Vampire: The Classquerade

Mearls made the big reveal on Monday that the vampire class was deliberately designed, as is, to try and provide a class option that could closely emulate one or more vampire entries in the Monster Manual. This is a reasonable goal that I tried to attain with my homebrew red dragon race/class; take a critter that was never intended to be played on the players’ side of the screen, and make it functional and recognizable despite a lack of flexibility.

To me, making sure that it does what the monster is supposed to do takes priority over trying to saddle it with options that do not really make any sense, but going down the vampire’s list of racial features and powers we have regeneration, necrotic resistance, radiant vulnerability, lethal side effects from the sun, the ability to drink blood/drain life, punch the shit out of people, charm them, turn into a swarm of bats, turn into a wolf and bat, and a bunch of other stuff that sounds very vampiric in execution.

You know, all the shit that this guy does not do.

The big shocker is that after providing a race, class, feat tree (though admittedly a poor one), and a multiclassing/hybrid option, that it is still not good enough for the vocal minority.

Ironically one detractor wanted a theme, which would provide way fewer options than the class iteration (like, 3-6 in total), not to mention that themes are optional rules that players without DDI accounts would likely be introduced to via Dark Sun Campaign Setting if at all, meaning that it is possible that their total number of themes to choose from would be exactly one.

But hey, it is all right because having a theme would open up more concepts, right? I mean, what if I want to play a wizard-turned-vampire? Currently my “only” options are to play a vryloka, go with the dhampyr feats, pick up vampire multiclassing as a wizard/wizard multiclassing as a vampire, or hybrid the two. I suppose I could also try combining these options to get my vampire-to-wizard ratio close to where I want it, probably exactly where I want it.

Could use a pointy hat, but that will do.

Others still cling to the misconception that it is a “poor striker”. I did some number crunching myself, and while it is not strictly as good as an optimized rogue it comes close despite lacking vampire-specific feat support. However, it is important to note that an optimized rogue should not be the benchmark we are looking for. I have also played a vampire, and it was awesome; I did not have a problem with healing surges (not that I got hit), and did an insane amount of damage almost every round. I was able to contribute without being a liability, and felt very much like a vampire in the process.

Vampire Myths

I wrote not so much a handbook–certainly not of the quality you’d find on the Character Optimization forum–but more of a primer to the vampire class, as I wanted to work on some character concepts but wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into. Some people have criticized that it is too frail or weak to be a viable striker, and after looking over every single class feature and power, I don’t think that it is the case (even given the lack of specific feat support).

Comparing strikers with reasonable optimization at 1st-level, the vampire is basically on par with everything except for an Artful Dodger rogue with an 18 in Dexterity and Charisma, and Weapon Focus (light blade) or Backstabber. When you compare dailies, the vampire does almost double damage before you consider feats in the equation (which I still was in the case of the rogue). By 11th-level, the rogue ended up being something like 5 points ahead when you lumped on all the feats and assumed that she had combat advantage, but at 15th-level the gap closed due to the vampire’s Hidden Might getting its second kicker.

So, I dunno. Looks pretty good to me. I’ve heard people actually playing the damned thing not having many complaints.

In regards to the durability thing, I think detractors are overlooking all the powers and class features that grant temporary hit points (including one of your 1st-level at wills), let you steal healing surges, and even regeneration when bloodied. The fact that temporary hit points don’t affect your bloodied condition means that you can have a lot of them, but still benefit from the regeneration. Plus, when stealing healing surges from allies they act like two. I’d totally overlooked that if you have more than your max at the end of a short rest, that you get topped off; I thought it was after combat. This makes it even easier for a vampire to abuse healing surges by just getting a couple from her allies.

That, and necrotic resistance is a pretty common energy type.