Running vampires in D&D 2024

Advice on how to use vampires in your D&D adventure.

Identifying a vampire

Some monsters in D&D are easy to identify as enemies. Imagine coming across a mind flayer or the Demon Lord, Demogorgon. These creeps are all tentacles and gnashing teeth with a large dose of madness in their eyes. There’s no doubt for your party that they’ve comes across a foe.

But vampires are not quite so obvious. They appear, usually, very humanoid. And this can become part of the fun of discovery and the looming dread that anyone could actually be a vampire themself.

Fortunately, vampires do have some tells. Instead of revealing a vampire, and saying they’re a vampire, you could use hints instead. This makes for a much more interesting reveal and your players can revel in the fact that they worked this out. Consider using some of the following hints:

• Casting no reflection – Vampires don’t cast a reflection so eagle-eyed adventurers might be able to use a reflective surface to identify a vampire.
• Pale complexion – Vampires are typically quite pale creatures, especially if they haven’t fed for a while. You could veil this with makeup or magic and players noticing this could be subtle hint towards their vampiric nature.
• Sharp canines – You don’t always need your vampire’s canines sticking out (they are retractable), but they could be a sign of vampiric nature. Maybe have them revealed when a vampire is threatened or hungry.
• Sunlight sensitivity – Vampires do not deal well with sunlight. Hinting that an individual only comes out at night could be a bit of a clue towards their undead nature.
• Must be invited in – Vampires are unable to enter a residence without permission. Consider how a social encounter might go with a vampire, attempting to hide their nature while attempting entry into a home.
• Bat form – This is perhaps a little obvious, but vampires can shapeshift into bats. You could have one leave in bat form, which doesn’t definitely mean they’re a vampire (they could be a spellcaster or a shapeshifting druid).

Types of vampires

So far, I’ve mainly talked about the typical form of a vampire, but actually, there are a few types of vampires. Some are simply new to their vampirism, unable to control their urges sufficiently, often acting as minions to fully-fledged vampires. Others possess greater mastery over magic while some are the vampiric forms of non-humanoids.

I’ve summarised those released in D&D 5e below:

• Vampire familiar (Monster Manual 2024) – Yes, I know. I’ve not actually started with a real vampire. But vampires do like their pets, but rather than getting a cat or a dog, they like to gather people. Some of these individuals aspire to full vampirism while others have been charmed or threatened into servitude. Regardless of the method, these are servants of vampires that have not yet been infected with vampirism (for now).
• Vampire spawn (Monster Manual 2024) – Recently infected vampires are new to the hunger and bloodthirst that overwhelms their mind and their senses. This makes them both more feral, and less skilled than an experienced vampire. Often, they attach themselves to a powerful vampire, making excellent minions.
• Vampire nightbringer (Monster Manual 2024) – Created through necromantic rituals, nightbringers are lesser vampires that are capable of melding into shadows to strike unseen and unheard by their targets.
• Vampire (Monster Manual 2024) – There isn’t another name for a bog standard vampire, but these are the Dracula-esque beings you’ll likely imagine when thinking of vampires. Intelligent, powerful and bloodthirsty. Do not be fooled by their humanoid appearance, vampires are powerful foes. Enough to have legendary actions at their disposal, to charm others to do their bidding and to survive usually fatal encounters by restoring themselves in a coffin. Imagine the legendary (and original) vampire Lord Strahd Von Zarovich and you’ll understand the deadliness a “standard” vampire possesses.
• Vampire umbral lord (Monster Manual 2024) – Some vampires access forbidden magics through unholy pacts and dark secrets. They are known as vampire umbral lords and are similar in capabilities to a vampire, but with dark magic at their fingertips.
• Vampiric mist (Monsters of the Multiverse) – When a vampire dies, it transforms into mist and retreats to its burial place to recover. Sometimes, it is unable to return to this location and will permanently become something called a vampiric mist. These entities will seek to absorb the blood of hapless victims, often painlessly allowing them to even feed upon sleeping victims without ever waking them.
• Nosferatu (Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft) – While most vampires maintain their intellect and sense of self, some do descend into an addictive bloodlust that can never be quelled. These feral creatures will seek to endlessly feed upon the blood of anything it can lay its fangs on.
• Vampiric mind flayer (Van Richten’s Guide to ravenloft) – Considered abominations by mind flayers themselves (just let that sink in!) vampiric mind flayers are born from mind flayer tadpoles, infected with vampirism, and then allowed to burrow into the minds of mortal victims. Once ceremorphosis has taken its hold upon the victim, the resulting mind flayer is an unstable and vicious creature that seeks to drain the cerebral fluid from its victims.

Using vampires in combat

Vampires are more than just bog standard humanoids or undead. They have their own unique capabilities that can make combat really interesting.

