Vampire Race according to the Monster Manual

[Bjarkmundur]

This was my first homebrewing project, and I've learned a lot since then.

I was trying to make a vampire for my player, but there was just no way to make the race balanced while still giving it all the features that the MM shows as being iconic Vampire traits. It might work for campaign starting at level 16, but isn't really feasible before that. Vampires come with a lot of mechanical and role playing baggage, that simply doesn't work in the hands of a player that is a part of a group or a team. The personality traits a creature gets when it gets turned into a vampire makes it hard for groups to accommodate one, maybe even impossible. The there's also the question of intra-party balance.

That's why I've created two versions of the vampire. One can be used from 1st level, and is a more toned down version of the vampire. Calling it a Dhampir allows us to give it many of the Vampire features without having to explain why this vampire isn't exactly like any other vampire the group might face as an enemy. This allows us to remove some of that baggage, make it friendly towards its teammate, and preserves balance between party members.

The second race is the full conversion of the Monster Manual's vampire into a race, and removes any possible discrepancies between playing a vampire and fighting a vampire from the MM, which was the original goal of this project.

This can of course be tweaked to better suit the campaign. If you're a former halfling your size might be small, for example.

Half-Vampire
Ability score increases: Something something ability scores
Size: Medium
Speed: 30ft
Senses: Darkvision up to 30ft.
Born of Undeath: Your creature type is undead as well as humanoid. You have resistance to necrotic damage and immune to disease.
Vampire Tactics: You gain proficiency in one of the following skills: Stealth, Deception, Persuasion or Acrobatics.
Languages: Common, one other.
Climb Speed: You have climb speed equal to your speed.
Sunlight Sensitivity: While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks.
Diet Dependency: If you go for longer than 30 days without drinking at least one ration of blood, you suffer one level of exhaustion on the midnight of that day, which can only be removed by drinking a ration of blood. After consuming one ration of blood, you recover all levels of exhaustion.
Vampire Magic: When you reach 3rd level, you can cast Charm Person once, and it recharges after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability modifier for this spell.
Vampire Bite: As an action, you can make a unarmed attack against one willing, paralyzed, charmed, incapacitated, restrained or grappled creature. The attack deals 1 piercing damage and necrotic damage equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain health equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the target's hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount until it finishes a long rest. This attack has no effect on undead or constructs.


Ability score increases: Your Charisma and Dexterity score increases by 1.
Size: Medium
Speed: 30ft
Senses: Darkvision up to 30ft.
Claws: Your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage, and is considered a natural weapon with the finesse property.
Undead: Your creature type is undead as well as humanoid. You have resistance to necrotic damage, are immune to disease and you don't need to breathe or sleep.
Vampire Tactics: You gain proficiency in two of the following skills: Stealth, Deception, Persuasion and Acrobatics.
Languages: Common, one other.
Spider Climb: You can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

Vampire Weaknesses
Forbiddance: You can't enter a residence without an invitation from one of the occupants.
Harmed by Running Water: If you end your turn in running water you take acid damage equal to your level x 5.
Stake to the Heart: If a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into the your heart while you are Incapacitated in your Resting place, you are Paralyzed until the stake is removed.
Sunlight Hypersensitivity: While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks. Additionally, you take radiant damage equal to your level x 5 when you start your turn in sunlight.
Recoil: When you take damage from ending your turn in running water or direct sunlight you cannot regain hit points or cast any vampire spells until the end of your next turn.
Diet Dependency: If you go for longer than seven days without drinking at least one ration of blood, you suffer one level of exhaustion on the midnight of that day, which can only be removed by drinking a ration of blood. After consuming one ration of blood, you recover all levels of exhaustion.
Regeneration: If you start your turn with at least 1 hit point remaining, you regain hit points equal to half your level (minimum 1).
Vampire Magic: When you reach 3rd level, you can cast Charm Person once, and it recharges after a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast Animate Dead (Zombie) once, and it recharges after a long rest. When you reach 7th level, you can cast Polymorph (Bat) once, but only on yourself, and it recharges after a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Vampire Bite: As an action, you can make a unarmed attack against one willing, paralyzed, charmed, incapacitated, restrained or grappled creature. The attack deals 1d4 piercing damage and necrotic damage equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain health equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the target's hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount until it finishes a long rest. When you use your Bite, you can choose deal reduce the piercing damage dealt to 1. This attack has no effect on undead or constructs.
Misty Escape: When you've reached 9th level and you die outside your Resting place, you can cast Gaseous Form without expending a spell slot. You can't revert to your vampire form and you must reach your Resting place within 2 hours or be destroyed. Once in your Resting place, you revert to your vampire form. You are then Paralyzed until you regain at least 1 hit point. After spending 1 hour in your Resting place with 0 Hit Points, you regain 1 hit point. Your resting place is defined by having dirt from your site of turning. You can acquire a bag containing dirt which you can use to make any safe place your resting place, for example by putting it under your mattress or in a coffin. Doing so requires 10 minutes of concentration. You can have multiple resting places at once.




