Vampires as a race (and made more interesting as foes)

[grayswandir]

Evil Eye is good, if a bit weak. It should scale with Magic instead of Spellpower for consistency with other racials and it should be a bit stronger. It should probably confuse as well since many enemies are immune to stun/daze.

Make it a stun that checks confuse resistance.

[bpat]

Wouldn't Blood Drain be almost like a crowd-form of Blood Spear? Although the argument of it being too useful is valid...

For Mistform, perhaps it cancels except with Vampire racials? Or is that too powerful as well?

I don't like the idea of using racials as damage talents, they should be more utility oriented so offensive talents can be left to classes. Blood Drain feels more like Corruptor's Blood Grasp than a racial talent.

I suppose we could allow racials if and only if Blood Drain is replaced with a non-offensive talent like I suggested, since allowing you to damage enemies when invulnerable is too good.

Evil Eye is good, if a bit weak. It should scale with Magic instead of Spellpower for consistency with other racials and it should be a bit stronger. It should probably confuse as well since many enemies are immune to stun/daze.

Make it a stun that checks confuse resistance.

This would be really strong since it would make it very easy to shut down bosses (confusion resistance is rare, stun resistance is very high on many bosses). This would also be frustrating to deal with as a player since 100% stun resistance should actually make you immune to stuns. However, making it do something similar to a stun (reduced damage and global speed or something like that) could be interesting.

[Orangeflame]

Updated OP.

Also, any thoughts on my NPC vampire proposals?

[acqsen]

So glad someone made a topic about vampires - they need it.
----------------------------------------------------
Vampire race

My (alternative) speed Mist:
Bacause Vampires need some way to represent their ability to do things blinding fast

• Adds 250%(+50%/sk.lvl) movement speed on first turn and revert to 100% on subsequent turns, scales with magic
• Duration 2+1/talent lvl (3 at first), scales with magic
• Vision reduced to 2; light radius 0; any from-talent telepathy still works at full strenght
• Drop all debuffs upon transformation, reacquire most of them upon re-transfromation into vampire standard form with the duration they had upon transformation into myst
  
  unchanged:
• Active, instant. Ends when you do anything other then movement.
• Immune to all new physical and magical debuffs while transformed;
• Cooldown (47,44,41,38,35)
• Mechanics:
  • Telekinetically wielded weapons will not attack while in mistform,
  • can not transform into anything else while transformed into myst, only back to vampire normal form;
  • traps requiring weight will not sprung,
  • channel talents will be interrupted,
  • grappled condition is dropped and will not return upon re-transforming,
  • immune to knockback or pins
  • can still be teleported
• Should the myst be vulnerable to any debuffs?

Giving mist a constant speed bonus is bad as mists don't travel on their own, only with wind. And that is slow.
Designing mist like i did makes it useful with only one talent point (dodging, resists) and also interesting on higher talent levels (mobility, offensive).

Racial features. Talent independent.
Remove "Vampiric condition" and move those bonuses to inherent racial features, like skeleton's bleed immunity which is not a visible talent.
Vampires should start with these racial features:

• Fear immunity or high resistance
• Poison resistance (same as ghoul)
• Darkness resistance 10% (being a bit magical and undead imo qualifies)
• Temporal resistance 20% (vampires are immortal)
• Slow resistance 35% (vamp. have higher control over their body's speed)
• Cold resistance 30%
• Light/Sun vulnerability 40%, cap at 20% lower then other races (it is massive, but balance got to come from somewhere)
• Telepathy: Vampire at level 20
• Slower need to breathe (or no need at all, sources differ)
• and of course Orange's proposals as well: 10 life per level, die at -3 life per level, 25% exp penalty.

[acqsen]

Vampire enemies (NPCs)
Aesthetics change is something i was hoping will be done.
All but lesser should keep blurred mortality - the only feature/talent they currently have, to represent theirs increased resistance to damage
Blood Drain in exchange for Vampric Gift. No vampire can live without blood.
Lord and Master should get Myst form. 50% use when player in range, 50% on hp < 30%

[acqsen]

Vampire Race

Blood Scent substitute for Vampiric Racial Condition
Passive: you can sense blood creatures, starting with humans and elves, dwarves, halfings, yeek, on 1st level, in radius 2+1/talent lvl, also scales with magic (1 tile per 13 magic stat). Also, the range extends by 1 tile per turn you remain still up to 150% of base range, reverting back to base as you move. This works like telepathy. At level 2 you can sense animals, level 3 other vampires, level 4 dragons, lvl5 celestials and demons.

