SteelStar
Senior Systems Designer
Hello, everyone! We're here with your first look at the Dhampir player race.
For those unfamiliar, Dhampir are characters with innate connections to death and undeath. Many are half-Vampires one way or another, and have a life-draining bite. So without further ado, let's take a look at DDO's Dhampir!
Starting Features:
Racial Past Life: Dhampir:
Frequently Asked Questions:
Preview 1 Known Issues:
For those unfamiliar, Dhampir are characters with innate connections to death and undeath. Many are half-Vampires one way or another, and have a life-draining bite. So without further ado, let's take a look at DDO's Dhampir!
Starting Features:
- +2 Strength
- Do not need to breathe while underwater
- Feat: Vampiric Bite
- Single Target Action: You bite target creature at touch range, dealing 1d4 Piercing Damage per Character Level. This scales with 200% Melee or Ranged Power (though is not a weapon attack and cannot crit). If that creature is a living and corporeal creature, you heal for 10 + (Heroic Character Level x Constitution Modifier) number of Hit Points from Positive energy. You may use this twice per Rest. (6 second cooldown).
- Cores
- Vampirism: +1 use of Vampiric Bite per rest.
- +1 STR/CON/CHA
- Vampirism: +1 use of Vampiric Bite per rest.
- +1 STR/CON/CHA
- Vampirism: +1 use of Vampiric Bite per rest.
- Tier 1
- Draining Bite: Your Vampiric Bite now applies 1 Negative Level. This increases by 1 for every 5 Character Levels you have.
- Skills: +1/2/3 to Hide, Move Silently, and Jump
- Energy (Multiselector):
- Drink in Life: +20 Positive Amplification
- Drink in Death: +20 Negative Amplification
- Tenuous Relationship With Death: Your range of unconsciousness extends by 5/10/20 Hit Points. Rank 3: You automatically stabilize when Unconscious (like Warforged do).
- Innate Protection: +1/2/3 to Saves vs Spells
- Tier 2
- Lifeblood: When you successfully use your Vampiric Bite on a living target in corporeal form, you gain +1/2/3 to all Ability Scores for 60 seconds.
- Dominate Animal SLA: As per the spell. SP cost: 0, 30 second cooldown, DC (15 + Highest of INT/WIS/CHA Mod + Enchantment Bonuses)
- Embrace Death: Toggle: While Embrace Death is active, you gain 100% critical hit resistance and are able to be healed by Negative Energy. You take 50% healing from Positive, and double damage from Light. (This replaces your natural vulnerability to Light). You are considered Undead rather than your original type for the purposes of most effects. You gain +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, +2 Wisdom, and +3 Perform. Your melee attacks have a 10% chance to heal you for 1d3 with Negative Energy per Character level (max 20). This is a Major Form, and counts as Vampire Form for the purpose of Pale Master.
- Rush of Bats: Turn into a swarm of bats and rush to target foe's position. [36/24/12] second cooldown. (This shares a cooldown with similar rushes, such as Vanguard's Shield Rush).
- Cloak of Undeath: +2/+4/+6 MRR. Rank 3: +6 MRR Cap.
- Tier 3
- Fearsome Countenance: Target enemy in Melee range must save or be Cowered (Will save vs. DC 10 + Highest of STR/CON/CHA Mod + Stunning bonuses + Enchantment DC Bonuses ) for 6 seconds. This is considered a Fear effect. On Save: -10% Movement and Attack Speed for 6 seconds. 12 second cooldown.
- Stunning Visage: +2/3/4 to Stun DCs.
- Deathly Bite: When you are considered Undead (via Embrace Death or any other source), your Vampiric Bite heals you for Negative energy instead of Positive.
- Harrying Swarm: Enemies in a small area around where you finish your Rush of Bats take -5% Dodge and -5 Attack for 12 seconds.
- Improved Dodge: +1%/+2%/+3% Dodge when wearing light or no armor.
- Tier 4
- Ascendant Bite: Your Vampiric Bite now applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability and deals double the Piercing damage. If the target of your Vampiric Bite is Cowered, living and corporeal they must make a Fortitude Saving Throw (DC 16 + Highest of STR/CON/CHA Mod + Stunning Bonuses + Enchantment Bonuses) or die.
- Vampiric Persuasion: +1/2/3 Enchantment DCs
- Dominate Person SLA: As per the spell. SP cost: 0, 30 second cooldown, DC (15 + Highest of INT/WIS/CHA Mod + Enchantment Bonuses)
- Biting Swarm: Living, corporeal enemies in a small area around where you finish your Rush of Bats are bitten by the bats, causing them to bleed, taking 1d6 damage per Character Level every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. This damage scales with 200% Melee Power.
- (Intentionally Blank)
Racial Past Life: Dhampir:
- 1st: +1 Hide
- 2nd: +1 Strength
- 3rd: +1 Racial Action Point
Frequently Asked Questions:
- Why are Dhampir a Strength race (instead of DEX, CON, INT, or CHA)?
- There's a lot of ways to interpret what a Dhampir is (and Vampires in general) - Relative to a Human, they're stronger and faster, but also possibly smarter, more charismatic, and better with magic. We decided to keep some of the magical leanings for the Iconic - more on that later - and make the base race a little more well-rounded instead. Dexterity was a consideration, but in the last few years, we've added Shifters (+2 Dex), Tabaxi (+2 Dex), and Eladrin (you guessed it, +2 Dex), so we decided not to go that route. There's been a lot of demand for more Strength-based races, and D&D has relatively few of those overall, so we decided to lean into Vampiric Strength, not diminish any of the other ability scores, and give some flexibility within the ability scores and DCs.
- Do DDO's Dhampir experience recurring hunger, like Dhampir in pen and paper?
- By lore, yes. We explored doing something like this mechanically, where you HAD to land Vampiric Bites on living creatures regularly to satisfy hunger, but in the end it just felt like homework. We didn't want to end up hamstringing you with hunger debuffs whenever you're in a dungeon that's all constructs or earth elementals, so we kept it to "the bite doesn't heal you on those creature types", as we feel it leads to a less punishing and more fun game experience.
- Do I HAVE to be undead?
- No. By default, Dhampir aren't. You can decide to skip Embrace Death entirely, and still benefit from almost everything Dhampir have to offer.
- Why aren't the Bite and Rush of Bats melee attacks?
- We wanted to make sure players using Dhampir as ranged-weapon-users could still bite and rush. And that casters didn't need to worry about melee stats to land their bites and rushes. With the setup here, you should be able to to benefit from these regardless of build.
- What about the Iconic?
- It's called the Dark Bargainer.
- It starts with one level of Warlock.
- Instead of +2 Strength, it gets +1 Intelligence and +1 Charisma.
- It's currently targeted for next Preview, more info will be coming then!
Preview 1 Known Issues:
- Paths in Chargen aren't consistently working yet, and may throw errors if you attempt to use them. Choosing "Custom" should work fine.
- Fearsome Countenance isn't enforcing its range properly in this build.
- Vampiric Bite is meant to start with 2 charges, but is only granting 1 in this build.
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