With the Vampire ability cost weakness they should remove d&d garbage reintroduced in Tes 5.

TheShadowScout

Thevampirenight wrote: »

...though they are considered to be undead they in a strict technical sense are not.

Sez who?
Actually, that is not supposed to be a quib, that is the crux of the matter. As in: By -whose- definitions of what counts as "undead"?

Are they undead like zombies, rotting corpses still moving around? Nope.
But in some other definitions... they might be considered undead. So, yeah.

Classically, vampires have always been smack in the "undead, bring stakes and torches" category up to the 19th, 20th century or so. At that point people were so much into science, they started thinking about stories with a scientific explaination to "mystic" things, hence the "Frankenstein" novel with a new take on zombies (because that is what the monster actually is, a patchwork zombie made by mad science...). And eventually, that spawned new takes on vampires, be it stories where a blood transfusion can turn a freshly made vampire back into a mortral human, or right up to sparkly century-old vampires going after teenage girls in a way far to reminiscent of things that would draw the FBIs interest in a very bad way... ( )

All in all, one could argue that vampires have always been somewhere a little "in-between" on the undead scale, depending on the background from "mortals with a rare disease" to "animated corpses" - heck, I can recall at -least- one background where they were both! (living vampires that still aged, had a soul and all the mortal frailties, but needed to drink blood as well as eat to survive, yet turned "undead vampires" automatically upon death)

And in ESO... they are as they are, some see them as undead monsters, other as tragic cursed figures, some wish to exterminate them, others think they might have as much right to live as any as long as they don't snack on their neighbors without permission... etc. Yet at their core... they are what the developers want them to be, and if they call them "undead", then that's the bottom line.

Thevampirenight wrote: »

This one of the most powerful and feared of all the undead.

Powerful? Yeah, well, depending on what undead you compare them with... vampires generally have a pretty wide range of power from the easily staked fledgling to the endboss elder vamp...

Though the fear factor of vampies was never exactly their power, as many other undead are more devastating... but the fact that they are not mindless monsters, but -smart- about it, and worse, able to use guile and deception, and to pass for mortal and infiltrate human society (more or less, depending on the vampire story in question...) Whereas the other powerful undead usually kept to themselves (arch-liches, mummy lords, death knights) and haunted someplace (the occasional undead army invasion aside), vampires hid right among the people, and preyed on them too... that is more scary then some dire threat that only strikes down those foolish enough to enter their tomb/castle/tower/whatever, right?

Thevampirenight wrote: »

That they went with in Morrowind and Oblivion.

Different vampirism strains have different effects, and ZOS gets to say what effects THIS strain has.
And that is all there is to it.

Thevampirenight wrote: »

I would love to see vampires go back to that and getting rid of the d&d crap brought back in Tes Skyrim for a vampire clan that could drown and freeze to death...

Well, actually that might make a lot of sense for vampires.
Especially the freezing... I mean, they sustain themselves on blood, are usually full of blood to remain lively (if not exactly "living"), but blood freezes in the cold, and in doing so expands which in turn does damage to the body...

Drowning... well... may or may not make sense. Though while traditionally vampires did not exactly "drown" they DID have their own "issues" with... Running Water! So it might be just the same mechanic for a different cause, right?

Thevampirenight wrote: »

vampires are able to bleed to death

Makes even more sense.
If they need blood to survive, then letting all their stolen blood spill out would certainly put a crimp in their survival expectency, right?

Thevampirenight wrote: »

So what I want to see is fighters guild abilties not effecting them if they are going to have this ability cost weakness and also want to see them being immune to Prismatic enchantments the reason for this because of the unique sunlight effect immunity they have it does not make sense those work. They should make Prismatic target True Undead and True Daedric beings. Not false Undead and Lycanthropes anyways.

Well, that is truly a question for the powers that be.
Lorewise it could go either way, depending on the yet unstated details as to what and how those abilities and enchants work:
- Do they do extra damage because they are silver/sunlight infused or something like that, then it could be argued that player vampires might be an exception due to their unique bloodline.
- If they do extra damage due to some divine (or daedric) blessing... then it depends on the nature of the aedra or daedra behind the blessing, do they want to make an exception or not? Most likely not, the ones most likely to be involved are Arkey and Meridia, who both hate all vampires, no matter what bloodline...
- Or is it some purely magical enchantment, then it is the question of how the spell might trigger - do player vampires fulfill the "trigger conditions" or not, did the ones who crafted the spell make it to include them or not? Most likely they did as few non vampires bother with actually making distinctions... especially not the ones who might crafdt anti-vampire spells.

All in all, I expect its likely a futile wish.
Best you could plausibly get that IF the powers that be see a -great- imbalance in PvP due to those abilities/enchantments, they might nerf the effect against player vamps somewhat (there is precedence for that, soem CC abilities also affect NPCs stronger then players!)

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Vampires have heartbeats...

