thinkin' bout vampires
Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 12:41 am
as someone who started playing ss13 years ago on /vg/station, vampires have always been one of the quintessential ss13 antags to me, and i'm sad about the state they're in currently. i know there's an antag freeze, so nothing would really get added for a while, but i've been thinking about ideas on how to make vampires a worth side antag, and i wanted to actually write down all my ideas
vampire basics
vampires should be a roundstart side antag, roughly on par with changelings; something that can co-exist with traitors and lings without being so powerful that they tilt rounds towards them. they're ideally a stealth antag, with the unique objective to reach a certain blood level in addition to normal traitor objectives (assassinate, escape, steal).
vampires have two gating mechanics, blood level and blood points. drinking blood from living creatures increases both, with one human being worth a little over 1 level and 2 points. points are spent to unlock and improve vampire abilities, and many abilities require the vampire to be a certain level to unlock. unlike current vampires, their blood isn't tied to their actual physical blood level and doesn't decrease over time, to enable more stealthy gameplay
by default, vampires can see in the dark with their vampire eyes, and blood points can be spent to upgrade to thermal vision. ghoulish nails grant them increased unarmed strength, and upgrading to ghoulish claws gives them powerful slashing attacks and better grabs. nocturnal stalker gives them a small amount of healing in the dark, which can be upgraded to nocturnal hunter for proper darkness regeneration.
finally, bat form lets them become a bat; ideally, it would be heavily nerfed by both making the bat not spaceproof and giving it a hefty cooldown that can be reduced with certain upgrades
like cultists, vampires get fucked up by holy water. going in the chapel is Bad for them, and being sprayed by or fed holy water lights them on fire
drinking blood and marks
of course vampires drink blood. ideally, there would be some mechanic wherein they can't drink from dead creatures, and something to keep them from just drinking from monkeyhumans. drinking blood could easily be a reskin/clone of changeling succ, with one major difference: vampires don't have to kill their victims
vampires let go of their victim when they're in crit; when they do so, they mark the victim. vampires can choose to let them die or finish the job, but they can also use dark touch to put a marked target into a regenerative coma. letting their victims live carries the risk of them giving away the vampire, but marked crew members have uses...
lairs
every good vampire needs a lair, and they can use an ability to place a dark coffin at their feet. any room containing a coffin is considered the vampire's lair, and they gain minor combat bonuses while in that room. sleeping in a coffin rapidly heals a vampire to full, but if the coffin is destroyed, the ability goes on a massive cooldown. upgrading to a shadowed coffin makes it fade away in darkness, and invisible to silicons.
paralyzing glare
the vampire's signature offense ability, paralyzing glare is a ranged stun that is most effective at close range against unprotected targets. the stun duration decreases based on how far away the vampire is from the target, and it's heavily reduced from a stun to stamina damage if the target has eye protection.
the glare would have several possible upgrades: piercing glare reduces how effective eye protection is, choking glare adds a small mute to the effect, and maybe other things
the vampire plague
vampires passively carry the vampire plague with them, although they themselves are immune to it by default. whenever they mark a target, the target is infected, and living marked victims become potential carriers. by default, the plague has maximum stealth, 0 transmissiblity, and essentially does nothing
by spending blood points, vampires can upgrade their plague. awakened plague causes it to gain actual transmissibility, meaning the vampire's marks will begin quietly spreading it, and further upgrading it with deadly plague causes it to deal small toxins damage, lose all of its stealth, gain a huge boost to infectivity, and generally become a proper disease. the vampire can also unlock the plague cloud ability to manually release a silent burst of the disease from their skin
aside from the small amounts of toxin damage, the plague generally makes it easier for the vampire to hunt infectees. with the plagued beckoning ability, vampires can point at an infected target within visible range, dealing damage and stunning them based on the level of their infection, and once the plague is awakened, vampires can see infectees through walls even without their thermal vision upgrade
thralls
if the vampire wants to instead build towards allies, they can instead take upgrades and abilities that slowly give them more control over their marks. they start with cursed loyalty, which gives any marks that try to harm the vampire a small dose of pacification or a stun, and can unlock cursed communion to send one-way messages to anybody they've marked. once the vampire has enough power, they can unlock cursed awakening to properly turn their marks into servants, at the cost of alerting the whole station that they did it. awakened marks gain the vampire's objectives, the lowest forms of paralyzing glare and ghoulish claws, and access to a vampire-specific communication channel to talk to their master
painted doors
along with vampires would come the ability to paint on doors much the same way runes can be drawn in crayon. the only sort of painting that matters for a vampire is blood painting, of course
if any crewmember paints a cross on a door or airlock in blood, the vampire loses the ability to open that door, regardless of access level, unless somebody lets them in (invites them). if the chaplain's blood is used, trying to open the door actively causes the vampire to catch fire. however, if the blood comes from someone infected with the vampire plague, it instead always opens for the vampire, meaning infected humans can unintentionally give the vampire all access and marks can intentionally sabotage doors for their master.