Here’s some ideas you can use next time your party tries to tackle some vampires:

• Sunlight as a solution – Vampires will take damage and fight worse in sunlight. Use this to give your players a mechanical opportunity for a fighting advantage. Closed curtains could be opened, a patched up roof could be broken or a magical artefact could be turned on to create magical sunlight. You could even have players seek to survive until dawn against waves of vampires.
• Running water as an obstacle – Along a similar vein, vampires find running water problematic. Use rivers as natural obstacles players can use to their advantage. You could also have mechanical opportunities to divert running water through switches in a cistern.
• Make death more deadly with your bite – Everyone knows that death in D&D is merely an inconvenience. But vampires are capable of making death a tad more permanent. If a party member has been bitten, they’ll need to be much more careful as if they’re knocked down to 0HP, there’s a danger they could be turned into a vampire spawn, making their death (or undeath) more permanent and raising the “stakes”.
• Deal with flight – Vampires can transform into bats but retain most of their game statistics. This means even flying creatures aren’t safe from their presence. You could also use an umbral lord which can fly without transforming.
• Grapple master – Vampires can grapple simultaneously with their grave strike. Use this to prevent things like monks and rogues from escaping your reach. This will also let you make an extra bite attack on your turn too.
• Legendary actions and resistance – Don’t forget about the vampire’s legendary resistance to survive nasty conditions or their legendary actions. Command is a good way to get advantage against an opponent by having them grovel and fall prone. You can then grapple them while prone so they have disadvantage on their attacks and you have advantage on yours until they can escape your grapple and stand up.
• Use verticality to your advantage – Vampires have a climb speed and can fly as a bat. Use this to your advantage.
• Umbral lord blindsight – If you know the party have invisibility and illusions in their possession, then bring a vampire umbral lord along and use their blindsight to foil those attempts.
• Umbral lords for debuffs too – The umbral lord can also cause the poisoned condition and reduce a target’s hit points maximum making characters less effective.
• Lairs for tougher encounters – Vampires and umbral lords are enhanced when in their lair with an extra legendary resistance and an extra legendary actions each round (and a few other mechanics I’ll get into in a bit). You can use this for a tougher encounter.
• Use minions for crowd control – Vampires love a good minion. Use these as cannon fodder for the self-preserving master vampire(s). Nightbringers can hide and strike from shadows. Vampire spawn are quick and savage, you could even use them to grapple a character then drag them away from the safety of other characters using the dash bonus action. Or you can just send in some vampire familiars as a meat shield.
• Survive to fight another day – Vampires are rarely interested in sacrificing their lives. If a fight looks too overwhelming, escape in your bat or mist form and finish the job another day. Perhaps with more minions and more preparation. If your vampire does happen to die, they can always regenerate in their burial place, just hope the party didn’t discover it’s location already!

Using a vampire’s lair

A vampire’s lair is not just a base of operations, it’s also a place where they can recuperate from life-threatening injuries. A lair can be any place the vampire calls home, whether it’s a gothic castle (like Castle Ravenloft), a suburban mansion, an isolated cave or a network of catacombs.

Often, vampires want their base to be somewhere discrete or well-guarded so they can remain safe in their resting place.

But a lair is not just for aesthetics and comfort. It provides actual mechanical benefits for vampires and umbral lords too including:

• An extra legendary resistance.
• An extra legendary action.
• At night, medium or smaller creatures have the charmed condition If they are within a mile of the vampire’s lair.
• Those that aren’t allies of the vampire will not gain the benefits of a short rest while within a mile of the vampire’s lair if they fail on a DC 15 wisdom saving throw.
• Mists obscure vision within a mile of the lair making everything lightly obscured except for the allies of the vampire.

Vampiric plot hooks

If you do want to run a vampire adventure, here’s a few plot hooks you could use:

Guardian of an ancient treasure

An ancient magical item is rumoured to exist within the catacombs of a ruined city. This also happens to be the lair of an ancient vampire who will guard it’s treasure alongside their collection of minions.

Missing in the night

There have been mysterious disappearances from a village. Each one a young maiden, disappearing from her room with the windows wide open. Vampires have been abducting these women and transforming them into vampiric subordinates.

The bloodless fraternity

The party are approached by a group who reveal themselves to be vampires sworn off the blood of people, choosing instead to feed on animal blood. However, their numbers have been dwindling, with attacks killing these individuals. Whether these murders are by other vampires disgusted by their eating habits, townspeople still viewing them as monsters or enterprising adventurers seeking to make a name for themselves is unknown.

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Vampires are classic villains for a reason. Clever and deadly makes a potent combination and they could make a great enemy for your next campaign. Let me know how you’ve used vampires in your campaign in the comments below.

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