**Submortimer, my very favorite homebrewer, made this. He's amazing. Click anywhere on this comment to check out his other material**
The Blood
Vampires, by common folk, are known as the absolute masters of the night. They are powerful, violent, and terrifying beyond measure. Despite that, one of the defining traits of the master vampire is his unfailing ability to draw others to him, to bind them to his service, and to subjugate them with his awe.
Warlocks who take the Blood Pact seek to gain a measure of a master vampire's incredible strength, intimidating presence, and immortal stamina. They desire to become true masters of the night, and, eventually, vampires in their own right.
The Blood Expanded Spells
| Spell Level | Spells |
| 1st | fog cloud, inflict wounds |
| 2nd | alter self, spider climb |
| 3rd | conjure animals, haste |
| 4th | dominate beast, greater invisibility |
| 5th | dominate person, geas |
Bloodthirst
At 1st level, you grow a sharp pair of retractable fangs, and gain a powerful thirst for blood. After reducing an enemy to 0 HP, you can use your bonus action to regain a number of HP equal to your Charisma modifier + your warlock level.
Alluring Presence
At 6th level, your eyes turn a bright shade of red, and you learn to melt your opponent's willpower with but a stare. As an action, choose a creature within 30 feet that you can see to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is charmed or frightened by you (your choice). This effect ends once the creature can no longer see you, is further than 60 feet from you, or takes damage.
A creature that successfully saves against this effect cannot be affected by it again for 24 hours.
Immortal Fortitude
At 10th level, your skin (and possibly your hair) toughens and takes on an unearthly hue (porcelain white, jet black, emerald green, etc.), and your aging seems to stop altogether. When you finish a short rest, select two damage types from the following: bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. You gain resistance to these two damage types until you take a short or long rest. This resistance does not affect damage from magical or silver weapons.
Additionally, you no longer age, do not suffer the effects of old age, cannot be magically aged, and cannot die from old age.
Child of the Night
At 14th level, you gain the ability to change your form like that of your master. As an action, you can Wild Shape (as the druid class feature) into the form of a wolf, a bat, or a rat. Alternatively, you can take the form of a swarm of bats, a swarm of rats, or a dire wolf. If you take one of these forms, you must take a short or long rest before you can use one of those forms again.
New Pact Boon
Your otherworldly patron bestows a gift upon you for your loyal service.
Pact of the Skin
You give themselves over completely to your patron, taking on greater aspects of your benefactor in exchange for more power. Your skin changes to reflect this, changing form and becoming more resistant to damage. When you take bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage from a nonmagical weapon that isn't silvered, you can subtract 3 from the damage taken.
New Eldritch Invocations
If an eldritch invocation has prerequisites, you must meet them to learn it. You can learn the invocation at the same time that you meet its prerequisites.
Monsterous Claws
Monsterous Claws
Prerequisite: 5th level, Pact of the Skin feature
You can grow a pair of wickedly sharp claws. The damage die of your unarmed strikes increases to 1d6, you can choose to deal either bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage with your unarmed strikes. Your unarmed strikes are considered magical for the purposes of overcoming damage resistance or immunity.
Additionally, when you use the Attack action to make an unarmed strike, you can attack twice instead of once.
Monsterous Carapace
Prerequisite: Level 11, Pact of the Skin feature
Your already tough form becomes almost impenetrable. When you take bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage from a nonmagical weapon that isn't silvered, you can subtract 3 + your Charisma modifier from the damage taken.
Monsterous Wings
Prerequisite: 15th level, Pact of the Skin feature
You grow a pair of wings, gaining a flight speed equal to your normal movement speed.
Changelog: 1/5/16: Expanded Spells: polymorph replaced with greater invisibility
10/08/16: Expanded spells: Replaced Melfs minute meteors with haste and immolation with geas. Minor style edits.
10/20/16: added Pact of the Skin and associated invocations
I like it a lot, though I do question the presence of Melf's Minute Meteors and Immolation on the spell list.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I questioned it at first too, but granting interesting spells which the warlock doesn't already have on his list is hard, so I deferred to Submoritmer on this one.
DeleteSubmortimer here. This was designed to emulate Dracula/Alucard from the Castlevania series of games. The powers make a little more sense when you consider that.
DeleteI think that the form of a cloud of mist should be added to the child of the night feature.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting thought. I think granting Gaseous Form as a spell on the spell list might be less intrusive. -- Scratch that; warlocks already can cast gaseous form. It would be kinda redundant to grant it again.
Deletebloodthirst as it is giving you fangs and u must perform a bonus action to gain hitpoints whats the range on that?
ReplyDeletebloodthirst looks really overpowered, is it just me?
ReplyDeleteIt's exceptionally similar to the Fiend Patron ability Dark One's Blessing. The difference is that Bloodthirst requires a bonus action to activate, but actually recovers hit points, rather than giving temp hp. I think its about right.
DeleteIt can indeed be done at range. Finger is correct in that the ability to heal is balanced against action economy.
DeleteYou said that gaseous form is one of there spells so it would be redundant to add it to child of the night, however they get polymorph which is a much better version of child of the night and therefor makes the entire feature redundant. I do like the feature but i feel it needs some more to it to make it a worth while option.
ReplyDeleteRemember, polymorph takes a spell slot, and your concentration. Child of night does neither of those things, and you have the ability to change into two different types of swarms. Additionally, the wolf/bat/rat forms are at will, all the time.
DeleteOkay, I totally love this. I've looked at it, considered the comments and whatnot. And - dude, spot on with a side of awesome sauce.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently struggling with creating a full vampire class loosely using the warlock structure, so seeing this is has me cheering because it is full of awesome, and clawing at the sky because someone beat me to the punch creating a vampire option I really dig.
I'll keep trying at my own thing, but I had to give two thumbs up for this one. Excellent work, Submortimer.
Thank you, much appreciated!
DeleteHi, I was wondering if you'd take a gander at building Daggerspell Shaper by any chance. Thank you, keep up your amazing work!
ReplyDeleteThe wording feels slightly ambiguous to me; does use the Children of the Night feature get restricted to once-per-short-rest-per-form, or once per short rest?
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, this isn't abundantly clear. The syntax indicates that only the latter, more powerful forms require a short rest after use. The earlier forms have no cooldown.
DeleteThis is correct. The more powerful forms require a rest between uses, the others do not.
DeleteI'm unsure if adding polymorph to the expanded spell list is a good idea, since being able to cast that multiple times per short rest is to powerful, hence the existence of the Sculptor of Flesh invocation. It's also seemingly redundant since you get the Child of The Night ability, which I think is balanced, since the options are sub-optimal but still viable. I would suggest the following fourth levels in the place of polymorph; compulsion, confusion greater invisibility, and phantasmal killer.
ReplyDeleteAwesome work! I didn't pay super close attention to that particular spell choice, but you make an excellent argument and have great suggestions. I'll use greater invisibility in its place, as there's already a transmutation spell at 4th level.
DeleteDoes the damage reduction from Pact of the skin stack with Monstrous Carapace?
ReplyDeleteThe first level feature is RIDICULOUSLY overpowered. Bring a bag of rats, and you have instant healing. You need to install a cap on the uses.
ReplyDeleteThis is an older homebrew but in Child of the night it specifies for the at will transformation it functions as a druid wild shape. Dose that mean you still continue to keep concentration on spells and class features that would be applicable to that form?
ReplyDelete