I've been tinkering with a Vampire build, but ran into some OCD issues such as effective hit points since Vampires have regeneration. So settling on a CR is a bit difficult. Goals:
Stat Block:
CR 17+
Modified by armor (martial)
Sword and Shield
Attuned jewelry
Tactics:
Makes maximum and creative use of spawns.
Has a vampire spawn (or perhaps a vampire ally) that is a cleric and can buff the vampire with certain spells
Makes use of Ceremony: Wedding for +2AC per 7 days because he will simply consume the charmed betrothed effectively becoming a widower and being allowed to marry again. A total abuse of the spell but should be more than capable of fulfilling.
Keeps kennels nearby with sufficient wolves for his use of Children of the Night. No waiting for 1d4 turns; those beasts can be there in 1 turn. The vampire relies heavily on preparation.
The vampire may be found without his armor, being social or "bestial" for personality reasons; or otherwise indisposed. If found in such a condition by the party the Vampire will always try to mist-form away to his armory.
The vampire keeps his cleric-spawn no further than 60feet away, as well as his "wife" in order to keep the Ceremony: Wedding in effect and the ability to cast spells on his behalf.
The vampire assumes to use lawful good innocent damsels for the spell Ceremony: Wedding so as to make a moral quandary for the party. It is possible he would wheel the bride around in an iron maiden or such to keep her even more protected in case the party should decide to kill her to end the +2AC effect.
The vampire will retreat using mist-form if available to regenerate hit points. Using this tactic will apply to rotating out of battle its vampire spawns as well.
Background:
The vampire is rather new; the campaign idea is that this new vampire made rather short work of a castle guarding a town well situated for his needs. He turned the knights and guards of the castle into spawns or food, and captured a cleric to turn into a spawn as well, making use of the cleric's abilities seen in the tactics.
The idea is that the party strolls into this cursed town (more like a large village capable of sustaining the vampire's tax of at least 50gp per week and his and spawns' feeding needs) and finds the situation rapidly devolving out of control.
The vampire is not at first at full power, maybe an ordinary plate armor, a non magical sword, etc. But throughout the campaign the vampire is accumulating these things. While it may not be useful; I want the campaign to feel dynamic. The players are competing for time against the vampire's strengthening ability.
Class abilities: It only makes sense that the Vampire had a life before undeath, and during this time maybe he was a 3rd level fighter, or a rogue, which would give him some lingering abilities.
I'm leaning toward a fighter:
Lvl 3 Fighter:
Fighting Style and basics of Level 3 fighter. Resultant of the rolls below for Martial Archetype.
Great weapon Fighting (if Knight)
Interception. (If Brute) I'm leaning toward interception because it fits well with the style of this Vampire, using the most out of his vampire spawns by fighting closer quarters and defending them when they are attacked. Anything to keep the damage down enough to let vampire and spawns rotate in and out to regenerate.
Superior Technique (Possibly if Monster Hunter?) (maybe, thinking about what might be some fun maneuvers to role play).
Second Wind (Level 3 fighter so 1d10 +3).
Action Surge (+1 action 1 time per rest)
Martial Archetype (Roll 1d6):
1-2: Monster Hunter: Combat Superiority (I like the potential uses). The Vampire was a Monster Hunter, by some quirk he got himself turned to a Vampire, was it intentional though?
3-4: Brute getting a damage dice (level 3 fighter), The Vampire was a brute, he rules in his undeath like he governed himself in life. This vampire still uses companion tactics but not as wisely or carefully and conservatively as the Knight.
5-6: Knight: This Vampire was training to be a knight; he retains all his martial prowess and commonsense about protecting others in battle. Using the Implacable mark to its advantage the knight chose Great Weapon Fighting instead of Interception.
Considerations:
So the Vampire is aware that he cannot survive long as a CR 13, and wearing some armor and a sword to be CR 15 isn't much of an improvement. Rather than linger for 100 years until some middling heroes find out who he is and destroy him, he decides to strike first with the "master plan". He sets out to boost his to-hit, boost his damage, and boost his AC and spell saves. Thus he seeks out to corrupt a cleric, and would love to get his hands on a wizard or two. He is on the lookout for useful magical items but in particular
Possible items:
Ring of Spell Storing (or)
Ring of Protection. (I'm leaning toward this as the Vampire would consider his cleric spawn to be his "ring of spell storing" so why have an additional one?
Weapon of +1 through +3 (I think that throughout the campaign the players should be given opportunities to prevent vampire spawns and cultists from retrieving higher magical artifacts for the Vampire so in theory he could be left with a normal weapon by the end game).
Armor +1 through 3, for same reasons above.
Animated Shield. I think this would be useful for the Vampire's demeanor. He can carry a two handed sword and a shield next to him at all times, using the bonus action to animate the shield and then wield a great sword. I think the Vampire can go between ordinary plate and attunement of the animated shield depending on what equipment the party has been able to prevent the vampire from acquiring.
I'll add more as I think of it; but for now the real challenge is coming up with an appropriate stat-block and CR as a result of these changes.
The basic stat block particulars can be fiddled with here using the Vampire Warrior as a base and changing its CR to 17 to see how it changes.
The most basic changes are the hit dice and the saving throws and the AC changes with the type of plate.
I will also attempt to assume the effective hit points of the Vampire villain using the average damage and average hit chance gathered from the linked sources.
