesn't make the binder 'awful'. In fact the binder isn't a bad class at all, it has more coherent theme than the original warlock. It really could use more power choices in my opinion, but that's my tastes more than anything. I could go into what I think the binder illustrates about the game, but we're already far off topic here. 



Aegeri said:


> This is actually rather trivial. Cunning stalker will 9/10 do the trick and enemies that group up are asking to be wrecked by controllers. Anything else there is flanking and status effects. Getting CA a lot of the time is actually pretty easy. It's also not like it makes a huge difference to them in the end. It's delicious icing on an incredibly delicious cake: Not a required part of abusing charging (just adds to it).
> 
> Really the reason the slayer builds for charging is because they are strength/dex and have a stance for +2 accuracy on charging (which is where they get most of their DPR in reality - accuracy). The +2 accuracy, combined with +1 for charging is what makes it absurd. When you're getting 80%+ chances to hit and this is before any CA, you know there is trouble.
> Which is why they need much bigger bonuses! It's difficult to determine what the expected DPR the vampire should be doing is, but it is pretty clear now that when the vampire is failing to out-damage many non-strikers - there is a massive problem.
> ...




I doubt there's much chance they will do huge surgery on either charging or multi-attacking. It is possible Twin Strike might get hammered on, but I'm even a bit skeptical about that, it is very iconic at this point and they could have nerfed it in the very first PHB1 errata as it was already quite obvious in week 2 of 4e that it was out of line. The problem with charging is that there's no one thing to nerf. Horned Helm, Badge of the Berzerker, Surprising Charge, the Gouge, etc etc etc pretty much all have to get the hammer because you can stack up many different combinations of those elements to stupid levels. OTOH they did nerf down orbizards and the situation was similar, but that one WAS game-breaking whereas high damage output for a specific build type is crappy but doesn't have quite the same impact. There are also a lot of ways to thwart charge-centric builds tactically. It was almost impossible to thwart the old "I cast sleep through my orb of Inescapable consequences..."


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Except it doesn't make the binder 'awful'. In fact the binder isn't a bad class at all, it has more coherent theme than the original warlock.



This is irrelevant. If there are two identical choices (and really that's what we're talking about as they share the same powers and general theme) and one is worse than the other, then yes, it is awful. The binder actually isn't as good a controller as the original _striker_ warlock. That's how sad it is!

I mean if we have Class A, who does everything you do, have the same general flavor/theme, is a better controller than you (your primary role), can pinch your best thing (your at-will power, which is pretty damn great TBH), gets better encounter power choices than you and to add insult to injury to all this _deals a whole crapload more damage_, awful is indeed the only good description of it.


> I could go into what I think the binder illustrates about the game, but we're already far off topic here.



That's easy, it shows the designers don't actually pay attention to the options they have added into the game! Unfortunately like the Vampire, I am not hopeful of the binder getting support to boost it over the original warlock. So sadly it will end up stuck in the "Why does this exist and is inferior in every way to being just a regular warlock (or Hexblade, who BTW is a GOOD example of adding a neat new option to Warlocks)" category of classes in 4E 


> The problem with charging is that there's no one thing to nerf. Horned Helm, Badge of the Berzerker, Surprising Charge, the Gouge, etc etc etc pretty much all have to get the hammer because you can stack up many different combinations of those elements to stupid levels.



You gave the example of save ends things, but they haven't been unafraid to do this with surgeless healing as well as another example (and that errata'ed a ton of stuff). I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility of dealing with a few of those items at least.


