Dreamscarred Press Announces - Lords of the Night Playtest


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Vampires have been a classic part of fantasy since before war games turned into RPGs. Pathfinder continued that proud heritage, but resources for running a campaign that features vampiric player characters have been somewhat scarce, as has advice on addressing the unique challenges of running a game where the players, not the antagonists, are the monstrous predators preying on an unsuspecting populace.

Which is why I'm pleased to announce Lords of the Night, an upcoming supplement from Dreamscarred Press that provides material and options for running a vampiric campaign, as well as resources that are useable in any campaign. We're still early in development, but we've got enough done right now that you can find the master playtest document here. Included is a chapter expanding on the nature and behavior of vampires, an alternate vampire template to make it more player-friendly, variants and suggestions for running a vampiric campaign, new archetypes appropriate for any campaign, feats to aid undead characters, and sample NPCs to help game masters flesh out the opposition to undead player characters.

Development is by no means done. Quite aside from this still being open beta, this is a live document that will be updated with additional content as it gets finished, including:

- An undead-themed martial discipline (and a Martial Tradition to go with it)
- New prestige classes
- A chapter detailing a sample shadow society that you can integrate into an existing city in your campaign world.
- New magical items and spells

There's also some open-ended questions we'd love to get answered. What do you want out a vampiric campaign? Are the sample NPCs helpful and do you want or need more of them (including, potentially, psionic ones for campaigns set near or within psionic societies)?

I'm very excited to be part of this project, and I look forward to working with your feedback to make it the best we can.

And now, without further ado, I declare this thread OPEN!


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You got Vampire the Masquerade in my Pathfinder.... and I like it....


Interesting.


Hi!

My name's Alex, and I am the co-author on this project. In case it's not clear, I really love vampires, and the stories that can be told about them. Vampires can move through the societies of the living and the dead, and can be used to explore a lot of ideas such as pride, selfishness and aspects of morality. The core of this project is to make vampires a playable, fun and balanced option for Pathfinder campaigns. Vampires have a range of options, from standard adventuring, to city politics to being a complex and tricky antagonist.

I'm really excited about this project, and I hope that you'll enjoy it. Let us know what you think!


I'll give this a look. I tend to be in the camp (paraphrased from F Paul Wilson) "who hates the tortured aesthetes that vampires have become and want to have them be the bloodsucking monsters we all know and love" - so I may not get into the whole intent - playing a vampire. But I know of the quality of DSP's work, and I suspect there will be a lot of stuff I can use to set up vampiric cabals to vex the players.

Can't wait to see what all is in store.


Well Lord Mhoram I think that this book would allow people to play bloodsucking monsters. You'd get the bonus of also attempting to avoid getting discovered. Sounds fun to me.


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I'm less interested unless the rest of the Universal monsters have some say. I'm less likely to run vampire campaigns than I am to run full-on Darkstalkers.


I've looked over the document, and I like, because I like vampires and anything that makes them more party friendly as it were is a good thing. I haven't seen anything that I really have a problem with, but I would like to know if the writers for this have looked at the vampire section of the Monster Codex and this ability found on page 241, that allows an undead to gain the benefits of rage.

Spoiler:
Undead Barbarian: An undead creature with the ability to enter a rage gains the morale bonuses from rage despite being immune to morale effects. The bonus to Constitution from the rage applies to an undead creature's Charisma instead.


Adam B. 135 wrote:
Well Lord Mhoram I think that this book would allow people to play bloodsucking monsters. You'd get the bonus of also attempting to avoid getting discovered. Sounds fun to me.

:)

We play heroes that kill bloodsucking monsters. Our group doesn't even allow Dhapir PCs as they are too close to monsters.

Basically I was saying I am NOT the target audience for this (people wanting to play vampires) but I think I am going to read and/or playtest - because I think a lot of the info would really help a GM using vampires as nothing but monsters/villains - I see a lot of use out of this idea, even thought I am not the primary market.

