Delete or Replace the Vampire Race

[chris a gogo]

Strong subraces are fine nothing is there that can't be beaten, and 1v1 pvp is extremely rare.

I do think Gated subraces should have a shelf life so that others get the chance to play one, otherwise they just hang around forever.

[Carrion Eater]

Not really. Dispel, sure, but some blood magic spells will ruin a vamp PC's hunger.

Poking in with no intent to derail the thread here, but just to amend this after some asking and testing.

After asking around, the rumor was as follows: using the hemomancer's Red Harvest on an enemy vampire PC would reduce the vampire's Blood stat. No other blood magic spells were mentioned.

In testing, we have confirmed that Red Harvesting a vampire PC only deals the bleeding damage (and cannot Fear the vampire, as they are mind-immune). It does not reduce their Blood stat.



For the sake of completeness: if you are a vampire hemomancer and you use Red Harvest on yourself, you will reduce your Blood stat as a replacement for the Food stat. This is already listed on the wiki in the Red Harvest section, and is regular knowledge.

[Scurvy Cur]

• Vampires can be affected by turn undead - both when used by PCs and NPCs. This can flat-foot or render them unable to fight back.

Kalo, you specifically disabled the crowd control aspect of turn undead for undead pc characters, after it was discovered that inquisitor paladin could get an almost guaranteed successful turn, replacing it with a short debuff that, last I checked, can be easily removed with resto.

Now, some sort of nerf was probably deserved because 3 minutes of unclearable crowd control (it wasn’t even removed by -pray, iirc) that always works is impossible to play into. But turn undead no longer renders vampire PCs “unable to fight back.”

Player Characters no longer run away in fear. They take a malus to AB, AC, Saves, Skills, and receive spell failure. This lasts for 5 rounds and they can only be affected by the same turner once every 10 rounds. Remove fear does not negate or prevent this effect.
The penalty is -2 to -10, Spell failure 10% to 50%, depending on the difference between the clerics modified turn level (including bonuses from the turn check itself) and the targets HD + turn resistance (SR for outsiders).

[Kalopsia]

• Vampires can be affected by turn undead - both when used by PCs and NPCs. This can flat-foot or render them unable to fight back.

Kalo, you specifically disabled the crowd control aspect of turn undead for undead pc characters, after it was discovered that inquisitor paladin could get a almost guaranteed successful turn, replacing it with a short debuff that, last I checked, can be easily removed with resto.

The debuff you mention is a fear effect that bypasses immunities, hence unaffected by Restoration. There is also an exception in the Remove Fear spell script, causing that spell to ignore it. This means the only way to remove the penalties (which can range from -2 to -8 AB/AC/saves/skills and a spell failure between 10% and 40%) would be -pray.

The crowd control aspect also still exists - in a different form. Turned creatures cannot initiate any hostile action (attacks or spells) against the one who turned them for 12-18 seconds. This has been added later on and is what I referenced in my above comment.

[DM Herald]

Strong subraces are fine nothing is there that can't be beaten, and 1v1 pvp is extremely rare.

I do think Gated subraces should have a shelf life so that others get the chance to play one, otherwise they just hang around forever.

To respond to this from the DM perspective, vampires do not have to be "rolled" for another player to have a chance of playing one. The number of active vampires simply need to be low enough. I imagine we probably have 40-60 vampire characters who exist right now, if not more. But only 9-10 vampires are currently considered active.

To also offer some perspective on the soft stats people have been going on about, a vampire will rarely stay at the full power listed on the wiki. That bonus is only obtained at high blood levels. Blood levels decrease more, the higher your current blood level. Realistically speaking, you will only be getting +1 DEX and +1 STR in a reliable sense.

[stoneheart-]

They ought to go the way of dragons, and disappear. If they must be replaced by something similar, let it be things more in line, balance and overall IC power-level wise, with the rest of the server. Dhampir (half-vampires) and vampire spawn come to mind. Setting aside concerns of mechanical balance, vampires just aren't narratively what they're supposed to be. It would be far better, in my humble opinion, if they were more on equal footing with other races from a lore/IC standpoint. They would also become more flexible I think, as you could choose to be an Alucard/Blade type as a dhampir and hunt vampires, as they are noted to do, or just be evil, and they live in the same limbo of other half-races which is good for building a narrative with other players. Vampire spawn at least can't make thralls, which really is preferable as I often see it used/abused in truly creepy ways, and not creepy in a good and vampiric way but a "question of consent" way that we have brought up before in discourse about romance with slaves.