the cape
once a vampire has enough blood levels, they can choose to go loud by unlocking the cloak of darkness. once unlocked, the cloak appears in the vampire's neck slot, and can't be removed. wearing the cloak grants esword energy projectile deflection, partial armor, a massive cooldown buff to bat form, constant nocturnal regeneration and slight stun resistance, at the cost of loudly telling everybody who sees you you're a vampire
in closing
thank you for coming to my ted talk about dracula
vampire basics
vampires should be a roundstart side antag, roughly on par with changelings; something that can co-exist with traitors and lings without being so powerful that they tilt rounds towards them. they're ideally a stealth antag, with the unique objective to reach a certain blood level in addition to normal traitor objectives (assassinate, escape, steal).
vampires have two gating mechanics, blood level and blood points. drinking blood from living creatures increases both, with one human being worth a little over 1 level and 2 points. points are spent to unlock and improve vampire abilities, and many abilities require the vampire to be a certain level to unlock. unlike current vampires, their blood isn't tied to their actual physical blood level and doesn't decrease over time, to enable more stealthy gameplay
by default, vampires can see in the dark with their vampire eyes, and blood points can be spent to upgrade to thermal vision. ghoulish nails grant them increased unarmed strength, and upgrading to ghoulish claws gives them powerful slashing attacks and better grabs. nocturnal stalker gives them a small amount of healing in the dark, which can be upgraded to nocturnal hunter for proper darkness regeneration.
finally, bat form lets them become a bat; ideally, it would be heavily nerfed by both making the bat not spaceproof and giving it a hefty cooldown that can be reduced with certain upgrades
like cultists, vampires get fucked up by holy water. going in the chapel is Bad for them, and being sprayed by or fed holy water lights them on fire
drinking blood and marks
of course vampires drink blood. ideally, there would be some mechanic wherein they can't drink from dead creatures, and something to keep them from just drinking from monkeyhumans. drinking blood could easily be a reskin/clone of changeling succ, with one major difference: vampires don't have to kill their victims
vampires let go of their victim when they're in crit; when they do so, they mark the victim. vampires can choose to let them die or finish the job, but they can also use dark touch to put a marked target into a regenerative coma. letting their victims live carries the risk of them giving away the vampire, but marked crew members have uses...
lairs
every good vampire needs a lair, and they can use an ability to place a dark coffin at their feet. any room containing a coffin is considered the vampire's lair, and they gain minor combat bonuses while in that room. sleeping in a coffin rapidly heals a vampire to full, but if the coffin is destroyed, the ability goes on a massive cooldown. upgrading to a shadowed coffin makes it fade away in darkness, and invisible to silicons.
paralyzing glare
the vampire's signature offense ability, paralyzing glare is a ranged stun that is most effective at close range against unprotected targets. the stun duration decreases based on how far away the vampire is from the target, and it's heavily reduced from a stun to stamina damage if the target has eye protection.
the glare would have several possible upgrades: piercing glare reduces how effective eye protection is, choking glare adds a small mute to the effect, and maybe other things
the vampire plague
vampires passively carry the vampire plague with them, although they themselves are immune to it by default. whenever they mark a target, the target is infected, and living marked victims become potential carriers. by default, the plague has maximum stealth, 0 transmissiblity, and essentially does nothing
by spending blood points, vampires can upgrade their plague. awakened plague causes it to gain actual transmissibility, meaning the vampire's marks will begin quietly spreading it, and further upgrading it with deadly plague causes it to deal small toxins damage, lose all of its stealth, gain a huge boost to infectivity, and generally become a proper disease. the vampire can also unlock the plague cloud ability to manually release a silent burst of the disease from their skin
aside from the small amounts of toxin damage, the plague generally makes it easier for the vampire to hunt infectees. with the plagued beckoning ability, vampires can point at an infected target within visible range, dealing damage and stunning them based on the level of their infection, and once the plague is awakened, vampires can see infectees through walls even without their thermal vision upgrade
thralls
if the vampire wants to instead build towards allies, they can instead take upgrades and abilities that slowly give them more control over their marks. they start with cursed loyalty, which gives any marks that try to harm the vampire a small dose of pacification or a stun, and can unlock cursed communion to send one-way messages to anybody they've marked. once the vampire has enough power, they can unlock cursed awakening to properly turn their marks into servants, at the cost of alerting the whole station that they did it. awakened marks gain the vampire's objectives, the lowest forms of paralyzing glare and ghoulish claws, and access to a vampire-specific communication channel to talk to their master
painted doors
along with vampires would come the ability to paint on doors much the same way runes can be drawn in crayon. the only sort of painting that matters for a vampire is blood painting, of course
if any crewmember paints a cross on a door or airlock in blood, the vampire loses the ability to open that door, regardless of access level, unless somebody lets them in (invites them). if the chaplain's blood is used, trying to open the door actively causes the vampire to catch fire. however, if the blood comes from someone infected with the vampire plague, it instead always opens for the vampire, meaning infected humans can unintentionally give the vampire all access and marks can intentionally sabotage doors for their master.
the cape
once a vampire has enough blood levels, they can choose to go loud by unlocking the cloak of darkness. once unlocked, the cloak appears in the vampire's neck slot, and can't be removed. wearing the cloak grants esword energy projectile deflection, partial armor, a massive cooldown buff to bat form, constant nocturnal regeneration and slight stun resistance, at the cost of loudly telling everybody who sees you you're a vampire
in closing
thank you for coming to my ted talk about dracula