Vampire PC vs Turn Undead

[stoneheart-]

I've done a lot of 2 out of 3 PVP lately and I can already imagine a ton of close call fights just simply being hard losses over and over again with this change. Please, please, reconsider this change - or make it paladin only or something. Crit immunity is not that strong without a source of Heal, and I think the community has greatly, and erroneously, overvalued it.

Crit immunity might not seem that great, if we're talking about a str WM or an archer or something. But dex builds that are crit reliant (dex WMs, sneak/death attackers, a lot of monks etc) will do piddly damage to you (and you're immune to the latter's stunning fist, lol!)

Vampires having a turn resistance is not that big a deal. In tabletop, they have some resistance to turning as they are sentient undead. However, they also have normal undead weaknesses and fear holy things. Dracula is the quintessential vampire, yet it seems like people playing vampires want to be as little like him as possible, because his weaknesses define him as much as his strengths. I'd be hesitant to nerf bless for non-paladins because it restricts the concept of "undead hunter" to clerics and paladins. Dex characters also need the help against vampire characters, should they come into conflict with them.

[Edens_Fall]

I agree with Kenji's reasoning here.

I also agree with Skibbles.

I agree as well. Making Bless Weapon Paladin and cleric only would be nice.

While I don't like the idea of losing total control of my PC for Lloth knows how long, at least the 5 min timer to Turn would keep one player from just spamming until they get lucky.

Crit immunity isn't that great when ur not able to chug heal pots. I'd likely be ok with reducing crit immunity for an improved thrall system, being able to stay well feed for longer then a few minutes, and the races stat bonuses being hard instead of counting to the soft cap.

But that's just me

[stoneheart-]

you cant be staked in your coffin and you can cross barriers of running water, which are vampire weaknesses even in D&D. your character is literally a supervampire in D&D standards.

If crit immunity isn't that powerful, by your reckoning, why play one? Presumably because you wish to roleplay a vampire... which includes its associated weaknesses. Getting a 5% does not entitle you to be mechanically more powerful than non-5% characters, it's a matter of roleplay aesthetics. Lately, the design philosophy of 5% races has reflected this: making races that are unique from a roleplay perspective, rather than powerful from a mechanical one.

I would be open to the idea of some vampire weaknesses being mitigated if it was balanced by them losing complete crit immunity. But really, this is why vampires in lore (even FR lore) tend to stay in their lairs surrounded by minions. They're immortal, powerful.. and incredibly vulnerable.

[Edens_Fall]

I do enjoy the roleplay!

The issues with weakness and strengths is more for the balance and player then the lore. As you said we can't script everything. I've also played half a dozen PMs in my time and never gave much thought to their crit immunity when making them. I just liked the undead RP they created.

The main concern, not just with vampires but any race/build, is it not be too powerful or too weak. If you ever had a PC KB into rolling you can understand why.

All this thread is about is addressing the concerns the recent changes have for those of us that play vampires or will in the future.

I not asking the race be made into a demi God, just that is doesn't turn into a race that no one can even play.

[Drowboy]

you cant be staked in your coffin and you can cross barriers of running water, which are vampire weaknesses even in D&D. your character is literally a supervampire in D&D standards.

If crit immunity isn't that powerful, by your reckoning, why play one? Presumably because you wish to roleplay a vampire... which includes its associated weaknesses. Getting a 5% does not entitle you to be mechanically more powerful than non-5% characters, it's a matter of roleplay aesthetics. Lately, the design philosophy of 5% races has reflected this: making races that are unique from a roleplay perspective, rather than powerful from a mechanical one.

I would be open to the idea of some vampire weaknesses being mitigated if it was balanced by them losing complete crit immunity. But really, this is why vampires in lore (even FR lore) tend to stay in their lairs surrounded by minions. They're immortal, powerful.. and incredibly vulnerable.

I mean, the biggest weakness, sunlight, is 100% mitigated by just playing in Andunor. They're boosted humans at a certain point.

[Skibbles]

Crit immunity is not that strong

lol you sound like you play a vampire or something

Yes, I do, which is why I and others know, through experience, that without a source of healing (greater restore doesn't work too, btw, as I've had to correct some people who seemed to think it does) you're still taking more effective damage per hit even if not being critable - because every health point lost is very difficult and often impossible to recover.

