Vampirism isn’t a reward. It’s a curse perpetuated by a cycle of victimhood. A true vampire spawn is someone murdered by a vampire and then revived as a slave with no free will.
Dhampirs exist as a player option for people who want some of the vampire flavour without the “you are now an NPC, please roll up a new character” drawbacks
Sure.
Strictly per the rules, a player-character becoming a vampire spawn is a "fate worse than death" scenario where the character is killed and turned into a monster no longer under the player's control
But that's no good for people who want to enjoy the fantasy of a vampiric character, so a few years ago a supplement book was released that focuses on incorporating different horror genres into your 5e games: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. In VRGR, there are certain options for becoming playable versions of certain horror-archetypes, the Reborn (zombie or Frankenstein's Monster-coded characters) Hexbloods (hag-themed characters) and Dhampirs (half-vampires, like Blade or Alucard.)
The features that most of these lineages get are very potent, however, if a character already in play is turned into any of these, they end up losing most of their original racial features with the exception of racial skill proficiencies, and climb/swim/fly speeds if applicable. This is really bad for most characters who might have been leaning into any of their previous race's features, like a mountain dwarf wizard would lose their poison resistance and forget their weapon/armor/tool proficiencies because those aren't skills. If you start a new lv1 character who was turned as their backstory, then there really aren't any gameplay downsides.
At that point tweak it, if they aren't willing to work with you they either don't get it or they make it work. Give them the bite ability that has slight life steal and call it a day
"No." is a full sentence. Sometimes players are going to ask for things that just aren't compatible with the game or the campaign you are running. Learning how and when to say No is very important for a DM.
Don't listen to the downers. It's d&d and anything is possible... just make sure you're doing it because **you** want to do it, not because they are pressuring you
Vampirism shouldn't be a quick power trip. It's a whole character arc. Discuss this with them, figure out how you both want to do it. They may want to be a vampire ooc, but their character should be worried about what they are becoming. And this effects the party too- make sure they are okay with it.
Start by making them weaker. They feel sick, have lower constitution or maybe disadvantage on some rolls. Something is wrong.
Eventually they have to fight their hunger. Willpower test and if they fail they have to feed on someone, maybe a close ally npc or someone vulnerable they might feel bad about
Maybe they start getting some stat buffs here and there, but it shouldn't be all at once. Over the course of the campaign they should change, and unlock abilities as they go. Just have fun with it- the rules don't cover it at all, so this is purely homebrew fun
If you're set into this, you can make them a unique type of vampire spawn, for whatever external magical reason. And before anyone else comes to complain at me, people adored Astarion from BG3, who was a vampire but a "unique" one due to plot related reasons.
Just make the traits mostly flavor or plot related, with maybe a couple special skills and that's it.
i’m currently playing a spawn in my campaign , as part of my backstory and many many hours talking with my DM agreeing on rules so i wouldn’t be OP, we’ve managed to balance it out. I’m also playing a drow vampire which takes a lot of the suspicion away. My backstory is i was sick so i ventured away to find a cure for this sickness, only to fall in love with the ‘healer’ who later would turn me into his spawn. Character arc is me battling with the ideas of him and what he’s put me through
Check out the Dhampir character lineage from Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft.
It’s a template that can override their current character race, give them some cool vampiric abilities, but not turn them into an npc like a traditional vampire spawn would.
It’s also got some cool origin and hunger options the player can play into.
As a general rule of thumb you should do whatever best suits the campaign, but if the player really wants to become a vampire I would say that you should keep their stats the same and make them weak to the things vampires are weak to.
Going by the rules the player hands their character sheet to the DM to be played as an NPC under control of the vampire that turned them.
Of course as the DM whatever you say goes. You could just let them play a vampire spawn statblock , but that might get boring after a while. One solution might be to let the player change their race to Dhampir as a compromise. Make it a narrative thing by having a friendly NPC vampire offer to bite them, or just have them fight a vampire, and have them get bitten during the fight.
“the target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0.” death means you lose control of your character. it’s basically game over. the vampire that killed you controls you in the same way a groundskeeper would pick which plot you get buried in. what you once were is no more. any alternate story is homebrew, and thus totally up to you. the dm has full control. i’d recommend not giving them crazy vampire powers for balancing reasons but i’m not the dm at your table, you are. you can make them a dhampir, rewrite vampire abilities to be theirs, or make them fart faerie dust.
There are different ways in different media, I am quite fond of how it works in The Vampire Diaries! Vampire blood has strong healing abilities in this world, but with the catch that if you die with it in your system you’ll revive and begin your transformation. If you feed on another human within a day you’ll complete it and become a vampire, however if you don’t you’ll die again, but permanently. Also, among other things, the older a vampire is the stronger they are.