[Yma23]

Haya. So I've been playing the isles premier 'Vampire Expert,' and such I've been doing a lot with pc vampires of late and, I gotta say, I'm having an absolute BLAST.

Seriously, most fun I've had on a character in literal years, and a good part of that is the richness and fun of the vampires at present. I've loved the rp of pretty much every vampire I've had the pleasure come into contact with. Been impressed by the tradgedy and the horror of their stories. Their vareity of abilities and weaknesses all make amazing plot hooks. And if they're a little strong... well they're a very heavily gated class, so I am not too worried about that personally.

I've not encountered or heard of any seriously problematic or dodgy behaviour from Vampires to thralls either. A bit of conflict tension sure, but it's all opt in and been classy as far as I could tell? If you know of something worse- you should report it?

Strong in pvp? Sure maybe? Perhaps? But they face a LOT of downsides too as already mentioned. And look, if by 'strong in pvp' you mean a Vamp character could defeat three fully prepped leve 30's whilst the vamp player was drunk and half watching an episode of Game of Thrones on his TV - then yeah ok, perhaps a bit much. But I don't think that the difference is that high, surely?

If you mean 'They're a little bit stronger' (more likely to win on a one-on-one fight) then my answer is... Given that they're not only a 5% race, require a STRICT application from the DM team but are also limited in numbers all together... why is this a problem? If we've vampire characters who are genuine pvp hounds who are ruining the day for everyone around them? Then yeah ok. Fine. But if we've got mostly good players who are more interested in making story and fun, for toher people as well as themselves, and who mostly engage only in pvp as a story telling mechanism... does it matter if they've got a bit of a leg up?

Vampires are great. No need to change them IMO.

[Kythana]

To also offer some perspective on the soft stats people have been going on about, a vampire will rarely stay at the full power listed on the wiki. That bonus is only obtained at high blood levels. Blood levels decrease more, the higher your current blood level. Realistically speaking, you will only be getting +1 DEX and +1 STR in a reliable sense.

Really?

For 1 point of alchemy, 1 CP, and pretty cheap materials, you can get a potion that refills your blood to 100%(tested on PGCC) per drink.

Now, considering you don't have to pay the upkeep of other consumables like LMB or NEP, I'd say that at worst, it's about the same cost to have this always running.

[The Vandals of Rome]

i play a vampire

the soft bonuses decay too quickly for me to rely on. if they were removed it wouldn't change my gear. the immunities are powerful. i think the arm chair pvpers are underestimating how much it blows to have no gresto, heal pots or even cure crut pots. you can use harm scrolls or inflict wands once a round not twice. in actual pvp recovery is important. even so crit and mind immunity on melees is a giant advantage.

i want to imagine we replaced vampires with intelligent skeletons

the chad skeleton in the arelith environment enjoys crit immunity and mind immunity

the virgin vampire cannot go in the sun cannot enter homes uninvited, is repelled by brandished holy symbols and mirrors, has to get torpor in a coffin, is irritated by garlic, dies if they fall in a river, has to sip blood

a skeleton weapon master is a king because they are crit and mind immune

did you know that strahd dresses up as a normal guy to ask adventurers to handle his problems?

it's because vampires are the paper tigers of undead and they'd rather play stupid 5D chess to handle threats than risk their existence. they're giant cowards once they get old enough.

i don't really think vampires are too poweful but i do think pc ones either need to be held to the lore weaknesses or the race should be replaced with dhampirs.

if a vampire is destroyed by natural sunlight that should mean closure. if a vampire falls in the sea it should be closure. if someone brandishes a holy symbol the vampire is repulsed. same with a silver mirror. garlic wont stop a determined vampire but it should irritate them. if we're being honest they should have to return to their coffin to reform after being slain by any other method where they are vulnerable to closure. but that's coding.

ps strahd has a table he lies on and cries about tatyana. vampires are losers. liches are the chads.

[Scurvy Cur]

• Vampires can be affected by turn undead - both when used by PCs and NPCs. This can flat-foot or render them unable to fight back.

Kalo, you specifically disabled the crowd control aspect of turn undead for undead pc characters, after it was discovered that inquisitor paladin could get a almost guaranteed successful turn, replacing it with a short debuff that, last I checked, can be easily removed with resto.

