Post/Author/DateTime	Post
LeafDancer 11-20-05, 10:24 PM	Alright... So I enjoy playing tormented gothic outcast type charicters, and I was going to make a chaotic neutral vampire. Who tries to do good and whats right.(Based on how he was as a human.) But just cant since he has the evil heart of a vampire and is forced to drink the blood of mortals. So he's really torn up inside and in lots of confusions. Yes I know I wont be able to enter cities so easily. I know everyones going to try and kill me. But I want it to be like that. So is this possible?
Order 66(6) 11-21-05, 12:03 AM	Yeah, because I'm doing it right now. And my vamp is CG! I get around the blood thing in 2 ways: first he confided his true nature to his very best friends, and one of them is willing to spill his own blood for his consumption. I would also suggest getting blood from butcher's shops, or feeding from animals. There are ways around forcibly feeding from mortals if you think about it. Also, you don't necessarily have to enter a city and be immediately stoned to death. Stay low key, wear a long hooded robe that obscures people's vision of you (plus, it's nice defense against the sun!). It's kinda tough to play a non-evil vamp, but defeinately possible. And it's also a welcome reprieve from the typical evil, lusty vampire stereotype.
OctoberRaven 11-21-05, 01:15 AM	Problem with escaping the evil stereotype is getting into the whiny stereotype, the "oh woe is me for I am cursed with an evil heart" type. Avoiding drinking human blood is just part of that stereotype I especially avoid. This is just me, but if I were playing a vamp I'd hunt, take what I need, then do a Heal check on the person to stop the bloodflow. Vampire hunters after you? Take them out, and if they drop into negative numbers patch up their wounds. Self-defense doesn't give you a license to kill.
spectralphoenix 11-21-05, 02:12 AM	Truth be told, the MM just assumes that all vampires are NPC's who want to kill their prey in its description of blood drain. You might want to talk to your DM and iron out exactly how it works and how much blood you need. That said, a Ring of Sustenance might keep a vampire fed indefinitely. Or it might get you accused of Munchkinism. Depends on the group.
eagleye 11-21-05, 04:03 AM	Well first thing, this ain't right: "A chaotic neutral vampire. Who tries to do good and whats right.". If you want a person who does what's good and right, you need at least a NG char, not a chaotic neutral. Next, when you take a look at the Vampire Template Class (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a) you'll see that the vampire becomes evil at level 7, at the moment he becomes undead. But when you look at the Undead subtype, it doesn't require one to be evil. So as a DM I would allow a case-by-case character to be a non-evil char. But please, do get your allignment right from the start. Nothing is worse then a CN character acting as NG.
a_psh 11-21-05, 04:50 AM	Yeah, because I'm doing it right now. And my vamp is CG! I get around the blood thing in 2 ways: first he confided his true nature to his very best friends, and one of them is willing to spill his own blood for his consumption. I would also suggest getting blood from butcher's shops, or feeding from animals. There are ways around forcibly feeding from mortals if you think about it. Well, this is the wierd part... the MM doesn't define whether you need blood to live, what kind of blood it should be, &c. By the rules in their barest interpreation, undead don't need to eat per se, and the drain and such are just abilities vampires have. Going by the Libris Mortis, which is probably the closest authority on all this, vampires have a dietary dependence for blood and an inescapable craving for life force - they overpowering desire to energy-drain the bejeesus out of something. Dealing with this is a bit more challenging than just making sure you have a blood supply, as you have to dish out negative levels, which are far more of a hindrance to your friends and, at the least, require the victim creature to be alive and animate when you feed on it - no blood from butcher's shops will help. Now, most people tend to emphasize the blood aspect, as these are vampires, after all. Based on precedent (from Eberron, specifically), one can subsist by feeding on a number of willing sentients, but I would generally not recommend trying to sustain yourself off of just one friend, as he can't provide blood every day without getting pretty perilously close to death. For a PC, the DM might also require a Will save to stop feeding once the act has begun: to a vampire, there is nothing more looked-forward-to