Updating the vampire

[Michael Thayne]

The Vampire template in Basic Set is very Stoker-esque, but a lot of more recent vampire fiction is quite far from the Stoker mold. The general tendency in more recent vampire fiction (from Anne Rice to Buffy to True Blood and the Vampire Diaries) seems to be in favor of giving vampires neither quite so many powers nor quite so many weaknesses. Here's my attempt to replicate that—though it's not intended to exactly replicate the vampires of any particular 'verse:

135 Points
Attributes: ST +4 [40].
Secondary Characteristics: Per +2 [10]; Basic Move +2 [10].
Advantages: Doesn’t Breathe [20]; Dominance [20]; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards [30]; Injury Tolerance (Unliving) [20]; Night Vision 5 [5]; Unaging [15]; Unkillable 2 (Achilles' Heel: Decapitation, fire, or stake through heart, -50%) [50]; Vampiric Bite [30].
Disadvantages: Restricted Diet (Human Blood, Substitution, -50%) [-10]; Supernatural Features (Pallor) [-10]; Uncontrollable Appetite (12) (Human Blood) [-15]; Unhealing (Partial) [-20]; Weakness (Sunlight; 1d/minute) [-60].
Features: Sterile.

I'm not sure if the triple Achilles' heel on Unliving should reduce the value. Also unsure if Vampiric Bite is actually true to most fiction—it's somewhat unclear how vampires are actually supposed to get their HP back for purposes of Unkillable, unless someone else feeds the vampire blood to revive it. Any other feedback is of course appreciated.

[AlexanderHowl]

Fire is sufficient for -50%, so I would make decapitation and a stake through the heart a Hindrance (which would probably be cumulative at -10%, since it is not overwhelmed by a threat of greater frequency), which saves you 10 CP. Vampire Bite is outdated and overpriced by the way, I would replace it with Leech (Blood Agent, -40%) [15] and Sharp Teeth (Switchable, +10%; Temporary Disadvantage, Disturbing Voice, -10%) [1], which saves you another 14 CP.

With the extra 24 CP, I would add HT+2 [20] and DR 1 (Flexible, -20%) [4]. At that point, you have a vampire with a little more endurance and a little more durability. While they are not going to be able to ignore most dedicated attacks, they will avoid losing HP to minor threats. They will also have +0.5 Basic Speed, +2 FP, and +2 to HT-based skills.

[Michael Thayne]

I wasn't really aiming for any particular point budget—though I'd forgotten how big the discount for Leech was relative to Vampiric Bite, I was thinking it was a couple of points so I didn't bother out of laziness. Making just that change but also turning Pallor to the "negated by feeding" version, plus adding No Body Heat of that variant, gets you 125 points. Of course you can add more attributes and secondary characteristic bonuses to go higher there.

Edit: oh, definitely make the suggested change to Unkillable, which gets you down to 115. Though I'm tempted to replace Leech with Regeneration (Fast) which then gives you an even 150.

[RedMattis]

It is very dependent on what kind of campaign you're running. The TrueBlood and Anne Rice vampires are pretty much straight up Supers which no human could hope to wrestle down.

With that said, assuming we're making a bit of a base generic modern vampire that laughs at crosses and doesn't have much fancy Hollywood "special effects" tied to their abilities:

I'd drop Dominance. Dominance inflicts Slave Mentality. Generally modern vampire "sires" don't have quite that degree of control over their fledglings. If you want to infect others (as per Dominance or Infectious Attack), but have it be controllable I'd consider it a 0-point feature. A modified version of Dominance would work for those which have sway over their fledglings. Similarly traits like Mindlink, Charisma (Fledglings Only), Mind Control (...), can be appropriate but means a vampire PC who doesn't turn others is paying a bunch of points for abilities they will never use.

Bad Temper seems pretty common for modern vampires, sometimes with the dreaded Bad Temper + Berserk combo, which feels very "Vampire the Masquerade"-like. Losing your cool due to anger seems like something that is often inherently part of the vampirism condition.

Other negative social traits like Bully, Low Empathy, etc. are also quite common as well, but that is probably more due a general tendency for people that desire vampirism being *******s or becomes terrible people over time.

I'd consider adding something like this Injury Tolerance: No Vitals (Except Heart (targeted at -5) -20%) [4]. A vampire generally doesn't care much about getting shot in the liver, and poking their lungs might make speaking troublesome, but won't do much for killing them.

I don't think Unkillable 2 with "Decapitation" as a limitation is very appropriate, while raw-legal it essentially removes most of the advantage of the second level of Unkillable since anything that reduces you to -HPx10 using anything but crushing or piercing damage is very likely to count as "decapitation" as well.

A vampire which will die to 'overkill' should probably have Unkillable 1 since that _will_ kill you at -HPx10. Remember that vampires have "Injury Tolerance (Unliving) [20]". I'd be fine with judging that it isn't -10xHP specifically that kills you, but "Total bodily destruction" as per GURPS Campaign. That is to say:

Originally Posted by GURPS Campaigns-419

Total bodily destruction, if this makes sense given the source of the damage – 200 points of arrow wounds leave a messy but recognizable corpse; 200 points of fire injury leaves nothing but an unrecognizable lump of charcoal. The difference can be important in settings where resurrection, reanimation, etc. are possible!

In other words Unkillable 1 remains functional as long as your body is intact and not pulped (crushing), diced (cutting), burned (fire), melted (acid), etc. The specifics of what is required to be "totally destroyed" is up the the GM.

I would judge that even if you have an advantage which prevents falling unconscious you would cease to function at -HPx10 and would have to wait for healing or regeneration to get you back up. If not you should be looking at a limited version of Supernatural Durability instead.

