Homebrew Vampire Race Details
On the outskirts of a rural city perched on a hillside, a cloaked figure watches as a middle aged man staggers out of the local Tavern. The drunk slowly makes his way along the road en route to his home. As the cloaked figure follows the man with sorrowful eyes, Ivory canines begin to protrude past the bottom lip while saliva slowly drips down a pale chin. The next morning, a little girl wakes up to her Mothers shrieks filling the house following urgent rapping on the door.
“Don’t underestimate the allure of Darkness. Even the purest hearts are drawn to it.”
— Niklaus Mikaelson
All seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some embracing darkness, and others fighting it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views.
The Undead
Vampires are pale, humanoid beings who are neither dead nor alive. They are Undead, feeding from the life force of living things. They have dark, even reddish eyes and long, sharp fangs that can be retracted at will. They are known for their strength, speed, and charm, which can be a very deadly combination. Apart from their gained undead appearance, they look very similar to whatever they looked like in life.
Unholy Creation
Humanoid creatures are turned when a Vampire bites it, that creature is buried in the ground, and then rises the next night. The result of this process is a Vampire Spawn, which is not a true Vampire. Vampire Spawn are pawns of the Vampire that turned it, and are completely under the control of their sire. But, if a Vampire Spawn drinks the blood of a True Vampire, it will then become a True Vampire like the one that turned it.
The Vampire
Level Bite Attack Features
1st |
2d6 |
Bite Attack |
3rd |
2d6 |
|
5th |
3d6 |
Healing Blood |
7th |
3d6 |
Blood Manipulation |
9th |
4d6 |
Creatures of the Night |
12th |
4d6 |
Legendary Resistance |
15th |
5d6 |
Multi Attack |
19th |
6d6 |
Flight |
Forsaken Road
Vampires tend to keep to themselves and shy away from others. They choose grand yet defensible locations for their lairs, such as Castles, Manors, or ruins. They then hide their coffins, which they use to spend their sleeping hours beneath the ground. Their resting places are usually well-guarded by traps or other loyal creatures of the night.
Vampire Traits
Vampirism is a curse, however some of the traits that are gained may make one rethink if its really that terrible.Ability Score Increase
Your Charisma, Dexterity and Strength scores all increase by 2.
Age
Vampires are Immortal, and do not age a day from when they were turned.
Alignment
Becoming a Vampire is either by choice, or accident. A pious man seeking immortality, or an Elf desiring power to rule are some scenarios that can turn one into a Vampire. Or even a Half-Orc being in the wrong place at the wrong time could turn into a night of new found immortality. No matter how one came to be a Vampire, after some time of dwelling in darkness, evil might be the easiest thing to cling to. However, with strong enough will, one could maintain their values and remain the alignment they had in life.
Size
There is no change in your size once becoming a Vampire.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 45
Superior Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can discern color in darkness.
Undead
You are an Undead creature. Necrotic damage does not affect you. You also need 1 ration of blood every 5 days or your body begins to cease functioning. On the 5th day without blood, the Vampire is unable to heal and takes 1d20 of damage every hour and rolls disadvantage on everything. If the Vampire drops to 0 hit points from this, they are paralyzed until force fed blood. Then they regain 1d20 hit points taken from loss of blood and no longer roll disadvantage.
Compulsion
The Vampire can control the mind of another simply through eye contact. The target must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or be compelled by the Vampire. Compelled beings usually follow the instructions given to them to the best of their ability, and are willing subjects to the Vampire's bite attack. Some species of naturally occurring herbs can prevent compulsion.
Languages
You know the languages known in life.
Sunlight Hypersensitivity
Because of the corpse a vampire resides in, sunlight burns any skin it comes into contact with. A Vampire takes 20 radiant damage when it starts its turn in sunlight. While in sunlight, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.
Forbiddance
Luckily for every living creature, a Vampire can not enter a residence without an invitation from the owner.
