I'm glad you brought up the potions. It makes sense to me that health, magicka, and stamina potions don't work well but I've also noticed that potions that let you carry more for 300 seconds don't work, either. Does that mean blacksmithing, enchanting, resist, fortify, etc potions don't work, either? D: There are 5 vampire levels irrc. As you progress up the hierarchy you gain vampire strengths and abilities and lose your humanity. Part of that is that eating no longer helps you and eventually potions and even self-cast healing spells no longer work on you. But you can harvest hearts from newly killed npcs and store them in jars to eat later. You can also feed in combat to restore health and turn your enemy into an undead slave. As you get higher in vampire level those slaves last for a very long time if you want them too. There is even an option to turn an npc into a vampire companion although that doesn't work right just yet. He's working on it though. I don't even use shouts myself. And BRS had the best vampire options long before Dawnguard came out.