Blood Hunger substitute for blood drain
Passive: each time a valid enemy - one having drinkable blood is killed within 1 tiles, heal for 100% (+20%per talent level) hp within next 100 turns. Not cumulative.
Active: grapple an enemy for 5 turns, of equal or smaller size, immobilizing it and gain a heal for 20%hp per turn you drunk
The healing is split between next 10 turns.
- If enemy is killed by this attack gain temporary 10 turns buff adding 10% to base stats.
- Grappled enemy suffers 2dmg per your level per turn.
- This attack uses your physical power added with 1 power point per life you are missing below 50%
- At level 2 can drink animal blood without penalties. Level 3 dragons. Level 4 Demons and Celestials.
- Level 5 will grant drinkers benefits based on creature used for drinking, regardless if the creature died during drinking. Animal +10%dex, Human +10% cunning, Dragon 10% resist fire,cold,acid,lightning, Demon 10%magic, Celestial 10%will
- Rogues with appropriate talent can substitute accuracy instead of physical power for this attack
- Grapple attack should not break daze or sleep even though it does damage.
- Cannot grapple frozen-block enemies.
- Drinking other then human blood on with talent level 1 = 50% effectiveness
- Damage type is physical. 100% physical resistant creatures will be undrinkable regardless of race
- Grappled creature can still attack but not move.
- Grappled creature can not grapple someone else
- Grappler cannot graple someone else while grap is in progres

comments:
1. ranged blood drinking is something vampires are unlikely to do
2. blood hunger active will be enjoyed by physical power oriented classes, not being overpowered since enemy can still use its powers,
3. Casters will be able to still use b.h. ability once an enemy is dazed or otherwise made harmless/incapacitated
4. Blood hunger should be first racial talent, blood scent second
--edited: minor corrections

[Planetus]

Another idea is to theme the 4 racial abilities each after a folk-lore ability. One point investment in each would give some usefulness (evasion, distraction, healing, etc) while more points equate to 'mastery' of the ability and make them powerful. Maybe something like:

Blood Drain: Starts out as activated ability that grants 100% chance of drain life of X% of damage for a couple turns. As you invest, it lasts longer. At talent level 5, it lasts as long as the cooldown, and activation becomes (or was always?) instant. In essence, the vampire that masters this will always heal a portion of all damage they deal. I'm thinking the drain of damage and the chance to drain won't change with level, simply because you want it to be an effective undead healing ability with 1 point.

Beast Master: At level 1, you can summon 2 wolves to fight beside you (or more likely to distract foes for a few turns). As you increase mastery, the wolves become more powerful. By level 5, the wolves are real power-houses (based on your level, maybe +/- like Necro summons), though the cooldown for this should be long and it should be a 1-turn activation ability. Of course, Vampires have so many cool abilities in folklore, you could mix and match ad infinitum.

Mist Form: Similar to what has been suggested. At level 1 it provides functional (though maybe not absolute) immunity, a speed boost, and the ability to move through walls. Maybe around level 3 it lets you attack and cast spells from the mist. Maybe at level 5 you return to normal form at perfect health, or at least with health recovered per enemy killed.

Immortality: Similar to the necromancy skill Blurred Mortality. It lets you go into negative health and survive. How far increases with more talent points, but at level 3 it increases your global speed a bit when you're below 0, at level 4 it increases it more, and at level 5 it also increases your physical, spell, and mind power below 0 health. Maybe also at level 5 it lets you revive once for free, like the Skeleton Reconstruction racial.

A vampire who went 5/5/5/5 would be truly powerful, and would play a lot like an actual vampire, but that means 20 points invested in the racial tree, and you'd have to wait for the appropriate levels. On the side, though, both the other undead races (and all the undead mods I think) have the first racial grant stat bonuses. Should vampires do this as well? Should that be mixed into Blood Drain? Should vampires have to wait until level 8 or so to heal through Blood Drain?

