ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

My theory on the vampire race is a bit of classic vampire mythos but also a bit of Tome-style counter-intuitive mythos. I think these would make great melee fighters.

Given their status at the top of the undead hierarchy, I propose an increase in their stat caps. Additionally, they don't have a ton of life but they heal up quick although they're very, very susceptible to light damage.

Anyway, I propose the vampire race as such:

Strength: 0
Dexterity: 0
Constitution: 0
Magic: 0
Will: +3
Cunning: +2

Life rating: 9
Exp Penalty: 40%

Resistant: 50% confuse, 50% pinning, 50% poison, 50% disease and 80% fear.
No immunities.

-50% light resistance.
-10% light resistance cap.
-10% fire resistance cap.

All max stat caps are increased by 5.

Natural life regen of 5 per turn.

Natural detect stealth/invisibility of 15 (or a suitable amount).

10% bonus to global speed.

Racial Skills:

Constitution of the Vampire:

Passive ability that increases the natural life regen of a vampire by 3 per talent level. Additionally, it grants a heal mod bonus of 10% per level.

EDIT: What if the starting regen was 1, as per normal and then, every point put in ANY racial added 1 life regen? The starting skill itself would only grant 1 per and the heal mod bonus. Thus, if all four skills are maxed, you'd end up with 21 life regen and a 50% heal mod bonus. Powerful, but I don't think overpowered compared to classes running Fungus.

Mist:

Active skill that transforms the vampire into a fog for "x" turns. While in mist, you can move, and are immune to most damage and all new status effects but cannot take any action other than move or the mist-form breaks.

While in mist form, your movement speed is reduced by 50%, cool-downs take twice as long, but life regen continues at normal rate.

You are only susceptible to light damage when in mist form but at half damage.

Duration 4-8 turns.

Life drain:

Active ability, a melee attack that drains 100-300% of damage as life. If it kills a humanoid then there is a 50% chance that said humanoid will return as a lesser vampire ally.

The accuracy of this attack scales with willpower.

Something or another: I can't come up with a good name.

This passive ability grants the vampire a free turn when brought below 20-40% of max life. At level 5, this free turn happens instantly, i.e. it can interrupt a series of attacks from multiple enemies or even one, such as skills that hit more than once, et al.

Cool-down is 25.


Well, that's my idea. I thought that they'd make really good melee fighters, especially with that potential free turn and their crazy life regen which, with 250% heal mod (achievable), would be sitting at 50 per turn. The free turn would create a really nice escape option along with the free heal and repositioning from mist.

The heal mod bonus would also work well with Archmages but that life rating is rough.

They'd be susceptible to stun too...

Thoughts? Criticisms?

I figure some links are in order I guess....

Proposal: Vampires as an Unlockable Race
Vampires as a race (and made more interesting as foes)
New Race: Undead/Vampire
new race idea: Vampire

I'm sure if I looked harder I could find more links but I'm tired at the moment and figure I should just reply later in this thread.

first thought i had upon seing the title was "are you aware of the addon?".

also
1)-talents
--its kind of tradition, that the first talent is an active. although that's a minor thing.
1.1)-constitution of the vampire.
3*5+5=20, with +50% to healmod, that is 30 a turn, guaranteed, unless someone lowers your heal mod.
massively overpowered early game, potentially still stacking with conditioning vitality for... i don't even want to think about it.
1.2)-mist
i am pretty sure, you should still be vulnerable to fire and lightning. maybe temporal too, maybe.
and thematically it would make sense if ice block would cancel mist. because, you know, that's how iceblock technically is made.
1.3)-life drain
so its basically gnaw. i do think the "return as a vampire minion" fits, thematically, but maybe it could use some work.
1.4)-vile cunning
i could probably comment on balance of that skill... but just change it to "tenacity" or something. there is NOTHING vile about dodging.

2)-stats distribution
--looks like a setup for a wielder, despite them being undead, meaning no wild gifts for them. although i guess they would be fine with curses on psionics? hmmm still doesn't seems like this should be a vampire's preferred class.
if created by magic, then they could have some insight into magic, unless they are of a different kind.
afflicted are known to be able to rise ghouls, and i think there was a piece of lore stating that banshees and maybe some other undead can rise themselves by the power of accumulated anger produced by a battlefield, so it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to think that it may rise a vampire.