Due to multiple iterations without update posts, the comments are outdated and no longer relevant to the OP.

[theVoidWatches]

I think that there are 2 problems with your approach, as accurate as it is:

1) there's no precedent in 5e for a race that's also a class - while this existed in 3.5 as a way of doing powerful monsters, it was riddled with problems. Unless you mean that it simply locks some of those abilities until you reach a high enough level, like Tieflings and many other races, which is fine, except...

2) a race that gives Spider Climb and claws and a blood drain/bite attack and regeneration is going to be obscenely overpowered. Regeneration on its own would almost certainly obsolete any other race - everything else is just gravy. If your race is also giving you Animate Dead, enchantment spells, and shapeshifting (particularly shifting into flying animals - free non-combat flight is only slightly less problematic than free flight), then why would anyone play anything else?

3) a side point is that vampires shouldn't lose all the traits of their native species to be vampires.

Being a vampire - one that matches up to what people expect from being a vampire, at any rate - is really powerful, and races just aren't that strong (not to mention the aforementioned losing your base traits). You could coach vampires as a subrace for any race, perhaps, but that limits the potential power even further, and you'll lose pretty much all of the vampiric flavor that players want.

Think about the core concept of being a vampire: a nearly-immortal undead creature which drinks the blood of the living. This, on its own, isn't that bad - there's a decently-balanced vampire race in Planeshift: Ixalan that gives you exactly that.

The thing is, the core concept isn't the only thing people want from being a vampire: they also want to be able to fly and walk on walls, the transform into a bat, a mist, or a wolf, to command the minds of weaker beings, to regenerate from any wound short of death (and to be able to return even from that), to create control undead servants from those they kill...

You can't do all that with just a race. You need a class.

What I'm leading up to here, I suppose, is that I made a vampire prestige class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?579685-Vampire-Prestige-Class-(PEACH)-v0-3) which I think is a much more balanced way of letting someone play a vampire. It doesn't include all of that at once, because many of those abilities were shunted into the subclasses (one to control people's minds, one to shapeshift, one to create undead slaves, one to be a terrifying undead warrior), but the core class still gives you bloodsucking, spider climb, a form of regeneration, unnatural charisma, flight, and the ability to return from death by having a living person's blood poured onto your remains. Depending on which subclass you choose, you can enchant people's minds, transform into a wolf, bat, or cloud of mist, spend your stolen vitality to enhance your combat strength, or command a small, loyal group of zombies.

[Lord Von Becker]

I'd split them into subtypes. The racial core is fangs, nocturnality, infectiousness, and probably "being undead". If undead, compensate their limited access to magical healing with healing via bite.

Sunlight Hypersensitivity is really nasty, even if you halve the damage, so I'd make it elective - either you have regular Sensitivity and one subtype, or you have Hypersensitivity and pick two.

(Then I realized that the Creepy Albino Zombie vampires might be fine in the daylight, given the source media they come from.)