Mind you I would never complain about something in the book that doesn't support what I want - that isn't the intent. But DSP's stuff has been so good, I expect it can appeal to those who aren't the target market. Testing it's "broader market appeal" - and knowing the quality of the publisher's material giving an endorsement like "I hate vampries as PCs, but I love this book anyway and here's why...." kind of thing.


Question - will this book support the classic reluctant vampire. Someone who doesn't drink blood (or only sticks to animals) and is trying to use his curse/gift to do the "right" thing - sorta like Forever Knight.


Lord Mhoram wrote:
Question - will this book support the classic reluctant vampire. Someone who doesn't drink blood (or only sticks to animals) and is trying to use his curse/gift to do the "right" thing - sorta like Forever Knight.

Definitely. It does discuss some of the challenges of attempting that sort of lifestyle, but ultimately you can pick up quite a bit of support for it from your fellow undead if you can prove that you're not threatening their food (and thus, their secrecy).


Nifty.
Thanks.


Prince of Knives wrote:
Challenge Rating: +2

I suppose it's a copypaste error? I'm not sure this version is worth even +1.


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Lord Mhoram wrote:
Question - will this book support the classic reluctant vampire. Someone who doesn't drink blood (or only sticks to animals) and is trying to use his curse/gift to do the "right" thing - sorta like Forever Knight.

There is also a pretty cool Paladin archetype really suited to that kind of. The Nightguard in the document reads like a paladin archetype devoted to vampires protecting the innocent and killing all threats to society. This feels very similar to farmers going out and shooting those durned foxes that kill their chickens. After all, gotta protect your food. The archetype specifically allows non-good characters to use it, so vampires are in!


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Looks fairly interesting.
Big chance of drawing world of darkness fans to Pathfinder perhaps.
Will there be a follow up with werewolves? Would be awesome too^^

No sparkling please though.


Adam B. 135 wrote:
Lord Mhoram wrote:
Question - will this book support the classic reluctant vampire. Someone who doesn't drink blood (or only sticks to animals) and is trying to use his curse/gift to do the "right" thing - sorta like Forever Knight.
There is also a pretty cool Paladin archetype really suited to that kind of. The Nightguard in the document reads like a paladin archetype devoted to vampires protecting the innocent and killing all threats to society. This feels very similar to farmers going out and shooting those durned foxes that kill their chickens. After all, gotta protect your food. The archetype specifically allows non-good characters to use it, so vampires are in!

I finally read through the document last night. I really liked that archtype.


Namaru wrote:

I've looked over the document, and I like, because I like vampires and anything that makes them more party friendly as it were is a good thing. I haven't seen anything that I really have a problem with, but I would like to know if the writers for this have looked at the vampire section of the Monster Codex and this ability found on page 241, that allows an undead to gain the benefits of rage.

** spoiler omitted **

Just want to point out that such a rule isn't necessary. Undead barbarians *do* get those bonuses. For example, see

Spoiler:
pages 41-42 of AP 69; there is a ghost barbarian stat block there (well, Cha anyway but not to Str in that case because ghosts don't have Str). If it's really a bother, just say that undead barbarians get profane bonuses instead.

Aha! Just having looked at that page, I see that they are just clarifying the position. :)


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So you know - we are collecting, reading, and adjusting for the feedback, but I'm taking about a month off from doing Anything At All Ever while I, among other things:

- Enjoy my first Christmas with my parents in 6 years
- Visit my children a thousand miles away
- Cycle my brain back into something useful
- Defeat an army of extradimensional fish-apes.


Enjoy your time off Prince! We'll try and get you lots of feedback while you are away.


This looks interesting, but it'll be a few days before I can read it. In the meantime, I would ask if this is just for player characters or also suited to villains? I would want it to use for the bad guys. Does it facilitate expansion into flavors of vampire outside of Eastern European?


