Liber Vampyr (PFRPG) PDF

Overall I really enjoyed this book, and I am going to start taking a lot from it. Many things need to be house ruled and buffed. But I do have several issues with this book.

1. Minor typos and inconsistencies, Death Drinker is called Lingering Blood in the spell Blood calling. Empty body is called Freedom of Spirit in the Ascetic descriptions. It also needs to specify information in more places, it tells you about blood pools and points in every single chapter taking up a large paragraph, but I still cannot rapidly find any information I am seeking, and have to bounce from chapter to chapter.

2.They seem to be scared of making the classes and races in this book too powerful. The Revenant has 8 weaknesses, no ability bonuses, cannot go one day without feeding without class levels from this book, and the only thing they get is immunities to poison and disease and a +4 vs mind affecting. The classes get very few permanent bonuses instead getting many activated abilities. Blood points also seem a little scant, even if you captured every single enemy that had blood worth drinking it would be unlikely to recharge enough points to offset the cost of downing those enemies. And if you go on any sort of longer trek you will begin to rapidly notice the lack of blood, which helps with characterization and the like, and I did really like the magic item that stores blood.

3.Instead of rehashing the monk I would instead of made it so it focused on powerful strikes instead of a lot of strikes. I would prefer the ascetic was more the vampire who overcomes his weaknesses and made his temporary bonuses more permanent. Make it so maybe he doesn't get any blood powers and instead gets stat bonuses.

4. I wish they had a section more for NPCs and how to really incorporate them into the world, maybe expound upon the clan system to be more like Vampire: The masquerade. They also should have avoided naming specific people and organizations when they don't have any relevance in most campaigns.

What I really like is how sunlight affects Revenants, it may be a little harsh and I would consider making 3 stage necrosis instead of 2, based on duration exposed to sun. I very much like the idea of losing weaknesses as they level up, But I would prefer they didn't have as many to start with, and they got the sunlight feats instead as they leveled up.

I like how they create new ways for individuals to become a vampire, but I dislike how many ways there are. I dislike how easy it is to become a revenant in some ways and hard it is other ways. In the Revenant section all you need is to do a ritual to nocturne and 100g and you have an 85% chance, or you need to take 7 levels of a prestige class, but with that prestige class you become more of the vampire from the bestiary.

I do like how you can take all sorts of feats to make your vampire more interesting and the blood powers all seem very vampiry, I did like how they balanced them all nicely. Although I dislike needing a feat to learn 7th level blood powers, and having that feat insta-kill you in sunlight.

They never explained aging or death in anyway, as far as I could find. I would prefer them to be a little more immortal than they are presented in this book, going into a hibernation/torpor from lack of blood instead of being instantly destroyed by necrosis after 2 days. They also never explained if you die at -10 or not, but I seem to recall reading something about chopping off the head and anointing it with holy water. But it is very hard to find the specific information in this book.

Either way I take what is there and modify it.
My Ideas: Make it so Revenants don't naturally heal, and give them all an ability that heals x amount of hit points by using blood from their blood pool. I would make the Revenant blood pool increase by HD, in addition to class levels. I would even consider making the blood pool a skill that ranks can be put in, so a Revenant could be a core class or something similar. I also think they should have vulnerability to Fire damage, as vampires are known to have in other media.

I would make them more flexible and less rigid, especially the Ascetic because seriously if I want a vampire monk he will just be a vampire with monk class levels. I honestly think the Revenant warrior is the only one worth playing. I think they need a sort of rogue-talent choice they can make at individual levels to give them some bonuses.

But it is an amazing book, that does something that I cannot find anywhere else. I will be taking a lot from it, and it is free, so it is an amazing value. I really love the feats and blood powers and will build on those. I would pay for a version that first fixed the typos and inconsistencies, had very well designed classes, and considered the possibility of characters not wanting to play the classes in this book.
I will be adding a lot of my own content to this book in my own personal notes, this book deserves popularity, because it is a gem. If there was a larger demand for this kind of book it could be improved and remade, and I would buy it. I already wish there was a forum or wiki somewhere with everyone's take on improving upon it and homebrew classes and the like.

This pdf is 90 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page inside of front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page advertisement,1 page table of contents, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving 83 pages of content.

First of all, let me get something straight: I’m a sucker for vampires. (I know, bad pun…) I love everything about them: From well-written novels to movies to some RPGs to the psychological and sociological theories explaining their prevalence in our cultures, I love them. Unfortunately, a direct consequence of this love is a very specific opinion on what a vampire should be and, more importantly, a very specific idea of what a vampire should NOT be. To cut a long rant short, in my humble opinion, both mainstream D&D and Pathfinder are DOING IT WRONG. I have a very specific idea, possibly influenced by Vampire: The Masquerade (great reading material, although I dislike the system) of rather “European” vampires, not the John-Carpenter-die-by-the-hundreds-kind and so have rigorously enforced a separation between spawns (the latter) and true vampires (with bloodlines, x abilities and frightening foes) and thus did not expect too much from this book.

The aim of Liber Vampyr is, in a nutshell, to make vampires potential player characters.
The pdf kicks off with a comprehensive 2-page introduction to the topic as well as the basic concepts of the vampires, as well as advice for the DM.

One note on the chapters: Each chapter starts with a single page containing a chapter header and artwork. These pages are not included in the number of pages in brackets.