Stake to the Heart
If a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into the Vampires heart, the Vampire begins to desiccate and is paralyzed until the stake is removed. However, if this happens when a Vampire is at 0 hit points, they spontaneously combust and are destroyed. The soul of the Vampire leaves the burning corpse and seeks its final resting place. It may be captured and used as a component to a spell.
Vampiric Feats
Vampires learn these as they become better acquainted with their new Immortal form.
Bite
At 1st level, you can use your sharp fangs to inflict damage. One willing creature, or a creature that is grappled by the Vampire, incapacitated, or restrained. Hit: 2d6+DEX piercing damage plus 2d8 necrotic damage. The amount of bite damage increases as you gain levels. The target's hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the Vampire regains hit points equal to that. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. You may use your bonus action to drink their blood dealing 1d12 damage. This also satisfies your need for blood. A humanoid slain after being bitten, and then buried in the ground will rise the following night as a Vampire Spawn.
Healing Blood
Starting at 5th level, your immortal nature is imbedded in your blood, making your Vampire blood able to heal any living creature by 1d20+CON.
Blood Manipulation
When you reach 7th level, your knowledge of organic processes and experience with your victims life blood grants you the dark magic ability to siphon out your targets blood (if they have an open wound) and mold it into any solid construct. This action deals 1d12 damage. The construct becomes liquid if the target dies.
Creatures of the Night
Beginning at 9th level, your relation to dark creatures gives you power over weaker creatures of the night. As an action you can call 2d4 swarms of Bats or Rats at night time, or 3d6 wolves if outside. The creatures arrive in 1d4 rounds and obey your spoken commands.
Legendary Resistance
When you reach 12th level, because you are king of the night, if a you fail a saving throw, you can choose to succeed instead. 3/day
Multi-Attack
At 15th level, the deadly and frightening reputation that proceeds you gives you the ability to make two attacks, only one of which can be a bite attack.
Flight
At 19th level, you gain the ability to Fly. No creature is safe anymore. Your Flying speed is 60 feet.
TO OVER POWERED!!! This would be one of the most unbalanced things if a PC was allowed to play it. If you wanted to have a PC turn into a vampire then why don't you use the vampire stats in the monster manual. While it is interesting to read about. This seems more like a class more than anything else, and even then its still very powerful. I would never allow a player to use this.
Make those changes and we are on a path toward balance.
Lower the bite damage to a 1d6.
I run a campaign with a homebrewed half vampire and they use a sneak attack build for bite that scales with level. Regaining half the damage dealt as health in return, this is proved abit powerful but balanced
Id also cap the Healing Blood feat. Make it similar to well of healing paladins and fighters get, 20 is fine as a cap as it will quickly be dwarfed by the Hit die of most players, but id limit it. In its current state it would seem it can potentially counter all damage well into midgame
I would also toss the class a bone.
blood manipulation I would remove the 1d12 damage it deals.The ability could prove to be very useful, but roll play wise a d12 is abit much for siphoning blood into a construct then again I could be crazy.
Although you could make the ability have a Con save DC of say 13-15 on failure have it open them for an attack of opportunity from the construct you made thus mechanically potentially keeping the D12 but providing much more fleshed out skill.
I am test-playing this from level one. So far so good because the water and sunlight damage is so great, you really have to think on your feet so as not to die straight up just from the sun! I decided the 'compulsion' thing was a bit too overpowered so added 'command' to my spells instead (I'm a bard) as it has similar results - and depowers it since it uses a spell slot (can have it that the vampire feels a bit strained from all that brain power required compelling someone so can only use it sparingly...or something *imagination*). I also left out the ability to turn others to make minions as that seems like a high power thing and should be added in accordingly... will cross that bridge when I come to it.
I agree very much that it is OP
i can't believe this "race" was given that much thumbs up, this is stupidly over powered and at that he gives out class features to a race, that once mixed with a class is strickly too strong.
Multi-attack, while this is reserved for monsters, is also akin to extra attack, and is actually the way monsters handles extra-attack. thus its a class feature that shouldn't ever be given to a race. and at level 19, its is stupid considering even monks gains it at level 2 with ki points. but nonetheless, races shouldn'T have extra attack given to them.
the way this is made, make me thinks the person wanted to crate a class, not a race and used the race to do that instead of using the archetype of classes.
i seriously wonder about the sanity of people who upvoted this to this much.
