Vampires

There is a pull-request out to include vampires in the game.

They have a draining bite attack that transfers some of the victim's (usually the player's) HP. The amount of drain damage is half the
You can also catch vampirism, and half of your unarmed attacks will convert to bite attacks, which have a chance to do drain damage.

At the moment, vampires can only be found in Xinroch's tomb, but this could be conceivably be extended later to, for example, the catacombs if there is a demand for this.

Also, vampires and werewolves hate each other. A vampire's drain attack will do full damage against werewolves, and werewolves will inflict a drain-type damage exclusively against vampires, equal to normal amount of damage, effectively dealing double damage.

You can become Lycanthropic by being bitten by a werewolf in wolf form, which is a new all-pervasive effect.

At the moment there is no special bite attack implemented for normal humans who have lycanthropy.
SPOILER ALERT. Click here to see text.

Vampirism negatively impacts the wisdom stat (a la leprosy), and each successful drain attack makes you more chaotic.
Some screenies below should give you the look and feel.

Next up: vampire bats.

Unoriginal suggestion: werewolf blood acts as a strong acid on contact with characters that have vampirism (not with items or other characters). And maybe vice versa. And maybe eating opposing flesh inflicts poisoning.
And bites that fail to drain should splash a bit of blood around.

I find it a little odd that vampires in games often have bite attacks.

I mean, it makes sense that they would be able to bite to drain life. But as they are morphologically human beings with some long, sharp teeth, biting as a combat technique seems a bit... silly. Unless you first grab the person and hold them still. I mean, in most fictions, the vampire attacks it's victims while they are unaware. Or at renders then incapable of resisting before going for the bite.

I suppose our vampires could be a kind of vampire with over-large jaws designed to bite victims in combat, like a snake or something. But that's a more animalistic vampire idea.

Besides, let me paint you a picture. You are wandering through a dungeon, plated in armor from head to toe, longsword and shield at the ready. You come 'round a corner and see a well-dressed but creepy-looking man down the hallway. He bares his overlarge fangs at you and charges! It's a vampire! You prepare for combat. You swing at him - he dodges - then he... dives onto his knees so he can bite you in the shin? What??

Thus did Achilles die.

Suspension of disbelief.




Anyway, for you, fejoa!

BTW, will the Vampirism status be shown as in your screenshot, or hidden? Because all other diseases (lycanthropy, leprosy, parasite) are hidden.

The vampire status will be shown as in the screenshot. I figure the player will want to know so they can either choose to make use of it and go unarmed, or try to get rid of it quickly. Under vampirism, about half your unarmed attacks are commuted to bite attacks, so you will train both. If you equip a weapon, then your character won't do bite attacks.

I left a bunch of comments on the PR.

Cool thanks for taking a look through the code I made some changes according to your suggestions, it is such a big help getting feedback.

Take all of this with a grain of salt, as I've not actually played as a vampire: I don't think being a vampire right now really carries an advantage or disadvantage. You have to do unarmed attacks to get the bite (right?), but the damage is low (right?). On the other hand, you lose a *tiny* amount of wisdom (but could just pray that away). Am I missing something? Is the impact bigger than I thought?

I think that you should try to make it change the game play more than it does now. Maybe it grants infravision and makes you take acid-like damage based on how much light you're standing in, but in the dark you get fast regeneration. Both the regen and the damage could lower your vampirism counter as they function. In some editions of dungeons and dragons, vampires gain a life force draining slam attack in addition to the grapple only bite. Maybe all unarmed attacks are energy draining and half the time you get to also bite. Mostly, I want playing as a vampire to feel different rather than just being more powerful.

I haven't actually played as a vampire either
Yeah, you have to sacrifice using a weapon to gain access to the bite special (drain attack). I agonized for ages about what value to give the drain attack, and what it should be influenced by. Agility? Arm strength? The problem was that the stats varied wildly between 10 and 100 points; power players might reach 50+ int for example. Another thing I considered was to use the geometric mean of two stats, say, agility and perception, or arm strength and charisma, and use that figure as the buff.
In the end I opted to apply a bonus bite strength to any vampiric humanoid and simply use the weapon skill level (biting) as a sliding scale for how much hp the bite attack would yield. I felt this would be the most simple way for players to notice an improvement in their investment to be a vampire. Besides, I didn't want another boots of kicking experience (I have a spreadsheet somewhere with about ten different scenarios for improvements and I couldn't make up my mind :\
I figured wisdom is a highly prized stat so I selected this one to pick on. It should deteriorate as quickly as stats do for characters with leprousy, which in my experience is pretty quick, and any stat decrease is a nuisance on the way to better weapon and armor materials.


Infravision is a great thing to add on. I'd also like to try making it so that vampires standing in sunlight definitely take damage. That would be in places like Attnam, New Attnam, and would need to take advantage of the day/night mechanic.

I'm just taking a little bit of a stab in the dark. I don't want to introduce a game-breaking exploit, so I am erring on the side of caution a fair bit. For the same token, I could optimize and model things until I go crazy, and still be way off. I trust the community and I'll be sure to get feedback on the mechanic, and the ways to improve it. Best thing is, it can always be changed.