So here's my take:

Vampiric Humanoids

Undead. You are undead and cannot be healed by most magics. Age affects you strangely, if at all.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity and Charisma scores both increase by 1. In addition, one ability score of your choice increases by 1. Alternately, you can keep the ability score modifiers of your previous race.
Bite. Your unarmed strikes deal 1d4 piercing damage, and you may add your Dexterity instead of Strength to attack and damage rolls with them.
If you take the Dash action, your unarmed strikes deal 1d12 piercing damage until the end of your next turn.
(A/N: This is just my Racial Unarmed Strike rework, which lets it sometimes be better than a weapon without always supercharging the Monk.)
Drain. When you damage a living creature by biting them, you may roll one of your hit dice and add your Constitution modifier. You then regain HP equal to the result, and the hit die is expended.
If the creature you bit is willing or incapacitated, you recover HP equal to the damage dealt.
Spawn. If you kill a humanoid with your bite, and their corpse is not destroyed or laid to rest in a manner they would approve of, they will rise the following night as a vampiric humanoid. Their subtype is whatever would be most appropriate for their class levels, or else the same as their creator.
Slumber. You regain all expended hit dice when you finish a long rest.
Darkvision. Adapted to hunt by night, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Creature of the Night. You gain one or two vampiric subtypes.
If you gain two, you have disadvantage on all ability checks while you are in sunlight, and you take radiant damage equal to twice your character level when you enter or begin your turn in sunlight.

Where relevant, CHA is the casting stat for all abilities.
All subtypes except Chaser give Sunlight Sensitivity and the thaumaturgy cantrip.
(Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on attack rolls and on any Wisdom (Perception (https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/using-ability-scores#Perception)) check which relies on sight.)

Mesmerist. You may cast the spells charm person and command at will, but they require concentration if cast this way. If cast with this feature, command may affect undead.
Beginning at 11th level, you may cast hold person and suggestion at will, with no material components.
All spells cast with this feature are cast at their minimum level.

Shapeshifter. You have the power to change form as either a a reaction when you take damage, or as a bonus action.
The transformation lasts for 1 hour during the day or an unlimited duration at night, and your new form uses the same HP and hit dice you do.
You may use your Bite feature in the new forms.

You may take the form of a swarm of bats, swarm of rats, or swarm of ravens. Once you have, you can't take any of those forms until you finish a short or long rest.
You can take the form of a bat, rat, raven, or wolf.
You may mimic the effects of casting gaseous form on yourself. This mimicry doesn't require concentration.
With your GM's approval, you may take another thematically-appropriate form, such as a leech or swarm of leeches, whose stats aren't in the basic rules.
(Balancing note: The swarm forms mimic the Barbarian's Rage with their resistances and immunities, whereas the other forms aren't great at combat)
This feature is otherwise identical to Wild Shape.

Chaser. Your speed is 35 ft., and you may climb on difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Your Strength increases by 2.

Caster. You gain one spell slot, whose level is equal to half your character level rounded up. This slot may never be used to cast spells of 6th level or above.
You learn the following spells at the character levels listed.


1st
burning hands, ray of sickness



3rd
darkness, invisibility



5th
scorching ray, animate dead



7th
greater invisibility, storm sphere



9th

wall of fire, create undead



Beginning at 11th level, you may use this feature to cast burning hands, ray of sickness, and scorching ray, as if from 2nd level spell slots, without actually expending any spell slots. When you reach 17th level, this increases to casting them as if from 3rd level slots.

...
Well, that took a while. On the upside, I want to play a vampiric shadow sorceror now.

EDIT: Oh hey, someone else had the same idea for subtype splitting. I'm pretty sure my variant is balanced as a race, though.
MORE EDITING: For Small vampires, I'd let them keep one trait from their prior race, which can't be an Ability Score Increase.
Other race-specific vampires would probably need a 'Hybrid' feat to snag their previous features, just like ghosts would.

[Tvtyrant]

In 3.P I would make it fairly simple. Make a really basic vampire descendant/spawn race.

Has:
Low Light Vision
Resistance to poison
1d4 bite

Then I would make a vampire paragon class like they have for dwarves, elves, etc. Each level nets you some more vampire abilities, level 5 you are essentially a full vampire. Earliest entry would be level 3, so it lines up with vampire level adjustment.

[Lord Von Becker]

In 3.P I would make it fairly simple. Make a really basic vampire descendant/spawn race.