[Laerte]

$ cat ~/.t-engine/4.0/profiles/online/modules/tome/allow_build.profile
tutorial_done = true
undead_ghoul = true
afflicted_doomed = true
wilder_wyrmic = true
mage_pyromancer = true
warrior_brawler = true
mage_cryomancer = true
campaign_arena = true
wilder_summoner = true
mage = true
adventurer = true
divine_anorithil = true
rogue_poisons = true
birth_zigur_sacrifice = true
wilder = true
divine_sun_paladin = true
mage_necromancer = true
corrupter_reaver = true
__uuid = true
psionic_mindslayer = true
cosmetic_race_human_redhead = true
psionic_solipsist = true
chronomancer_temporal_warden = true
rogue_marauder = true
corrupter_corruptor = true
undead = true
yeek = true
mage_tempest = true
afflicted_cursed = true
mage_geomancer = true
divine = true
psionic = true
afflicted = true
wilder_oozemancer = true
undead_vampire = true
chronomancer = true
corrupter = true
undead_skeleton = true
campaign_infinite_dungeon = true
birth_transmo_chest = true

Hey, I have it unlocked already.

[Davion Fuxa]

I think I have to agree with parcel, I don't think we need a specific Vampire Player race. I'm fine with perhaps giving them some racials and making them sort of like Orcs right now (they have racials, but they aren't playable).

One advantage btw of adding in racials and leaving the Vampires unplayable by players is that is eliminates the need to think about orientation of racials. Enemy Vampires could be made to run around biting you in melee; it doesn't really matter if that orients a vampire to melee or not since it's an AI and not a player. Another advantage is that the racials don't necessarily have to be geared towards being useful to players - think something like Disarm which is very effective when enemies use on players, not so effective when players use on enemies.

[Orangeflame]

Yeah, that sounds good.

[Davion Fuxa]

Might as well throw in some ideas for the first racial then; and just in case this does become a player race I'll attempt to cater it to a player playing it:

Vampiric Condition - Passive
Vampires shun the Light and travel by cover of darkness, but have powerful Vampiric Traits.

Special Notes: Vampires always have a point invested in this skill, and cannot remove the generic point at the start of gameplay (much like how Cursed/Cursed Form: Unnatural Body can't be unlearned at the start of gameplay)

Permanent Negative Consequences for having Vampiric Condition:
-Gives Vampires a fixed -#% Light Resistance and -#% Light Resistance Cap. Further Generic Points invested do not reduce these values (much like Techniques/Two Handed Weapons: Berserker; can't say I think much of being a scaling value)
-Gives Vampires a #% movement penalty when navigating the world map. (This could be a fixed value that can't be reduced; though some myths do note that Vampires have enhanced speed)
-Gives Vampires the relentless and uncontrollable lust for blood. Whenever you are adjacent to a 'living enemy' at the end of your turn and have less then #% total health, you attempt to bite them with a #% chance out of sheer desperation to survive. Biting an enemy takes X turn duration and can only occur once per turn. If more then one enemy can be bitten for life then you go for the one that has the lowest defensive value. You will not bite an enemy that you are unable to draw life from automatically. Your damage cannot exceed the amount of hit points the enemy has left, and you can't fully damage an enemy if the health restore value goes above 100%, and you can't heal above # (so the Master can't one shot you). Enemies can be killed this way. (Because of all the values, something should get improved here)

Positives:

-Stat Increases, Speed Increases, Resistances Increases, Resistance Cap Increases, Physical Power, Mental Power, Spell Power, etc.
-Further leveling of the skill could go the route of making you do more damage when you bite a living enemy (and thus heal more), maybe increase the #% bite chance so it occurs less or more often, and change the #% of your total health value up or down.
-Could make it so that when leveling the skill you reduce the time it takes for you to bite enemies, or have a fixed points where it reduces the amount of time. Could even make it so that it takes no extra turn time to bite an enemy in desperation.

The idea here for the skill is to sort of grab a Vampires nature from most mythos and shove it all into one Racial. One advantage of adding the Bite in here is that you no longer need to worry about accounting for it with its own skill - plus it's a negative consequence in my mind to be wasting an extra turn in some instances.

Depending on player orientation or not, the skill could be adjusted to not hurt Melee as much if that's desired - the bite duration could reduce when leveling the skill naturally, or it could decrease the cooldown when doing an attack on an adjacent enemy (so you don't lose turns when attacking) as the skill is leveled (Casters get the advantage if enemies close the distance on them, but melee always get it); and/or the damage value could be made to go higher and higher, and thus the larger health pool of melee characters would perhaps get benefit out of this skill to make up for the turn duration.

Might look into other racial ideas too.

Edit: Forgot to put in a cap heal value mention; since you know, the Master has a lot of health.