and intoxicating than the consumption of blood. Also, you don't necessarily have to enter a city and be immediately stoned to death. Stay low key, wear a long hooded robe that obscures people's vision of you (plus, it's nice defense against the sun!). Based on the RAW, a robe won't cut it. Makes sense, mostly, as the sun thing is a powerful supernatural effect that can utterly destroy you in a matter of seconds, not a skin condition. It's kinda tough to play a non-evil vamp, but defeinately possible. And it's also a welcome reprieve from the typical evil, lusty vampire stereotype. I also dislike the lusty vampire. And I dislike the sophisticated vampire. Both completely miss the visceral appeal of the creature, I think. When it comes to what makes a vampire, I'm going to have to side with Heroes of Horror here:A vampire's lust for blood is no mere hunger but a profane and burning need that permeates every iota of its being. Modern literature romanticizes vampires into sensual beings whose need for blood is little more than a dietary quirk. Don't hesitate to fall back on older interpreations. Portray vampires in your campaign as rage-filled, murderous beings for whom all other concerns - romance, honor, wealth, power - pale befor ethe all-consuming need to feed.(HoH 136) Now, this isn't the most friendly interpretation when it comes to vampire PCs, but I feel it's the best one for vampirism overall. As someone else put it a week or so back on the other vampire thread, it's not an STD, it's a curse. Vampirism utterly consumes a soul with hunger, evil, and rage. What's left is both sub- and super- human at the same time, but distinctly non-human either way. Vampires are terrible, blighted monsters without fear, sympathy, or remorse. I could see trying to squeeze in just a little bit of left-over humanity in there somewhere, but I think the ideal should be the predator, not the goth. Also, if you're going to have vampire PCs in your group's game, change the template! As it is written, the template gives you amazing bonuses but takes a lot out of your in terms of LA, &c. In any given CR-appropriate situation, a PC vampire is either godly or ridiculously frail. I would highly recommend modifying the template to reduce the stat and skill bonuses, as well as the unkillability factor, and remove some of the weaknesses and some of the LA. Basically, if you're going to emphasize the human-ness of vampires and want a viable PC, you need to make the vampire template more human.
simon_tage 11-21-05, 11:39 AM	The problems I have with this are two fold. Vampires are a template and the template says they are always evil. As far as the whole trying to be good and not having an evil alignment thing; I have a race on my homebrew that feeds on blood (non-vampiric and non-undead they just ingest blood) one player had one for a character, he was evil through and through but wanted to be good. He tried to do good things but they never quite came out right. He lived by an ends justify the means mentality and never understood why he wasn't a hero loved by all. Secondly, One of my favorite things to do when a PC is a race that is clearly normally an adversary to PCs is to have an NPC party come after them. Rumors get about, eventually those rumors hook another party and then that party comes gunning for the "monster". Fun stuff.
eudas 11-21-05, 12:56 PM	also: Alignment Always evil (any). FFS, go play V:tM. eudas
OctoberRaven 11-21-05, 01:50 PM	also: Alignment Always evil (any). FFS, go play V:tM. eudas Oh, heaven forbid someone HOUSERULE IN MORE FREEDOM IN THE ARBITRARY ALIGNMENT SYSTEM! Despite the fact that HOUSERULING IS ENDORSED BY THE DESIGNERS OF THE GAME, INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY GARY F'N GYGAX! Besides, the only really fun clans in VtM (in my opinion) are the Malkavians and Gangrel, neither of which fits what the OP's going for.
eudas 11-21-05, 02:21 PM	Oh, heaven forbid someone HOUSERULE IN MORE FREEDOM IN THE ARBITRARY ALIGNMENT SYSTEM! Despite the fact that HOUSERULING IS ENDORSED BY THE DESIGNERS OF THE GAME, INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY GARY F'N GYGAX! (snip) Hm, must've touched a nerve, there. My position on house rules is that you shouldn't do it unless you're a real system guru (which most people aren't), and that if you just want to sit around playing Pretend, there's no need to waste $90 or more on rulebooks. *shrug* eudas
Asciiman 11-21-05, 02:38 PM	INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY GARY F'N GYGAX! What in the hell does Gary F'n Gygax have to do with any of this? Or for that matter 3.x he didn't make this game after all.