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Kelsey Arwen MacAilbert wrote:
This looks interesting, but it'll be a few days before I can read it. In the meantime, I would ask if this is just for player characters or also suited to villains? I would want it to use for the bad guys.

While this is definitely mostly meant for player characters, there options contained herein are very villain-capable - especially since Lords of the Night explicitly assumes pro-active, predatory player characters. You know, ones that act like villains ~_^

All of the player options should work equally well for villain character, perhaps even more well since players are a bit more dependent on Knowledge checks than NPCs might be, depending on the table. Really the big stuff you miss out on is the campaign advice & the Alerts system.

Quote:
Does it facilitate expansion into flavors of vampire outside of Eastern European?

Not yet >.> This is a frequent request so we'll probably get a bit into it, but the European vampire is definitely the main focus, if only because that's the one that's been around since the original box set. There's also the question of where we draw the line of what's a "vampire" in the Pathfinder sense. For instance, the baobhan sith definitely fills a bunch of vampiric tropes, but it's also A. alive and B. a fae, so we can't really define it under the template.


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SO IT'S ANNOUNCEMENT TIME

Mine co-author and I will be handling feedback and making more detailed replies later "tonight" (morning for him; he's Australian).

However, I wanted to address the questions about cross-cultural vampirism. It's been decided that, for now, Lords of the Night will be focused primarily on European myths. However, we fully intend on producing a supplement in its line after Lords is finished, addressing vampiric myths from other cultures, as well as unusual methods of feeding, so that we can treat them with the respect and detail with which they deserve to be treated.

More information later "tonight".


Woohoo! Looking forward to it.

Also getting ideas for a vampire campaign in which the players live in the Underdark preying on Drow.


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WEE!

Okay, so having gotten feedback on two (three?) websites thus far, here's what I've got for you as far as upcoming changes, which will appear in the playtest doc in the morning when I can see straight and count all the way to five without getting lost:

- Feeding-per-day has been cut down to a static value (currently 15 temp HP)
- Death's Kiss will be offering 1:1 thirst slaking and an escape clause for the hapless victim
- Erroneous information regarding Barbarian not working for undead will be cleaned up. Frenzied Slayer is staying, though
- Strengths and weaknesses in the template are being cleaned up
- Sunlight vulnerability generalized to future-proof it
- Language in Nightguard cleaned up. I'll be seeking further information on Guilt Wrack; while it does proc on piercing DR, not all paladin swings will be Smites. I'm definitely open to editing it further, though, and the current thoughtline is to have it check and see if the Nightguard's weapon would naturally pierce DR.
- A sidebar addressing integrating Alerts with existing rules on settlements will be added

Upcoming Still
- PrCs
- An undead-themed discipline and Martial Tradition (no promises on the Tradition being undead-themed, I kinda have a...thing...going with those)
- Items!
- Spells
- Additional sample NPCs for use with Alerts & just to flesh out the setting in general
- Some monsters (Biobhan Sith yaaaaay)
- The shadow city


The Shadow City you say? I look forward to seeing that. Thank you for the hard work! Get rested up and get to work write away!


Aaand Proposal Time

Having discovered that what we thought were rules on using templates for PCs are in fact a giant void containing no rules whatsoever (I have no idea why Paizo wouldn't make accommodations for this, maybe it just slipped their minds), we find ourselves in need of a system for "paying" for the vampire template's bonuses. The suggestion to simply let everyone have the template for free in a LotN campaign stands firm. However, such a system is desired both for cases where the DM does not wish to do this and for cases of using the template in a more standard campaign.

With that in mind, my initial thought was this: vampires gain XP 1 track slower than everyone else. If the campaign uses the Fast XP track, they gain at Normal. If the campaign uses Normal, they gain at Slow. If it's already Slow, they eat a level off the top and are always a level behind the party.