Not sure how that would work in D&D though haha, I’m just saying that there’s probably a lot of other unique ways such a transformation could occur! I do think you could borrow age relating to power from there, though! That way you’d have a natural way to avoid making them immediately OP! :)
If you look at the dhampir ancestry it lists a few ways but remember you're the DM you can have the player be bitten and the vampire use the player for a while until the party is strong enough to kill the vampire and release the player, can have him find a way to resist the vampire lord or simply have the party have to fight both him and the vampire lord, or even have the vampire lord actually not be evil and just misunderstood. Being bitten CAN be a good plot point if you want it to be
A lot of people have suggested Dhampir and that is probably the most sensible and balanced choice, BUT if you want them to be a TRUE vampire you both need to understand that its an end of game reward.
If its something they want they will need to work for it as a goal
You can GET vampirism from dark gods like Orcus and Vecna, but only after dedicated service, and often at great cost, however if they're someone who seeks such dark powers such a cost will likely be a pittance.
There are ways you can explain why a vampire would create another full vampire, Gaius Vestromo from the pathfinder module\~\~(pathfinderfixesthis)\~\~ Way of the Wicked offers it to the players as reward for helping him/out of wanting to get in good with them as he believes they will soon be the rulers of the kingdom and are already a serious threat to him
I guess I'd be remiss not to mention Astarion from BG3, perhaps like him the pc has been broken from control from their vampire lord, and could covet the idea of using this freedom to slay their sire and drink their blood to surpass them.
You could homebrew a bite attack with life steal make it a little weaker than their normal damage but with life steal and maybe allow them to turn in to a bat
For draw backs light sensitivity and holy things
Vampirism isn’t a reward. It’s a curse perpetuated by a cycle of victimhood. A true vampire spawn is someone murdered by a vampire and then revived as a slave with no free will. Dhampirs exist as a player option for people who want some of the vampire flavour without the “you are now an NPC, please roll up a new character” drawbacks
You explained the situation very well. I've been running in to people wanting to be a spawn since the BG3 Astarion hype. it's not a good experience.
This.
What? Would you mind explaining?
Sure. Strictly per the rules, a player-character becoming a vampire spawn is a "fate worse than death" scenario where the character is killed and turned into a monster no longer under the player's control But that's no good for people who want to enjoy the fantasy of a vampiric character, so a few years ago a supplement book was released that focuses on incorporating different horror genres into your 5e games: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. In VRGR, there are certain options for becoming playable versions of certain horror-archetypes, the Reborn (zombie or Frankenstein's Monster-coded characters) Hexbloods (hag-themed characters) and Dhampirs (half-vampires, like Blade or Alucard.) The features that most of these lineages get are very potent, however, if a character already in play is turned into any of these, they end up losing most of their original racial features with the exception of racial skill proficiencies, and climb/swim/fly speeds if applicable. This is really bad for most characters who might have been leaning into any of their previous race's features, like a mountain dwarf wizard would lose their poison resistance and forget their weapon/armor/tool proficiencies because those aren't skills. If you start a new lv1 character who was turned as their backstory, then there really aren't any gameplay downsides.
They are level 10 and rely heavily on the racial abilities unfortunately
You have to lose something to gain something. You don't just get character altering things that put you above all the other player characters
At that point tweak it, if they aren't willing to work with you they either don't get it or they make it work. Give them the bite ability that has slight life steal and call it a day
You can Google it too
They fall under the control of the Vampire and become an NPC.
I don't want to take away their character
Then they shouldn't have gotten bitten by a vampire.
They just want access to the amazing abilities that come from being a true vampire but I don't know how to give that to them
They don't get to have those abilities because that's overpowered for a player character.
You dont.
"No." is a full sentence. Sometimes players are going to ask for things that just aren't compatible with the game or the campaign you are running. Learning how and when to say No is very important for a DM.
Don't listen to the downers. It's d&d and anything is possible... just make sure you're doing it because **you** want to do it, not because they are pressuring you Vampirism shouldn't be a quick power trip. It's a whole character arc. Discuss this with them, figure out how you both want to do it. They may want to be a vampire ooc, but their character should be worried about what they are becoming. And this effects the party too- make sure they are okay with it. Start by making them weaker. They feel sick, have lower constitution or maybe disadvantage on some rolls. Something is wrong. Eventually they have to fight their hunger. Willpower test and if they fail they have to feed on someone, maybe a close ally npc or someone vulnerable they might feel bad about Maybe they start getting some stat buffs here and there, but it shouldn't be all at once. Over the course of the campaign they should change, and unlock abilities as they go. Just have fun with it- the rules don't cover it at all, so this is purely homebrew fun
Thank you for actually answering my question :), this is a lot of help and I'm going to use this
If you're set into this, you can make them a unique type of vampire spawn, for whatever external magical reason. And before anyone else comes to complain at me, people adored Astarion from BG3, who was a vampire but a "unique" one due to plot related reasons. Just make the traits mostly flavor or plot related, with maybe a couple special skills and that's it.
