Designing Vampires

[Railstar]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Weakening can be done by buying up attributes with an Accessibility limitation.
You could also go with Phobia for holy symbols and garlic

Originally Posted by ericthered

"weakened in sunlight or when confronted with a holy symbol" is an accessibility limitation on levels of ST and DX in this case. I may include include speed and move as well, and sometimes perception.

For holy symbols, I'd use dread with cannot be trapped. For sunlight, I'd probably go for a mild mental disadvantage. Probably compulsive sunlight avoidance [-5]. They can be in the sun, its just uncomfortable.

Thanks for the answers. I prefer not to go too heavy with modifiers, but it seems like I’ll need to bite the bullet there. The other issue is I don’t plan on giving them enhanced DX, so I’d like to apply a penalty rather than removing bonuses.

I’m considering the reaction to holy symbols & garlic being Dread with Cannot Be Trapped, and Revulsion with Area Effect & Reduced Duration. Also, hawthorn for stakes would also cause Revulsion. The idea being a stake doesn’t paralyse them exactly, but it does weaken them, so when staked to the inside of the grave that -5 ST can make it far more difficult for them to unbury themselves.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Another possibility would be to them abilities with Accessibility, Only at night, -20%. In the case of a lot of folklore vampires, they hide during the days because their abilities only work at night. In more modern urban fantasy novels, aversions to sunlight range from Heliophobia (12-) [-15] to Weakness (Sunlight; 1d per minute) [-60].

What about Regeneration? A large number of modern urban fantasy vampires possess Regeneration ranging from Slow to Very Fast, along with extreme durability. A vampire with DR 10 (Tough Skin, -40%) [30], Injury Tolerance (Unliving) [20], Regeneration (Very Fast) [150], and Unkillable 1 [50] would be a flipping nightmare to kill.

For 250 points, it should be a flipping nightmare to kill… Usually I like a “less is more” approach for vampires, especially in GURPS – partly so the templates are affordable for PCs, and I don’t want things like swords or axes to have no effect on them. I want blades to still cut them for instance.

I like it to be possible to fight them off. You can injure them, hurt them, make them retreat… but it only buys you time until the next attack. For that theme, Regular or Fast Regeneration works best. Because then the creature still needs to retreat rather than fighting on to the end, and it creates a movie-slasher scenario where it needs to ambush prey to eat it, but can only be driven off temporarily.

I go for DR 3 (Tough Skin -40%) [9], Hard to Subdue 3 [6], Injury Tolerance: Unliving [20], then add the feature of Very Fit at night and Very Unfit during the day (like Banestorm Orcs), and then lots of HP from high ST. Still takes a lot of work to bring down, even if you do manage to whittle away its HP it will stay standing long enough to retreat, but fits better in a budget and doesn’t make them so invincible that normal weapons cease to be dangerous. High HP + fighting on at negative HP becomes quite useful.

For higher powered campaigns, I replace Damage Resistance with Damage Reduction and matching level of Vulnerability: Fire.

For Unkillable I prefer 2 or 3 with Triggers & Hindrances. Again, so they’re not unstoppable, but it is very hard to make sure they stay dead.

[Varyon]

For my own preferences...

Sunlight should be a hindrance. Younger vampires should be damaged/destroyed by it - a Weakness and an Achilles' Heel to their Unkillable. Older vampires may have overcome this, but in settings where this is possible vampires should be markedly weakened in sunlight. This would typically mean losing (most of) their supernatural abilities, although something like the "sun sickness" the titular character of Vampire Hunter D suffered from might work as well.

Staking should not destroy the vampire, but should weaken them markedly. Preventing their supernatural abilities from working would be appropriate (and this would also be a Hindrance on their Unkillable). This is something I'm willing to remove, however, if doing so makes a better fit within the setting's metaphysics (for example, with my Seven Deadly Undead, I currently don't have Staking as a weakness for vampires, as it seems to fit better with some of the other undead).

There should exist a bestial/feral version, generally as a lesser foe compared to intelligent vampires. Optionally, such spawn may be under the control of a greater vampire, who may have been the one to create them (similar to the Ghouls from the anime Hellsing). They also make interesting troops for necromancers.

If vampires are a significant factor in the setting, there should also be dhampir, and thus some way to create them. As they are ideal undead hunters, and I tend toward vampires needing to basically make them on purpose*, such beings are rare.