Lincoln Hills 11-21-05, 02:59 PM	...I was going to make a chaotic neutral vampire... is this possible? First of all - this question seems to be asked in almost exactly the same words, every 93 days, on these boards. Secondly - We can't answer that. It is mechanically possible to create a character with the vampiric template and write "CN" (or, for that matter, "LG") in the space marked Alignment: but it's not up to us, here on the boards, to allow that character. Your DM is the guy with the veto power on this one, so I suggest you approach him on it. Have three good reasons why your undead character would be more interesting to the game than a living one... and three good reasons why the rest of the party will not feel left out. In spite of those reasons, be ready for him to say no: it is the most likely possibility. (I know I would: but this isn't about me.)
Vaalingrade Ashland 11-21-05, 04:15 PM	All you really need to know: 1) Always doesn't mean always in the MM. There is always a one in a million shot. 2) One in a million occurs 9 times out of 10 according to Terry Pratchett and quantum physics. 3) Alignment, appearence and attitude descriptions in the MM NEVER apply to PCs. 4) They also never apply to NPCs. Really, they're just there for convinience and lazy DMs. 5) Telling people to play another system because you don't like how they do things makes you a jerk. Cheers.
Vaalingrade Ashland 11-21-05, 04:17 PM	Hm, must've touched a nerve, there. Being rude and obnoxious does that, go figure.
eudas 11-21-05, 04:21 PM	Being rude and obnoxious does that, go figure. Ya learn something new every day! :rolleyes: love, the jerk p.s. seriously, it's just irritating that people not only seem unable to "color within the lines", but they obstinately refuse to even consider it. "You're just stifling my creativity!" Stifling your creativity to play an angst-ridden vampire who talks about "his blessing, his curse" while hanging out in a black trenchcoat and tanker boots? ... I dunno, man. VTM sounds like the right game for that play, to me. You wanna build with legos, you don't pull out the deck of cards. eudas
a_psh 11-21-05, 04:28 PM	I'd like to add #6: 6. The vampire template as written is not well-suited to PC characters at all. It's unworkable in a low-level game and has a very skewed balance (i.e. good in some situations, really bad in a lot of others, much more so than just having a standard race and PC class levels). Particularly if you're downplaying the vampire's inhumanity and weaknesses, you want to reduce the stat modifiers and special powers and have a character who has doesn't have half as many hit dice as everyone else in the party.
Red_Bird_of_Chaos 11-21-05, 04:49 PM	SRD optinal rules Vampire (http://d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm#vampire)
Zemyla 11-21-05, 05:05 PM	Also, it says in Savage Species that if someone is killed by an undead with the "Create Spawn" ability, who is then later killed, the spawn may choose to return to their original alignments.
eudas 11-21-05, 05:19 PM	Also, it says in Savage Species that if someone is killed by an undead with the "Create Spawn" ability, who is then later killed, the spawn may choose to return to their original alignments. yeah i always thought that Emancipated Spawn was a really neat PRC. Something you'd only get a 1 in a million chance to use, really, but kinda neat anyway. eudas
Vaalingrade Ashland 11-21-05, 05:23 PM	p.s. seriously, it's just irritating that people not only seem unable to "color within the lines", but they obstinately refuse to even consider it. Why would we want to? Its a game about playing fantasy novel style characters. No one wants to read about cookie cutter characters, why should we be forced to play them on pain of being harassed by the small minded? "You're just stifling my creativity!" Stifling your creativity to play an angst-ridden vampire who talks about "his blessing, his curse" while hanging out in a black trenchcoat and tanker boots? ... You really didn't read the original post before railing against it, did you? I dunno, man. VTM sounds like the right game for that play, to me. You wanna build with legos, you don't pull out the deck of cards. There are so many levels on which that analogy is stupid.
