Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Night (PFRPG)

2.70/5 (based on 18 ratings)
Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Night (PFRPG)
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Inherit the night and reclaim the power that is rightfully yours! Fight off the vampiric hordes that threaten the safety of humanity, or join their undead ranks in your pursuit of unholy strength. Will you vanquish the blood-sucking villains that seek to rule the streets beneath the cover of darkness? Or will your undead heritage prove that you are more monster than mortal? While others sleep, you find renewed vigor beneath the starlit sky, and whether you seek the blood of the living or the dead, one thing remains certain: the hunt is on.

Blood of the Night contains everything a player needs to play a vampire, a dhampir, or a hunter of these foul beings. Every Pathfinder Player Companion includes new options and tools for every Pathfinder RPG player. These are just some of the features you’ll find inside this book:

  • A thorough dissection of vampirekind, including tactics for encountering these undead fiends and properly sending them back to the grave.
  • Advice and guidelines on playing vampire characters in a vampire-focused campaign, as well as new traits for every type of vampire.
  • Traits and alternate heritages for dhampirs—the half-undead, half-mortal progeny of vampires.
  • New feats, equipment, and spells to vanquish undead foes and compel the living to submit to your sanguine will.
  • A new rule system capturing the hunger of vampire characters, who must sup on the living in order to survive.

This Pathfinder Player Companion is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but can easily be incorporated into any fantasy world.

Written by Tork Shaw.

Each monthly 32-page Pathfinder Player Companion contains several player-focused articles exploring the volume’s theme as well as short articles with innovative new rules for all types of characters, as well as traits to better anchor the player to the campaign.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-470-2

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

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2.70/5 (based on 18 ratings)

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Very little material for players

2/5

As others have stated, this book is very low on material for actual players. Let me run down the pages:

2 pages overview on vampires plus 2 pages for the four vampire subtypes, for a total of 10 pages. I admit that the four vampire subtypes *are* interesting, and I like them a lot, but they're completely and utterly useless for players, other than as some world fluff.

2 pages on how to include vampire characters in a campaign, which essentially boils down to, either play an all-vampire campaign, or use dhampirs instead. ("With the exception of using dhampirs, there is no easy way to include vampire characters in a campaign with normal humanoid PCs and maintain a balanced level of power between the characters." "If a player wants to play a vampire-like character, choosing a dhampir is the best way to do so and still maintain a reasonable level of power balance compared to the other PCs.") So, unless your entire group is keen on playing vampires, tough noogies.

2 pages spent on three vampire feats (transform into wolf, swarm or mist).

1 page spent on dhampir fluff, 1 page spent on two dhampir roles and two dhampir traits.

2 pages spent on four dhampir subraces, these are very much in the vein of aasimar/tiefling subraces in their respective Companions. In my personal opinion, this two-page spread is the only worthwhile material in the entire Companion for players. This is some genuinely useful crunch for dhampirs. Sadly, this is pretty much the *only* genuinely useful crunch for dhampirs.

2 pages on undead (essentially vampire) hunger, and withdrawal effects.

2 pages on Golarion-specific fluff for the four vampire races (note, again, for the *vampire* races, and not a word about dhampirs. If you want to know Golarion-specific info on any of the four dhampir subraces, it's about one sentence each on the dhamp subraces two-page spread.

2 pages on vampire hunter builds.

2 pages on feats -- five for vampire slayers and four for vampires. If you wanted any dhampir-specific feats, one of the slayer feats is for dhamps only (you can be healed by positive channel energy).

1 page on 6 spells, 1 page on 6 magic items.

The rest is overhead and general table of contents, next month stuff.

For players, at *best*, I think there's about six pages of genuinely useful stuff. The dhampir subtypes, the feats, the spells and the magic items. The builds spread contains no real new information.

If you want this book because you want to play a dhampir, just get the stats for the four dhampir subraces from somewhere and you're done. I really can't recommend buying this whole thing if all you're interested in is new dhampir options.

Get this book if you want a whole bunch of vampire fluff that you probably will never use as a player. Why is this in the Player Companion line? If this is the book they wanted to write, it should've just been Vampires Revisited in the Campaign Setting line.

I would've given the book a one-star rating, for being a Player Companion that's pretty much useless for players, but two things are enough to bump it (just barely) up to two stars. First is the two-page spread on dhampir subraces. The only useful part of the entire book, and it *is* admittedly great, great enough to IMO carry the whole book. And the second thing is, I really like the artwork. The art is great.

That's about it.


A complete waste of money.