What this works out to is that over the course of 20 levels the vampire ends up about 2.5 levels behind everyone else, a bit more if they decide to create progeny. This is not paid up all at once, though, instead emerging over time through participation in the story. I'm not sure how fair this is or isn't for the template's (soon-to-be-revised) powers vs. weaknesses, but if at all possible I'd like to get this tweaked into something that can be generalized to templates of various CR ranges so that they're more easily useable by players.

Thoughts?


That is a tough one. My personal opinion is this:

GMs who are open to 3rd party products are often open to homebrew. While including your own system inside is a good idea, I think that a large emphasis on it is not necessary.

If they want to fit this template into their games without it being an entirely LotN campaign, they will find a way that is balanced to their party, and their GMing style.

That said, the alternate EXP track feels appropriate. I am having trouble accessing the document now though, so I can't say for sure. It says that permission is needed to access.


Adam B. 135 wrote:

That said, the alternate EXP track feels appropriate. I am having trouble accessing the document now though, so I can't say for sure. It says that permission is needed to access.

Yeah we turned it off so we can finish editing the internal doc and then do a mass-copypasta for the months of feedback we've gotten.


Playtest document is back up with many changes incorporated. Now we can start hitting the to-do list!


Quote:

With that in mind, my initial thought was this: vampires gain XP 1 track slower than everyone else. If the campaign uses the Fast XP track, they gain at Normal. If the campaign uses Normal, they gain at Slow. If it's already Slow, they eat a level off the top and are always a level behind the party.

What this works out to is that over the course of 20 levels the vampire ends up about 2.5 levels behind everyone else, a bit more if they decide to create progeny.

Just a minor correction: This will leave the vampire PCs closer to 1 level behind, not 2.5.


Level adjustment and spending XP? Reminds me of 3.5 quite a bit.


Cheapy wrote:
Level adjustment and spending XP? Reminds me of 3.5 quite a bit.

The guidelines Paizo offered on monstrous PCs essentially amount to level adjustment (with auto-buyoff) as well, for all future reference.

As far as spending XP for creating vampires, we needed a plausible way for them to spread that does not also:

A. Cause the vampire apocalypse

B. See A but with PCs controlling the vampire apocalypse

or

C. Necessitate to resorting to the Leadership rules.

Expending the level puts teeth behind the decision to condemn another to undeath. It's also a meaningful control that impacts all character of all classes equally, unlike, say, expending ability score points. If you've got another suggestion I'm open to it, but the decision was not made lightly, nor to deliberately invoke 3.5.


Would it be possible for the vampiric powers to be translated into racial feats, a la kitsune tail feats? It would take some rejigging, but it would work both to circumvent the need for a racial adjustment, and sorta plays to the 'growing into their power' concept. Maybe balance by letting weaknesses work like drawbacks to traits; taking a secondary weakness (arithmomania, foot in the grave, etc.) grants you one of the powers at level one. Could allow for some more customization as to the vampire lore involved.

Still reading through the document, but just an idea I had after reading the comments.

Shadow Lodge

Stalchild wrote:

Would it be possible for the vampiric powers to be translated into racial feats, a la kitsune tail feats? It would take some rejigging, but it would work both to circumvent the need for a racial adjustment, and sorta plays to the 'growing into their power' concept. Maybe balance by letting weaknesses work like drawbacks to traits; taking a secondary weakness (arithmomania, foot in the grave, etc.) grants you one of the powers at level one. Could allow for some more customization as to the vampire lore involved.

Still reading through the document, but just an idea I had after reading the comments.

I too agree with this. Or make them scaling feats


Way of the wicked did a similar thing with the vampire "template" for players, as well as what Paizo did with the drow/noble drow. Split the abilities up over several (4-6 I think it was) levels of feats. Make another feat for making spawn, maybe for a "pool" of HD so you can take it repeatedly.

As well as level buyout works, it isn't something that is really used in PFRPG ever. You should probably stick with what they have used.


Prince of Knives wrote:
Thoughts?