^Graff_EpsilonIX 11-21-05, 05:57 PM	I'd just like to say darkelves. Other than that, there's that ravenloft vampire from 2e in the heroes' lorebook. Take a look
OctoberRaven 11-21-05, 05:58 PM	Sounds like Eudas has issues because all the goth kids made him cry. Seriously now. First off, Gary Gygax may not have been involved with 3.5, but without him there wouldn't BE a 3.5, much less WoD, GURPS, etc. You know, because he invented the original D&D game and such. So...what does he have to do with this? A lot. Second off, Eudas, who are you to say who can change what, especially if it's not in your D&D game? You're welcome to make any changes or lack thereof in your game, but that doesn't give you license to police what others can do to the game. Third off, to your "Legos and Playing Cards" analogy, that makes no sense whatsoever, but it allows me to make an example that maybe even you can understand. With a deck of cards and an imagination, you can make any sort of game you want. Other people don't like it? Fine, they don't have to play, but that doesn't give them license to complain because you don't want to play just plain old Gin Rummy. Just because you have all the creative talent of a Sony Music-licensed 248th-rate rock band like Good Charlotte (read: none at all) doesn't mean you can bother people who can think outside the box.
a_psh 11-21-05, 08:17 PM	SRD optinal rules Vampire (http://d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm#vampire)That's not a bad base for a playable PC, actually. Particularly because it gets rid of most of the craptacular vampire weaknesses... lugging a coffing around can really cut into one's style. To the OP once more: Basically, it's a DM issue. The more I play, the more I'm inclined to treat vampirism as a terrible all-consuming hunger, something that utterly overwhelms the soul. In my games, a PC who became a vampire could stay a potent player character for a week or two at best before his inhumanity really overtook him, probably. But if your DM is fine with it, then, yes, it's possible. Very unhelpful, I know. There are other ideas for tormented outcasts, by the way. Tieflings are just perfect. A few cool powers, a shady heritage, and a ridiculously customizable appearance. I kind of like the idea of goblinoids (e.g. a bugbear) in the role, too, but this may not be what you want. Other than the ridiculous abilities and LA, another issue to consider here is that, by the basic rules, a stake and a res are enough to turn you back into a human (/elf/&c.). This kind of kills some of the tragic hero factor, I think.
ClutchAxe 11-21-05, 08:54 PM	A psh is right, one of the easiest ways to get around the whole "in-town" and "baking-in-the-daylight" thing is to play a Tiefling, its easier to convert a Tiefling to a good cause rather than go through the tasks of converting the template for the rest of the change. Another player in my current party is playing a Tiefling based on the concept of a gothic interest, and our DM allowed him to put aside the evil aspect to work easier with our party. A great way to work the character's background into the "change of heart" is to simply give inclination towards the fact they used to be evil, and have found the true path that they feel more comfortable with (blah..blah...blah). Also it makes for an interesting story for DM to play with later down the road, like say...........Introducing an Assimar that had previously been instructed that Tielflings are evil. Just a thought
danielinthewolvesden 11-21-05, 09:01 PM	Do a Half-Vampire, and then maybe add a few levels of vampire-spawn as your character slips into Evil. Half-Vampires do not have to be evil, and there is plenty of room there for Goth-Angst. Enjoy!
danielinthewolvesden 11-21-05, 09:04 PM	I'd like to add #6: 6. The vampire template as written is not well-suited to PC characters at all. It's unworkable in a low-level game and has a very skewed balance (i.e. good in some situations, really bad in a lot of others, much more so than just having a standard race and PC class levels). Particularly if you're downplaying the vampire's inhumanity and weaknesses, you want to reduce the stat modifiers and special powers and have a character who has doesn't have half as many hit dice as everyone else in the party. And, :cool: this is 100% correct. Vampires are almost unplayable. Any given challenge for your party will either be impossible or a walk-though for a full vampire. No fun either way.
Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi 11-21-05, 09:14 PM	Think about it. Something like say an Urban Ranger. If the vampire is going around, stopping villains, and turning them in (taking a little blood here and there) the Vampire could make it if he captures several a night. Just better make sure he doesn't create many Vampire Spawn. That's evil.
simon_tage 11-21-05, 09:32 PM	Plus, who wants to adventure with a character that can not go out in the daytime, has to have a coffin and cannot cross running water? Sounds like a major pain.
kuhTHOOloo 11-21-05, 09:54 PM	Third off, to your "Legos and Playing Cards" analogy, that makes no sense whatsoever, but it allows me to make an example that maybe even you can understand. With a deck of cards and an imagination, you can make any sort of game you want. Other people don't like it? Fine, they don't have to play, but that doesn't give them license to complain because you don't want to play just plain old Gin Rummy. Just because you have all the creative talent of a Sony Music-licensed 248th-rate rock band like Good Charlotte (read: none at all) doesn't mean you can bother people who can think outside the box. It makes sense. He was referring to a card house. You know, where you try to balance cards and make a tower? If you're playing legos, you don't build with them along with the cards. But then again, I suppose the only thing that makes sense is that image. It doesn't really tie in to the whole can I play a vampire thing. Thus it's not a valid analogy. Or maybe I've just managed to confuse myself and shouldn't have bothered posting it.
Order 66(6) 11-21-05, 11:31 PM	Well, this is the wierd part... the MM doesn't define whether you need blood to live, what kind of blood it should be, &c. By the rules in their barest interpreation, undead don't need to eat per se, and the drain and such are just abilities vampires have. Going by the Libris Mortis, which is probably the closest authority on all this, vampires have a dietary dependence for blood and an inescapable craving for life force - they overpowering desire to energy-drain the bejeesus out of something. Dealing with this is a bit more challenging than just making sure you have a blood supply, as you have to dish out negative levels, which are far more of a hindrance to your friends and, at the least, require the victim creature to be alive and animate when you feed on it - no blood from butcher's shops will help. Now, most people tend to emphasize the blood aspect, as these are vampires, after all. Based on precedent (from Eberron, specifically), one can subsist by feeding on a number of willing sentients, but I would generally not recommend trying to sustain yourself off of just one friend, as he can't provide blood every day without getting pretty perilously close to death. For a PC, the DM might also require a Will save to stop feeding once the act has begun: to a vampire, there is nothing more looked-forward-to and intoxicating than the consumption of blood. Based on the RAW, a robe won't cut it. Makes sense, mostly, as the sun thing is a powerful supernatural effect that can utterly destroy you in a matter of seconds, not a skin condition. I also dislike the lusty vampire. And I dislike the sophisticated vampire. Both completely miss the visceral appeal of the creature, I think. When it comes to what makes a vampire, I'm going to have to side with Heroes of Horror here:(HoH 136) Now, this isn't the most friendly interpretation when it comes to vampire PCs, but I feel it's the best one for vampirism overall. As someone else put it a week or so back on the other vampire thread, it's not an STD, it's a curse. Vampirism utterly consumes a soul with hunger, evil, and rage. What's left is both sub- and super- human at the same time, but distinctly non-human either way. Vampires are terrible, blighted monsters without fear, sympathy, or remorse. I could see trying to squeeze in just a little bit of left-over humanity in there somewhere, but I think the ideal should be the predator, not the goth. Also, if you're going to have vampire PCs in your group's game, change the template! As it is written, the template gives you amazing bonuses but takes a lot out of your in terms of LA, &c. In any given CR-appropriate situation, a PC vampire is either godly or ridiculously frail. I would highly recommend modifying the template to reduce the stat and skill bonuses, as well as the unkillability factor, and remove some of the weaknesses and some of the LA. Basically, if you're going to emphasize the human-ness of vampires and want a viable PC, you need to make the vampire template more human. Yeah, it's a pretty liberal take on being a vamp. My DM pretty much made the template as he didn't have the libris mortis or anything back then (in fact, it may not have even been printed yet, this was a while ago). Plus, he also admits the template is overpowerered, which he realized in retrospect. However, I'm not being quite accurate in calling him a vamp. Technically, he is a half vampire who suffered from the "Blade effect" (his biological parents are both human, but his pregnant mother was bitten while he was in the womb). So if I wanted to be really cheesy I guess I could have lobbied to have him be a straight day walker, but I didn't want him to be too powerful. ;) So actually, the robe thing to me