Vampyr as a Playable Race?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

In the upcoming Kara's Daughters campaign, I was considering the possibility of having a vampyr or two among the PC's. Come to find out that they are saddled with a +8 ECL, mostly because of their monster HD. Couldn't there be a better fit if we made them more like, say, drow? Any suggestions for doing this?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Okay, so here's how I see it:

-- +4 Str, +2 Con, +2 Int and +4 Cha; this alone would merit a +1 or +2 ECL.
-- Like humans, they get an extra feat and skill points each level. Unless they spend the bonus feat on Multiattack, their bite will be their main attack and all hand attacks will have a serious penalty.
--Blood Drain and Domination; these are also enough to merit a hefty ECL.
--Favored Class is Fighter

If we forgo the natural armor (which I would) I can see these vampyr having a +3 or +4 ECL. What say you?

[Nathan of the FoS]

So, your question is what to make the level adjustment if you make the vampyre a 1 HD creature? +3 seems about right, although these things are always wonky at different levels...it's hard to get them even throughout.

2nd level vampyre fighter vs. 5th level human fighter with elite array scores (Str 15 Dex 13 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha :

The vampyre has Str 19 Dex 13 Con 16 Int 12 Wis 12 Cha 12 vs. the fighter's Str 16 Dex 13 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 8.

So, vampyre gets 20 skill points (5x4), human gets 24 (8x3), but the vampyre has better mods. Say that's even.
Human gets two more feats, one fighter bonus and one vanilla, human wins. Vampyre gets +6 to attack vs. human +8, human wins.
Vampyre does weapon +4, human gets weapon +3, vampyre wins but not by much.
Vampyre has 2d10+6 hp, human has 5d10 +10 hp, human wins.
Human has better equipment, human wins.
Vampyre gets lethal unarmed attacks, vampyre wins.
Vampyre gets Charm and Domination, vampyre wins.

So, it's the human's equipment, two feats, +2 to hit and 22 hp vs. Charm, Domination, unarmed attack and +1 weapon damage.

If we go to a +4 level adjustment, the human gets equipment, four feats, +3 to hit and 30 hit points against the same package for the vampyre.

IYC Charm and Domination are probably really useful, so a +4 might be better for "all-around" purposes; in a more combat-oriented campaign I might go with the +3.

[Jester of the FoS]

Well, a LA+8 with 8 racial HD is an ECL of 16.

An actual vampire's LA is +8 so there's NO way a vampyre should be a LA+8.
Keep in mind ECL is probably the most broken system in 3.5 -crazy illogical broken.

First thing that adds LA is dominate which is pretty damn powerful. That's a level-4 spell as an at-will supernatural ability. Although, in standard DoD bad editing, it should be a Will save not a fort save to resist.
They also have +5 natural armour.
They also have have darkvision.

Stats: Str +4, Dex +2, Con +3, Int +3, Wis +2, Cha +4 (removing the two stat boosts from HD).
Okay, those are waaaaay to high for racial bonuses so I'm tempted to think they used the elite statblock (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, instead of 10s and 11s. But we'll assume not.

The dominate is usable at-will but acts like dominate person so it's only usable on non-monsters. AND it requires the vampyre to bite first, so it's less usable in a combat situation unless the vampyre is a grappler.
So I'd rule LA +4. 1 1/2 for stats, 1 for AC, and 1 1/2 for dominate.

This *should* be added to HD but straight monster HD do not equal one character level, they equal one NPC level which are much, much lower than PC levels in power.
I tend to remove a number of HD equal to the LA then 1/2 the rest for a total number. 8-4=4. 4/2= 2. 2+3 =5.
So really I'd say an ECL of 5. Much, much closer to the CR 4 of the monster (as it can fight 4 level-4 characters and use-up 25% of their resources).

We could also lower the racial HD, arguing it might be an "immature" vampyre or variant. By removing 5 HD we greatly reduce skill points and drop two feats. So we could get it down to an ECL 3 that way. We could also drop a couple points from the natural armour and maybe a couple stat points.

[Mangrum]

The logic behind the Fort save is that it's an actual, physical injected chemical which creates the domination effect. The victim is resisting a mind-controlling drug.

[cpt_machine]

depends on how your group is about game balance, i sometimes dont bother to use ECL, i never did in AD&D and it worked fine.

however in ravenloft without a VERY good reason I dont normally allow anything outside of human.

[DocBeard]

Personally, and I realize I am not a Doctor, I would just use the Caliban model, switch the Charisma reduction to a Wisdom reduction, to represent the tempermental nature of the vampyrs, and give 'em a bite attack.

Really, the whole "Caliban" concept fits just about any "Play your own monster" idea, once you adjust the ability score reduction and additions a little bit.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Personally, and I realize I am not a Doctor, I would just use the Caliban model, switch the Charisma reduction to a Wisdom reduction, to represent the tempermental nature of the vampyrs, and give 'em a bite attack.

Really, the whole "Caliban" concept fits just about any "Play your own monster" idea, once you adjust the ability score reduction and additions a little bit.

So you don't think vampyr should have a domination power or blood drain?

[DocBeard]

Do they need them for their character concept?

I might adapt them into racial feats, which would represent how much the vampyr focuses on honing his or her natural abilities, and how much he or she focuses on class abilities.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Do they need them for their character concept?

I might adapt them into racial feats, which would represent how much the vampyr focuses on honing his or her natural abilities, and how much he or she focuses on class abilities.

For the character concept of "living vampires," I'd say so, at least on the blood draining part.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Okay, I've got a player who wants to play a vampyr, possibly Nira. I'm going to treat vampyr as a 1HD playable race with a +3 ECL. I'll let you know how it goes!

[Georg Kristianokov]

Why not just have vampyrs as callibans?

Maybe they're just people with some disease, like sickle-cell anemia. They need to drink to replenshish their own?

[Hazgarn]

A indicator that I've been awake way too long:
Vampyres are monstrous humanoids, right? Does that mean you could apply the vampire template and create vampire vampyres?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Why not just have vampyrs as callibans?

Because calibans are deformed, while vampyrs are beautiful.

Because calibans have a penalty to Cha, while vampyrs have a huge bonus.

Because statting a vampyr as a "Caliban with blood drain and domination and different ability modifiers" is an empty reference. You might as well as stat them as humans with the same changes.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

A indicator that I've been awake way too long:
Vampyres are monstrous humanoids, right? Does that mean you could apply the vampire template and create vampire vampyres?

Yep.

And before you do that, you can apply the half-vampire template from Libris Mortis. And the dhampir template from Denizens of Dread to that, as well. Both of these templates may be applied to monstrous humanoids, and they don't change the base creature's type.

So, technically, by the letter of the rules, you can have a half-vampire dhampir vampire vampyre.

Guess I need sleep too.