Crit immune is much stronger on palemasters, for example, because they can still burst heal and they can't be hard countered by the growing list of saveless offense like rogue grenades, mass heal, turning, and now bless weapon.

I suspect these two versions of crit immune are being conflated when they are almost completely different.

[stoneheart-]

I mean, the biggest weakness, sunlight, is 100% mitigated by just playing in Andunor. They're boosted humans at a certain point.

Oh! Hey, what about not being able to enter a building without being explicitly invited inside? That's another big one that doesn't exist on Arelith.

[Skibbles]

I mean, the biggest weakness, sunlight, is 100% mitigated by just playing in Andunor. They're boosted humans at a certain point.

Oh! Hey, what about not being able to enter a building without being explicitly invited inside? That's another big one that doesn't exist on Arelith.

I think you meant residence, not building, but you'd be hard pressed to find a vampire PC that did not happily roleplay this among many of the other fun quirks such as mirrors and shadows, etc.

[-XXX-]

A very valid argument for not allowing vampire PCs to board ships could be made.

...also vampire summons should probably immediately disintegrate when conjured on board of a ship

[Kalthariam]

I'm honestly of the opinion that a vampire PC should -absolutely- be terrified of a Paladin or Cleric (especially a sun domain cleric, and even more especially a -epic- level Cleric/Paladin)

You have a host of benefits to your race already, and when you mix it with certain classes you become quite dangerous and potent.

Making the saving throw a will-based saving through would make a Vampire Cleric/Monk/Wisdom based class nearly impossible to deal with, because they will naturally have absurdly high will save bonuses, that not even a sun domain cleric will be able to touch.

I rightfully think that an undead PC -should- fear divine casters. They are enemies for a reason, and there is a reason why you always bring a cleric or paladin with you when you're hunting vampires.

You might not think your advantages are that crazy powerful, but I can 100% say that having played plenty of characters that lack the immunities vampires do, certain areas are just absolutely brutal (easiest early example is the slavers tower, you better have NEP and hope it doesn't get ripped off you by dispel spamming magus or welcome to the fugue.)

Vampires already get to ignore a host of weaknesses that vampires canonically have in lore, to weaken a clerics ability to deal with a vampire feels like an unneeded buff to vampires, and an unneeded nerf to clerics. That's literally the whole point of turn undead.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Aight, here's what I gathered to be a good approach:
If a vampire PC is affected by Turn Undead, it can't be affected by Turn Undead for the next 5 minutes from the same turner.

This way a vampire almost most certainly will have to spend a -pray to remove Turn Undead fear and has 5 minutes to either finish the conflict, escape, or will almost certainly lose against 2 high profile turners.

This is far more promising than adding a will save, although I suspect you're going to force clerics to gang up this way doing it- while burning the pray is great, vampires technically get a limited second God save in the form of gaseous form, so praying out of the turn neutralizes the clerics ability to turn and still lets the vampire fight to 0hp as if they hadn't.

Interested to see how this plays out live.

[Edens_Fall]

The gas form save isn't very useful honestly. It's short lived, when you come out of it your at 1 hp, and best of all you are still able to be attacked and targeted while in gas form.

So in short you die, turn to gas, are still attacked and chased, turn back solid with 1 hp, die from still being attacked, KB.

If we are to talk about the gas form I would like to see it treated more like a gsanc rather then what it is now.

Oh and it can only be triggered once a day so . . . Yeah.

[-XXX-]

Hey, I'd take an extra godsave per day anytime even if it's worse than the actual godsave!

[Skibbles]

It's been a while since I died-died but I'm like 90% sure mist form replaces the standard god save and isn't sequentially two in order back to back.

I was just testing it on PGCC and it wasn't working per day, so I believe it's directly linked to the hidden save cool down too which makes sense because you get all your statuses reset and full dispel on hitting mist just like God save.

This likely means they don't function together.

Like eden said it's just a targetable gsanc that leaves you at 1 hp instead of full hp. I haven't heard anyone ever complain about it needing to be stronger but there's no question it's weaker than normal god save.

However it does work in pvp, at least according to pgcc yesterday, which I think qualifies as 'neat' though it's probably much smarter to use the piety for a heal or something useful.

I really wish the wiki wasn't so obfuscated so we can have feedback threads based on actually accurate info.