does make sense. It may also serve as a good explanation for how he can resist the completely overpowering urges actual vampires have. As it is, I play him as needing the blood and drinking on a fairly negative basis, but it's not really a feral, maddening blood lust like an actual vamp. To me, this makes sense when you take into account that technically he should have been born biologically human. My DM also made the feeding thing based on fort saves, but made it in such a way so that at high levels I can technically resist feeding altogether. However, I realize this is unrealistic so I have him drink blood anyway. As for ideas for how to play a PC Vamp, this is the angle I took, but it may give others some good ideas. We play in the Dragonlance world, a place where Vamps are none to common. His mother accidentally wound up in Ravenloft and was bitten there, and then was allowed to return to Krynn. My character grew up in an isolated, eccentric community that worshiped the evil god of death Chemosh. The people there were not supposed to leave the island, and they got my character to stay by telling him his vampiric qualities were a disease that only they could treat. So, he spent his childhood years thinking he was diseased, and feeling ashamed. Yadda yadda, long story short he met up with some hero's, got off the island, and eventually found out what exactly he was and how he got to be that way. He went through a period in which he felt like a monster, but as grown to accept who and what he is. Through all of this though, he has always been a sensitive, caring, compassionate young man with a deep sense of confusion over what he is (not to mention shame for drinking blood), until it became clear what he was and he came to terms with that. So, basically, the idea I wanted to run with was a vamp who wasn't goth, but wasn't brooding and emotional either. He's actually a pretty nice, level headed guy who just happens to be very different. In short, he defies sterotypes by acting more or less like any other person, aside from the attention he has to pay to his weaknesses.
a_psh 11-22-05, 12:23 AM	A psh is right, one of the easiest ways to get around the whole "in-town" and "baking-in-the-daylight" thing is to play a Tiefling, its easier to convert a Tiefling to a good cause rather than go through the tasks of converting the template for the rest of the change. Hear-hear! Another thing I like about the tiefling is that it's much closer to being the perpetual outsider that the OP mentioned: a vampire was once an average (or heroic) individual of one of the common races, usually, whereas a tiefling is born different. If the tortured, cast-out hero appeals to you, then someone who had a strongly traumatic childhood and is always fighting against the fiendish blood in his veins may be right up your alley. I think it's also easier to swing a "soul against blood, heart against heritage" kind of moral conflict with a tiefling than it is with a straight-up core vampire. If find the tiefling more palatable from a general world-building/RP angle because a Good or trying-to-be-Good vampire is a bit of a Drizzt: a hero so against type that he instantly stands out... unfortunately, resisting cliches too much can also make your character into a cliche, and I feel like that can happen pretty easily with said good-hearted vampire. The tiefling, in contrast, is drawn to evil but no overwhelming alignment tendency, meaning that a Neutral one is par for the course and that a Good one, while rare, is not unique enough to suffer from the aforementioned "cliched anti-cliche" syndrome. So, dunno, the roleplaying just feels more natural overall. The main attraction for me, though, is that you get to radically customize your appearance (goat legs, horns, lizard tails, red eyes, brimstone smell, weird jointed fingers... anything you can think of, pretty much) and that it's only an LA +1 character, making it quite suitable for most games. The minor resistances also come in handy for letting you dress however you want regardless of the weather. ;) ... Err, apologies, I guess that was kind of a tangent. While we're at it, I think intelligent, diplomatic bugbears make rockin' PCs.
Vaalingrade Ashland 11-22-05, 02:38 AM	My favorite 'hero' vampire: An NPC I ran for at short campaign as a red herring for the red bad guy. He was a guardsman in life and always chafed internally at the rules and regulations of the local legal system. He spend his life watching murders and worse walk free because of corruption and technicalities. Then he got spawn-raised by a novice and animalistic vampire and broke his control out of sheer force of will. With his new power, he went after those who has escaped justice. Most he just threw into the deepest dungeons, but the worst of the worst -- the one who couldn't be allowed to go free, he draind and dropped. Until the BBEG took notice. He started manipulating the flow of information to make sure his enemies were always at the top of the vamp's most wanted lists and in greater numbers -- until the authorities started to take notice of disappearences and called the PCs. I loved that guy. "This is what I've become, this is what I need to do to survive -- might as well put it to good use!" he really liked being a vamp, except for the fact he couldn't get drunk anymore (undead are immune to poison after all.)