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> This is irrelevant. If there are two identical choices (and really that's what we're talking about as they share the same powers and general theme) and one is worse than the other, then yes, it is awful. The binder actually isn't as good a controller as the original _striker_ warlock. That's how sad it is!
> 
> I mean if we have Class A, who does everything you do, have the same general flavor/theme, is a better controller than you (your primary role), can pinch your best thing (your at-will power, which is pretty damn great TBH), gets better encounter power choices than you and to add insult to injury to all this _deals a whole crapload more damage_, awful is indeed the only good description of it.
> That's easy, it shows the designers don't actually pay attention to the options they have added into the game! Unfortunately like the Vampire, I am not hopeful of the binder getting support to boost it over the original warlock. So sadly it will end up stuck in the "Why does this exist and is inferior in every way to being just a regular warlock (or Hexblade, who BTW is a GOOD example of adding a neat new option to Warlocks)" category of classes in 4E
> You gave the example of save ends things, but they haven't been unafraid to do this with surgeless healing as well as another example (and that errata'ed a ton of stuff). I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility of dealing with a few of those items at least.




As I said before, I don't want to derail this thread with a discussion of the evolution of 4e design philosophy and the reasons why the binder was created in the first place, etc. We can talk about it elsewhere and I'd be happy to do that.

As for nerfing charging, it is possible. It depends on whether they see it as an issue that is really disrupting the whole basis of the game or not like lockdown builds and surgeless healing were. Those both HAD to be reigned in as they were undermining the workability of the game in general. Charge builds are an annoyance, but all they do is create some high DPR situational builds that don't actually do anything you couldn't achieve in other ways before they came along. Still, they may tone them down some, and I'd be in favor of that. Just not SURE it will happen. I won't be surprised either way.


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## Neonchameleon (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> 1) The vampire has no native accuracy boosting feature, unlike the Slayer and Rogue (who gain a natural +1 bonus to pretty much everything they want to do). The vampire does get its choice of NADs, but the Thief can turn all of his attacks into targeting reflex and with his ridiculous accuracy as well.




For the record, this is false.  The Vampire's native accuracy booster is a full-spectrum choice of NADs (including a +2 damage vs will).  A smart vampire can always pick their target's low defence.



> 3) The vampires secondary damage mechanics don't scale anywhere near that of essentials strikers.




In exchange the Vampire gets daily powers (unlike the Thief, the Slayer, and the Scout - leaving just the Hexblade which IIRC scales notably worse than the other three).



> The vampire could use a lot of support and does in fact really need it at paragon and above. This is about the time that the OAssassin becomes laughably bad as well (coincidence? I think not).
> ...
> But in fairness, at least the vampire isn't the binder!




Agreed on both points.  And unlike either the Binder or IMO the OAssassin, there's something the Vampire does better than any other class in the game; goes into a small fight that should drain healing surges despite being nothing more than a speed bump, and comes out the other side having lost absolutely nothing.  EL+3 or +4 fights they really suffer in.  But a string of fast EL-1 fights or a PC campaign of harassment and hit and fade and the vampire works wonders.

That said, it's normally the EL+3 that are the important ones...


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## Aegeri (May 12, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> For the record, this is false.  The Vampire's native accuracy booster is a full-spectrum choice of NADs (including a +2 damage vs will).  A smart vampire can always pick their target's low defence.



This isn't false in any way. Targeting NADs is not truly equivalent to a bonus to accuracy for a _striker_ and neither does it significantly boost the vampires DPR. I do see what you're aiming at, but it doesn't work out this way in practice especially when you need to use your temp HP granting power (particularly in difficult encounters). They do at least target reflex with their biggest damage die (1d10), but then again they really rely on the temp HP at-will in my experience and that targets fort. Fort - coincidentally - is the worst NAD in the game to target.


> In exchange the Vampire gets daily powers (unlike the Thief, the Slayer, and the Scout - leaving just the Hexblade which IIRC scales notably worse than the other three).



If these dailies actually did decent damage this might have been a good point, but unfortunately they don't


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## UngeheuerLich (May 12, 2011)

I guess the EL+3 encounters are those, which will immediately end the adventuring day. So the vampire just has to survive... He can actually spend 1 surge for increased damage, and be healed durring the fight and regenerate to bloodied afterwards, when he, if needed get a surge from an ally.

