Vampire

Version 0.32: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

This article covers the player species. For the monster, see Vampire (monster). For a list of all monstrous vampires, see List of vampires.

Vampires are another form of undead, but with a peculiarity: they may become alive. A bloodless Vampire has the traits of an undead (immunity to poisons, negative energy and torment, resistant to damage from the cold), but cannot physically regenerate when monsters are in sight and are less resilient. On the other hand, a Vampire full with blood will regenerate very quickly, but will lose all undead powers. Upon growing, they learn to transform into fast-moving bats. Unlike other undead species, they may be mutated normally at all times.

Innate Abilities

• Acute Vision: Vampires can see invisible.
• Fangs 3: Vampires have razor-sharp teeth, allowing a bonus auxiliary attack. While Bloodless, vampires can also restore a small amount of HP every time they successfully bite a living foe.
• Vampires can change blood level (Alive or Bloodless) at will. See below for more details.
• Vampires are undead, which results in the following traits even when Alive:
  • Vampires may not worship Zin, Elyvilon, or the Shining One. The holy wrath brand will not function on weapons they wield.
  • Vampires are vulnerable to holy damage, weapons of holy wrath, and Dispel Undead. (However, Dispel Undead will never be used against the player when alive due to how monsters check vulnerability).
  • Vampires can never cast Borgnjor's Revivification or Death's Door, nor can they enter Death Form.
  • Vampires cannot become afraid.
  • Vampires may still mutate, regardless of blood level.

Vampires have a base Strength of 7, Intelligence of 10 and Dexterity of 9 (before Background modifiers) and have normal base magic points.

Blood-Dependent Stats

Vampires may switch between Alive and Bloodless using their natural abilities Exsanguinate and Revivify. Both abilities take 60 auts (6 turns) to complete. Additionally, when transitioning from Bloodless back to Alive, you gain one temporary rank of the Frail mutation (-10% Maximum HP); like other temporary mutations, this will eventually fade as you gain experience.

	Alive	Bloodless
Regeneration	Fast (+0.2HP/turn)	None while monsters are visible
HP Modifier	None	-20% HP
Stealth Boost	None	+100 to Stealth Score
Vampiric Bite	No	Yes
Resistances
Poison Resistance	No	Immune
Cold Resistance	None	2
Negative Energy Resistance	None	3
Torment Resistance	No	Yes
Transformations
Bat Form ability	No	Yes (level 3)
Other Transformations and Berserk	Yes	No

Bloodless vampires also have the following properties:

• Lacking blood: Sublimation of Blood is unavailable, and skysharks do not benefit from bloodzerk.
• Unbreathing: Immune to drowning damage and to spore confusion.
• Cannot be put to sleep.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Gladiator, Brigand
• Warrior-mages: Enchanter
• Mages: Necromancer, Ice Elementalist. Earth Elementalist

Level Bonuses

• +1 dexterity or intelligence every 5th level.
• Average hit points.
• +4 willpower per level.
• Starting at level 3, vampires can change to Bat Form at will when Bloodless.
  • This allows movement at spriggan speed (6 auts instead of 10) and increases your base dexterity by 5, but temporarily drains all of your stats by 2 each, disables many items, melds all armour and jewellery except your amulet, prevents spellcasting, and weakens melee attacks. Wands and divine abilities may still be used while in bat form. Entering bat form costs 2 MP and provides flight for the extent of the transformation.

Transforms the user into a swift-moving vampire bat, increasing evasion but substantially weakening melee attacks. The transformation drains the user's attributes. While transformed, any equipped weapons, armour and rings are melded, and the user becomes unable to cast spells.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Vampires start with all the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

As long as you play according to your aptitudes and take advantage of your special abilities, you can do very well without too much fuss. Bat Form is extremely helpful as a means of escape, especially early on, and it becomes available at level 3 (but only when Bloodless). Vampires excel at Hexes and have good magic aptitudes overall. Their Hexes proficiency coupled with their exceptional Stealth aptitude and stealth bonus when Bloodless means that Vampires are particularly well suited to the Enchanter background.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	-1	Armour	-2	Spellcasting	-1
		Dodging	1
Maces & Flails	-2	Shields	-1	Conjurations	-3
Axes	-1	Stealth	5	Hexes	4
Polearms	-1			Summonings	0
Staves	-2	Invocations	-1	Necromancy	1
Unarmed Combat	1	Evocations	-1	Translocations	-2
Throwing	-2	Shapeshifting	0	Alchemy	1
				Fire Magic	-2
Short Blades	1			Ice Magic	0
Long Blades	0			Air Magic	0
Ranged Weapons	-2	Experience	-1	Earth Magic	0

Strategy

Exactly how to use your variable blood states will depend on a number of things. At Bloodless, you suffer reduced health and hindered regeneration (bad) in exchange for Bat Form (good), increased stealth (depends), and several resistances (helpful, but somewhat situational).

Keep in mind that switching blood states requires a significant delay. Try to anticipate situations where you might want increased regeneration or your undead resistances and set up ahead of time, as trying to switch mid-fight may well be suicidal.

Your innate escape ability, Bat Form, is usable only while Bloodless. Furthermore, it renders you mostly helpless and drains your stats each time you use it, so try not to over-rely on escaping as a bat.

You can cope with limited HP regeneration while Bloodless in a number of ways:

• Reusable options available regardless of god choice include stabbing living enemies, casting the Vampiric Draining spell, or wielding a vampiric-branded weapon. Unfortunately, these methods are of almost no use in the Crypt, Pan, Hells, or Tomb, which are dominated by unholy creatures that provide no health in this way.
• In an emergency situation, potions can still be used.
• Makhleb provides the most consistent healing, as killing anything has a good chance of healing a significant amount of HP. One downside of this ability for Necromancers or Summoners is that, while Makhleb acknowledges allied kills through Piety gain, it does not grant HP for such kills.

Trivia

Unlike most other attack options, many combat-oriented Invocations are not disabled while in Bat Form. This is the basis of various self-imposed challenges that center around staying in Bat Form as much as possible by, for instance, worshiping Makhleb and using its destruction and summoning abilities to dispatch enemies.

History

• Prior to 0.27, vampires were explicitly unbreathing.
• Prior to 0.24, vampires had a hunger clock. Instead of using food like other species, they could drink blood directly from corpses (using e) or bottle the blood into potions (using c) to drink later. When at least Full, vampires would both heal and hunger quickly but lost all of their undead benefits. When Thirsty or below, they healed and hungered slowly, but could enter Bat Form and their undead traits would gradually assert themselves the closer to Bloodless they became. Additionally, entering Bat Form did not incur stat reduction.
• Prior to 0.22, vampires could not use wands while in bat form.
• Prior to 0.19, vampires had six distinct satiation states instead of four.
• Prior to 0.17, vampires did not gain a stat every 5th level.
• Prior to 0.16 vampire characters couldn't bottle up blood from the beginning.
• Prior to 0.15 thirsty vampires received only half the effect from most potions. Also, vampires wouldn't mutate and would lose the effect of mutations at or below near bloodless.
• Prior to 0.13, vampires could not cast Cure Poison, even when they had blood.