» Sun Nov 18, 2012 12:22 pm
I loved playing as a Vampire before Dawnguard. I had a routine where I fed every day on my follower (whom I RPed as being consenting, since I wanted to play a morally 'good' character). Owning every house helps for this as you have to ask your follower to sleep in a bed that you own.
I enchanted myself some gear with Fire Resistance, and Regen Magicka, Regen Health and Regen Stamina for going out in daylight. I took Necromage rather late in my game, but still benefited quite a lot from it, and another perk I'd recommend is Quiet Casting. With this perk you can more easily go invis in any situation where you feel at risk and as a Vampire you get a nice bonus to Illusion and Sneaking. I also got the spell Pacify to calm NPCs in case of stage 4 'accidents', as I cannot stand losing any Named NPCs. You can purchase it from Drevis in the College of Winterhold. As a lvl 81 Necromage Vampire with 100 Illusion I can calm most (I think all normally friendly NPCs, but not all enemies) of the NPCs in Skyrim and run away if I have to.
I miss having to keep track of the time and day now feeding is not essential to avoid hostility. Having to manage vampirism made me more aware of in game things like day and night, risks of fast traveling, the time, and how many days since I last fed. These aspects also didn't seem restrictive to the point where any kind of play style would have been compromised - and really as a Vampire you have just as many, if not more, options of playstyle, since as a vampire you can be one of the most powerful PCs that the game allows.