[Hazard]

Not being able to guzzle heal pots in todays PvP is pretty debilitating for any vamp char, regardless of their cool undead immunities.
If -bite worked on PCs as it does with NPCs, then at least you'd get 1 pot a fight. That seems fair to me.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I mean, I'm pretty sure if vampires can't use heal pots they can use scrolls/wands of inflict/harm, and TECHNICALLY there's no reason you can't make a potion of them either, although I've never tried.

Also, negative energy burst should heal the vampire, its minions in a HUGE aoe, and has a chance to cripple characters with a stackable strength penalty.

Also, iirc vampires get a passive, constantly active regen of up to 7/round, which means with even a modicum of stealth/ planning you are far less reliant on consumable healing than any other character on the server.

[RUNGRIND]

I mean, I'm pretty sure if vampires can't use heal pots they can use scrolls/wands of inflict/harm, and TECHNICALLY there's no reason you can't make a potion of them either, although I've never tried.

Also, negative energy burst should heal the vampire, its minions in a HUGE aoe, and has a chance to cripple characters with a stackable strength penalty.

Also, iirc vampires get a passive, constantly active regen of up to 7/round, which means with even a modicum of stealth/ planning you are far less reliant on consumable healing than any other character on the server.

You don't really know how making UMD works... You can't just make wands of harm. Or potions for that matter. Heal pots are an herbalism recipe. The same doesn't exist for harm.

You can make scrolls of it. Sure. But scrolls are much slower mechanically than drinking a potion. It interrupts a lot of other stuff. NEB doesn't heal you. 7 HP/round isn't guaranteed either. You need to be at 100% blood pool for it and it vanishes extremely, extremely quickly at 100%. You lose something like 5% in a single server tick at that level.

If you aren't sure how these mechanics work please test them, or ask before you state things as fact.

[Hazard]

I think potions of harm would be overkill and be way too big a buff to vampires.
Just having their -bite ability work on PCs would be enough. It's one decent pot-sized(ish) heal, and then that's it.

[Skibbles]

Yeah you don't see people busting out a wand of cure critical in PVP for a pretty good reason: you'll likely take far more damage in that full round and animation than one could ever hope to recover in the first place.

Heal/Harm has a caster level way above standard NWN wand/potion crafting and must be done through Arelith's recipes.

We'd know if Harm potions were in the module because people would have a not-undeserved meltdown. At the rate we're going on these nerfs based on, according to some of my private convos, mostly erroneous/incomplete info regarding what vampires can actually do and actually be affected by - maybe one day we'll get them.

I think I'd rather things not have gotten to this point in the first place, instead, though.

[Void]

Not being able to guzzle heal pots in todays PvP is pretty debilitating for any vamp char, regardless of their cool undead immunities.
If -bite worked on PCs as it does with NPCs, then at least you'd get 1 pot a fight. That seems fair to me.

I would expect vampires to be able to cast that huge aoe negative energy tentacle spell, stand in the middle of it and cackle, to be honest.

Also, I feel like there's too much talk about pvp. There's life outside of pvp, and I think that's actually majority of server experience.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I mean, I'm pretty sure if vampires can't use heal pots they can use scrolls/wands of inflict/harm, and TECHNICALLY there's no reason you can't make a potion of them either, although I've never tried.

Also, negative energy burst should heal the vampire, its minions in a HUGE aoe, and has a chance to cripple characters with a stackable strength penalty.

Also, iirc vampires get a passive, constantly active regen of up to 7/round, which means with even a modicum of stealth/ planning you are far less reliant on consumable healing than any other character on the server.

You don't really know how making UMD works... You can't just make wands of harm. Or potions for that matter. Heal pots are an herbalism recipe. The same doesn't exist for harm.

You can make scrolls of it. Sure. But scrolls are much slower mechanically than drinking a potion. It interrupts a lot of other stuff. NEB doesn't heal you. 7 HP/round isn't guaranteed either. You need to be at 100% blood pool for it and it vanishes extremely, extremely quickly at 100%. You lose something like 5% in a single server tick at that level.

If you aren't sure how these mechanics work please test them, or ask before you state things as fact.