Also, the vampire can suck dry a person he happen´s to meet. If it is a noncombatant, he can get it without taking blood... but news will be spread, that a vampire is around... or if the person is a nonminion, he will be able to pick a fight, possibly killing a good person. (Don´t tell me this is bag of rats... I would not allow such things if it did not have in game consequences that could get very rough. Sucking dry actual rats won´t give surges, btw...)


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> This isn't false in any way. Targeting NADs is not truly equivalent to a bonus to accuracy for a _striker_ and neither does it significantly boost the vampires DPR. I do see what you're aiming at, but it doesn't work out this way in practice especially when you need to use your temp HP granting power (particularly in difficult encounters).
> If these dailies actually did decent damage this might have been a good point, but unfortunately they don't




I think we should wait and see what kind of ongoing support the Vampire class gets before we become too exercised. From a design standpoint there are a couple of things to observe. It is a LOT easier to start off conservatively with something that is a fairly significant departure from existing mechanics and build on it than it is to start off overpowered and try to figure out how to bring something back down to size. This is especially true with Essentials style designs where often scaling the design back involves changes to basic class features as opposed to just nerfing a power or two. Notice how things have gone with Psionics where the core mechanic itself is OP. Has it been fixed? No. Will it ever be fixed? No. It really isn't fixable without fairly drastic surgery. Give WotC some credit for learning from their mistakes.

I'd also point out that the Vampire is a bit unique. I don't think they WANT it to be an option that you take in order to create an optimal build. That would lead to a situation where vampires are crawling out of the woodwork and would be a big annoyance to a lot of people. The design goal would be more to make it a viable middle-of-the-road option that someone who's already intending to work with that concept won't be suffering terribly for picking. In heroic tier and into low paragon it is already pretty much there. At higher levels it needs a little tweaking, but that can be accomplished with some added options. I wouldn't assume the class isn't pretty close to where the designers were aiming for at this point in time. They have concerns that transcend any one specific mechanic. They may also have goals and directions they wish to go in of which we are totally unaware that will put current design decisions more in context over time.


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## GMforPowergamers (May 12, 2011)

Some of the guys and I did a quick delve to try the vamp out... we set up a 3 combat encounters and a skill challange.

encounter 1) Kobold guards... 2 dragon sheilds, what ever the 2 dagger kobold is called and 10 minons

encounter 2) skill challange: unlock the mystic door

encounter 3) zombies and skeletons

encounter 4) a hombe brew solo mummy

we called it the tomb of the dragonking

we then ran through twice...

team 1- Human Longsword weapon master fighter, Dwarf Tac Warlord, Voloka Vampire, shadar ki Gloom pack warlock, and eladrin monk

team 2- Half elf Gloom pack hexblade, Kalashar Psion, Mul Warden, tiefling slayer, half elf bard

ok so first things first... we made it through both times, but team 2 had a much harder time about it (in encounter 4 a lucky crit droped the bard round 2... and that was a major issue)

but lets go fight by fight (we took notes)

fight 1...
   team 1- the vampire was good, compaired to the monk he really seamed a decent striker. the fight lasted 6 rounds...but both round 5 and 6 it was 1 bloodied dragon shield left
   team 2- wow this was way shorter of a fight... round 1 the slayer and warden both double teamed a dragonshield and droped it... then with an action point a augmented memory hole, and a disharten droped half the minons...

skill challange...
   both teams breezed through this 8 successes 0 fails

fight 2...
   team 1 the vampire got hit hard in this one, he was quickly at single digit hp... and his regen was going most of the fight, andwe all agreeed if anyone else took the hits he did they would be dead...at one point he fought a skeleton who kept knocking down 3-6 hp and the vamp regened 4... he told the warlord not to heal him...and at the end of the fight he had 3 surges so he was full.
  team 2 the hex blade made a bunch of castlvaina jokes... but the fight was must quicker...again 2 rounds quicker

fight 3...
   team 1 rocked... the fighter and warlord both opened with daily, and action point, the vampire did ok, and this is the first time team 1 took less time... it bloodied the mummy round 2, and killed it round 5
   team 2 sucked... as said above the bard got crit and droped round 2...and didn't get brought back up till round 5 (with 2 failed death saves) so that round majestic worded himself...leading to the round 6 were the psion, hexblade, and slayer were all at single digit hp... the warden on the other hand was doing the most damage this encounter... and round 6 also saw the solo bloodied... round 7 a crit from the slayer and the mummy finaly fell.