The debuff you mention is a fear effect that bypasses immunities, hence unaffected by Restoration. There is also an exception in the Remove Fear spell script, causing that spell to ignore it. This means the only way to remove the penalties (which can range from -2 to -8 AB/AC/saves/skills and a spell failure between 10% and 40%) would be -pray.

The crowd control aspect also still exists - in a different form. Turned creatures cannot initiate any hostile action (attacks or spells) against the one who turned them for 12-18 seconds. This has been added later on and is what I referenced in my above comment.

This last bit should probably go in the wiki entry either for turn undead, or vampire, or both. It's currently in neither, and is unlikely to be leveraged if it's not known about. The debuff very seldom gets significant, due to the +4 turn resist that's inherent for vampires, meaning that they are treated as level 34 for the purpose of turn checks, and it's not likely to be worth a round for a chance at minorly inconveniencing a vampire for 5 rounds. Stopping hostile actions for 2-3 rounds is another matter, and may make taking the coin toss a little more attractive.

[Yma23]

i play a vampire

the soft bonuses decay too quickly for me to rely on. if they were removed it wouldn't change my gear. the immunities are powerful. i think the arm chair pvpers are underestimating how much it blows to have no gresto, heal pots or even cure crut pots. you can use harm scrolls or inflict wands once a round not twice. in actual pvp recovery is important. even so crit and mind immunity on melees is a giant advantage.

i want to imagine we replaced vampires with intelligent skeletons

the chad skeleton in the arelith environment enjoys crit immunity and mind immunity

the virgin vampire cannot go in the sun cannot enter homes uninvited, is repelled by brandished holy symbols and mirrors, has to get torpor in a coffin, is irritated by garlic, dies if they fall in a river, has to sip blood

a skeleton weapon master is a king because they are crit and mind immune

did you know that strahd dresses up as a normal guy to ask adventurers to handle his problems?

it's because vampires are the paper tigers of undead and they'd rather play stupid 5D chess to handle threats than risk their existence. they're giant cowards once they get old enough.

i don't really think vampires are too poweful but i do think pc ones either need to be held to the lore weaknesses or the race should be replaced with dhampirs.

if a vampire is destroyed by natural sunlight that should mean closure. if a vampire falls in the sea it should be closure. if someone brandishes a holy symbol the vampire is repulsed. same with a silver mirror. garlic wont stop a determined vampire but it should irritate them. if we're being honest they should have to return to their coffin to reform after being slain by any other method where they are vulnerable to closure. but that's coding.

ps strahd has a table he lies on and cries about tatyana. vampires are losers. liches are the chads.

For what it's worth, it always seems to me that most of the vampires I see rped do seem to be rping their weaknesses, if only to a degree, which is really nice.

There's only ONE thing I'd love to see, as a foe of the fanged fiends... Wooden Stakes .

Please, please, we already have an icon for these (used for Iron spikes currently) and they could be put under Carpentry.

If we feel that more balence is needed for Vampires? Make them super nasty. Like... a special MOD if you're killed by them ten times you're permadead or something?

Or Honestly? Just like a 'hold undead' ability on them, or something small and flaverful would leave me very content. But it's the one trapping of Vampires we really don't have and I'd love to see it used.

I quite like some of your ideas too Vandals, though I absolutly understand why some might not. Permadeath stuff is tricky.

[D4wN]

I think that there's quite a lot of tricks against vampires. If you're a decent caster you can really hurt one by casting hold undead or undeath to death. Mass heal is also nasty on them.

I can't help but feel as well that it being a major award and locked behind an application that DMs really ensure the person playing the vampire wouldn't just abuse their strengths and also play out their weaknesses and use the race for RP. Personally my experience with vampires has been largely positive. Of course there's always the one who might just use it for the mechanical (PVP or Non PVP) benefits over using it for RP, but the same can be said for assassins, WM/LM builds, Zhentarim, Harpers, RDD, Raks, Werebeasts, even quarterbreakers etc.

Maybe being a vamp is just that little stronger, but being outed and restricted to only being out at night are pretty harsh punishments already. Especially if someone learns your true name and just true name scries you. I don't mind a several century old undead being to be hard to kill. Only adds to the danger.

[Xersaoth]

I think that there's quite a lot of tricks against vampires. If you're a decent caster you can really hurt one by casting hold undead or undeath to death. Mass heal is also nasty on them.