IIRC literally means if I recall correctly, which means I'm open to being corrected, although you seem to be operating off of some pretty hefty assumptions about the need to correct me. As far as negative energy burst- it's a shame it doesn't heal you and I feel that vampire PC's should probably be healed by all negative energy damage sources, be it weapons or spells. IMO if a vampire is willing to out themselves as undead by healing themselves with negative energy, more power to them, and I wish them luck in their eternal quest thereafter to avoid the sun.

TBH that feels like an oversight, or maybe they were afraid of what would happen with a vampire mage/cleric carrying around dozens of negative energy bursts or drain tentacles (shadowshield and/or NEP, most probably >.> ).

I also think we should address the elephant in the room in that while as I understand it there are seven vampire slots in total, it's not unreasonable to expect six out of seven at any point to be either a divine or arcane caster of some sort, in the same way you might expect a dwarf to be a fighter or a halfling to be a rogue- vampires have a lot of synergy in a lot of classes, but nothing quite stands out like the ability to produce negative energy when you're an undead creature.

Nowhere did I claim you could make a potion of harm (I see where you got that, poor syntax on my part, my bad), nor did I claim you always have a full seven regen (see 'up to'). What I pointed out was that vampires had some gold-sink and free mechanical options to mitigate these weaknesses- and while I think it might be a fair play to see some sort of costly method introduced for vampires, to in fact, have harm potions available, I'm not sold on the idea that the general vampire weaknesses don't come with sufficient advantages to offset them and then some.

To be frank, I'm absolutely in favor of vampires having all of a vampires RAW strengths that they should have, but that's a tall ask in a game with very dated code, most likely- but I would also have them observe all the RAW weaknesses, as well. I think that's more than balanced in a vampire's favor if they observe the theme of the race in their play-style.

The fact that a vampire can achieve, without use of gold, item slots, or spell slots, any amount of regen per round on a maintainable basis, is leagues above a character of any other race I can think of off the top of my head, although I'm sure I'm probably missing some troll-bred race or another that might get a static one regen just for existing.

I also think this thread stopped being about turn undead awhile ago and I'd suggest a separate feedback thread for each of the groupings of areas you feel need further improvement. I'd start with the sources of negative energy that don't provide healing, especially if there are more than negative energy burst, personally. You may not like wands, but you should like the ability to stand in the middle of an ally's (or your own) crippling spell and benefit from it. I'd be all behind all of those healing you- and it's something I'd be able to agree with you on.

[Edens_Fall]

Not being able to guzzle heal pots in todays PvP is pretty debilitating for any vamp char, regardless of their cool undead immunities.
If -bite worked on PCs as it does with NPCs, then at least you'd get 1 pot a fight. That seems fair to me.

Also, I feel like there's too much talk about pvp. There's life outside of pvp, and I think that's actually majority of server experience.

As a vampire PC you can't avoid PvP. Being undead is a free and easy KB for any other PC regardless of alignment. Good kills us as much as Evil and for obvious reason. Vampires are feared by all generally. But yes, as a player anyone doing a vampire PC must be prepared for PvP more so than any other race or class on Arelith.

[Void]

As a vampire PC you can't avoid PvP.

At the moment I've got no major award to burn to test this.

[RUNGRIND]

As a vampire PC you can't avoid PvP.

At the moment I've got no major award to burn to test this.

You really can't. As soon as anyone figures out you are a vampire. Even if you haven't actually done anything? Expect to be hunted and attacked by a dozen people or more at any point. RP and handling most conflict outside or PvP simply will not happen.

Trust me. Even trying to be reasonable with people, a vampire PC is a huge target on your back and people have, and do, attack you until you roll or shelve if they can.

You cannot play a vampire on the surface. Nuance doesnt exist. Its PvP and only PvP. So if you and or your build isnt a top tier PvP build. Look elsewhere. Nobody will ever be willing to reason or talk with you.

[Void]

You really can't. As soon as anyone figures out you are a vampire. Even if

I managed to raise a surfacer blackguard devil summoner into epics without ever pvping even once before.
Or leveled "bardlock"(pre-change warlock) in cordor, without ever getting caught or killed for it (got bored by level 16 and rolled for another minor award). That's literally using devils at every opportunity but being careful.

So obviously I have my doubts. And as a result I'd have to experience it.

P.S. Telling "Trust me" to people often has opposite effect.