our results: the vampire is a low damage striker (like avenger warlock and monk) but it;s bonus is survival... in fact at the end of fight 3 the vamp still has 2 surges... the same as the warden, and more then the monk or fighter.


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## Neonchameleon (May 12, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> This isn't false in any way. Targeting NADs is not truly equivalent to a bonus to accuracy for a _striker_ and neither does it significantly boost the vampires DPR.




I think you miss the difference between targeting NADs and your choice of NAD to target.  The Infernal Warlock gains nothing by targetting reflex - reflex is always the same as reflex.  But if you get to pick the NAD, you can go for the Brute's Will or the Controller's Fort.  This is the approach my monk takes (or rather he kicks skirmishers in the head and whirlwind attacks brutes and soldiers).  Which effect to pick is a balancing act (one of the reasons I despise Twin Strike) and the against will has its charms - especially if your charisma matches your dexterity (and you can either shift back or play games with Defender Auras).


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## ForeverSlayer (May 12, 2011)

Neonchameleon said:


> I think you miss the difference between targeting NADs and _your choice of NAD to target._  The Infernal Warlock gains nothing by targetting reflex - reflex is always the same as reflex.  But if you get to pick the NAD, you can go for the Brute's Will or the Controller's Fort.  This is the approach my monk takes (or rather he kicks skirmishers in the head and whirlwind attacks brutes and soldiers).  Which effect to pick is a balancing act (one of the reasons I despise Twin Strike) and the against will has its charms - especially if your charisma matches your dexterity (and you can either shift back or play games with Defender Auras).




What are you talking about in this part that I underlined?


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## cignus_pfaccari (May 12, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> What are you talking about in this part that I underlined?




I do believe he's talking about the leech's ability to choose which NAD to target, so you can always target, if you so choose, their weakest defense.

Granted, it's not always going to work out that way in practice, since you may need to use the tHP-granting attack over and over, but it gives you an option for accuracy.

Brad


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## AbdulAlhazred (May 12, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> What are you talking about in this part that I underlined?




He's saying there is quite a difference between a character who's powers target one specific NAD and one which has equivalent options against ANY NAD. 

Of course there is also another response to this, which is that you can't really find a class/build that cleanly falls into one of these camps. There are builds which largely target one or two NADs and the effects they can achieve against one or the other may significantly differ, but it would be quite rare to find a character that has NO choice except to target FORT or REF and can't fall back on a decent alternative going for a different NAD for at least a significant number of its attacks. The Vampire however DOES have a notable degree of flexibility in which defense to target, which is advantageous. It isn't alone in this though, so you would be hard pressed to argue it is a unique selling point. OTOH it is a useful advantage. Another knock against that however is you'll probably end up with some feats and such that will more heavily favor one over the other.

Overall I'm not highly sold on the argument, but there is something to it, and conceptually it is a perfectly valid point. The real question is if it is ever effectively realized in practice to a degree that it makes a measurable difference.


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## ForeverSlayer (May 12, 2011)

cignus_pfaccari said:


> I do believe he's talking about the leech's ability to choose which NAD to target, so you can always target, if you so choose, their weakest defense.
> 
> Granted, it's not always going to work out that way in practice, since you may need to use the tHP-granting attack over and over, but it gives you an option for accuracy.
> 
> Brad




What are you talking about by choosing which NAD to target?  The powers of the vampire all have a specific NAD that they target so I really don't get what you mean.

Also there are only three powers that grant a +2 and that is to Charisma which is most likely going to be their second stat while Dex is their first so it essentially evens out. 