*Essentially, there is a spell/ritual/potion/magic item that temporarily brings the vampire back to life... sort of. Such False Life allows the vampire to more readily blend in and to even sire (or conceive, but see later) a child, but while under its effects the vampire is significantly weakened, being reduced to a more-or-less mortal state. They still have a strong link to death itself, lowering their fertility (compared to when they were alive) and tainting any child so conceived, making the child into a dhampir. A male vampire can sire a dhampir once he's had False Life for a couple of hours. For a female vampire to give birth to a dhampir, she'd need to maintain False Life for around a month to conceive, then maintain it for the entirety of the pregnancy (any lapse results in the child being stillborn). Such High Dhampir are thus even more rare than a typical dhampir, but their link to death is stronger, making them much more vampire-like. Optionally, settings with multiple types of intelligent undead might have False Life for other undead create some sort of dhampir-equivalent.

[Flyndaran]

Part of me wants weak vampires to be the ones you may encounter in daytime. Another part wants only strong vampires to do so.

I can see arguments for both setting decisions.

Making it a spell would strongly lean toward the strong or at least the trained having the ability.

[GodBeastX]

I have a mixed bag for vampire preference. I represent them in GURPS in various ways. For settings I have enjoyed quite a number of vampire settings.

What traits would I place on a vampire depends on the story I want to tell. There's no one view of what a vampire should be in my games. If I am playing a dark ages game, vampires walk around in the sun. Why? Because that's not the fear I want to portray where they are creatures of the night and dark places. They are instead restless dead that the world fears will climb out of their graves as bloated bodies and linen burial garments with aversions to silver and folk lore.

If I am doing a kill team that needs to slaughter masses of vampires they'll take on traits of vicious blood thirsting vermin that resemble more xenomorphic qualities such as clinging, claws, twisted grotesque bodies they are deadly in waves but a lone vampire is pretty much bullet food.

If I want to convey a man slipping into darkness on a quest for immortality then it's going to be seductive and make people feel "That could easily have been me enticed into darkness" with subtle flaws that mark one as being "Without a soul" that was bartered away for power.

So to say "I want vampires to be a certain way" would be difficult, because an Ultratech Doom-like game is going to be different for me than a sword and board fantasy vampire, and I run games with different genres quite often. I think creatures shouldn't be a specific design and instead should fit the setting and message.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Part of me wants weak vampires to be the ones you may encounter in daytime.

That would be an interesting paradigm - fledgeling vampires are more human-like, and thus less susceptible to the sun. I could see a setting where, as a vampire becomes less human, it becomes less susceptible to human weaknesses but more susceptible to vampiric weaknesses. The Elder Scrolls (or at least Oblivion) has something kind of like this, where you become more susceptible to fire and sunlight but gain more vampiric abilities, although there it's tied to how long it's been since you fed rather than how old of a vampire you are.

[Flyndaran]

That could lead to interesting situations. If apparent humanity is linked to recency and perhaps quantity of human blood consumed, then the most vibrant looking vampires would be the most murderous. The ones trying desperately to avoid hurting people would look the most necrotic.

It would likely require more work to detail the stages of the change and extra bookkeeping, but still interesting.

[Devil_Dante]

i like a lot the Warhammer Fantasy's Vampires concept: http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Vampire_Counts

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That could lead to interesting situations. If apparent humanity is linked to recency and perhaps quantity of human blood consumed, then the most vibrant looking vampires would be the most murderous. The ones trying desperately to avoid hurting people would look the most necrotic.

It would likely require more work to detail the stages of the change and extra bookkeeping, but still interesting.

That makes for an interesting dilemma for a would be friendly vampire: you have to choose between looking like a monster and being one.

[oma]

There is a master vampire created by an alien intelligence.
The master then goes forth and creates secondary (normal vampires).
Secondary vampires can create bestial vampires and rarely another secondary.
Bestial vampires only rarely create a vampire spawn due to a special vampire disease that if it afflicts the bestial he can inflict it on his prey.

All vampires grow more powerful the older they are.

They die if immersed in running water
They burn up from UV rays
Animals fear them
Very Strong- ST:14 this increases as they age (bestials are ST:18 to start)
Quick - DX 13 (bestials are DX:15)
They can turn into mist for a limited time
They move silently
They regenerate FAST minimum 2hp/sec varies as they age
Immune to Metabolic Hazards
Unliving
When they drink blood it gives them temporary warmth and color and they can pass as human for a short time.
They are almost invulnerable to regular weapons, but Magic and squirt guns hurt them, along with UV rays.

Some of them have Psi powers to charm others and can sense life. There are various suites of powers based on which group a vampire belongs to.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by oma

There is a master vampire created by an alien intelligence.
The master then goes forth and creates secondary (normal vampires).
Secondary vampires can create bestial vampires and rarely another secondary.
Bestial vampires only rarely create a vampire spawn due to a special vampire disease that if it afflicts the bestial he can inflict it on his prey.

This appears to be the Palladium/Rifts/Nightbane vampire. Careful with that. Of course, it's an intriguing take on the vampire mythos.