This book had so much potential but instead all we received was material most of us (as players) don't ever bother using. We had hoped for A LOT of feats for Dhampir and Vampire Slayers, sample stat blocks for both Dhampir and Vampire Slayer NPC's in general, or even a new vampire monster stat block (aka a new strain). Instead, we get a butt load of wasted space, a ton of artwork that serves no other purpose other than to make you go "oh" and "awe" for a few seconds, and a amount of useful material so utterly and COMPLETELY LIMITED that it's sad (if not down right sickening). We didn't even receive an updated Vampire Hunter archetype or a Vampire Hunter prestige class. This book is a waste of space, a waste of money, and the developer should be ASHAMED with himself. When the ARTISTS put more EFFORT into a Tabletop RPG Manual than the actual material makers then you KNOW something's wrong with the company you once admired and adored. Either way, DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK. It's not even worth the shipping fee let alone the full price.


Blank space

1/5

So much blank space inside this book.


Disappointing

2/5

I will try not to rehash anything already said too much. As much of the good and bad has already been mentioned. Simply, this is the first time a Pathfinder product made me want my money back. I just don't have much use for the materials provided.
For GM purposes I fid it disappointing that I will still need to hunt down the templates for Nosferatu and Vetalas if I choose to use them.
Also for my PCs, archetypes would have been much more useful than suggested character builds.
The non-mechanics information was as always very good. However I feel like not much was added beyond Classic Horrors Revisited.
Both Blood of Heavens and Blood of Fiends were much better.


A great little book all about Vampires (and some other stuff)

5/5

There are a lot of reviews here that can tell you about the product in more detail, but seeing as how there are quite a few negative ones for a product I enjoyed, I thought I'd contribute.

Blood of the Night is what I would consider an essential guide to Vampires in Golarion. It's simple and clean, and doesn't add any more information than you need, making it a perfect companion to Pathfinder's many other products that have something to say about Vampires. My players love Vampires, and it will be really nice to finally have a product that will greatly improve my ability to run a fantastic game about Vampires, and it also give me the tools to allow my players to play as Vampires!

I was also happy to see even more information about Dhampires, because I am a big fan. I was sure that there was already plenty of information out there about the half-damned; with Blood of the Night's details about all four Vampires variants, it was nice to see Dhampire heritages tie into these newly presented details, instead of ignoring the potential for them.

The information about Vampire Hunters was quite lacking, to the point of being nonexistent, but I honestly purchased the product not knowing that it had anything to do with Vamp hunters, so I'm not saddened by this.

Blood of the Night is an excellent book about Golarion's Vampires, and if you are looking to purchase a book with even more info on them (as I was) you will be quite pleased.

If you are looking for a book exclusively about Dhampires, you will be disappointed, as it is not exclusively about Dhampires, and doesn't pretend to be. However, the extreme, dire-hard Dhampire lover would be remiss to not purchase this product, as it's Dhampire Heritages are excellent, and the rest of the book will really help flesh out your character's background.

For the player looking for a book on Vampire hunting, you should avoid this book at all costs, unless you want only a few feats, spells and items that assist in Vampire slaying, or are also looking for some background info and character building advice.

In conclusion, as a DM who only wanted a book about Vampires, I have to give Blood of the Night a full five stars for going above and beyond my expectations. BTW, have I mentioned how much I like the new layout? It is awesome. Keep it up Paizo!


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Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Announced for October! The cover image is a mockup, and will change prior to publication.


Awesome! I can´t wait.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Dotted for sheer joy!


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Stop, Vic. Just... stop.

I can't take any more of this Pathfinder-y goodness. It just makes the intervening months that much more unbearable.

Sovereign Court Contributor

Interesting. Vetalas?

I wonder what direction that one's going to go...
Vetala as Betail?
Or the fire-breathing, flying, Tantric, variety?

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

This new "Blood of..." sub line you seem to have started is just determined to make all my money disappear. Now if we could get "Blood of Genies" for the faux genasi and "Blood of Shadows" that give us a few more shadow based races beside the fetchling and I will be a happy man.


10 people marked this as a favorite.

Very very cool

I hope this means Blood of the Moon, hunting and playing lycanthropes is close behind


MerrikCale wrote:

Very very cool

I hope this means Blood of the Moon, hunting and playing lycanthropes is close behind

This +1


Cool, some Dhampir love oh and full blooded vampires as well.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

WANT!

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

When I saw the title I expected this to be just about dhampir. Very curious how the players-as-full-vampires part is going to be handled, along with those new variants.

Dark Archive

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Sounds cool I hope we see a fae based book like this soon too.


Cool! I'll have to get this for my youngest ... she's playing a Dhampir in our family campaign ;)

Liberty's Edge

...So are we seeing the beginning of a slow rules-drip version of Monsters-as-PCs here? Not a full-on Savage Species hardcover, but a more measured, case-by-case treatment?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

If this becomes a trend I will have to surrender any future wages directly unto paizo. I love races.


