Monster advancement class for a Werebear vampire

[cartmanbeck]

Hey guys,
So last night I came across a post on reddit where a DM was asking how to allow one of his players to play a werebear vampire. Apparently this player would ONLY play if that's what he got to play as. Anyway, I wrote up the following, and then was upset to find out that they are playing 4E (ARGH WHY????) so I thought instead of it being a total waste, I'd get opinions on it here.

You're going to have to create a Monster class for him that will let him ease into the abilities of a werebear vampire at the same pace that the other characters are gaining class levels. Both of these templates are extremely powerful, so he's probably not ever going to have the full powers of either one.

Here's what I would suggest:

-Give him d8 hit dice at each level and 4 + Int skill points per level
-Starting racial ability modifiers: +2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Cha
-(It's important to note that since the creature is undead, bonus hit points are based on the Cha modifier. There is no Con score)

Lvl BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 +0 +2 +0 +2 Change Shape (Bear +2 Str or Hybrid +2 Cha), Curse of Lycanthropy, Vampire Weaknesses, Blood drain, Low-light vision, Undead traits, Shadowless
2 +1 +3 +0 +3 Fast Healing 1, Bite attack (normal or hybrid), DR 1/Magic and silver
3 +2 +3 +1 +3 Scent, Spider climb (1/day), Natural Armor +2, +2 on skills (bluff, perception, sense motive, stealth)
4 +3 +4 +1 +4 DR 2/Magic and silver, Claws (hybrid form), +2 Str
5 +3 +4 +1 +4 Lycanthropic empathy (bears), Spider climb (2/day), +4 on skills, Resist Cold and Electric 5
6 +4 +5 +2 +5 DR 3/Magic and silver, Fast healing 2, Grab (hybrid form), +2 Dex, Fast Healing 2
7 +5 +5 +2 +5 Spider climb (3/day), +6 on skills, Change shape (+2 Str and Cha)
8 +6/+1 +6 +2 +6 DR 4/Magic and silver, Gaseous form (1/day), Slam (normal form only, Energy drain 1 level)
9 +6/+1 +6 +3 +6 Spider climb (4/day), +8 on skills, +2 Str and Cha
10 +7/+2 +7 +3 +7 DR 5/Magic and silver, Gaseous form (2/day), Resist cold and electric 10, Fast healing 3

Notes on Change Shape:
-At first level, he'd have the ability to turn into a bear and get all of the bear's natural attacks but not use any weapons, or turn into a hybrid (in this case the equivalent of entering rage) and get some extra hit points since his Cha goes up.
-At level 2, he gains a bite attack in his hybrid form, which is treated as a secondary natural attack and can afflict lycanthropy.
-At level 4, he gains two claw attacks in his hybrid form, which are treated as primary natural attacks.
-At level 7 he'd get +2 to both Str and Cha in either shape, and would gain the Grab ability in his hybrid form.

Notes on Vampire abilities:
-For Spider climb and Gaseous form, his caster level should be half his character level.
-Starting at level 3, he'd start using Spider climb as a spell like ability.
-At level 8, he would gain the vampire slam attack when in normal (vampire) form, and this would let him deal 1 level drain to enemies. He'd also start using Gaseous Form as a spell-like ability.

At this point (level 10) you could probably let the player start taking class levels as normal. He ought to be fairly evenly matched with a 10th level character.

Note that all of this was done on the fly, and you might find that you need to give him more or less of his abilities as you're going along, based on the level of power he's at. I don't think you should ever let him get the full abilities of either a vampire or a werebear (tell him that having both afflictions sort of cancel each other out a little, since one person's body was never made to handle both)

[cartmanbeck]

cartmanbeck wrote:

Hey guys,

So last night I came across a post on reddit where a DM was asking how to allow one of his players to play a werebear vampire. Apparently this player would ONLY play if that's what he got to play as. Anyway, I wrote up the following, and then was upset to find out that they are playing 4E (ARGH WHY????) so I thought instead of it being a total waste, I'd get opinions on it here.

You're going to have to create a Monster class for him that will let him ease into the abilities of a werebear vampire at the same pace that the other characters are gaining class levels. Both of these templates are extremely powerful, so he's probably not ever going to have the full powers of either one.

Here's what I would suggest:

-Give him d8 hit dice at each level and 4 + Int skill points per level
-Starting racial ability modifiers: +2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Cha
-(It's important to note that since the creature is undead, bonus hit points are based on the Cha modifier. There is no Con score)

Lvl BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 +0 +2 +0 +2 Change Shape (Bear +2 Str or Hybrid +2 Cha), Curse of Lycanthropy, Vampire Weaknesses, Blood drain, Low-light vision, Undead traits, Shadowless
2 +1 +3 +0 +3 Fast Healing 1, Bite attack (normal or hybrid), DR 1/Magic and silver
3 +2 +3 +1 +3 Scent, Spider climb (1/day), Natural Armor +2, +2 on skills (bluff, perception, sense motive, stealth)
4 +3 +4 +1 +4 DR 2/Magic and silver, Claws (hybrid form), +2 Str
5 +3 +4 +1 +4 Lycanthropic empathy (bears), Spider climb (2/day), +4 on skills, Resist Cold and Electric 5
6 +4 +5 +2 +5 DR 3/Magic and silver, Fast healing 2, Grab (hybrid form), +2 Dex, Fast Healing 2
7 +5 +5 +2 +5 Spider climb (3/day), +6 on skills, Change shape (+2 Str and Cha)
8 +6/+1 +6 +2 +6 DR 4/Magic and silver, Gaseous form (1/day), Slam (normal form only, Energy drain 1 level)
9 +6/+1 +6 +3 +6 Spider climb (4/day), +8 on skills, +2 Str and Cha
10 +7/+2 +7 +3 +7 DR 5/Magic and silver, Gaseous form (2/day), Resist cold and electric 10, Fast healing 3

Notes on...

Forgot to put in Darkvision 60 at level 4, and Darkvision 120 at level 9