You have one power that targets Ref, one Will and one Fort.  It also really depends on what you are fighting.


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## cignus_pfaccari (May 12, 2011)

ForeverSlayer said:


> You have one power that targets Ref, one Will and one Fort.  It also really depends on what you are fighting.




...

You can CHOOSE which power to use on a target.  So you can CHOOSE to target the Brute's Reflex or Will, rather than their Fortitutde, by using the appropriate-targeting power.

Brad


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## ForeverSlayer (May 12, 2011)

cignus_pfaccari said:


> ...
> 
> You can CHOOSE which power to use on a target.  So you can CHOOSE to target the Brute's Reflex or Will, rather than their Fortitutde, by using the appropriate-targeting power.
> 
> Brad




Ahhhh okay, I understand now.


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## GMforPowergamers (May 12, 2011)

cignus_pfaccari said:


> ...
> 
> You can CHOOSE which power to use on a target.  So you can CHOOSE to target the Brute's Reflex or Will, rather than their Fortitutde, by using the appropriate-targeting power.
> 
> Brad




from my experance, I had a PC wizard with the foe stone... it was awsome. 

I even had a player in the game who when the wizard used the stone would guess (becuse he felt the stone was a wast of resources since the wizard made it) and had a good 80%+ accuracy with guessing without the item...


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## cignus_pfaccari (May 12, 2011)

GMforPowergamers said:


> I even had a player in the game who when the wizard used the stone would guess (becuse he felt the stone was a wast of resources since the wizard made it) and had a good 80%+ accuracy with guessing without the item...




You can usually guess based on their behavior or DM description, too, presuming that the DM doesn't completely lie to you about that.

A sorcerer I played for a while, I made sure to take (Lightning-Admixed) Chaos Bolt, since that was vs. Will, and that gave me a bit more flexibility.  Sure, I used my (Lightning-Admixed) Acid Orb most of the time anyway, but it was nice knowing I could target something's Will if I needed to, and what the hell is resistant to both Psychic and Lightning, anyway?

Brad


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## Klaus (May 12, 2011)

cignus_pfaccari said:


> You can usually guess based on their behavior or DM description, too, presuming that the DM doesn't completely lie to you about that.
> 
> A sorcerer I played for a while, I made sure to take (Lightning-Admixed) Chaos Bolt, since that was vs. Will, and that gave me a bit more flexibility.  Sure, I used my (Lightning-Admixed) Acid Orb most of the time anyway, but it was nice knowing I could target something's Will if I needed to, and what the hell is resistant to both Psychic and Lightning, anyway?
> 
> Brad



Thanks for the idea!

Now I must go write up a stormbabbler!


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## GMforPowergamers (May 12, 2011)

Klaus said:


> Thanks for the idea!
> 
> Now I must go write up a stormbabbler!




why a genesi with the elan feat may be enough...


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## Saracenus (May 18, 2011)

D&D Encounters (DDE) Vampire play experience, week 2.

Welp, I learned how resilient my human vampire is.

Party:
All are first level:
Female Human Red Scales Executioner
Male Shade Gloom Pact Binder
Female Human Blackguard of Fury
Male Gnome Wizard
Human Vampire (me)

Yeah, I know, no leader or defender... its gonna go well or really bad. It went bad...

Opposition:

2 spider swarms
1 deathjump spider
3 shadow thing minions

Both our controllers didn't have reliable area attacks. Yay!

So, I got hung up fighting one of the swarms. I blew my daily in an attempt to put it down... I missed. I was able to hit the damn thing consistantly with my Taste of Life ability keeping 5 temp hp up for most of the combat (a very good thing) plus my regen was running the whole time during the combat. I look over 50 hp in damage over 7 rounds of combat and only dropped in the last round.

The blackguard was down for about half the combat but managed to spontaneously heal with a 20 on death save.

The shade binder blew 3 death saves (the assassin tried to stabilize him and failed).