Shisumo wrote:
...So are we seeing the beginning of a slow rules-drip version of Monsters-as-PCs here? Not a full-on Savage Species hardcover, but a more measured, case-by-case treatment?

Not exactly, since as far as I can tell, things so far in the "Blood of" books and the Advanced Race Guide are all 0HD races like the core races, while a lot of the Savage Species races had racial hit dice, though I would have to dig out my copy of that book to confirm this.

On another note/question for the Paizo staff, is there going to be any overlap/repeated crunch between the "Blood of" books and the ARG? Or is everything is these books new because it is unique for these races in Golarion?


Will we have dhampir subdomains, variant bloodlines, curses of bloodthirst for dhampir oracles, mysteries etc.? *glitter glitter*


So, will there be options like the Tiefling and Aasimar have, where dhampirs of different "breeds" get different abilities. Like Nosferatu heritage dhampirs, for example?

Dark Archive

Product Description wrote:
Join your next campaign as a day-walking dhampir from a variety of vampiric heritages

That sentence from the product description seems to indicate that will be the indeed be the case.


I am glad we get different heritages like the Aasimar/Tieflings got.

Sovereign Court

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Does a silent war really rage in Golarion's shadows?

Because that's a particularly tired trope.

I quite like vampires and lycanthropes, I just prefer not having massed gangs of them fighting each other.

The Bram Stoker model is infintely more intriguing.

Liberty's Edge

GeraintElberion wrote:

Does a silent war really rage in Golarion's shadows?

Because that's a particularly tired trope.

I quite like vampires and lycanthropes, I just prefer not having massed gangs of them fighting each other.

The Bram Stoker model is infintely more intriguing.

The lycanthropes aren't really involved, but Ashes at Dawn does rather suggest the vampires do have a shadow war going on, albeit a very slow-paced one.

Sovereign Court

I hope it's isolated to a small region.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
GeraintElberion wrote:
I hope it's isolated to a small region.

I would assume the major battle ground would be in Ustalav.

Dark Archive

Don't forget about Geb and the undead planet.

Liberty's Edge

I must get this. I seem to have a player in any given campaign who wants to play a vampire or a vampiric sorcerer to the point I had to adjust the undead bloodline so he could have a vampire bloodline.

These Race books are going to drain my coffers most certainly this year. My players are thrilled at the idea of having tons of options for the races presented in the bestiary.


Squeeeee!

WANT!

Liberty's Edge

The book or a vampire bloodline?

Liberty's Edge

Should have added a third option. Or both?


So, will there be feats or what not that expand Dhampir powers to resemble their vampiric parents. I'm just talking about alternate types based on different vampire types but things like that feat in BoF that gave you additional uses and what not of the tiefing darkness SPA?


Flamehawke wrote:
The book or a vampire bloodline?

The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Dark_Mistress wrote:
Sounds cool I hope we see a fae based book like this soon too.

+100

Vampires are pretty cool, too. I'd love to see more done with fae though!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I would also like to see some Fey related books.


Man, I know I posted in this thread already but this product can't come fast enough.

Vic Wertz wrote:
Announced for October! The cover image is a mockup, and will change prior to publication.

I know the cover is a mockup but it looks awesome.

I hope there's something in one of the books about dhampir eyes appearing red in shadowy illumination.
(I read that recently in another book that mentioned dhampirs but it wasn't a Pathfinder book.)


Also, will this have the nosferatu template in it? A sample nosferatu was in Carrion Crown but the Pathfinderized template hasn't shown up yet.

Contributor

8 people marked this as a favorite.
MerrikCale wrote:

Very very cool

I hope this means Blood of the Moon, hunting and playing lycanthropes is close behind

Maaaaybe. With me taking charge of this line, don't be surprised if things take a slightly darker turn every now and again.

Contributor

4 people marked this as a favorite.
MMCJawa wrote:
So, will there be options like the Tiefling and Aasimar have, where dhampirs of different "breeds" get different abilities. Like Nosferatu heritage dhampirs, for example?

Yes.

Contributor

Wolf Munroe wrote:
The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.

About a third will specifically support dhampirs.

Contributor

Wolf Munroe wrote:
Also, will this have the nosferatu template in it? A sample nosferatu was in Carrion Crown but the Pathfinderized template hasn't shown up yet.

No. This isn't really the place for monsters. I've got a better place for the updated nosferatu to show up.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Wolf Munroe wrote:
The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.

Can dhampirs truly love?

Contributor

The NPC wrote:
So, will there be feats or what not that expand Dhampir powers to resemble their vampiric parents. I'm just talking about alternate types based on different vampire types but things like that feat in BoF that gave you additional uses and what not of the tiefing darkness SPA?