3) constitution
yes vampires can heal very quickly, IF they have a supply of blood on hand.
as afflicted gain hate by killing their opponents, i think it would make sense for a vampire to regain health, based on the weapon damage dealt to the enemy.
even if it was only limited to actually causing bleed, there are a few ways that someone without scoundrel could cause bleed.
death dance, "+x bleed on melee" items, ring of misery granting you bleeding edge, and potentially earthen missile, can all cause bleed.

4)-resistance
where is the fit to fire resistance? sun isn't just bright, it is hot, and corpses don't like hot things.

Davion Fuxa wrote:I figure some links are in order I guess....

Proposal: Vampires as an Unlockable Race
Vampires as a race (and made more interesting as foes)
New Race: Undead/Vampire
new race idea: Vampire

I'm sure if I looked harder I could find more links but I'm tired at the moment and figure I should just reply later in this thread.

Yep. I know they exist. I just didn't like any of them.

Radon26 wrote:first thought i had upon seing the title was "are you aware of the addon?".

also
1)-talents
--its kind of tradition, that the first talent is an active. although that's a minor thing.
1.1)-constitution of the vampire.
3*5+5=20, with +50% to healmod, that is 30 a turn, guaranteed, unless someone lowers your meal mod.
massively overpowered early game, potentially still stacking with conditioning vitality for... i don't even want to think about it.

2)-stats distribution
--looks like a setup for a wielder, despite them being undead, meaning no wild gifts for them. although i guess they would be fine with curses on psionics? hmmm still doesn't seems like this should be a vampire's preferred class.

3) constitution
yes vampires can heal very quickly, IF they have a supply of blood on hand.

#1 None of the undead races have an active talent as their first one.

Having said that, yeah... they'd be pretty powerful early on in terms of regen but they'd lack a large pool of life so...

Hell, one could always lower the health rating to 8 and be barely above Yeek-levels.

#2 Yeah... but I don't think that early stat distribution is particularly significant. Ghoul Necros and mages are fairly common.

Personally, I think they'd be great Afflicted and similar.

#3 Did you apply an arbitrary rule about them needing blood in order to heal, ha ha? That just depends on what mythos one wants to pull from. Still, in most pop-culture mythos, they heal well above normal regardless of blood supply. That seems like a needless technicality.

Delmuir wrote:#1 None of the undead races have an active talent as their first one.

yeah... i facepalm on that one.
no race, except for the one vampires will be a subrace of. EXACLTY The one... how did i miss it..

ghoul necros are common... probably bacause they retch everywhich way, and have strong mobility ability, while they themselves don't need to chase their anemies, because they have spells.

Delmuir wrote: Still, in most pop-culture mythos

pop-culture? you better not be invoking sparklepires in there!
as far as i have read, all vampires are dependan't on blood, but no one is saying they have to use it all at once.
and keep in mind the setting.
necromancer's vampiric gift heals you based on the damage you deal.


also, i have edited my first post a bit, just making sure you know.

Radon26 wrote:
pop-culture? you better not be invoking sparklepires in there!

Good lord no. I'm a grown man. I would never do that and sir, I am OFFENDED!

We shall meet a dawn!

As to the rest of your points... I agree that it makes sense for them to be susceptible to other things but I'm going to use DarkGod's non-explanation explanation: it's magic mist.

As for resistances, I figured that vamps don't like fire so they get a reduced max cap on fire resistance. Not as bad as light but notable enough, especially against orc pyromancers and whatnot, doubly so on higher difficulty levels.

As to the rest of your points about it needing some work... yeah, go to it. I'm not wedded to any of this.

Really, I just liked the idea of the skills and cobbled them together in the form of a vampire because some of it made sense. Please, make it better.

None of the vampires in ToME game use blood in any way, shape or form, so why start now?

That being said, I would love to see a blood related class besides the good ol' bloodknight addon but preferably not a blood race. Not enough talents to make interesting. Hm. Maybe I can mix that idea in with the "Shadows of Mordor" themed addon I was gonna theorize about...

Provided that vampires can't use infusions (which I'm assuming is "no they can't"), then they should be pretty balancedish in terms of healing. Most classes don't have a lot of healing, but maybe an ironic sunpal vampire could be a little strong.

Micbran wrote:
Provided that vampires can't use infusions (which I'm assuming is "no they can't"), then they should be pretty balancedish in terms of healing. Most classes don't have a lot of healing, but maybe an ironic sunpal vampire could be a little strong.