Has:
Low Light Vision
Resistance to poison
1d4 bite

Then I would make a vampire paragon class like they have for dwarves, elves, etc. Each level nets you some more vampire abilities, level 5 you are essentially a full vampire. Earliest entry would be level 3, so it lines up with vampire level adjustment.
That does sound reasonable, but 3.x and 5.0 are completely different games which happen to share some aesthetics.

[Bjarkmundur]

Ahh, but you see, all of those problems where solved with the "limited use" - clause.

For example í limited the regeneration by taking Lay on Hands and changing it into a bonus action that can only target yourself. If the player would look at the monster manual and see 10/turn regeneration I'll say "CR5 equates to a level 15-20 player character. By then your Regeneration pool will have caught up with the monster manual."

I've never heard that vampires should keep traits from their original race. That's pretty interesting. I don't think many players would bring that up though.

I have the whole thing on a document, and would love to show you, but if I simply copy the source code for all the formatting it exceed the maximum characters. Any tips on how to get around that?

I will specify that the design goal was coherence with the Monster Manual and nothing else, so many of the suggested problems or non-applicable. Wolf and former-life traits for example, since the Monster Manual vampires have neither.

I know all the spell's are OP for a race, but I do have a "message to the GM" which states that many of these features should be treated like magic items. In the sense that while your vampire player gets a cantrip or a spell, your other players will likely get magic items that further their own character Archetype.

I love the fact that you approached the problem from a completely different approach and made a prestige class. That is definetly a far more flexible route than only offering Vampire as a race at character creation. I didn't even consider the fact that someone might want to turn into a vampire at later levels.

[Tvtyrant]

That does sound reasonable, but 3.x and 5.0 are completely different games which happen to share some aesthetics.

It could also be a feat chain, 5E having "feat or stat boost" makes this a viable trade off.
Race: low light vision, move silently bonus
Feat 1: bite, lifegain on bite (lose reflection)
Feat 2: summon bats or wolves (lose ability to enter buildings without permission)
Feat 3: flight (lose shadow, animals fear you)
Feat 4: undead immunities (sunlight becomes fatal)

[Bjarkmundur]

Vampire

I am finally free from my maker, yet still a slave to what he made me. I'm on a quest to turn my curse into my greatest strength. Will I follow in my maker's footsteps, or will I use my second life to right the wrongs in this world.

Ability score increases: Your Charisma and Dexterity score increases by 1.
Size: Medium
Speed: 30ft
Claws: Your unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage.
Vampire Tactics: You have proficiency in two of the following skills: Stealth, Perception, Deception, Persuasion and Insight.
Languages: You can speak, read and write common and one other language of your choice.
Spider Climb: You can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Spawn or Lord: Vampires come in two variants. A powerful Vampire Lord (CR13) and a less powerful Vampire Spawn (CR5) whose mind is controlled by a Vampire Lord. It is safe to assume that since you are playing a Vampire that your Lord is dead and you have free will. It is up to your GM when and how you acquire Lordship The table below is an example of how a newly freed Vampire Spawn might progress to Lordship. A good estimate would be to achieve the status of a Lord Somewhere after level 11.
Animate Dead generates up to four Zombies (CR¼). This feature can be upgraded to generate Ghouls(CR1), Ghasts(CR2), Wights(CR3) or Mummies (CR3), at the GMs discretion.
It is also not customary for a race to give so many useful features. In a way these extra features can be treated like magic items for other players. You can ensure that your other players feel just as special by giving them trinkets that further their personal character Archetype progress. If power level is a big concern the “Lord to Roadship” can also be delayed, or you can reduce either the number of Spell slots or spells known.





Level
Features
Spell Slots
Spell List
Spells Known


1
Diet Dependency, Regeneration, Vampire Weaknesses
-
-
-


2
Vampire Spellcasting, Animate Dead
2
-
-


3
Road to Lordship, Friends Cantrip, Enchantment Spells
3
Charm Person, Command
1


4
-
6
-
1


5
Polymorph (Tiny Bat), Gaseous Form, Misty Escape
7
Command, Enthrall, Calm Emotion, Suggestion
2


6
-
9
-
2


7
-
10
-
3


8
-
11
-
3


9
Insect Plague (Bats) 1/day
12
Dominate Person 1/day
4




Regeneration
You have a pool of regeneration that replenishes when you take a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit points equal to 5 times your level.

