I have a player who discovered the Agent of the Grave prestige class and now wants to have a vampire cohort by the time he hits level 12 so he can transition into being a full vampire.
Since the Vampire template is a +2 template, I'm thinking just apply an additional -2 penalty to the cohort's level and call it a day.
This means the cohort's HD needs to be 4 levels lower than his (The PC's) level to compensate for the template effectively stealing two class levels.
For example, if Billy AotG wants to become a vampire, he has to wait until at least level 9, since his cohort will need at least the required HD to qualify for the Vampire template (5HD). This is because the cohort is already two levels lower than him, so level 7 to a level 9 character, but the +2 template will reduce it further to level 5.
So, in effect, the effective cohort level would be 7, but the cohort would only have 5 class levels.
Does this make any sense, or am I heading off into the obscure nether.
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Yeah... I would be leery about this as well. Some thoughts:
Is a cohort actually necessary? By the time he's mastered the Whispering Way, it won't matter who turns him into a vampire - he's free-willed no matter what. So if you are willing to let him pursue this path, you could drop hints about a vampire they might encounter. One vampire in the party is better than two (for the price of one).
Read the template carefully and make sure you are comfortable with that in the party (cohort or otherwise). It's complex, extremely powerful, and almost impossible to kill (without basically dropping rocks on the PC).
Make sure the other players will be OK with this twist as well. If it's not the vilest sort of evil campaign, I could see this causing a lot of problems.
Any thoughts?
Yeah... I would be leery about this as well. Some thoughts:
Is a cohort actually necessary? By the time he's mastered the Whispering Way, it won't matter who turns him into a vampire - he's free-willed no matter what. So if you are willing to let him pursue this path, you could drop hints about a vampire they might encounter. One vampire in the party is better than two (for the price of one).
Read the template carefully and make sure you are comfortable with that in the party (cohort or otherwise). It's complex, extremely powerful, and almost impossible to kill (without basically dropping rocks on the PC).
Make sure the other players will be OK with this twist as well. If it's not the vilest sort of evil campaign, I could see this causing a lot of problems.
Any thoughts?
We're doing Kingmaker+, which is our shorthand for extra side missions in addition to Kingmaker. Luckily our Paladin died screaming to the end boss of Kingmaker 2, so his class isn't an issue anymore.
He might just make another Paladin (ugh), but I've advised the person making the character to get a ring of non-detection and be a god of lying. He might have to leave his army behind or keep them in a bag of holding, but I still find the idea of the Paladin getting knocked unconscious and the AotD turning his bag of holding inside out to dump an army onto the battlefield. We're level 7 now, so he should be able to afford more or less everything he needs to become a chameleon. From the sound of it, he is dumping CON to get Int and Cha stupidly high, so it should be interesting. He will either die before taking levels in Agent of the Grave or become powerful.
Kingmaker+ exists outside of Kingmaker, so it is a side area where people can make experimental builds, play, have fun and contribute to Kingmaker by completing adventures. To this extent it is more or less running modules, and class restrictions is irrelevant for the most part, E.G. the Paladin doesn't have to work with the super necromancer, but instead he uses a different character on the side adventures.
Yeah...vampires might not actually like the whispering way. There is in setting friction.
The whispering way has a belief that all life should be made into unlife. That is problematic for a race that feeds on the living.
And it is not hard to have members of the whispering way look down upon vampires. The highest pinacle of the whispering way's beliefs is in becoming a lich.
A lich is born from a powerful master grabbing eternity with their own hands. It promises near invulnerability to those who are intelligent and prepare safeguards.
In comparison, vampires can be anyone with a bit of power (5hd). No matter what kind of fool they are. It preserves youth and beauty seen in those disgusting mortals. It is easy path...which means it comes with major disadvantages- a whole array of weaknesses (most notably the whole 'can't going into daylight' thing, in a world where daylight is highly present).
Overall...some members of the whispering way...might find vampires to be stupid posers.
Well, if you are fine with the, theoretically, 56 skeletons, 28 vampire spawn, 23 followers (I am assuming a leadership of 15, maybe it is higher) and the cohort, then what you have suggested works fine for this. I will just say, 100 additional bodies on the battle field will get bothersome, for you and the other players.
I am going to assume that all of the skeletons are going to be Bloody Skeletons since it is more or less impossible to shove Burning skeletons into a bag of holding, so they are more or less going to be meat shields.
What I am thinking is simplifying the minion attacks down to roll 1d6 per minion attacking if the minion has to crit to hit. If you roll a 5 or a 6, roll again, if you then get a 4, 5 or 6, you hit! This will make it into finding out how many attacks are being made, rolling those, then confirming the ones that do hit as hits. These minions will not be able to actually crit just to push things along.If the monsters have DR higher than the minions could deal damage, then they minions do not get attack rolls. Same rules apply on grapple checks if success only happens on a 20.
Same rules apply for Vampire Spawn, since they will eventually become bodies to block the enemy. I assume this will eventually boil down to, "Billy, it is your turn!" *Billy moves all of his minions, rolls 36d6 since he naturally gave all of his skeletons shortsbows, confirms 5 and 6s, then does his own actions.*
I think of it similar to a Rigger in Shadowrun, but where the skeletons can be made more or less for free with blood money.
If this becomes too cumbersome I'll make him create "elite" skeletons that are at the maximum HD he can create.
If you're worried about Vampire Minions + Leadership Minions getting out of hand, just rule that all the Vampire Minions count toward his Leadership Minions. That way you're not adding them.
Since he only got the vampire from taking Leadership, this isn't hampering him, it's letting him use the Leadership feat to make himself a vampire (Which I'm pretty sure wasn't the intention of the feat, you're doing him a favour simply allowing this).
Basically this means he's using Leadership as the flavour feat for his vampire character.
I'd be sure to really read up on everything a vampire can do (and make sure it's not gonna break the game), and I'd probably make sure it's not gonna piss off anyone else at the table, but once you've done that I don't really see a problem with it.
I'd probably also try to nerf the idea of putting your army in a bag of holding, but that's just me, depends on the feel of the game you're playing (A bag of holding is extra-dimensional space after all, maybe your power to animate them doesn't extend across the dimensional threshold? Depends if that's something you'd care about.)
NPCs are controlled by the GM. Let the character have a vampire follower (sunlight, good clerics, paladins, all kinds of stuff will kill it)-ABSOLUTELY DO NOT GIVE HIM/HER A FREE +2 LEVEL VAMPIRE TEMPLATE!
Unless played out in game... and then, they have to play with the template and not level as the other members of the party catch up.
No free levels.
It isn't fair.
Being a vampire is cool though, if you never want to go outside in the sun again.
Also, if the NPC makes him/her a vampire, they become the master, TONS OF FUN!!!
And then you get to him becoming a vampire... let's be blunt. That's one of the strongest templates in the game, hands-down. You're going to have to consider the rest of your party very, very carefully before you do it. As a GM I wouldn't even consider it unless the rest of them were getting similar boosts.
Let me emphasize this point.
The vampire template is probably under CR'd when the vampire is sitting in a crypt next to their box doing nothing. When you are actually using their strengths (like the fact that you have an at will minion maker), the template is effectively +X, where X is limited only by imagination, alignment and the population of humanoids accessible to the vampire.
Nothing stops your vampire PC from dominating an entire town(nobody can detect him using the Su ability, so he can just walk around for a night smacking people with dominate for later use. The PC constantly receives telepathic information from the secretly dominated thralls(see the dominate person rules text).
The template is horrifically gamebreaking if used with a reasonable level of intelligence. The PC really should not get access to it.