Essence Vampire

[CrosshairCollie]

If any of you are familiar with the Witchcraft RPG, we're essentially trying to build their model of vampire, which operates by draining essence/lifeforce rather than blood. Details:

1. Vampires do not naturally regenerate Essence; living creatures do. You can kill a living creature by draining all its essence.

2. Vampires burn a little essence just by existing; it also powers their innate abilities, if any. The more powers they use, the more Essence they use, and then the more they have to feed.

3. Essence seems to be tied to emotion; they need their target to be feeling something. Some use pain, or sex, others try to invoke more positive emotions. A vampire in a crowd of people feeling emotions can feed a small amount off each of them and get the 'cumulative effect'.

4. Vampires are susceptible to sunlight, but rather than catching fire, their essence is depleted more rapidly.

 

Thoughts so far:

An Area of Effect Body Transfer, Invisible to Sight and Hearing (probably still visible to Mental), only vs living targets, perhaps Multipowered with a single-target Transfer with similar modifiers. The only catch here, of course, is the Transfer wears off, so its use as a 'healing' power is limited.

 

The sunlight thing is most logically a Susceptibility, but offsetting the Susceptibility with the Transfer looks to be a bit of a trick ...

 

Edit: EPIPHANY! Re-Edit: Never mind, won't work. ><

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Essence Vampire

 

I struggled to build a similar system for the Vampires in my New Dawn campaign, though they drink blood. I wanted Vampires to have a separate Endurance Reserve, (Blood), which kept them 'alive' and fuelled their powers.

 

However, I didn't want to force my Vampires to have an expensive blood drinking power. Particularly because I imagined them as brutal creatures that tore people apart with fangs and claws, then drank the blood that they had spilled.

 

So I built the Endurance Reserve as a Limited Power, Loses 2 End per day, and made its Recovery a Conditional Power, Only works when character is drinking blood.

 

Then I gave all Vampires a Susceptibility - empty Blood Reserve. When they run out of Blood they start dying, also they go berserk.

 

However, I think I have a more appropriate solution for your problem.

 

Why not have two feeding powers? In Hero terms the attack is doing two different things, taking Body from one character while healing another.

 

While it is tempting to use a Transfer, since that is what the character is doing, you then have the problem, as you pointed out, of the stolen Characteristics fading.

 

Instead, you could have a Drain Body, with the conditions and Advantages you described, and a Reduced Endurance, (0), Healing END and/or Body, which is Linked to the Drain.

 

If the target survives then they will recover in exactly the same way as if their Characteristics had been stolen by a Transfer. The Vampire, however, will not lose their stolen life until they 'burn' it by using powers or just by living.

 

If you are set on using Transfer then you could turn the fade rate to your advantage. Say it costs 2 END or 1 Body per day to keep an Essence Vampire alive, you could build the Tranfer with a Delayed Return Rate, (Points Gained) - Returns at a rate of 2 points per day. That Return Rate would sit somewhere between 5 per day and 5 per week. So I'd make it a +1 3/4 Advantage.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Essence Vampire

 

The Susceptibility to sunlight is just that, a separate Disadvantage/Complication that damages the Vampire. I see no problem with defining the damage as End Damage if that is how you are going to build a Vampire's Essence as End. If a Vampire's Essence is measured in Body then sunlight damages it just like any other attack. So the Vampire takes damage and then heals itself with a Transfer or Drain/Heal.

 

If the Essence Vampire's ability to feed is affected by sunlight then give its feeding power/s a Window of Opportunity Disadvantage or a Limited Power - weakened by sunlight Disadvantage.

 

Is any of this helping?

[Vondy]

Re: Essence Vampire

 

I would probably use Life Force Transfer (Powers-302) as the baseline for the Essence Transfer. A few mods to tweak it just so and it would be complete.