LE My Take On Vampires, With Explanations

[Bennoloth]

If you ever had interest in making vampires more playable, but didn't know how to do it, please steal this text file from me! I'd much appreciate it :happy:. Explanations are in spoilers.

 

Vampirism is contracted by being attacked by named vampires or "vampire masters" only (Alva, Movarth, Babette, the Master Vampire in Clavicus Vile's area, and so on). The chance of contracting it is increased proportional to your missing health percentage. If you're missing 80% of your health, and one of these vampires hits you, you have an 80% chance to get the disease.

 

 

This makes it so that your vampiric siring is always through a climactic battle with someone awesome, not some dinky guy in a cave. Gives you a cool/immersive backstory. The chance to be infected is increased due to the lower pool of sires. If my mechanic is too hard to implement, 15% per hit works.

 

 

No stages of feeding, feeding gives a buff which stays for 2 weeks. Grants increased weapon damage, better sneaking, and better speechcraft. 10% for feeding on an animal, 25% for feeding on a humanoid. "Vampire face" is put on automatically during feeding and any time you attack someone or are attacked ("smell blood"), and stays on for 5 minutes. NPCs will be hostile to you when vampire face is on.

 

 

This is the biggest change. In most media I have seen, vampires work much more closely to this. It turns them from being weak at both ends of the scale, to being average if they haven't fed in a long time. This might seem too long, but as a vampire I found that I really didn't want to feed every time I fast traveled. I don't even want to feed every 10 times I fast travel. It should be a cool part of my character, not a nuisance. Additionally, there are no drawbacks for Nords or Bretons to not eat the entire game, so why should there be for vampires? If the player wants a hunger drawback mod, he can download a separate one which applies to all races equally.

 

The damage and speechcraft bonuses were added in to make vampires appealing to more than just sneaky characters. The former represents undead strength, and the latter represents vampiric charisma and charm.

 

 

You can feed on corpses that have been dead no longer than ten seconds. This is interpreted as feeding on them as a killing blow.

 

There are two dialogue options added to every NPC. One of them is to cause the NPC to follow you (not become a follower, you can probably use the slot which is reserved for a dog companion), which you can use to lead them away from sight. This requires a Speechcraft check. The second is to feed on them, and only appears if they are following you. Before feeding on an NPC, if you activate a certain power, they turn into a vampire, and can then become an actual follower.

 

 

Because, heck, if I see something, I want to feed on it! That's why I became a vampire, right?

 

 

By drinking the blood of boss monsters, you increase in vampire ranks. Fledgling -> Normal -> Elder -> Ancient. 1 boss to Normal, 5 to Elder, 25 to Ancient. Boss monsters are those of a certain level, equal to that of your typical guy found at the end of a dungeon.

 

 

This is simply a much better method of governing vampire powers than any I've seen in a mod so far. There is no see-saw involved in your power level, you just lose some of your weaknesses as you devour the blood of powerful foes, eventually becoming "Elder" and "Ancient". This is what I THOUGHT being a vampire would be like when I played one. It's much more like the typical vampire you'd see in a movie.

 

However, this is also the least important aspect of the vampire, and possibly the hardest to mod. Leaving it at the below base stats for "Normal" would be fine for the time being.

 

 

Base Stats (Fledgling): Resist Disease 100%, Resist Poison 100%, No Regeneration in Sunlight, 100% weakness to Fire

 

At Normal, can regenerate Stamina in sunlight, weakness to fire is 50%

At Elder, can regenerate Stamina and Magicka in sunlight, weakness to fire is 25%

At Ancient, no weakness to sunlight, weakness to fire is 0%.

 

 

As you age, you only lose weaknesses, instead of gaining more bonuses. This is because, even as a vampire, your character development is still based on your level. The vampire I have set out really doesn't need any more bonuses, or it would become overpowered. The effort you need to put in to counteract the initial drawbacks should make it a path that not everyone takes.

 

I removed the random vampire spells that come with the class, because let's face it, regular spells are just plain better. There's no need to try and fix them when your character can just learn to cast Invisibility if he wants to go that route. The bonus to Illusions was taken out because that portion of vampires was covered by a Speechcraft bonus instead, so non-mages can be charismatic too. Oh, and I took out Resist Cold because it didn't really seem relevant to anything.

 

Edited February 26, 2012 by kittyjoker