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Vampire Lord Questions

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
darkdndwizard
May 21, 2008 18:04:57 So, I have heard it said by a few people that the Vampire Lord Template was made for 3.0 and not 3.5. Does that mean it can't be used with the 3.5 rules and that it's obsolete?

Also if it's still usable then what about the level adjustment. It's stated that there isn't one and that is because it is 3.0 but I have seen level adjustments in 3.0.. so that isn't true either. Is it?

My thinking is that it is a great balance for the vampire which is just painfully under powered not only to start off but even more so at higher levels. Is that true?
#2
draidis
May 21, 2008 18:07:16 I was actually wondering about this as well. Anyone?
#3
dmencyclopedia
May 21, 2008 18:16:28 I have actually looked into this quite thoroughly and after spending a hell of a long time searching every piece of research material available I can actually give you some concrete insight.

My best find that I ended my search with was what I’m going to retype for you as follows. I found it kicking around in an old copy of Dragon magazine I had kicking around my room. The following is a direct quote typed line for line of Rob Heinsoo, one of the D&D lead designers. It was in reference to how the vampire template seemed to be unplayable due to its seemingly too high level adjustment.

-We actually have encountered this problem a lot and have received many e-mails in regards to it. The thing is that with the vampire’s abilities to create spawns the character had the potential to become fairly powerful indirectly instead of directly. So that is why we actually created the Vampire Lord template. To quote the Unearthed Arcana rule book, “When a character with a level adjustment advances in experience, the level adjustment he started with becomes more and more of a burden. Eventually, the benefits of the creature type may come to be eclipsed by those of his class features, and the player may regret his choice of race.” We found this to be overly true with a template such as vampire where at first with four class levels it can potentially be powerful at about the mid to high level “sweet spot” it’s powers seem to not really even out with the other characters and any character with this template really falls behind. So we created the Vampire Lord Template and a way of balancing the character out for many more levels. We decided not to include a farther level adjustment on this as it would spoil the whole point of the balancing effect of the template. So far it has actually worked out quite well in practice and we may include similar templates for other races of templates with a really high LA in the future. However so far nothing has been decided.
#4
dmencyclopedia
May 21, 2008 18:25:24 Furthermore I actually have at one point seen some information that was leaked from the 4th edition rules saying that they were going to expand on the Vampire Lord Template with templates such as Arch Vampire Lord or Elder Vampire and Quasi-Deity Vampire. These templates are supposed to be characters built to counter Arch Lich characters and Demi-lich characters. Unfortunately they require you to be bloody ancient and stupidly hi epic level even.

I really wish I could find where this material was posted but I’m having problems relocating it. Either way, about the Vampire Lord template being obsolete. It’s not at all; it is one of the templates that is listed as being 3.5 usable. So much so they are using it even in 4th edition rules.
#5
green_yawgmoth
May 25, 2008 1:16:31 I'm a big fan of just using the Dicefreaks vampire template. It's advanceable and customizable! Much better than "every vampire has these powers", imo. All their undead templates are fantastic, though.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 darkdndwizard May 21, 2008 18:04:57	So, I have heard it said by a few people that the Vampire Lord Template was made for 3.0 and not 3.5. Does that mean it can't be used with the 3.5 rules and that it's obsolete? Also if it's still usable then what about the level adjustment. It's stated that there isn't one and that is because it is 3.0 but I have seen level adjustments in 3.0.. so that isn't true either. Is it? My thinking is that it is a great balance for the vampire which is just painfully under powered not only to start off but even more so at higher levels. Is that true?
#2 draidis May 21, 2008 18:07:16	I was actually wondering about this as well. Anyone?
#3 dmencyclopedia May 21, 2008 18:16:28	I have actually looked into this quite thoroughly and after spending a hell of a long time searching every piece of research material available I can actually give you some concrete insight. My best find that I ended my search with was what I’m going to retype for you as follows. I found it kicking around in an old copy of Dragon magazine I had kicking around my room. The following is a direct quote typed line for line of Rob Heinsoo, one of the D&D lead designers. It was in reference to how the vampire template seemed to be unplayable due to its seemingly too high level adjustment. -We actually have encountered this problem a lot and have received many e-mails in regards to it. The thing is that with the vampire’s abilities to create spawns the character had the potential to become fairly powerful indirectly instead of directly. So that is why we actually created the Vampire Lord template. To quote the Unearthed Arcana rule book, “When a character with a level adjustment advances in experience, the level adjustment he started with becomes more and more of a burden. Eventually, the benefits of the creature type may come to be eclipsed by those of his class features, and the player may regret his choice of race.” We found this to be overly true with a template such as vampire where at first with four class levels it can potentially be powerful at about the mid to high level “sweet spot” it’s powers seem to not really even out with the other characters and any character with this template really falls behind. So we created the Vampire Lord Template and a way of balancing the character out for many more levels. We decided not to include a farther level adjustment on this as it would spoil the whole point of the balancing effect of the template. So far it has actually worked out quite well in practice and we may include similar templates for other races of templates with a really high LA in the future. However so far nothing has been decided.
#4 dmencyclopedia May 21, 2008 18:25:24	Furthermore I actually have at one point seen some information that was leaked from the 4th edition rules saying that they were going to expand on the Vampire Lord Template with templates such as Arch Vampire Lord or Elder Vampire and Quasi-Deity Vampire. These templates are supposed to be characters built to counter Arch Lich characters and Demi-lich characters. Unfortunately they require you to be bloody ancient and stupidly hi epic level even. I really wish I could find where this material was posted but I’m having problems relocating it. Either way, about the Vampire Lord template being obsolete. It’s not at all; it is one of the templates that is listed as being 3.5 usable. So much so they are using it even in 4th edition rules.
#5 green_yawgmoth May 25, 2008 1:16:31	I'm a big fan of just using the Dicefreaks vampire template. It's advanceable and customizable! Much better than "every vampire has these powers", imo. All their undead templates are fantastic, though.