As a final note, most vampires can usually die to Sunlight as well, and that should be part of the Achilles' Heel. For an obvious-enough vampire I'd be find with rising the value of Achilles' Heel to -65% or so. Not only do half the world know how to kill them, but their Weakness to Sunlight means most situations where they get knocked out they are very likely get exposed to the sun at some point unless their allies can save them. Being Unkillable, but just getting knocked out at Hp-0 and burning up in a ditch 8 hours later is a bit less advantageous than just dying if you get decapitated.

Oh, and a whole bunch of other stuff not mentioned probably also ignores their Unkillabillity: Werewolf tooth & claw? Decent chance. Elder-thing powers? Probably. Getting drained by another vampire? Likely. Soul-devouring Leech from a Succubus/Incubus? Extremely likely. Angel slashing you with a holy sword? Extremely likely. Etc.

In settings with modern vampires and "other things" many of those other things will laugh at the vampires' immunities if they are of comparable (or greater) power.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Fire is sufficient for -50%, so I would make decapitation and a stake through the heart a Hindrance [...]

Aside from VTM vampires most modern vampires actually die from stakes to the heart. Besides, it feels a bit Munchkin to stack limitations like this. Being killed by wood is clearly more limiting than being hindered by it, so the former should always give more points from an anti-Munchkin perspective.

The vampire could also do with some Social Stigma (Monster/Dead) or Secret. Even in TrueBlood where vampires are public most people don't particularly like them.

A few levels of Temperature Tolerance is probably appropriate.

I'd suggest considering Draining instead of Restricted Diet if you have Vampiric Bite

Old quote I dug up from Kromm when I PM:ed him a similar question ages ago.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Draining includes two parts:

1. Daily HP loss, no matter what.

2. The ability to heal those HP (and only those HP) instantly if you get a substance.

You do have to eat! Eating blood counts as eating; that's why vampires lack Doesn't Eat or Drink.

Dependency includes one part:

1. Cyclic HP loss if you don't get a substance.

The latter is a bigger disad in general because the HP loss is standard injury and not some sequestered pool of HP that regenerates instantly if you drink a little blood or whatever.

In other worse, Draining "counts" as eating. Presumably 1HP is enough to get a vampire with Draining through the day, despite 1HP (Accelerated Leech) to 3HP (Vampiric Bite) of blood likely being too small of a meal in terms of calories to otherwise count as a meal. And the fact that a vampire with Restricted Diet (Human Blood) would presumably need three meals of blood per day, which is... a lot.

Dependency (Human Blood) is another alternative, but you'll need to combine it with "Doesn't Eat" in that case.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

The Vampire template in Basic Set is very Stoker-esque, but a lot of more recent vampire fiction is quite far from the Stoker mold. The general tendency in more recent vampire fiction (from Anne Rice to Buffy to True Blood and the Vampire Diaries) seems to be in favor of giving vampires neither quite so many powers nor quite so many weaknesses. Here's my attempt to replicate that—though it's not intended to exactly replicate the vampires of any particular 'verse:

135 Points
Attributes: ST +4 [40].
Secondary Characteristics: Per +2 [10]; Basic Move +2 [10].
Advantages: Doesn’t Breathe [20]; Dominance [20]; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards [30]; Injury Tolerance (Unliving) [20]; Night Vision 5 [5]; Unaging [15]; Unkillable 2 (Achilles' Heel: Decapitation, fire, or stake through heart, -50%) [50]; Vampiric Bite [30].
Disadvantages: Restricted Diet (Human Blood, Substitution, -50%) [-10]; Supernatural Features (Pallor) [-10]; Uncontrollable Appetite (12) (Human Blood) [-15]; Unhealing (Partial) [-20]; Weakness (Sunlight; 1d/minute) [-60].
Features: Sterile.

I'm not sure if the triple Achilles' heel on Unliving should reduce the value. Also unsure if Vampiric Bite is actually true to most fiction—it's somewhat unclear how vampires are actually supposed to get their HP back for purposes of Unkillable, unless someone else feeds the vampire blood to revive it. Any other feedback is of course appreciated.

As Classic: Blood Types shows the variety of vampire is kind of insane. Gaki for instance is 295 points while the Human "Vampire" is [-50].

Classic's Vampiric Immortality [65] becomes a meta-trait in 4e: Doesn’t Breathe [20], Immunity to Metabolic Hazards [30], and Unaging [15] and I prefer to use it.

Not to sure on Unkillable; some modern takes (such as in Daybreakers and Anne Rice's versions) defiantly don't have it.

On a side note what about Supernatural Durability?

[AlexanderHowl]

Some vampires (like in Shadowrun) shutdown without free oxygen. I am curious how you would represent that? Would it be a modifier version of Nocturnal?

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Some vampires (like in Shadowrun) shutdown without free oxygen. I am curious how you would represent that? Would it be a modifier version of Nocturnal?

Since ordinary humans also shut down (permanently) in the absence of free oxygen, I would treat it either as a limitation on Doesn't Breath (doesn't die due to lack of oxygen, but still falls unconscious, -X%) or just the natural effect of having an Unkillable-type advantages while lacking Doesn't Breath.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, Shadowrun vampires are odd because they have the equivalent of Regeneration (Extreme; Bane, Damage to Brain, Spine, or from Magic, -50%) [75] and Unkillable 1 (Achilles Heel, Damage to Brain, Spine, or from Magic, -50%) [25] rather than Unhealing (Partial) and Unkillable 2.

[Flyndaran]

Metabolism Control: Hibernation with the trigger being no oxygen. Take it to 100% and they no longer need to breathe. Eating/drinking intervals are extended by over 1000.
That's if Shadowrun vamps normally need to breathe. I can't remember if they do.

[AlexanderHowl]

No, they don't, and they still starve when inactive. By the way, a disadvantage like induced dormancy should probably never cost a character points.