i’m currently playing a spawn in my campaign , as part of my backstory and many many hours talking with my DM agreeing on rules so i wouldn’t be OP, we’ve managed to balance it out. I’m also playing a drow vampire which takes a lot of the suspicion away. My backstory is i was sick so i ventured away to find a cure for this sickness, only to fall in love with the ‘healer’ who later would turn me into his spawn. Character arc is me battling with the ideas of him and what he’s put me through
Paladin in party: " IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT FOR ALL MY LIFE, OH LO-ORD. CAN YOU FEEL IT? CALLIN IN THE AIR TONIGHT! DIVINE SMITE!"⚡️
Have the wizard cast haste, use up all your smites.
He is the paladin...
What, pray tell, is the paladin's oath?
"I do solemnly swear that I will go to whatever hell my current deity wishes in exchange for drinking blood and never seeing the sun again"
Check out the Dhampir character lineage from Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft. It’s a template that can override their current character race, give them some cool vampiric abilities, but not turn them into an npc like a traditional vampire spawn would. It’s also got some cool origin and hunger options the player can play into.
As a general rule of thumb you should do whatever best suits the campaign, but if the player really wants to become a vampire I would say that you should keep their stats the same and make them weak to the things vampires are weak to.
damn, baldurs gate 3 is actually becoming the new mercer effect
Going by the rules the player hands their character sheet to the DM to be played as an NPC under control of the vampire that turned them. Of course as the DM whatever you say goes. You could just let them play a vampire spawn statblock , but that might get boring after a while. One solution might be to let the player change their race to Dhampir as a compromise. Make it a narrative thing by having a friendly NPC vampire offer to bite them, or just have them fight a vampire, and have them get bitten during the fight.
“the target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0.” death means you lose control of your character. it’s basically game over. the vampire that killed you controls you in the same way a groundskeeper would pick which plot you get buried in. what you once were is no more. any alternate story is homebrew, and thus totally up to you. the dm has full control. i’d recommend not giving them crazy vampire powers for balancing reasons but i’m not the dm at your table, you are. you can make them a dhampir, rewrite vampire abilities to be theirs, or make them fart faerie dust.
do you have a copy of/access to any of the grim hollow books? pretty decent vampire transformation in there.
Sadly I do not
Are there ways to become a vampire besides getting bitten?
There are different ways in different media, I am quite fond of how it works in The Vampire Diaries! Vampire blood has strong healing abilities in this world, but with the catch that if you die with it in your system you’ll revive and begin your transformation. If you feed on another human within a day you’ll complete it and become a vampire, however if you don’t you’ll die again, but permanently. Also, among other things, the older a vampire is the stronger they are. Not sure how that would work in D&D though haha, I’m just saying that there’s probably a lot of other unique ways such a transformation could occur! I do think you could borrow age relating to power from there, though! That way you’d have a natural way to avoid making them immediately OP! :)
If you look at the dhampir ancestry it lists a few ways but remember you're the DM you can have the player be bitten and the vampire use the player for a while until the party is strong enough to kill the vampire and release the player, can have him find a way to resist the vampire lord or simply have the party have to fight both him and the vampire lord, or even have the vampire lord actually not be evil and just misunderstood. Being bitten CAN be a good plot point if you want it to be
Thank you for the good ideas
A lot of people have suggested Dhampir and that is probably the most sensible and balanced choice, BUT if you want them to be a TRUE vampire you both need to understand that its an end of game reward. If its something they want they will need to work for it as a goal You can GET vampirism from dark gods like Orcus and Vecna, but only after dedicated service, and often at great cost, however if they're someone who seeks such dark powers such a cost will likely be a pittance. There are ways you can explain why a vampire would create another full vampire, Gaius Vestromo from the pathfinder module\~\~(pathfinderfixesthis)\~\~ Way of the Wicked offers it to the players as reward for helping him/out of wanting to get in good with them as he believes they will soon be the rulers of the kingdom and are already a serious threat to him I guess I'd be remiss not to mention Astarion from BG3, perhaps like him the pc has been broken from control from their vampire lord, and could covet the idea of using this freedom to slay their sire and drink their blood to surpass them.
So they can skip the vampire spawn faze by serving a dark god? Thank you for the advice
You could homebrew a bite attack with life steal make it a little weaker than their normal damage but with life steal and maybe allow them to turn in to a bat For draw backs light sensitivity and holy things
Get ready to have an entire party of vampires.
I let a player character become a vampire in my current campaign and it's working out just fine. The difference is his character is a true vampire.
They become an NPC and the player rolls a new character.
Not helping
The other players kill them or the lead vampire. And everyone has to find ways not to go to jail.