Basically, at an AC of approximately 22 (+1plate and Wedding Ceremony alone) the average damage for a level 16 Paladin would be work out to being 44 damage per turn.
Because the Vampire regenerates 20 hit points per turn this works out to the level 16 paladin doing an effective 24 damage per turn. A party of four such paladins doing an effective 96 damage per turn.
This actually gives the vampire a fighting chance to be a real threat against a party of 4x level 16s (in theory) barring no crits are landed and of course I haven't really figured for other particular nuances, this is just figuring for raw damage using the example: Level 16 dueling Paladin of vengeance longsword 4th level smite and haste using 3rd level smite with improved divine smite
A party of 4 at level 16 should in theory kill a CR 17 in 1 turn. This party would take approximately 1.5turns to kill the Vampire which is in line with a level 16 party going against a CR21.
I believe 5e is about "5 CRs inflated" and I can basically prove that through the homebrew monster CR rules, so I don't care to argue it here, so this falls in line with the idea of a deadly CR 17 encounter.
Adding in the variety of Vampire spawns that will serve this Vampire and the encounter will probably prove very challenging.
Building Anticipation: It's not particularly useful to have a deadly encounter if the players don't realize how much in danger they are to this more savvy Vampire who understands his weaknesses better versus a party of would-be-heroes. I think for anticipation it would be especially useful to see what the party at level 5 can do against similarly improved vampire spawns sent by the Vampire to test them. While the campaign will have opportunities to be summoned to the Castle; to meet the Vampire face to face when they are still weak, to be challenged by his vampire spawn and to do other adventures in the area, the anticipation builds when the players are constantly struggling to survive against the Vampire's minions, let alone a direct confrontation against him.
And to add to the frustration; though the Vampire is a martial vampire, he prefers to engage from a distance, and to be prepared first, utilizing his mist ability and having his creatures of the night close at hand. He is a master tactician that takes full advantage of the boosted CR rating he so rightfully deserves.
I've been tinkering with a Vampire build, but ran into some OCD issues such as effective hit points since Vampires have regeneration. So settling on a CR is a bit difficult. Goals:
Stat Block:
Tactics:
Background:
Class abilities:
It only makes sense that the Vampire had a life before undeath, and during this time maybe he was a 3rd level fighter, or a rogue, which would give him some lingering abilities.
I'm leaning toward a fighter:
Lvl 3 Fighter:
Fighting Style and basics of Level 3 fighter. Resultant of the rolls below for Martial Archetype.
Martial Archetype (Roll 1d6):
Considerations:
So the Vampire is aware that he cannot survive long as a CR 13, and wearing some armor and a sword to be CR 15 isn't much of an improvement. Rather than linger for 100 years until some middling heroes find out who he is and destroy him, he decides to strike first with the "master plan". He sets out to boost his to-hit, boost his damage, and boost his AC and spell saves. Thus he seeks out to corrupt a cleric, and would love to get his hands on a wizard or two. He is on the lookout for useful magical items but in particular
Possible items:
I'll add more as I think of it; but for now the real challenge is coming up with an appropriate stat-block and CR as a result of these changes.
The basic stat block particulars can be fiddled with here using the Vampire Warrior as a base and changing its CR to 17 to see how it changes.
The most basic changes are the hit dice and the saving throws and the AC changes with the type of plate.
I will also attempt to assume the effective hit points of the Vampire villain using the average damage and average hit chance gathered from the linked sources.
Basically, at an AC of approximately 22 (+1plate and Wedding Ceremony alone) the average damage for a level 16 Paladin would be work out to being 44 damage per turn.
Because the Vampire regenerates 20 hit points per turn this works out to the level 16 paladin doing an effective 24 damage per turn. A party of four such paladins doing an effective 96 damage per turn.
This actually gives the vampire a fighting chance to be a real threat against a party of 4x level 16s (in theory) barring no crits are landed and of course I haven't really figured for other particular nuances, this is just figuring for raw damage using the example:
Level 16 dueling Paladin of vengeance longsword 4th level smite and haste using 3rd level smite with improved divine smite
A party of 4 at level 16 should in theory kill a CR 17 in 1 turn. This party would take approximately 1.5turns to kill the Vampire which is in line with a level 16 party going against a CR21.
I believe 5e is about "5 CRs inflated" and I can basically prove that through the homebrew monster CR rules, so I don't care to argue it here, so this falls in line with the idea of a deadly CR 17 encounter.
Adding in the variety of Vampire spawns that will serve this Vampire and the encounter will probably prove very challenging.
Building Anticipation:
It's not particularly useful to have a deadly encounter if the players don't realize how much in danger they are to this more savvy Vampire who understands his weaknesses better versus a party of would-be-heroes. I think for anticipation it would be especially useful to see what the party at level 5 can do against similarly improved vampire spawns sent by the Vampire to test them. While the campaign will have opportunities to be summoned to the Castle; to meet the Vampire face to face when they are still weak, to be challenged by his vampire spawn and to do other adventures in the area, the anticipation builds when the players are constantly struggling to survive against the Vampire's minions, let alone a direct confrontation against him.
And to add to the frustration; though the Vampire is a martial vampire, he prefers to engage from a distance, and to be prepared first, utilizing his mist ability and having his creatures of the night close at hand. He is a master tactician that takes full advantage of the boosted CR rating he so rightfully deserves.
Reserved for Stat Block, name, background, and general campaign ideas when I write them down.