Monster Classes, sometimes just plain necessary?

[Prak]

For a while I've wanted to run a campaign set in Nosgoth, the setting of the Legacy of Kain games. This necessitates stating up Nosgothian Vampires, and at a certain point, they get so many powers based on the pure fact that they're vampires, it almost seems like what's really the best way to stat them is as a class, or a series of classes, rather than a race and maybe one or two paragon classes or the like.

Is this just the way it should be sometimes?

[IGTN]

Yes.

[The Man Who Killed Death]

Do something like the true fiend. That should work well enough, right?

[Maxus]

Pretty much.

'Dragon' seriously works as a class.

Vampire would, too, if it were a True-Fiend deal...

Making a vampire base class would be difficult because of how many takes there are on vampires...so if you want it to be really used, add in a 'Pick X from this list of abilities/features' class feature several times.

It'd make enough abilities so the vampire fanboys can represent vampires from their favorite setting. Make a few Undead feats to flesh it out, and it's pretty good...

Also, a vamp race so people can start as one. Maybe pick their own ability score boost.

[Prak]

yeah, I was thinking of a menu of abilities type deal, since even just going with Nosgothian vampires means there are a lot of variations.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It only makes sense to write them up as a class if they appear at lower levels.

[Prak]

It only makes sense to write them up as a class if they appear at lower levels.

The player character vampires in the games have to develop their vampiric abilities through experience, so I'd say this is the case. Most of the enemy vampires are mooks, really, but there's some amount of logic that says they could evolve like any other.

[Maxus]

It only makes sense to write them up as a class if they appear at lower levels.

That's a fluff consideration made by D&D writers to help put vampires as 'awesome' like they tried with rings and dragons.

There's no reason for that to kept if it gets in the way of what people want to do.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It only makes sense to write them up as a class if they appear at lower levels.

The player character vampires in the games have to develop their vampiric abilities through experience, so I'd say this is the case. Most of the enemy vampires are mooks, really, but there's some amount of logic that says they could evolve like any other.

Then was there ever really any question?

[TavishArtair]

There are other models of acquiring powers in games, such as massive amounts of looting, for instance (Mega Man style). Kain and the other vampires of Nosgoth, however, almost explicitly gets more experienced, with some experience accrual over time even if he doesn't do shit. He also engages in rampant looting, of course, but that tends to be of actual items.

[Prak]

It only makes sense to write them up as a class if they appear at lower levels.

The player character vampires in the games have to develop their vampiric abilities through experience, so I'd say this is the case. Most of the enemy vampires are mooks, really, but there's some amount of logic that says they could evolve like any other.

Then was there ever really any question?

Yes, it could have been hand waved and they been stated up fully powered, or gotten additional powers through feats.

There are other models of acquiring powers in games, such as massive amounts of looting, for instance (Mega Man style). Kain and the other vampires of Nosgoth, however, almost explicitly gets more experienced, with some experience accrual over time even if he doesn't do shit. He also engages in rampant looting, of course, but that tends to be of actual items.

Yeah, Blood Omen 2 is the only game I've ever seen that blatently treats innocent bystanders as xp packs.

[K]

The key is to avoid the "monster class syndrome."

Monsters are designed to be unbalanced. Maybe they have too high stats or too many HD or attacks or maybe just too few HPs or something.

Any class you make needs to somehow take that into account, without doing something dumb. Basically, don't make a Beholder Mage.


The second issue for your problem is that you want vampire spawn to start better than normal humans so that it's scary when someone turns the harmless NPC from Act 1 and you see him again for the dramatic fight for Act 3. This means a baseline monster entry that has some HD and abilities, and then start advancing by monster class.