As a bonus action, you can draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool.

Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure yourself of one disease or neutralize one poison. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use, expending hit points separately for each one.

Diet Dependency
If you go for longer than seven days without drinking at least one ration of blood,you suffer one level of exhaustion on the midnight of that day, which can only be removed by drinking a ration of blood. After consuming one ration of blood, you recover all levels of exhaustion.

As an action, you can bate a subdued or willing creature. As an action, make an melee weapon attack against one willing, paralyzed, charmed, incapacitated, restrained or grappled creature. You can use either your Strength or Dexterity as your ability modifier for making the attack.

The attack deals 1d6 piercing damage and necrotic damage equal to your proficiency modifier. You regain health equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the target's hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount until it finishes a long rest.

Drinking blood this way is equal to consuming a ration as per your Blood Drinker trait. When you use your Bite, you can choose deal reduce the piercing damage dealt to 1.

This attack has no effect on undead or constructs.

Vampire Weaknesses
You can't enter a residence without an invitation from one of the occupants.
If you end your turn in running water you take acid damage equal to 5 times your level.
If a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into the your heart while you are Incapacitated in your Resting place, you are Paralyzed until the stake is removed.
You take 5 times your level radiant damage when you start your turn in sunlight. While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability.
When you take damage from your ending your turn in running water or direct sunlight you cannot cast any vampire spells or use your Regeneration or Misty Step abilities until the end of your next turn.

Misty Escape
When you die outside your Resting place, you can cast Gaseous Form without expending a spell slot. You can't revert to your vampire form and you must reach your Resting place within 2 hours or be destroyed. Once in your Resting place, you revert to your vampire form. You are then Paralyzed until you regain at least 1 hit point. After spending 1 hour in your Resting place with 0 Hit Points, you regain 1 hit point.

Your resting place is defined by having dirt from your site of turning. You can acquire a bag containing dirt which you can use to make any safe place your resting place, for example by putting it under your mattress or in a coffin. Doing so requires 10 minutes of concentration. You can have multiple resting places at once.

[Bjarkmundur]

Phew, that took some formatting.

As you can see, both the spell's known and Spell slots are quite limited, meaning that other player characters have plenty of time to Ramp up in power alongside the Vampire :)

AND there's not a single difference between the playable vampire and the ones in the Monster Manual. Hurrah!

I left out a huge bit regarding vampire spellcasting, the restrictions on specific spells, how only vampire spell slots can be used to cast vampire spells and yadayadaydad. You know all that stuff anyways, you guys balance classes for breakfast.

So yeah regarding your problems:

1) boom! There's president now! Publish this ****,
2) Spider Climb is an issue, true. Talk to your player or remove the vampire option if he doesn't agree to playing nice. Regeneration isn't too bad once you've limited it.
3) Yup, this Vampire is only available at character creation. None of the Monster Manual ones had a pre-vampire race, so neither will this one.


Holy **** VonBecker. That ****'s thorough! Not the cleanest solution, but definitely definitive!

[Lord Von Becker]

Phew, that took some formatting.

As you can see, both the spell's known and Spell slots are quite limited, meaning that other player characters have plenty of time to Ramp up in power alongside the Vampire :)
Suggestion: Limit them further, say that caster vampires are Shadow Sorcerors. It even gives you teleporting.

AND there's not a single difference between the playable vampire and the ones in the Monster Manual. Hurrah!
If you want 'identical abilities to the Monster Manual vampire', why not just use the stats for one? It's not what 5E was designed for, but it shouldn't be too hard to balance.

Holy **** VonBecker. That ****'s thorough! Not the cleanest solution, but definitely definitive!
Thank you. What's the messy aspect?

[Bjarkmundur]

This is my final version.I have met my design goals and feel like I've hit a sweet spot regarding the power level.

I'm currently using Second Wind for my player's regeneration ability.

You can make the race a lot more balanced by removing the skill proficiencies. You can even have the vampire magics cost a feat to access. This makes the race much more in line with what kind of power is expected from a race.