Last day I was reading the monster manual and I couldn't understand how the vampirism mechanic for players work: do the vampire's actions, traits, resistances ecc replace the player's or are those gained on top of what the player can already do?
The game statistics of a player character transformed into a vampire spawn and then a vampire don’t change, except that the character’s Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores become 18 if they aren’t higher. In addition, the character gains the vampire’s damage resistances, darkvision, traits, and actions. Attack and damage rolls for the vampire’s attacks are based on Strength. The save DC for Charm is 8 + the vampire’s proficiency bonus + the vampire’s Charisma modifier. The character’s alignment becomes lawful evil, and the DM might take control of the character until the vampirism is reversed with a wish spell or the character is killed and brought back to life.
It says "gains" not replaces for the damage resistance, darkvision, traits and actions - so they are in addition to what your character already has.
PC vampirism is an interesting conundrum. I think the best way to approach it is from a game design perspective. Your intuition that the vampire's traits replace the character's traits is a good one, as it aligns with other abilities like the true polymorph spell. But the problem then becomes, you've created a character who doesn't progress. Also, a character who can't go out in daylight puts a strain on the party's ability to adventure. These are superable difficulties, but also worth avoiding. My fix that I'm trying to work into a game to test how well it works is to replace a character's subclass with features which represent the character's descent into becoming a creature of the night--which is really the other part worth addressing... Vampirism has a lot of thematic baggage. D&D is not set up to address that theme in any coherent way. World of Darkness--now Chronicles of Darkness--has had multiple game lines which attempted to address the theme, and if you want to play up the vampirism angle in your game you might find some good source material there.
thanks for the input, I was thinking that maybe if the character player wanted to go dhampir, that why that Vampirism is still in play kind of, but of a half breed vampire and dont get me wrong, their maybe a lot of people who may dig the new Dhampir race aspect of VRGTR, but then there may also be people who maybe against it, and it is just need to find the right group who are ok for like venture at night, if one of them wanna go venturing at night, but to each to their own.
Yeah, you could replace a character's race, but that entails problems of its own... If a player started as a variant human and became a dhampir, do they lose access to the feat they got at first level? Also, the monster manual's vampire is significantly more powerful than any lineage that starting characters have access to, so how's the half-elf ranger supposed to contribute when the vampire character can be fighter (because vampire includes physical attacks and damage resistances), wizard (because vampire includes spell-like abilities), and cleric (because vampire includes regeneration) in one and have a class?
yea that is true, but I am still kinda new to Dming so I am just going by what I watched and played in some games where vampirism may have been involved, but in saying that, as one of my dm ruling I dont force vampirism onto the player I do give them a choice to resist it, or if they cant do it while the threat is in front of them I do give them a chance to flee, and sort out their party member who has been inflicted with vampirism, but I know some Dms be like "oh your character has contracted Lacanthropy or in this case Vampirism, hand over your character sheet, and here is a new character sheet for you to work on during the rest of the session". Iknow that is a bad DM move but I am a bit of a fair DM so if any DMs who is against my ruling feedback is appreciated
Last day I was reading the monster manual and I couldn't understand how the vampirism mechanic for players work: do the vampire's actions, traits, resistances ecc replace the player's or are those gained on top of what the player can already do?
Thanks in advance.
This might be referring to the section:
It says "gains" not replaces for the damage resistance, darkvision, traits and actions - so they are in addition to what your character already has.
Yep, exactly, thx a lot man, appreciate it.
I never had a player subcome to Vampirism but I will take note of both Lycanthropy and this, for future encounter with either.
lol kinda ruins a good pizza but ok
I ment a player's character but non the less
PC vampirism is an interesting conundrum. I think the best way to approach it is from a game design perspective. Your intuition that the vampire's traits replace the character's traits is a good one, as it aligns with other abilities like the true polymorph spell. But the problem then becomes, you've created a character who doesn't progress. Also, a character who can't go out in daylight puts a strain on the party's ability to adventure. These are superable difficulties, but also worth avoiding. My fix that I'm trying to work into a game to test how well it works is to replace a character's subclass with features which represent the character's descent into becoming a creature of the night--which is really the other part worth addressing... Vampirism has a lot of thematic baggage. D&D is not set up to address that theme in any coherent way. World of Darkness--now Chronicles of Darkness--has had multiple game lines which attempted to address the theme, and if you want to play up the vampirism angle in your game you might find some good source material there.
thanks for the input, I was thinking that maybe if the character player wanted to go dhampir, that why that Vampirism is still in play kind of, but of a half breed vampire and dont get me wrong, their maybe a lot of people who may dig the new Dhampir race aspect of VRGTR, but then there may also be people who maybe against it, and it is just need to find the right group who are ok for like venture at night, if one of them wanna go venturing at night, but to each to their own.
Yeah, you could replace a character's race, but that entails problems of its own... If a player started as a variant human and became a dhampir, do they lose access to the feat they got at first level? Also, the monster manual's vampire is significantly more powerful than any lineage that starting characters have access to, so how's the half-elf ranger supposed to contribute when the vampire character can be fighter (because vampire includes physical attacks and damage resistances), wizard (because vampire includes spell-like abilities), and cleric (because vampire includes regeneration) in one and have a class?
yea that is true, but I am still kinda new to Dming so I am just going by what I watched and played in some games where vampirism may have been involved, but in saying that, as one of my dm ruling I dont force vampirism onto the player I do give them a choice to resist it, or if they cant do it while the threat is in front of them I do give them a chance to flee, and sort out their party member who has been inflicted with vampirism, but I know some Dms be like "oh your character has contracted Lacanthropy or in this case Vampirism, hand over your character sheet, and here is a new character sheet for you to work on during the rest of the session". Iknow that is a bad DM move but I am a bit of a fair DM so if any DMs who is against my ruling feedback is appreciated