As for those who think charm at will is too big a deal... when you consider the weaknesses of the vampire... they are big, including the fact that being undead makes you unable to heal with magic like curewounds or healing words which literally stipulates that they do not work on undead. so yeah the bite to heal back is necessary. the charm also isn't all that big a deal when you consider that it doesn't force people into doing things they shouldn't do. you may be the king of that country and this may be your best friend, but if he askes you to crown him instead of you... he may be your best friend, he will never do that. people have to remember that considering someone as your best friend, doesn't make you his minions who obeys all of his commands.
all that said... i can easily make a race much more balanced then this...
seriously people, start rating this down !
Dude that's awesome! I hope it allows for a unique game play! let me know if you run into any fun and perplexing situations. May your night times be filled with crimson wonder.
This is completly unplayable mate.
Regardless of the fact you have a 2d6 + 1d8 + 1d12 attack AT 1ST LEVEL that is limitless, most of the things you wrote don't even have limits. That healing blood ( that doesnt even make lore sense ) doesn't have a short/long rest limit, so the vampire just heals the entire group without using resources.
This class looks really fun to dm for. you really captured the feel of what a vampire should be
People DO NOT believe these guys Benleonard099 and Marcus Baur, both of them are fraudsters and thieves. Many people have lost their money to them. DO NOT fall into their trap.
This has been great to play as is, especially because my dm likes to powerlevel so much.
Who said it had to be ballanced ? Acheiving vampirism in a game should be a feat of difficulty and sacrifice your god damned right it should be powerfull as hell
then you realise any players can easily just be bitten by a vampire to become one ! Are you saying a vampire should never bite anyone ?
Everyone complaining that this is OP or that it got so much thumbs up should chill a moment. What if we compromise? Create a character similar to this (with tweaks for preference or balance with your other players), but maybe make this a unique race that's incapable of taking a class. Essentially, Vampire would be both your race AND your class. Obviously, it would still need tweaks, but I could see it working.
Well the Vampire (who is under DM control) would have to lower a PCs max HP to 0 with it's bite attack, so fairly difficult to do accidentally. It would take concentrated efforts over a few rounds from the Vampire to do so and they would be well aware of what they are doing. I would presume a Vampire not seeking spawn would throw the corpse into a fire rather than let it be buried and reanimate.
Thats exactly what i did for a player of mine. He could choose a race and then became the vampire monster class.
My problem is that templates makes the players abusively strong and somehow everyone is trying to turn that into a simple race.
Last time i did that... All my players gave their souls to the vampire and turned evil because.... Power ! Sorry but... Its a fact... And by your own post... "Under the DM control" why would you give your players these powers only to look at him and say... Your character is mine ? Were talking as a race here... That means your player as free will and run for himself. Otherwise whats the point to begin with ?
Yeah, thank you... You just countered your own argument !
While this race is certainly overpowered, it’s clearly intended to be so, which means it’s likely intended to be run in a campaign with other equally overpowered PCs and against overwhelmingly difficult encounters. I would say that this is perfectly fine taken in context. Alternatively, there are completely valid games where absolute freedom and sandbox gameplay take precedence over structure and game balance. It really depends on the group and dungeon master. That said, I see no problem with this race.
Radically overpowered. Its like getting another extremely good class for nothing.
that's the problem...
then in your game i'll play a tarrasque ! why not, its fun and i will be like a kaijuu to everybody. so why wouldn'T i create a tarrasque race that boost you up to 30 strength (hard cap) and 30 constitution as well. doesn't matter that its balanced or not i'll just play it because its fun !
don't you realise how strong this "race" is. you're litterally giving the player about 10 levels worth of features for a single race at level 1. heck even the half dragon template doesn't give that much. being a fun class to play doesn't compensate for the fact that this player will wreck anything that is like 10 CR above him, alone ! he'll literally carry the group around.