Dungeons & Delvers: Vampire Racial Class

One of the players for our Sky Tomb campaign couldn't make it, so I decided to run the group through Melissa's Krampus adventure.

Shane was able to join, and of course he wanted to play a vampire, so I whipped up a vampire racial class, which unlike the skeleton race I created awhile back saw some actual use!

In case you want to give it a shot, here ya go. Note that it's effectively a race and class combo, so you don't get to choose a race and it's more complex than your typical class.

WOUND & VITALITY POINTS

• Starting Wound Points: 5+Constitution
• Wound Points Per Level: 3+Constitution
• Starting Vitality Points: 3
• Vitality Points Per Level: +2

PROFICIENCIES

• Weapons: You can use all simple weapons.
• Armor: You can wear armor up to a mail shirt.
• Skills: Stealth. Choose three more.

MONSTROUS CLASS FEATURES

• Speed: 30 feet
• Ability Scores: +1 Strength; +1 to either Constitution or Charisma (Designer's Note: This is done because I feel like if you can choose Dexterity, or get Dexterity automatically, that will become the best stat because in addition to Initiative, AC, Dexterity skills, and Reflex saves you can also use it for your claw attack and damage rolls.)
• Blood Points (BP): The maximum amount of BP you can have at a time is equal to your vampire level multiplied by 2. See the section on BP for how it all works. (This was brought up right before the game started, or maybe afterwards, so we didn't get a chance to see how it worked. I like the idea though, and expect this value to change a few times before we get it right.)
• Claws: Your clawed hands are light weapons that deal 1d6 slashing damage. You gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls made with your claws. At 3rd-level this bonus increases to +2, and at 5th-level you can use your Standard Action to make two claw attacks.
• Immunities: You are completely unaffected by disease and poison. You don't breathe.
• Necrotic Resistance: 5 + your level
• Radiant Vulnerability: 5 + your level (the deeper you descent into darkness, the more the light burns you)
• Rapid Healing: You don't suffer Wound Recovery penalties from sleeping outside. If you bury yourself while taking a long rest, you regain all lost WP. You can spend 1 Blood Point to regain 1 WP. When you drain blood, instead of gaining blood you can choose to just regain WP, but only up to your maximum.
• Skill Bonus: +1 to Stealth checks.
• Talents: Choose two vampire talents.

BLOOD POINTS
As a Standard Action you can drink the blood from a helpless, sleeping, or unconscious creature. You can also drain blood from a creature you are grappling. Each round they lose 1d4 WP, and you gain that many Blood Points, up to your maximum  (if you go over your maximum, you can instead restore lost WP if you want). As a rule of thumb, living creatures can be reduced to negative WP equal to their maximum WP before dying.

(Drinking blood from certain creatures might have side effects, good or bad. For example, drinking dragon's blood could give you fire resistance or let you breathe fire: for now I leave this up to the GM.)

After taking a long rest you must spend 1 BP upon waking. If you don't have any BP, your Wisdom is reduced by 1 until you feed. If this would reduce your Wisdom to -5, you instead fly into a frenzy, seeking out and feeding on the nearest living creature you can find (you drink until your Blood Points are maxed out or they die, whichever happens first).

When your WP would be reduced to 0, you instead lose Blood Points if possible (at a rate of one-for-one). Only when you no longer have Blood Points does your WP fall to 0. (Being reduced to 0 WP doesn't cause anything special to happen: I couldn't find anything in folklore mentioning vampires turning into mist when near death and returning to their coffins, but I could see this as a talent.)

WEAKNESSES
Choose two weaknesses:

• Sunlight
• Garlic and certain types of wood, like ash, hawthorn, oak, or yew
• You cannot enter a private building without invitation
• Fire
• Running water
• Silver
• Sacred items

When you can see your weakness, you must succeed on a Will save (at least DC 15, but could be higher if there's a lot of it, or you're in immediate danger of being harmed by it). If you fail you are frightened until you can no longer see it. Even if you succeed on the saving throw, you still suffer a -1 penalty to all d20 rolls until you no longer see it.

If you touch your weakness, you suffer 1d6 damage, ignoring armor, no save. If you're completely exposed to it, you suffer 5d6 damage every round (no save). if you're WP is reduced to 0 or less because of a weakness you instantly die. For things like entering a building, you'd suffer 5d6 damage every round in a building without invitation (think that scene from Let Me In).

If someone hits you with a weapon made from or that incorporates your weakness, or your weakness does damage normally (like fire), you take maximum damage and it ignores your DR (basically you get auto-critted each time). If the effect would normally grant a save, you suffer maximum possible damage on a failed save, and half that on a successful save.

VAMPIRE TALENTS
Choose another vampire talent each time you gain a level. Remember that your maximum BP also increases by 2 each level.
Saving Throws: If a vampire talent allows a save, the DC is 10 + Charisma. At 5th-level the DC becomes 11 + Charisma.

Charming Gaze
Blood Cost: 1
A humanoid creature that meets your gaze must succeed on a Will save or treat you as a trusted friend for 1 hour. You can only have one creature charmed at a time, and when this effect ends the target knows it was charmed. If you take damage from a weakness they get to make a new save to shake it off.

Children of the Night
You can speak with wolves, bats, rats, and other creatures of the night. You gain a +1 bonus on checks made when interacting with them.

Claws of the Beast
When you attack with your claws, make the attack and damage rolls damage twice and use the higher results.

Form of the Night
Blood Cost: 1
You can spend 1 minute to change your shape into a bat, rat, wolf, or other creature of the night.

Some quick animal form stats:

• Bat: You gain fly 30 feet. Your Strength is reduced by 3 (to a minimum of -4). Your bite only deals 1 piercing damage.
• Rat: Your Speed is 20, but you can climb without making Athletics checks. Your Strength is reduced by 3 (minimum -4), bite deals 1d3 piercing, and you gain +1 to Stealth.
• Wolf: Speed +10, gain a +1 bonus to all checks made to track creatures by scent.

It takes an entire round to change back to your human form.

Night Crawler
You gain a +1 bonus on all checks made to hide and sneak about.

Nighvision
You can see in the dark out to a range of 30 feet.

Strength of Blood
Blood Cost: 1
You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls for 1 minute.

Announcements

You can now get a physical copy of Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book in whatever format you want!

After months of doing other things, we turned our attention to and released The Warden. It's based on the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons class of the same name, but judging by the responses we did an excellent job converting it over.

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).