Yes. And for vampires. And for other Hungry undead.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Vic Wertz wrote:
Wolf Munroe wrote:
The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.
Can dhampirs truly love?

In the novel series Noble Dead(I think that is the series name) the first book called ironically enough Dhampir, she falls in love during the series. It is by Barb Hendee, cool book series. Sorta DnDish fantasy series. :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Vic Wertz wrote:
Wolf Munroe wrote:
The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.
Can dhampirs truly love?

Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Eric Hinkle wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Wolf Munroe wrote:
The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.
Can dhampirs truly love?
Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.)

Your words offend, sir. Dhampirs don't deserve your hate. Save it for sparkly vampires and bad Mary Sue protagonists.

Dark_Mistress wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Wolf Munroe wrote:
The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.
Can dhampirs truly love?
In the novel series Noble Dead(I think that is the series name) the first book called ironically enough Dhampir, she falls in love during the series. It is by Barb Hendee, cool book series. Sorta DnDish fantasy series. :)

She falls in love in the series, but not in the first book. Unlike some horror-fantasy novels, there's very little actual romance in the series. Yes, over the course of the series a romantic relationship is revealed, but it isn't the central theme. The Noble Dead Saga (as it was dubbed around the third or fourth book) is action-horror with a bit of mystery thrown in. The main character isn't some angst-ridden teenager who needs approval but rather a strong and self-assured character that does, on occasion, have to deal with the fact that she is half-undead, and there was intentional necromancy involved in her conception.

The later books from the author pair (Barb and J.C. Hendee) actually veer away from that character to follow the adventures of a human ally introduced in the second book.

I think the fact that the husband and wife co-author the series tempers the dhampir character and prevents her from falling into Mary Sue territory. Instead, her companions, a half-elf rogue and a fey hound, and later the aforementioned human ally, have to contribute as well. I'm thinking the fact that the husband and wife co-write the series probably tempers the narrative in numerous ways.


F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
Wolf Munroe wrote:
Also, will this have the nosferatu template in it? A sample nosferatu was in Carrion Crown but the Pathfinderized template hasn't shown up yet.
No. This isn't really the place for monsters. I've got a better place for the updated nosferatu to show up.

Yeah, I know. Player Companion line and all that.

But good to hear the nosferatu template will be showing up again elsewhere.

I tried to reverse-engineer it from the nosferatu NPC in AP#47 and with the aid of the 3.5e nosferatu template, but that's a royal pain and I can only guess at whether I did it right.

Looking forward to seeing it.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Wolf Munroe wrote:
Dark_Mistress wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Wolf Munroe wrote:
The book. Hoping it has lots of dhampir love.
Can dhampirs truly love?
In the novel series Noble Dead(I think that is the series name) the first book called ironically enough Dhampir, she falls in love during the series. It is by Barb Hendee, cool book series. Sorta DnDish fantasy series. :)

She falls in love in the series, but not in the first book. Unlike some horror-fantasy novels, there's very little actual romance in the series. Yes, over the course of the series a romantic relationship is revealed, but it isn't the central theme. The Noble Dead Saga (as it was dubbed around the third or fourth book) is action-horror with a bit of mystery thrown in. The main character isn't some angst-ridden teenager who needs approval but rather a strong and self-assured character that does, on occasion, have to deal with the fact that she is half-undead, and there was intentional necromancy involved in her conception.

The later books from the author pair (Barb and J.C. Hendee) actually veer away from that character to follow the adventures of a human ally introduced in the second book.

I think the fact that the husband and wife co-author the series tempers the dhampir character and prevents her from falling into Mary Sue territory. Instead, her companions, a half-elf rogue and a fey hound, and later the aforementioned human ally, have to contribute as well. I'm thinking the fact that the husband and wife co-write the series probably tempers the narrative in numerous ways.

Yes I know I read them, I just didn't want to get into details and be plot spoiler if someone wanted to read them after my comment. :)

Contributor

9 people marked this as a favorite.
Eric Hinkle wrote:
Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.)

You're off the force McHinkle. Turn over your badge and your d20s.


F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
Eric Hinkle wrote:
Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.)
You're off the force McHinkle. Turn over your badge and your d20s.

I believe that Eric forgot to mention that he just cast Glitterdust on them.


Cheapy wrote:
F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
Eric Hinkle wrote:
Yes, but they SPARKLE! in the sunlight when they do. (So, so sorry.)
You're off the force McHinkle. Turn over your badge and your d20s.
I believe that Eric forgot to mention that he just cast Glitterdust on them.

If it's Sparklepires the only spells I want to cast on them are Searing Rays followed by Sunbeam and Sunburst. But your explanation works too.


Just saying, from what little I know about Sparklepires, isn't it sunlight that makes them sparkle? So, wouldn't your list of spells just make them sparkle more? O_o

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