This is going to be a short and to the point mechanical article about my homebrew redesign of vampires in Basic Fantasy. As well, because Halloween is coming up I thought I’d cover a couple monsters and give them some hefty overhauls.

In standard Basic Fantasy, vampires are an extremely dangerous foe to fight, having access to Level draining and being immune to all non-magical weapons.

This makes them very deadly but somewhat one note, they are what some might call a trick monster, they are nasty to fight unless you know their weakness or singular trick they do.

For my revamp I decided to pull some inspiration for how the powers from Vampire The Masquerade work for this. My two main goals are to 1. Make no two vampire encounters quite the same and 2. Make Vampires very good at being mastermind villains who can set at the center of a web of henchmen.

Blood Points:

Vampires now fuel their powers from an abstraction of both the potency and volume of blood they consume called Blood Points.

Here is a table for Blood Point values for different creatures, assuming total exsanguination.

Blood Points Creature
1 BP Dog
3 BP Cow/Horse
10 BP Human
15 BP Adventurer Level 10+
20+ BP Magical Creature (Unicorns, Manitcore, etc)

Cost of Unlife: Vampires are required to spend 1 Blood Point a night to maintain their undead existence and awake from torpor.

Blood Expenditure: Vampires can only store a number of Blood Points within themselves equal to 3 x HD. Likewise a Vampire can only spend blood points equal to their Hit dice in a single turn.

Blood Powers

Vampires have Innate and Learned blood powers, Innate powers are merely ones all vampires have access to.

-Innate Blood Powers-

Drain: A vampire may grapple a living target, each turn the vampire can drain 2d6 hit points from a victim they are grappled with

Regenerate: a Vampire may spend 1 Blood Point to regenerate 1d6 hit points.

Vigor: Before an attack, a vampire may spend Blood Points to gain bonus strength. 1 BP = +1 strength.

Enthrallment A Vampire may force feed a human or animal 1 Blood Point, the target must Save. Vs Spell, or become charmed for a week. The Vampire can spend Blood Points to prolong the effect.

-Learned Blood Powers-

Fortitude: A vampire may spend 3 Blood Points to become immune to all non-magical weapons for a turn. any weapon which strikes the vampire has a 5% chance to shatter on contact.

Haste: A vampire may spend a 1 Blood Point to double their movement speed, or spend 3 Blood points for a extra action, or spend 2 Blood Points for a +2 to AC against ranged attacks.

Mist Form: A vampire may spend 2 Blood Points to become a cloud of intangible mist for 1d6 turns, while in this from they can fly, and are immune to all non-magical damage, they cannot take combative actions and are still harmed by certain spells and sunlight.

Flight: A vampire may spend 5 blood point to fly their movement spend for 1 minute.

Shapeshift: A vampire may spend Blood Points equal to the Hit Dice of the natural animal they wish to shapeshift into.

Hypnotic Gaze: A vampire may spend 3 Blood Points while making eye contact with someone, works exactly like the Charm Person spell.

Hemomancy: A vampire with access to spells and spell slots, may substitute a spell slot for Blood Points, the cost is always 3 x spell level.

Spider Climb: A vampire may spend 2 Blood Points to walk on any surface for 1d4 turns.

Vampiric Leap: Vampire may spend 1 Blood Point to leap a total of 2d6 x 5 feet.

Vampiric Necromancy a Vampire may spend 2 Blood Points per Hit Dice of undead they raise, Undead made in this fashion are permanent until dismissed, however are just as weak to the sun as a vampire. (Being made from the vampires blood.)

Icy Grasp: A vampire may spend 2 Blood Points to attack someone in melee with a Icy Grasp. if the attack strikes the victim must make Save Vs. paralysis or have a lump frozen and hampered, and further -2 to any other saves against the Icy Grasp.

Blood Beams: a vampire may spend 3 Blood Points to fire jets of super pressurized blood from their eyes! the attack does 3d6 damage, and has a limited range of 30 feet, and can be split into two smaller 1d8 attacks.

Energy Drain: A Vampire may drain off a level from their victim for an an additional 10 Blood Points. (power reserved for greater vampires)

Weaknesses

A good Vampire is not complete without a list of weaknesses, these can be exploited for an edge in combat against a vampire.

  1. Sunlight: The surest way to destroy a vampire! Vampires take 3d6 ever turn they are in direct sunlight, bounced or reflected sunlight does 1d8 to them.
  2. Garlic: while it does not harm them, Garlic gives them a -4 to saving throws, bringing their resistance to certain attacks down.
  3. Running water: Vampires take 2d6 damage when moving or touching any sort of rapidly moving water.
  4. Stake To The Heart: This does not instantly kill a vampire, however while the stake or any other object is pierced into their heart, they cannot spend Blood Points to use their powers until they remove it.
  5. Turn Undead: the powers of a Cleric or Priest to banish and ward away evil works on vampires as well.

Example Vamps

Vampire Spawn

Armor Class: 13.

Hit Dice: 2

No. of attacks: 1.

Damage: 1d6+1 (club)

Movement: 30'

No. Appearing: 1d4

Saves as: Fighter 3,

Morale: 7

Blood Points: 6

Blood Powers: Drain, Regenerate, Enthrallment, Vigor.

Treasure Type: 2d6 silver.

XP: 150

Description: Vampire Spawn are typically younger and weaker vampires, freshly converted or awoken from Torpor, they typically feed night by night, and haven’t figured >out all their powers or how to optimize their usage, typically relying on Vigor and a good club to bludgeon enemies to death.

Vampire Sorcerer

Armor Class: 11.

Hit Dice: 5

No. of attacks: 1.

Damage: 1d4 (dagger)

Movement: 30'

No. Appearing: N/A

Saves as: MU 5.

Morale: 6

Blood Points: 15

Blood Powers: Drain, Regenerate, Enthrallment, Vigor, Hemomancy, Spider Climb, Hypnotic Gaze.

Spells By Level: 3 1st levels, 2 2nd levels 1 third level.

Treasure Type: 1d4 Gold.

XP: 550.

Description: Vampire Sorcerers are often lowish level mages with delusions of grandeur that desire immortality of some sort, being they are outside of the ability or >skill to become a Lich, they often resort to the next best thing, Vampirism.

Vampire Lord

Armor Class: 16.

Hit Dice: 8

No. of attacks: 3.

Damage: 1d8+4 (Mace)

Movement: 40'

No. Appearing: N/A

Saves as: Fighter 10.

Morale: 10

Blood Points: 24.

Blood Powers: Drain, Regenerate, Enthrallment, Vigor, Flight, Spider Climb, Hypnotic Gaze, Haste, Vampiric Leap, Vampiric Necromancy, Energy Drain, Shapeshift, Fortitude, Mist Form.

Treasure Type: 2d10 Gold.

XP: 1500.

Description: Vampire Lords represent the near peak of their undead condition, often trained in a variety of powers, with scores of undead and thralled servants at their beck and call. with plenty of henchmen to feed upon, their concerns are far more than simply feeding and surviving, often centering on ruling and destroying or empowering their kin.