Just rolled my first vamp character. All in all, it's a fun, rewarding experience if you know how to play within the confines of the system (if you're a serious roleplayer, this shouldn't be an issue). I see vamps get a lot of flak for being weak, that vampirism is more curse than blessing, and I couldn't disagree more. If you allow yourself to get caught in a burst of flame, or decide to engage a Legion patrol outside in the daytime, you're playing it wrong and failure is inevitable. That said, despite the many advantages to vampirism, I can think of a few more that would result in a more balanced experience.

With the removal of stats like strength and speed from Skyrim, a great deal of what made vamps particularly powerful in Oblivion is gone. I like to think that their statistical weakness relative to Oblivion has been made up for with their ability to travel around in the daylight unmolested (until their final form). This is a fair trade in my eyes. Now vamps suffer reduced health, magicka, and stamina in the daylight and are unable to regenerate. This, to me, is also fair. That said, I believe there should be other passive abilities associated with playing at night. It should flip between night and day - to make up for the loss of vamp's weapon resistance from Oblivion, Skyrim should have given vamps added health and stamina, as well as added regeneration rates when night falls.

An "enslave thrall" ability would have been nice, too. NPC vampires in Skyrim have human thralls they enslaved using their mental powers. Instead of the weak and underwhelming zombie spell vampires get (that can be bought at any store), you should be able to enslave mortal allies indefinitely. The power of the spell to enslave mopre powerful thralls should increase with each level of vampirism.

Just some thoughts.

The main feature I think they should have included is being able to drink anyone's blood, anywhere, anytime. No sleeping nonsense, blood is blood.
Maybe a buff if you feed on someone sleeping, fine, but for those who want to stay stage 1 vampires should be able to feed on the humanoids they just killed imo.

There were great Vampire Overhauls from Morrowind to Oblivion. Beth had plenty chance to re organize how they did Vamps. plenty of Lore to Draw from.

They didn't


especially since Vamps have Multiple Origin Stories in TES? pfft they had plenty Oppurtunities and never took it. I'd not hold my breath.


no instead we got copy past mechanics from Oblivion, it pains me to say Modders field now...It really does.

On that note, a "Just Fed" buff after you've svcked an NPC's blood would be nice. Not sure what it would entail. Perhaps a +15 boost to Speech for 12 hours after feeding? After all, you've infused yourself with fresh blood and appear more human...

I agree, though, it'd be nice to svck blood on the fly. Perhaps...if you can get close enough to someone in stealth to pickpocket them, there should be an option to feed. Just tackle them and svck their blood on the ground. Would it be better if they were angry afterwards, or if they just passed out from shock?

How cool would it be if you could make your own brood? Recruit 5-6 NPCs from the world to be your "family", live in a little vampire base, etc.

Sneaking up being someone taking them down and drinking their blood until they die would be awesome,°c and give them a chance to make a nice animation.

Overall in Skyrim being a vampire is much moore downside then upside. It should be more of a fair trade and less a gimp.

Make your own guild, that would be a great idea honestly. Hopefully some modder manages to buff Vampirism after the CK comes out. Honestly, the whole blood svcking thing seems backwards to me. Why would you become weaker by svcking blood? Your powers should increase by a good amount, but instead, it reverts you back to stage 1. A Vampire in Skyrim is more of a hindrance than a blessing, because of the factors you stated. Small benefits, too many problems, even if you want to RP IMO.

For one, not have some Cyrodiilic subtype and the actual Volkihar. Just like in vanilla Oblivion, there's not too much incentive to actually feed.

It's kind of inportant occasionally if you want to be able to interact with NPCs.

Let me be blunt: The current vampirism is NOT vampirism. It's practically a perk, you could cut it down to a single levels worth of change and it wouldn't be too far off. Plus, there are practically no downsides. You don't burn in the sunlight? That alone is ridiculous. Even worse, however, is the way the feeding system works. If you have a storage chest out in the mountains, you NEVER need to feed on anything. If you need to go into a city, easy, just go into the stables at night, feed on the dude, and all your problems are solved! Need to do a dungeon? Wait for three days, boom, full power. There is essentially no reason for the middle stages at all. The entire thing is, at best, a roleplaying aid, when it SHOULD be a dramatic gameplay change.

Your opinion is that it's Fine. Well sure, so is bread and water, you can live on "Fine" for a long time. But I don't play games to experience "Fine", i play games to experience "awesome". In oblivion mods, there was awesome...Kyoshi's Vampire Mod made playing as a vampire ludicrously fun. But In skyrim they completely ignored all that, keeping the crap system that they had from vanilla oblivion.

It might not be terrible. It's "Fine". But until mods come out, I'm never going to play as one.

The ability to pass through solid surfaces? Yes please. I don't know how it'd be implemented practically, but it'd be cool to experiment with. Perhaps translate that to a "become ethereal"-style state where you can deal damage, but the enemy cannot. Hence the Volkhihar's ability to reach through ice and grab travellers. That state would have to be very brief, of course. Maybe 5 seconds at the most.

Speaking of the Volkhihar, I wish there were vampire clans you could join, ala Morrowind, that appreciate different philosophies and playstyles.

Volikhar actually being volikhar.