Vampires

Prepare for the Curse of Strahd by making countless vampires!

This system renders a vampire's strength directly related to their age. Young vampires are weak enough to be balanced player options, while using the same system you can create vampires worthy of the name, with the most ancient versions being able to rival the gods themselves.

The progression puts a lot of agency in your hands and vampire players and npcs alike can choose to be much closer to fighters, rogues, wizards or any fraction in between. With this system, a level 20 vampire could wield a greatsword, wear plate armor, have a sneak attack-like ability comparable to a level 13 Rogue, and be the equivalent of a 4th level caster; all at the same time without multiclassing. Or the vampire could forgo the whole lot and choose from an array of other unique, vampiric powers.