Oh yeah... a Sun Paladin would be crazy-strong. Too strong? Hmmmm... maybe, but I'm probably okay with that.

As a solution to the regen rate, I propose this instead:

Each point in the first skill grants 1 addition life regen and the 10% heal mod but then each point in any of the other racial skills will grant 1 additional life regen.

Then, drop the starting starting regen back to 1, as per normal.

That acts as an opportunity cost on life regen. If you max all of the racials, then you have 21 total life regen. Some classes and items can grant more, which can theoretically make it kind of obscene but no more obscene than running two non-stop regen infusions with Fungus.

I think it's acceptable.

And about the Life Drain skill... perhaps instead of being so similar to Gnaw, as pointed out, it ought to instead drain life and then paralyze the victim? Whatever. Grant it some status effect at level 5.

Micbran wrote:None of the vampires in ToME game use blood in any way, shape or form, so why start now?

they don't have a use for blood in combat.
they can't cover themselves in hardened blood barrier, or do something dumb like a blood whip.
but how can you call them vampires, if they don't drink blood?
and we even already have vim, which is decently close enough.
and yes, i know there is not a race that interacts with any too specific a resource. its not an absolute is it?

I think you should consider giving them bleed resistance. The undead starting boss is horrible if you lack it, especially for squishy characters.

Otherwise, looks cool. (thumbs up) v different

Right then, I'm a little bit more awake so here goes some important notes:

1.) This is the fifth topic on a Vampire Race, and while I'm not necessarily against making new topics for the same topic - maybe this is a topic we don't need 'another' of.
2.) I support the addition of a Vampiric Race in game for NPC Vampires to use, but I don't support the addition of a Vampire race that the player can play for the original Tales of Maj'Eyal campaign.

I'll skimp a bit on point 1 above - I'm pretty sure most people can understand the concept of 'Not This Again' that I don't need to banter on too much about it. Personally I think that unless we are discussing for a future Undead Campaign, such a topic as this may be best left off until such a time.

Anyhow, Point 2:

We have Vampires in game, they make up a pretty important part of the Main Campaign and the first Elite Boss you fight is a Vampire. Having a Race for him and the many Vampires to get to him would be an interesting way of making Vampires more interesting so I'm not against it.

However, I'm not necessarily for a playable Vampire Race for players to play - at least in regards to the Main Campaign. A future Undead campaign, sure. My thoughts on Vampires as a playable race in the Main Campaign is that it doesn't really fit in with the other Undead races. Lore wise, Vampires aren't like the existing Skeletons and Ghouls and their addition would conflict with 'Being an Accident'.

****

In regards to Vampires as a playable race in a Future Undead Campaign though, one thing to throw out is that they shouldn't be made 'too powerful' in comparison to other Undead races. If they are to have a lot of powerful aspects then they should have lots of negative detriments as well to balance them out.

Yeah... I honestly don't really care if it's a playable race or not. My point is this:

Topics keep coming up because they have appeal. Whether playable or not, vampires have a strong pop-culture relevance and in the game, they're reduced to "another random undead with generic skills." That's just bad design, in terms of building appeal.

Vampires ought to be well-defined.

I realize that Dark God is a compulsive contrarian but at some point, he has to realize that failure to give in on this (and other issues) actually harms the game by reducing expected depth.

ToME is an interesting game in a lot of ways, and imagines a lot of "classic" things in original ways. People naturally want to see what they'd do with a vampire, especially given the prominent presence of the Master.

What is done?

Seemingly the least amount of effort possible. It's like a "screw you" to those expectations, and as a general rule, it's a bad idea to disappoint your customers, especially with an insult, no matter how subtle.

Just flesh vampires out... if someone wants to make them a playable race then fine, I'd enjoy that, but that's really incidental. It matters for depth. Do it.

I like the Mist talent. I've been thinking about something similar.

Instead of going for a full race, I'm planning on making it an optional thing when you defeat the Master to become a Vampire.
Current design for the racial category is this: (beware the shorthand!)
Vampiric Caress: Grapple attack that steals life. Grants a temporary max life and healing factor boost if it kills.
Undead Vigour: Negative life and increased life/resource regen.
Mistform: Temporary invis, movement speed and auto switch place.
Hypnotise: Cone of charming. Charmed enemies can't attack you or resist the Caress.