Obviously had we had a leader this would have gone differently but my vampire was able to survive for a long time without help from one. Cool.


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## Incenjucar (May 18, 2011)

Could you spoiler those? Most people in America won't be doing Encounters for another 12 hours or so.

--

Sorta surprised how long the encounter took. The default average is around 4 rounds.


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## Aegeri (May 18, 2011)

Are these prebuilt characters? What wizard doesn't have an AoE power? I find that madness. MADNESS.

Also technically even without a leader, a party of three strikers shouldn't have struggled that much (well 2 and a 1/2 strikers ). The binder probably wasn't very useful - actually the binder is the textbook definition of useless and a proper warlock/hexblade or replacing him for a leader would have made that encounter much easier.

It doesn't really look that hard either on paper from what I can see. Could you elaborate more on it (in a spoiler please)? I can't believe that managed to TPK you.

Edit: I must admit, what makes me really laugh is a shade binder in an encounter with tremorsensing enemies. Now that is rubbing salt into a deep wound if ever I've seen it.


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## Saracenus (May 18, 2011)

Aegeri said:


> Are these prebuilt characters? What wizard doesn't have an AoE power? I find that madness. MADNESS.
> 
> Also technically even without a leader, a party of three strikers shouldn't have struggled that much (well 2 and a 1/2 strikers ). The binder probably wasn't very useful - actually the binder is the textbook definition of useless and a proper warlock/hexblade or replacing him for a leader would have made that encounter much easier.
> 
> It doesn't really look that hard either on paper from what I can see. Could you elaborate more on it (in a spoiler please)? I can't believe that managed to TPK you.




Wasn't a TPK. We only lost the Shade Binder. The rest of us survived.

All PCs were built by the players... no pregens.

Problem was we split our forces on the map, there were two bridges over water. First big mistake. 

The mage had mostly enchantment powers and the only blast or bust was an encounter power, he missed both targets with it. Remember my big daily got wasted on one swarm (and I missed it).

The death jump spider was jumping around the battlefield making our lives hell.

The blackguard getting knocked down and no way to revive her quickly. No one had healing trained and every roll we made to bring her back failed.

The swarms were the worst thing for us to face with our party. We just sucked. Remember we were basically an essentials only party. And we had really bad rolls.

I was just amazed at how much damage I took and was still up and fighting.

We made the best of a bad situation and I was amazed at the resilience of my vamp.

BTW, the wife doesn't like her blackguard and she is considering a Death Domain Warpriest instead.

My main complaint with essentials only games is the leader selection is very thin, you can only be a warpriest (cleric) or sentinel (druid).

On the flip side, the Sentinel of Spring Druid is a buttkicker...


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## Aegeri (May 18, 2011)

Ah so it's not a TPK, I got the impression from your post that it was. Did the shade binder use his racial incidentally? Would have loved to seen his face when he wasted his turn to hide to discover the enemies all had tremorsense. Blackguards are actually quite impressive damage wise and losing the blackguard will be quite crippling (as it's one of the only characters in your party that can deal really good damage). The binder should consider changing to a warpriest or the sentinel. It will even the party out more.

I cannot believe the wizard has no at-wills that are area attacks. That astounds me. What at-wills does he have?


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## Saracenus (May 18, 2011)

Didn't check the mage's character sheet but I was blow away that he didn't have an at-will burst or blast.

I am not sure what the binder player will bring next time.

He didn't use the racial because he was trying to damage things instead... besides it was the ongoing 5 poison (save ends) that dropped him into neg. He failed his saving throw twice. He should have popped a second wind, he should have not provoked the Opertunity Attack he did... he killed himself.

In our first encounter we were done in 2.5 rounds. That's the danger of a striker heavy party with controllers, they are very effective until things go way south. I think our initiatives (which were very low), split forces on the map, and lack of effective area attacks to deal with the swarms really hurt us. Add in our really crappy rolling and the DM rolling average to high, well we are lucky it wasn't a TPK.


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