Include this in 5e or I will FUCK YOUR FACE

[Prak]

No, Tussock, that's a story about "How we used a bunch of Explosive Runes sticky charges triggered by telescope to bring down a castle"

It's an awesome story, but it has little to do with vampires.

[erik]

In a game where combat features a prominent role, sun-death vampires is crap on a stick cunningly designed as a branch but in fact also made of crap.

Sunlight-death vampires probably make for good monsters in a game like Call of Cthulhu or somesuch where you have investigators, not adventurers. Basically the power to beat them isn't as much in the player's hands as it is their environment. Those kinda games where tension is a bigger factor than battle, like tussock is saying.

I could imagine a D&D game with a elder vampire lord with extra powers and banes (like sunlight) who treats sunlight more like an environment effect (night = bad, daylight = safe), but that won't ever really come up in combat.

Honestly I think Vampires PCs from level 1 make a much better edgy-dark mold for characters than Tiefling. Tieflings have their naughty ancestry and horns. Meh. Vampires are created by a dark act and they have to drink blood. A lot more potential there.

[Ektagliaresia]

You can accomplish the same story without making the vampire burned by sunlight, because the story is predicated on "the vampire has a strategic advantage during the night".

Abilities like Thermal Vision, Children of the Night (if it was made to be only allowed/more efficient when used at night), or even "Vampire powers do not function while in sunlight" can all contribute to that.

[Stahlseele]

Alucard doesn't behave like other vampires in the series, period. He is a terrible model for any kind of character in a game. He doesn't just lack vampire weaknesses (other vampires in the series do explode in sunlight); he has no weaknesses whatsoever.

For what it's worth, he takes damage quite rapidly in running water in Symphony of the Night.

Alucard IS Dracula
Dracula
Alucard
Bwackwards spelling . .
He is the ORIGINAL Vampire, and THAT is why he is stronger than most anything else out there.

[shadzar]

no vampire PCs as per latest turning undead L&L articles. you may go fuck Mike Mearls face now.

[Avoraciopoctules]

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/em ... e-iraq.php

[LR]

Alucard IS Dracula
Dracula
Alucard
Bwackwards spelling . .
He is the ORIGINAL Vampire, and THAT is why he is stronger than most anything else out there.

Different Alucards. The first is the one from Hellsing. The second is Dracula's dhampir son and ally of the Belmont clan. I don't believe the question of Castlevania Dracula's weakness to sunlight is ever answered. It doesn't bother him as a jeans model, and as the the Evil Count he starts off his resurrection cycle by covering the land in eternal night.

[Stahlseele]

Aaaah, okay, my mistake . .

[Username17]

-Username17

[shadzar]

What is D&D Sphinx-ex?

i was just thinking about the riddle of the sphinx...

wittle kiddies play 4th.

mature people play 2nd

and 3rd edition need heavy support to hold it up from getting so fat and bloating that you get lost in the folds and wrinkles.

[Ice9]

Daylight works in stories like Pitch Black, and Shadow of the Vampire because the protagonists are supposed to be fucking powerless. It works in Gremlins because it is a comedy. It doesn't work, and can't work in action fiction. Because enemies exploding because light touches them is the most unheroic thing that it is possible to imagine.

I think under certain circumstances, it can work - i.e. jump-kicking said vampire through a boarded-up window into the sunlight, but those are admittedly the exception.

Actually, I don't think you need to ditch daylight weakness entirely, just make it less of an auto-win/lose scenario. What if being in sunlight was like being on fire? In D&D, that's like 1d6-2d6, depending on how much you're engulfed. Definitely means Vampires want to stay under cover, but the fight still goes on if they don't.

[wotmaniac]

Honestly I think Vampires PCs from level 1 make a much better edgy-dark mold for characters than Tiefling. Tieflings have their naughty ancestry and horns. Meh. Vampires are created by a dark act and they have to drink blood. A lot more potential there.

W-W-Whaaa?
Tieflings involve demon rapers and are infused with the essence of damned souls.
You might want to rethink your position.

That being said, both tieflings and vampires are starting to take the same place in my hate-filled heart has fucking Drittz clones.

[erik]

I dunno. My great-great grandpa banged a succubus has a lot less verve for me than I was bled to death by a blood sucking undead and now I'm on the same diet.

I just never felt a real draw towards tieflings, but a vampire, I could dig that. I might not want to play one all the time, but I'd certainly like to give it a go at least once... unlike tieflings.

[tussock]

"How we used a bunch of Explosive Runes sticky charges triggered by telescope to bring down a castle"

Said Vampire already went to the first level of the Abyss and dropped ER nukes down all the holes, so he's 9000th level now, and sets up a multiple chain summons cascading via free actions with a 4492nd level spell that causes the entire multiverse to collapse into a singularity though sheer density of bullshit, all because you broke his castle. Thanks for the game though.

[fectin]

Why did you send your PCs against a level 9000 opponent? What was the point of that? That's just waving your dick around.

[Ektagliaresia]

Why did you send your PCs against a level 9000 opponent? What was the point of that? That's just waving your dick around.

I think his argument was a reductio ad absurdum. If the PCs can use Explosive Runes based tactics, so can NPCs.