[Prak]

Ok, working on Nosgothian Vampires earlier, something occured to me... with the exception of one single character(Mary Sue Kain), most vampires in LoK develop one or two special powers. Faustus can jump around, Marcus can charm people, Sebastian can flurry, Dumah is armoured and has a vampiric frog tongue, Rahab doesn't have the usual vampiric weakness to water and can in fact swim, Turel has powerful telekinetic blasts, Zephon can climb walls and spin webs (and lay sterile bomb eggs....) and so on.

So maybe just a Vampiric race or race and short paragon class would be fine, or maybe even vampiric spheres.

There are a couple wrinkles though. One: Kain evolves many different powers and passes them onto his lieutenants. Two: There seems to be some in world process that allows one to absorb the soul of another and gain their powers. This is how Raziel gains extra powers in Soul Reaver and how Kain gets a few extras in Blood Omen 2.

So there needs to be rules for absorbing someone's soul and gaining power. I'm thinking this could take the place of magic items, as there aren't many of those in the setting... thoughts?

Oh, and finally, the powers aren't particularly balanced from a D&D perspective, are they? I mean, one guy can phase through gates, another gets the spell Telekinesis...

edit: missed a couple letters and a punctuation mark that completely reverse a statement...

[Prak]

So far this is what I'm looking at for "basic" Nosgothian vampires, feedback would be appreciated:

Nosgothian Vampire, Fledgling

• +4 Str, +4 Dex. Vampires are both stronger and more agile than the average human.
• Undead (Unliving, Darkminded)
• Size: As base creature (pretty much always medium in Nosgoth anyway.)
• Speed: As base creature
• 2 Racial HD: 2d12 HD, +1 BAB, +3 Will, one feat, 5(4+Int mod) skill points.
• Bite (1d6) and 2 claws (1d4)
• Blood Drain: A vampire can suck blood from a living victim with its fangs by making a successful grapple check. If it pins the foe, it drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution drain each round the pin is maintained. Each point of con drained gives the vampire 1 blood point, to a max of 3(Character Level). Vampires automatically spend 1 blood point per character level each day to maintain their body.
• Fast Healing 2: A vampire can spend blood points to activate fast healing as a free action. Each point spent allows 2 rounds of fast healing. This ability automatically activates if the vampire is reduced to 0 hp but not destroyed.
• Unliving Resilience: A vampire can only be truly destroyed through destruction or removal of the head, heart or soul, or complete eradication of the body. Impalement through the head or heart will render a vampire inert and functionally dead, but if the instrument is removed, the vampire will be returned to his "living" state, albeit at 0 hp, and his fast healing will automatically trigger, so long as he has at least 1 blood point.
• Sire's Gift: A fledgling vampire possesses the dark gift of his sire, but does not evolve it's own gifts. Some sires possess and confer additional weaknesses also.
• Water Vulnerability: Water (of any kind) burns vampiric flesh like strong acid. Water that a vampire is exposed to acts exactly like a like amount of acid.
• Sunlight Vulnerability: Each round during which a vampire is exposed to sunlight deals 1d6 fire damage, and ignites their flesh.
• Combustible: Vampires are easily immolated, when burned by fire, the flames linger until extinguished and deal 1d6 points of fire damage per round.

Sire Gifts

• Melchiah: Phase through barriers which provide partial cover or less. Increased Sunlight Vulnerability, even the heavily filtered sunlight prevalent over much of Nosgoth is sufficient to burn Melchiahim, and even adults suffer this weakness.
• Zephon: Climb 40', create webs as a giant spider.
• Dumah: +5 Natural Armour, Tongue Attack (1d4 damage, drain blood, 10' reach)
• Rahab: Immune to water, Swim 40'. Increased Sunlight Vulnerability, even the heavily filtered sunlight prevalent over much of Nosgoth is sufficient to burn Melchiahim, and even adults suffer this weakness.
• Turel: Telekinesis at will, Caster Level equal to Character Level, Blindsense. Turelim are blind, like their sire.
• Raziel*: Fly 60' (average)

*Assumes a time line in which Raziel was not cast into the vortex.