...and that may be why stakes work against them!
Also, in most backgrounds vampires traditionally do NOT usually have a heartbeat as their stolen blood flows through then animated by their "vampire blood magics" or something, but CAN fake one by expending a little blood, all the better to pass for mortal.

Bradyfjord

I haven't played Dungeons and Dragons since 2nd edition. I feel that the later editions watered down everything.

Second edition (and earlier versions of DnD) had a distinction between free-willed undead, and non-intelligent undead.

Skeletons and zombies are examples of common non-intelligent undead, and are often used as minions by a lot of characters both good and bad (mostly villains). All undead, to lesser or greater degree, are fueled by the negative material plane, which is a plane of existence devoted to entropy and death.

What made vampires interesting to me back then is that they are often made against their will, and though intelligent have no free will of their own after creation because they must serve their vampire lord that made them. There are various ways a vampire can become 'free', but that is not what is important here.

The process of becoming an vampire is for a vampire to use their negative energy to kill a character (usually level drain). The character, even player characters, could die and become a vampire. Thus vampires are undead because they have died, and touch the negative material plane which fuels their existence.

The fact is, vampires and other intelligent undead are very different from each other and the mindless undead that are used as shock troops for necromancers. Vampires in 2nd edition were some of the most powerful enemies you would meet, and they usually had numbers (the lord, his servant vamps, and other minions) and were organized.

TL;DR: ESO is not DnD. But, it is similar enough to conclude that even though vampires are very different from zombies and skeletons, they are undead because they are dead and yet think and move about as if alive. And worse, they sometimes spread their curse to others, and prevent these souls from reaching their proper afterlife.

Zardayne

You lost me at "D&D crap"..

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Infectious1X wrote: »

Gotta love the whole “vamps aren’t dead because they drown or freeze” argument when Volkihar vampires are known for quite literally waiting in frozen lakes, waiting to grab unsuspecting victims from beneath the ice...

That is why I think its so funny and Bethesda allowed that to effect them in their official creation.
If I was running things not only would the Volkihar be immune to Drowning they would also be immune to freezing to death. They would have been laired in underwater ice caverns where having to fight them underwater or in a frozen cavern under a lake.
They would have been made more like the Volkihar of Immortal Blood.
That is how I would have done them. Maybe make them feed on actual warmth along with blood.
Making them an Icy Underwater Vampire that lairs under lakes like was mentioned in the book. It was disappointing we never got to see that in Skyrim. Because the stuff about vampires in Immortal Blood is very unique and I would have stuck with it and made it work somehow. if they were treated and had Undead as part of what they are. They would act like Undead, and they would not have heartbeats and wouldn't have been able to eat normal people food or they would vomit it up. That is the Volkihar we should have gotten I feel.

Sure the Vampire Lord is cool and all but well what is more interesting was the lore they had in immortal blood and they didn't follow it. sure they gave the vampire an ice ability, ice powers, necromancy, vampiric drain. But we didn't see anything of the unique ways that they live and said to live in Immortal blood,
Then the actual Volkihar actually live in a big Castle instead of living in a majestic underwater ice cavern. An icely lair fit for someone like Harkon and his Family.

Freezing to Death? do you not recall they have a very high frost resistance?

Also Vampires are undead, this is a fact, being undead is the ONLY reason they have eternal life, because the dead cannot die again, they can only be destroyed by violent means, you sound like a complete fool.

Vevvev

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Freezing to Death? do you not recall they have a very high frost resistance?

Also Vampires are undead, this is a fact, being undead is the ONLY reason they have eternal life, because the dead cannot die again, they can only be destroyed by violent means, you sound like a complete fool.

Only Skyrim vampires have the frost resistance.

RedReign

ShadowHvo wrote: »

ZOS confirmed that Vampires are undead. That's the end of the story

Just because you dont like it, nor that it fits into your narrative doesnt mean that Elder Scrolls vampires aren't undead.

Its not "d&d garbage" its just a fantasy trope that a lot of people find cool, because vampires are accursed monsters of the night, fiendish bloodsuckers and powerful predators.

Or its because Vampires are not and have never been undead in Elder Scrolls lore.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

RedReign wrote: »

ShadowHvo wrote: »

ZOS confirmed that Vampires are undead. That's the end of the story

Just because you dont like it, nor that it fits into your narrative doesnt mean that Elder Scrolls vampires aren't undead.

Its not "d&d garbage" its just a fantasy trope that a lot of people find cool, because vampires are accursed monsters of the night, fiendish bloodsuckers and powerful predators.

Or its because Vampires are not and have never been undead in Elder Scrolls lore.

Except for the fact that in Daggerfall you die first and wake up in a tomb 2 weeks later having lost all of your credentials because your now deceased, undeath is the reason they have eternal life, if they were alive then do explain why they don't age.

Go ahead im listening, a living immortal would still age into an adult but we see children Vampires like Babette who are several centuries old.