This isn't to say that I'm convinced of his original argument, but Prak's counter-argument is flawed.

[Prak]

There is simply no way to make "catches fire in the sun" to be in any way interesting in any medium.

Sure there is. It's a classic. You go looking for the Vampires setting off from home base at first light but their servants

That's a fireball.

and some heavy-ass doors

That's an ER sticky charge.

tricks

That's a fireball or an ER sticky charge.

traps

That's a Rogue or an ER sticky charge.

slow you down and then there's a maze and oh, SHIT! it's about to get dark again.

slow down? Not so much.

Edit: On the "ER Sticky Charge:" Explosive Runes is cast on small wooden tokens previously prepped with the Stick spell (FRCS). Mage Hand, or a good throw, can then deposit them on a door, wall, person, etc. and they can be set off from a safe distance by reading them through a telescope.

[virgil]

Beware of the counter to the ER sticky charge, which is the person with X-Ray vision and a good Spot check.

[Prak]

remember, you're not casting the ER until you use the charge.

[virgil]

Then how is it of much use in comparison to fireball?

[hyzmarca]

Alucard is a powerful sorcerer. The fact that he is a vampire is basically irrelevant; the powers that he manifests are shocking and incomprehensible to normal vampires.

That's a strange way to think of it. In the context of the setting, he's an elder vampire and he spends a lot of time fighting wannabes and lesser supernatural creatures, so he's always 'beyond the realm of their experience.' But his phlebtonium source is still being a vampire and his abilities have obvious thematic origins with old-school vampires, just kicked up a notch. Alucard's "I'm blood" invulnerability is an obvious modification of the classic vampire ability to turn into all sorts of intangible substances to render themself invincible, and that dates all the way back to Dracula turning into dust. Alucard's demon dog shadow thing? Dracula turned into a bigass black dog all the time. The scale is wildly different, but it's easy to see that one's an evolution of the other where the power scale of the setting is just turned up a few notches.

Alucard's (and vampires decended from him) power comes eating the souls of his victims along with their blood. This is a major plot point throughout the series and something that other vampires just don't do.

THis is most obvious when Seras fights Zorin Blitz. When Seras was losing badly until she consumed Pip's soul, at which point she utterly annihilated Zorin

Edit: On the "ER Sticky Charge:" Explosive Runes is cast on small wooden tokens previously prepped with the Stick spell (FRCS). Mage Hand, or a good throw, can then deposit them on a door, wall, person, etc. and they can be set off from a safe distance by reading them through a telescope.

Wouldn't it be more efficient just to use glue instead of a stick spell?

[Prak]

Then how is it of much use in comparison to fireball?

Force Damage.

Wouldn't it be more efficient just to use glue instead of a stick spell?

Possibly, but Stick is a cantrip, so it wouldn't cost much.

[DSMatticus]

"How we used a bunch of Explosive Runes sticky charges triggered by telescope to bring down a castle"

Said Vampire already went to the first level of the Abyss and dropped ER nukes down all the holes, so he's 9000th level now, and sets up a multiple chain summons cascading via free actions with a 4492nd level spell that causes the entire multiverse to collapse into a singularity though sheer density of bullshit, all because you broke his castle. Thanks for the game though.

? That is so much fucking bullshit. The specific argument "explosive runes is broken" is at least somewhat palatable, but the general argument "how dare you use magic to destroy buildings and break my plot, I WILL CRUSH YOU WITH MY INSULTED PENIS DM FIAT" is terrible. Because using magic to tear down fortified buildings makes complete and total sense; D&D spellcasters have access to magic which is on par with throwing sticks of dynamite around. They can tear things down. That's totally power-level and thematically appropriate. Live with it.

Alucard's (and vampires decended from him) power comes eating the souls of his victims along with their blood. This is a major plot point throughout the series and something that other vampires just don't do.

There is no vampire shown in the Hellsing series you can fairly compare Alucard too, depending on whether we're talking manga, T.V. series, or OVA series. There are vampires made by the FREAK chip (T.V. series), and there are vampires made by Millenium's process, and it's explicitly pointed out in the series that they are fundamentally different than true vampires. The only other actual true vampires I can think of are the minor priest at the start, Seras, and the T.V. only "exotic" vampires, Incognito and Bubbancy, who are also explicitly referred to by their region of origin as though they are a different kind of vampire. Oh, and the T.V. only Helena. Seriously, Alucard, Seras, and the vampire priest are the only real vampires you see the entire time in a combat situation.

But mostly, his difference from other vampires in-setting isn't really relevant to the point. If you don't think Alucard is a shitty vampire, then voila: he's a counter-point to "if you don't explode in sunlight, you're a shitty vampire." We don't even have to discuss what's going on with his powers; there is pretty much no consistent set of vampiric abilities anyway. V;tM's tzimisce aren't anything like Dracula, any other vampire clan, or probably any other vampire story at all, but they're still vampires in a vampire story.

[JonSetanta]

ER spell tags on kunai.
So, that's what ninja are throwing around?

[wotmaniac]

I think the point that tussock was trying to make was along the lines of "if you're gonna try to do some cheesy-ass bullshit like telescope-detonated ER, then fuck your couch".