Free buyoff of half the CR as per monsters as PCs? (Live version is either dead or not indexed.)


OOH! Will there be rules for gnarfing on other vampires to get their power? And will vamps be able to empower themselves to take abilities via a racial paragon class or feats to appear more human, ignore sunlight, have Leadership variants where you can have a renfield or a heavy metal band? Could you play an angry French vampire that is the lead singer of the heavy metal band? Will you be able to get more powers by taking vulnerabilities to black roses or wolvesbane?


New FAQ wrote:

What makes something a fear effect? What about a morale effect?

Fear effects include spells with the fear descriptor, anything explicitly called out as a fear effect, anything that causes the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition, and all uses of the Intimidate skill. Intimidate, in particular, is a mind-affecting fear effect, so fearless and mindless creatures are immune to all uses of Intimidate.
Morale effects, unlike fear effects, so far have not had a descriptor or a call-out. Anything that grants a morale bonus is a morale effect. For example, the rage spell grants a morale bonus, so a creature immune to morale effects would be immune to the entire spell, including the –2 penalty to AC.

Link here.

Have any effect on Undead Barbarians?


Insain Dragoon wrote:
New FAQ wrote:

What makes something a fear effect? What about a morale effect?

Fear effects include spells with the fear descriptor, anything explicitly called out as a fear effect, anything that causes the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition, and all uses of the Intimidate skill. Intimidate, in particular, is a mind-affecting fear effect, so fearless and mindless creatures are immune to all uses of Intimidate.
Morale effects, unlike fear effects, so far have not had a descriptor or a call-out. Anything that grants a morale bonus is a morale effect. For example, the rage spell grants a morale bonus, so a creature immune to morale effects would be immune to the entire spell, including the –2 penalty to AC.

Link here.

Have any effect on Undead Barbarians?

As revealed earlier in the thread, undead barbarians (and thus presumably bloodragers) have special exceptions built in for them.


Which Paizo adventure paths would be suitable for a party of vampires using these rules? Carrion Crown, maybe?


Axial wrote:
Which Paizo adventure paths would be suitable for a party of vampires using these rules? Carrion Crown, maybe?

Aaah....

[Awkward coughing]

Let me ask mine learned compatriot and get back to you on that one. I've not actually used any of Paizo's adventure paths, due to extreme negative cash flow issues combined with a habit of writing my own for my groups. I should note that most adventure paths will run into the issue of vampires being primarily nocturnal when many humanoid races are mostly diurnal, though.


Alright, so, I keep getting conflicting information as to whether or not there's base rules for using templates for PCs in Pathfinder. The trouble seems to be determining whether or not the text listed are suggestions or RAW or a variant, as it's all very vague. This gentleman has a fairly convincing argument for it being RAW, and I want to figure out where this sits before I go reinventing any wheels here.


Oh, and I know you're still debating how to handle vampires in an otherwise non-vampire party, but I had a cool idea: a "family" of three PCs that would include a vampire father, human mother, and dhampir son. That could open up some interesting RP opportunities. :)


Prince of Knives wrote:
Alright, so, I keep getting conflicting information as to whether or not there's base rules for using templates for PCs in Pathfinder. The trouble seems to be determining whether or not the text listed are suggestions or RAW or a variant, as it's all very vague. This gentleman has a fairly convincing argument for it being RAW, and I want to figure out where this sits before I go reinventing any wheels here.

As far as I can tell the rules in the bestiary for playing a monster are completely RAW, but not exactly well thoughtout...


Axial wrote:
Which Paizo adventure paths would be suitable for a party of vampires using these rules? Carrion Crown, maybe?

Carrion Crown would be ironic, at best. Ustalav is massively intolerant of freak-creatures. They're an insular culture who distrust outsiders to start with, and have a serious hatred for things that go bump in the night. So PC vampires in Carrion Crown would always be on the brink of discovery, which could be fun, or could be brutal.

