Grafsburg wrote:I'm sending the party in my game from Florida to Mexico, mainly because of all the places in RIFTS America I've never really been in any games set in Mexico. The biggest thing is that I want to power down vampires a bit, just to make things a little bit easier for them (since it seems to be the general consensus in my group that vampires are way overpowered. Personally I think they have plenty of ridiculously easy weaknesses to exploit, but c'est la vie).
My question is this. How can I power down vampires and keep them as a threat, but not quite as bad as they are out of the book?
Here are some ideas to use, discard, mix and match, or inspire:
1. The easiest way would be to turn their Hit Points into MDC, and get rid of their invulnerability. Silver, wood, etc. still hurts them, but the normal SDC damage turns to mega-damage instead.
If they're TOO weak, then, maybe double their MDC and see how it works.
2. Allow laser to count as sunlight attacks.
3. Allow fire to count as sunlight attacks.
4. Reduce their regeneration abilities, or negate them entirely except for something like having them heal completely every day while they're asleep. Or maybe they only heal when they're feeding.
5. Get rid of their supernatural PS.
6. Drop their Super Hypnotic Suggestion, either entirely, or replacing it with normal Hypnotic Suggestion.
7. Make them sparkle.
8. Give them the OCD that they have in some legends, where they have to stop to count scattered seeds and/or untie knots.
9. Give them the mythological vulnerability of having to be invited to come inside a home.
10. Have them spend 1 attack every melee brooding about their love life.
11. Remove the bit about having to burn the bodies, and have decapitation alone kill them.
12. Nix their summoning abilities.
13. Get rid of Vampire Intelligences.
14. Get rid of Master Vampires.
15. Get rid of Secondary Vampires.
Or you could go another route entirely, and replace the Palladium vampires with something else.
Or just have your party fight something else instead.
I sent a party of new players up against something that they
thought were vampires, but were really just a random critter I rolled up from the back of the Rifts book.
It was something like...
+2 init
4 attacks per melee
+1 strike
2d4x10 MDC
IQ 8
PS 20
Speed 5d6+6
Horror Factor: 9
PPE: 20
7' tall humanoid, but clearly not human, though it might be mistaken for something that once was human.
Clawed Hands: 1d6 MD
Bite: 2d6 MD
Prowl 54%+4%/level
Nightvision: 4000'
Powers: Breathe Without Air (which they use by burrowing under the earth or sand during the day in order to sleep, sometimes erupting out of the ground to ambush people walking overhead), and Life Drain
Feeds On: Human Blood (special effects being that they just have to touch the blood with any part of their body, and the blood gets absorbed instantly)
Weakness: Energy (consequently, they avoid sunlight, as they find it unpleasant)