Chapter 1 (17 pages) details three new classes for the so-called revenants, the term used to distinguish the vampires from this book from the standard. The first class is called Revenant Warrior, is a heavy user of vampiric powers and a fighter character. The class has: d10, good BAB, good fort-save, 2+Int skills per level. The second one is the jack-of-all-trades/moderate vampiric powers user/monk, the Revenant Ascetic. The class has: d8, medium BAB, all good saves and 4+Int skills per level as well as a bunch of monk abilities. The third class is the spellcaster of the bunch, the Revenant Mage. The class has d6, bad BAB, good will-save and 2+Int skills per level. The class is a spontaneous CHA-based caster, however, the maximum level of spells he can cast depends on his Int-score. The Revenant Mage is the worst of the three classes, as his gimmick is that he can use blood to add metamagic effects to his spells and his capstone ability is rather lame.

The chapter also features 2 sidebars, one on causes of vampirism, compiling some myths and the second one about alignment. Unfortunately, this hits another pet-peeve of mine: Good vampires? No way. Neutral ones, okay, but I’ll be damned if a good vampire ever sets his damn sparkling foot in any of my campaigns. Sorry. Rant-mode off. The chapter goes on with useful and nice pieces of advice on playing a revenant, how the interact with fellow PCs, the world, religion, etc. The chapter concludes with two sample revenants, both low-level. Another pet-peeve of mine: Vampires should not be low-level wimps, but that happens, I guess, when make them playable.

Chapter 2: Supplemental rules (9 pages) starts off with new appliances of the disguise spell and tables for lore about cruomancy (the vampiric blood powers and magic used by the Revenants) as well as a table on vampire myths.After that, we get 21 new feats for revenants, most are dependent and expand upon blood powers. The chapter closes with so-called a new condition for undead creatures, the so-called Necrosis, a detrimental effect due to being separated from negative energy.

Chapter 3: Prestige Classes (16 pages) features e.g. the Blood Cultist, a mortal that gains bonuses from feeding their vampire master – great for potential roleplaying and,a s all PrCs in this chapter, supplied with extensive information on how to play the class, how to interact with the other PCs and so on. That being said, I think that “Cultist” might be a misnomer here, the class is rather a not-yet-vampiric bride or groom.It sets out what it seeks to do, though. Vampire Disciples are perhaps one of the coolest aspects of the book: Mortals who seek to become vampires via rituals, they follow a set of rituals (portrayed in a separate pdf that is also free and can be downloaded here) that are both flavorful and cool – the journey to vampiric immortality might make for a very compelling series of adventures, ideed. The final class in this chapter is the Vampire Hunter, a foe of the bloodsucking hordes. I did like the class, although I preferred the great fluff of the Vampire Disciples.

Chapter 4: Cruomancy (17 pages): This chapter contains the unique main-innovation of the book, lvl 1-7 blood powers for vampires. The powers, although not spells themselves, are formatted in the true and tried way and this easy to read. We get 44 powers to choose from – although they are not evenly spread for the different levels: There are e.g. only 4 lvl.2 powers, but 8 lvl.3 powers. From supernatural athletics, to mental enslavement, lethal bites, frightening and even lethal visages and animal-related powers, you get what you’d expect from the staple of vampiric abilities.

Chapter 5: Magic (3 pages): This chapter contains 2 pages of new spells and 1 page of new magic items. The spells are quite cool and can be utilized to craft stories around them – e.g. Mirror Travel and Curse of the Great Plague. The 3 magic items are not as cool as the spells, but also have some nice ideas.

Chapter 6: Vampires (14 pages): All of the creatures are presented as complex, modular creatures. The Culled Ones are semi-vampires that are presented as a race/template. The Feral Vampire is a creature defined by its hunger. It’s a cool creature. The Nachzehrer-creature comes with 4 sets of abilities, depending on the number of days the creature couldn’t feed. The Nosferatu is a twisted creature reminiscent of the classic movie of the same name or the Vampire: The Masquerade-clan, but with a plague-twist. Psychic Vampires, so-called Leannashe, get some psionic powers, which I do like, albeit there are as of yet no official PFRPG-psionic rules.

However, I think they could have used a bit more love or in-depth information. After that, we finally get the defining template of the book, the Revenant. Revenant characters get several weaknesses (Mirrors, Garlic, Running Water, Unsettling Aura, Unmistakable Appearance, Sunlight, Stakes) and as a subtype of undead, they don’t get the game-breaking abilities of undead creatures. However, this also means that Revenant NPCs won’t be as strong – a concession to them being intended as playable creatures. The weaknesses, as far as I can tell, serve as a nice way to balance the blood powers and the template can be considered to work.

Conclusion:
The book itself features a nice, but not too printer-friendly parchment-like background, easy to read fonts and the editing is good. Although I spotted some minor glitches like double spaces and one minor typo, they did not detract from my enjoyment of the book. The artwork/photos of hot goth chicks seem to be public domain and were a nice touch, as was the additional file containing the rituals for one of the PrCs. Indeed, the fluff, while not always great, sometimes has its moments of greatness and some of the ideas contained herein will find their way into my games. I have to admit one more thing: I’d rather chop off my hand than let players start the game as vampires in any game that is not especially made with this assumption. I’d consider players becoming vampires at high levels when they have devoted much of their levels to the cause, as in the PrC, though. Be sure to check out the 3-page DM-file Steps of the Sanguine Path for this file, too.

That being said, for me personally, due to all the quirky opinions I have about the subject matter and all the books I have so far amassed on the topic, this is a 3.5-star file. For all the people who want some additional vampire-oomph for their PF-game and for everyone who wants to play a