Otherwise, you could probably adapt most other APs pretty easily. For instance, Runelords wouldn't be unreasonable. "Ancient wizards returning to life? Yeah, no, we'd prefer to not have that happen, thanks."

Probably the biggest thing to keep track of is daylight issues. At key encounters that "must" take place outside during day could be problematic, depending on how they're handled and what options the PC vampires have taken to protect themselves.

Honestly, I think the bigger the stakes (such as Runelords), the more amusing it'd be to have vampires saving the day. So something like Council of Thieves wouldn't be a big deal since it's largely about liberation of one city. Shrug.


There is a vampire that doesn't care about daylight.


Milo v3 wrote:
Prince of Knives wrote:
Alright, so, I keep getting conflicting information as to whether or not there's base rules for using templates for PCs in Pathfinder. The trouble seems to be determining whether or not the text listed are suggestions or RAW or a variant, as it's all very vague. This gentleman has a fairly convincing argument for it being RAW, and I want to figure out where this sits before I go reinventing any wheels here.
As far as I can tell the rules in the bestiary for playing a monster are completely RAW, but not exactly well thoughtout...

Rule 0 is RAW, that doesn't mean absolutely everything your GM thinks is fair, balanced, and/or appropriate for the game.

The rules for custom magical item creation are RAW, yet they aren't hard and concrete absolutes.

The CR adjustment for playing a noble drow has number (bestiary), yet the written rules implemented for players (race guide) to actually play a noble drow were broken down to playing a "normal drow" and taking a predetermined number of feats at specific levels. That Paizo went ahead and made an alternative rule set to play a templated race (for all intents and purposes), which didn't follow the CR guidelines is more than enough to indicate they are rough guidelines for a GM to use in PFRPG if they want to entertain the idea of monstrous races.

The game is based on the skeleton of 3.5, which had a rule book devoted to monstrous PCs. Of course they would have to have some sort "nod" to having monstrous PCs in PFRPG so they put that little blurb in the bestiary to acknowledge the concept and how to generally handle the idea in the new edition.


Skylancer4 wrote:

Rule 0 is RAW, that doesn't mean absolutely everything your GM thinks is fair, balanced, and/or appropriate for the game.

The rules for custom magical item creation are RAW, yet they aren't hard and concrete absolutes.

The CR adjustment for playing a noble drow has number (bestiary), yet the written rules implemented for players (race guide) to actually play a noble drow were broken down to playing a "normal drow" and taking a predetermined number of feats at specific levels. That Paizo went ahead and made an alternative rule set to play a templated race (for all intents and purposes), which didn't follow the CR guidelines is more than enough to indicate they are rough guidelines for a GM to use in PFRPG if they want to entertain the idea of monstrous races.

The game is based on the skeleton of 3.5, which had a rule book devoted to monstrous PCs. Of course they would have to have some sort "nod" to having monstrous PCs in PFRPG so they put that little blurb in the bestiary to acknowledge the concept and how to generally handle the idea in the new edition.

I fail to see the point to say that Rule 0 is RAW when Third-Party is involved. Yes, GM's can change the rules and have what's written down be guidelines in all cases, especially those that are listed as general guidlines (such as Appendix 4 of the bestiary) but third party publishers have to write with the assumption that the game is played relatively RAW because not every group has the same houserules and modifications.


And sticking to the rules as written helps us create a baseline, but then each GM and group naturally adapts and changes this baseline to fit their own gaming style. The only place where this doesn't happen is the PFS and there is no space for 3PP material there - problem solved. :)


Way of the Wicked is tailor made for this. It features a nice method of becoming a vampire with the use of feats to get the template over 9 levels or so. It's probably the best 3rd party or Paizo AP to run a group of vamps through, and it even modifies the campaign around a vampire based society. Vampire lords of Asmodeus assigned to overthrow the church of Sun and holy fire? Sign me up.

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