I can't help but feel as well that it being a major award and locked behind an application that DMs really ensure the person playing the vampire wouldn't just abuse their strengths and also play out their weaknesses and use the race for RP. Personally my experience with vampires has been largely positive. Of course there's always the one who might just use it for the mechanical (PVP or Non PVP) benefits over using it for RP, but the same can be said for assassins, WM/LM builds, Zhentarim, Harpers, RDD, Raks, Werebeasts, even quarterbreakers etc.

Maybe being a vamp is just that little stronger, but being outed and restricted to only being out at night are pretty harsh punishments already. Especially if someone learns your true name and just true name scries you. I don't mind a several century old undead being to be hard to kill. Only adds to the danger.

Hold undead is not supposed to work against vampires at all, and it does not even affect the summoned vampires.

[D4wN]

I think that there's quite a lot of tricks against vampires. If you're a decent caster you can really hurt one by casting hold undead or undeath to death. Mass heal is also nasty on them.

I can't help but feel as well that it being a major award and locked behind an application that DMs really ensure the person playing the vampire wouldn't just abuse their strengths and also play out their weaknesses and use the race for RP. Personally my experience with vampires has been largely positive. Of course there's always the one who might just use it for the mechanical (PVP or Non PVP) benefits over using it for RP, but the same can be said for assassins, WM/LM builds, Zhentarim, Harpers, RDD, Raks, Werebeasts, even quarterbreakers etc.

Maybe being a vamp is just that little stronger, but being outed and restricted to only being out at night are pretty harsh punishments already. Especially if someone learns your true name and just true name scries you. I don't mind a several century old undead being to be hard to kill. Only adds to the danger.

Hold undead is not supposed to work against vampires at all, and it does not even affect the summoned vampires.

Hold Undead works very well. I know because I've seen it. And I dunno why it doesn't hold summoned vamps. It should and if it doesn't, it's a bug. Even then summoned vamps explode with WoF. So neither of these points hold up.

[Svrtr]

I think that there's quite a lot of tricks against vampires. If you're a decent caster you can really hurt one by casting hold undead or undeath to death. Mass heal is also nasty on them.

I can't help but feel as well that it being a major award and locked behind an application that DMs really ensure the person playing the vampire wouldn't just abuse their strengths and also play out their weaknesses and use the race for RP. Personally my experience with vampires has been largely positive. Of course there's always the one who might just use it for the mechanical (PVP or Non PVP) benefits over using it for RP, but the same can be said for assassins, WM/LM builds, Zhentarim, Harpers, RDD, Raks, Werebeasts, even quarterbreakers etc.

Maybe being a vamp is just that little stronger, but being outed and restricted to only being out at night are pretty harsh punishments already. Especially if someone learns your true name and just true name scries you. I don't mind a several century old undead being to be hard to kill. Only adds to the danger.

Hold undead is not supposed to work against vampires at all, and it does not even affect the summoned vampires.

Hold Undead works very well. I know because I've seen it. And I dunno why it doesn't hold summoned vamps. It should and if it doesn't, it's a bug. Even then summoned vamps explode with WoF. So neither of these points hold up.

Halt undead doesn't have a saving throw for "unintelligent undead", which I believe is undead with less than 7-9 intelligence (don't quote me on that). It DOES have a save for "intelligent undead" as per the wiki.

It does work on vampires if they fail the save, but its a low level spell and so they often succeed the save.

[D4wN]

Yeah, I've seen Halt Undead work on "intelligent undead" if cast by a caster. From a wand though I've never seen it work. I assume because the CL is lower from a wand. But not sure. But definitely seen Halt Undead work!

[Edens_Fall]

I am a bit late to the party, but I wanted to add my two cents from a personal viewpoint. After the updates over the past few years, the vampire race feels relatively balanced to me. It comes with some advantages (Crit Imm, soft cap stats, and a few animal shapes), yet is countered by just as many disadvantages (Sunlight, KoS social status, Sunbeam, Undeath to Death, Turn Undead, heal spells, and lack of self-healing). What does it all ultimately boil down to though? From my experience, it just means my likelihood of escaping is greater than, say, your average nonvampire build. 1v1 is also more to a vampire's favor, but I've never been in a 1v1 outside the arena.

As for builds to counter Undead, personally, I've never won against a fully prepared Paladin or healer cleric with the Sun Domain. Most of the time, though, it generally boils down to numbers, as most PvP battles do. That and who attacks first, of course.

