The Dhampir as a PC

[The_Confessor]

Greetings,

One of my players in an up-coming Ravenloft game desperately wants to play a Dhampir (Half-Vampire) from Denziens of Dread. I like the idea of him doing this, but it worries me because of the power-level of the Dhampir Template. I'm considering statting a Dhampir class, ala Savage Species and wanted to know if anyone else had done the same and if so, what kind of success or failure they had met with.

The Dhampir, being a Template and not an actual creature-type, means that I would have to assign hit dice to it, as well as saves and a Base Attack rate. I fear that doing so might make the already powerful template even more difficult to use.

[order99]

Can you find a copy of Dungeon #91/Polyhedron? In the included Shadow Slayers mini-game(a prototype for the later D20 Modern) the authors introduced the Shadow Blood templates. Each Shadow package (Lycanthropic,Vampiric and Fiendish) recieved a package of advantages and disadvantages to reflect its heritage-in addition, the templates were treated as Demi-human, i.e. minus one starting Feat and -4 skill point/-1 per level.

The Vampiric Blood template in this article grants:
+2 Str,-2 Con
Light sensitivity -1
Fast Healing 3 (vitality only)
DR 2/- (wounds only)
Demi human regarding Feats/Skills

The mini-game uses Wounds(=Con) and Vitality (Hit Dice). I personally would turn down the Fast Healing down to 1, and set the DR at 2/ Blessed item/Magic item, and compensate the loss with Low-light vision at 60'.

Since I use the original Boxed set more than the 3E rules,i'd probably just"punish" the Damphir with some RL-style Powers/Curses as if the PC were about halfway to Darklord status...without the actual Corruption involved, unless the PC starts down that path of course.

[The Giamarga]

Someone built a savage species progression for it on ENWorld: http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=1 ... stcount=47

[Undead Cabbage]

Also be sure that your player is appropriate for the job.

Something you need to ask yourself: is this player requesting to be a Dhampir because he legitally wishes to role play one, or is he just interested in the power behind one? Players sometimes make the latter seem like the former by saying 'I love vampires, they're so cool, so of course I'm interesting in seriously role playing one'. In this case, the player doesn't love vampires so much as the intoxicating power behind them.

A good Dhampir player would refrain from using their vampiric side as much as possible, out of fear of their heiratage. It could potentially be a really good character. On the other hand, it could totally ruin the whole game. If the player interested is the type to be more concerned with the numbers on their character sheet than brining out the actual character, then I'd say don't do it. If the player is modest enough to not abuse it, then it would make an interesting dimension.

Another thing to keep in mind are the other players. How are they going to react to the one player being able to use the template? Are they going to want to be Dhampirs, or other templates as well? Are they going to see this as playing favorites? Are they going to 'play along' with the Dhampir character well? Even more important, when the party faces a challenge are they simply going to 'send the Dhampir' to do it?

The players should understand very well why the player is recieving the template. IMC one of my players is recieving the ghost template, but only because the campaign is soon ending, and every single player at the table agrees that the player is modest enough to play it (and thus would never abuse the power). On the other hand, I've made some mistakes by allowing power hungry players to take on their favorite template, only to see the same player totally mess with the game.

In short, it's a judgement call of the players personality. Is the player going to add to gameplay, or take away from it?