My advice to anyone interested in playing a vampire has always remained the same. Play it because you like the RP and not for the race benefits. You'll be greatly disappointed if your only goal is to be some OP power build the world is scared of.

[Arigard]

I spent a long time building Vampires and have experience of them IG. I'll be honest, the main reason why Vampires are strong, is because people usually don't fight Vampires like Vampires, or are simply not prepared to fight them.

Vampires are incredibly vulnerable, if not the most vulnerable race. There are so many ways to kill Vampires and some of those ways are insta-death. There is no death ward, NEP vs heal for Vampires & there are no gifts. Try making a Barbarian/EDR Vampire on the PGGC, or other melee builds. Try getting your abilities high enough to get all of the rages/EDR without gifts, without absolutely destroying your skills and int (which then makes you suceptible to halt undead - which is below 13 int BTW to those earlier in thread). There's huge trade ofs in the raw character sheet on so many classes to make it a Vampire.

Then, with a low touch attack, enjoy taking half your HP pool from mass heal. Low reflex? Insta-smitten by sunburst. Low will? Undeath to death. Running low on HP? No heal pots for you, no greater restoration. Enjoy getting spammed by holy grenades and chunked by smite and bless weapon.

There's a few specific builds that Vampires can be very powerful on, but the majority of builds will have glaring weaknesses and the moment those characters become known as Vampires, there is zero justification for people not having a huge advantage in confrontation with them, especially currently with the lack of 5% gear and bloated saves.

I've been in PvP on my Vampire against characters who have had full knowledge they were fighting a Vampire, on builds that had all of the tools to annihilate undead, expecting to get blitzed by all of the hard counters available, only to watch them SoV/WoF/throw summons or try to fight head on as if they were fighting a non undead race, business as usual. Of course that will be a tough fight. That's not the fight you're supposed to be taking.

Vampires are only overpowered if characters never think about how to solve them problem in front of them and use the counters available, which is my experience is what almost always happens.

[Richrd]

I think vampires should be removed.

[Xersaoth]

At the very least, the list of advantages on their wiki page should be considerably expanded to reflect other unmentioned significant benefits that all vampires possess.

As undead, they are also immune to:

• Most Fear Effects
• Paralysis Effects
• Nearly All Poisons
• Deceases
• Necromancy Spells
• Dirty Fighting
• Mundane Stat/Level-Draining Effects
• Etc.

They also might have some powerful undead-only wards.

This is not obvious to most players who may encounter them and cannot experiment with the race, even on PGGC.

It is not clear what the point of allowing them to become assassins is, especially since they can live in disguise and gain even more advantages from the Dirgesinger class, such as vampiric attacks and additional APR, and single-handedly decide whether a settlement has a certain leader.

[DM Herald]

At the very least, the list of advantages on their wiki page should be considerably expanded to reflect other unmentioned significant benefits that all vampires possess.

As undead, they are also immune to:

• Most Fear Effects
• Paralysis Effects
• Nearly All Poisons
• Deceases
• Necromancy Spells
• Dirty Fighting
• Mundane Stat/Level-Draining Effects
• Etc.

They also might have some powerful undead-only wards.

This is not obvious to most players who may encounter them and cannot experiment with the race, even on PGGC.

It is not clear what the point of allowing them to become assassins is, especially since they can live in disguise and gain even more advantages from the Dirgesinger class, such as vampiric attacks and additional APR, and single-handedly decide whether a settlement has a certain leader.

"Most fear effects" and "paralysis effects" are generally covered by "immunity to mind-altering effects". Having immunity to necromancy spells is inaccurate. Vampires are only immune to negative energy damage. Classes which focus on negative energy spells such as harm already have subclasses to turn the damage into entropy. Immunity to dirty fighting is also inaccurate - 40% of dirty fighting skills are not mind-affecting. The only "powerful undead-only wards" that come to mind are negative energy burst and stone bones, which are third and second circle spells respectively. Negative energy burst will give undead a small strength boost, similar to bull's strength, and stone bones offers +3 natural AC, similar to barkskin potions. Natural AC does not stack, so a vampire cannot use stone bones along with barkskin.

As mentioned by others here, vampires do have significant weaknesses. Being effectively undead is both a blessing and a curse mechanically. Vampire population counts are gated and players are vetted in the application process. Players who have a poor history in behavior will have that counted against their application. I think this thread has run its course by this point, and I will be locking this thread.