How do you detect a vampire? Can you hook a biomonitor up to them to detect the virus?

Would various sniffers work?

easy. you shoot them with dual panther assault cannons. if the resulting mist is red, they weren't a vampire. if it's normal-looking mist, they're a vampire

seriously, i believe an assensing test would at least give you a hint...

Let me just check how much assensing my cybered up street thug has....

Are they though?

They're not actually dead right? They just have an odd virus.

I think the best way to spot a vampire is their chessy 80's styled clothing, and if Corey Feldman is around its a sure thing....

Well, if they're living with a virus they'd have pulses and give off heat plus need calories, etc.

If they're "dead" they just need to drain essence 1/month to live and don't need to eat to sustain their bodies.

Plus it matters a hell of a lot for medicine and surgury, etc.

When a vampire is made, the following things happen:

1. The Victim dies. That's unambiguously described in the Essence Drain Power.

2. The body lies there in a state of "near death".

3. 24 hours later, a newly created critter "revives" and goes on an essence drinking rampage (as described in the Infection power).

So how "human" are vampires? That's really up to the gamemaster. They are not humans who are infected with a virus, they are a virus that wears a human shape. So they could plausibly be room temperature or even colder. When you cut pieces off of them, those pieces turn into mist, flow back, and reassemble themselves into the original vampire piece within seconds.

A physical test is simple - just stab a suspected vampire with a mechanical pencil. If the mark is expelled is less than a second, draw your room sweeper packed with sawdust and fire at point blank. A chemical test is likewise simple - just wave a strontium rod at a guy - if his skin doesn't blister, open fire. What tests are available beyond simply checking to see if they have regeneration or immunity to toxins is up to the gamemaster.

-Frank

blakkie you're forgetting one important rule, this is a game, and this is magic within the game.

The best explanation.

What evidence do we have that Vampires have any powers that are not magic driven? They can dismantle themselves at will into a fricking gas, and reassemble themselves at will. Just the fact that they have a shape is a magical effect.

Now, the days of vampires being able to pick up and throw cars is over in SR4 - Vampires no longer go out to strength 30 and beyond. In fact, the SR4 vampire isn't super strong at all - it's juct normal human strength. Vampires are super perceptive, but even at that it's no more than is available to Adepts.

The Shadowrun 4 Vampire runs no faster than an ordinary human, which means that it runs considerably slower than does an Ork, let alone a Troll. Over short distances, an alligator can outrun a human, and a vampire can't even do that.

-Frank

How often do they have to satisfy their dietary requirement? I know they have to drain essence 1/month but what about just eating/drinking?

Although it'd be fun to play an uneducated person that crutches on magic all the time. I wonder how airplanes flew before there was magic??

I just want a good RP reason to know that my party member is a vamp when I waste him with a full auto shotgun.

As a game master I feel it is my duty to nourish interparty conflict.

Throw a pool party during the day. If he doesn't want to come, hold it at night, and watch him sink in the pool, and then go into dormancy.

If all that is too much trouble, buy him dinner. Then go to a bar. When he throws up his meal later on, and gets sick off one beer that should start throwing up red flags.

Go ask your street doc, "What never shows up during the day, sinks in water, can't eat or drink normal food or alcohol, and seems to heal really quickly?"

After you waste your buddy, bitch slap your GM for letting one into the game.

but dont forget that there are different strains of HMHVV, some vamps are nosferatu's which are stronger, faster, and im pretty sure have little or no allergies. Also Im not sure if the bouyancy rules are in this version, correct me if Im wrong.

Also the only way to find a vampire is by physical characteristics (mostly for metahuman versions, ie. wendigos, goblins, banshees, and Dzoo-noo-qua), by them never eating and drinking, and by many not going into sunlight often (only a mod allergy, so not lethal really). Also, if there is a mage , shaman, or an adept that can astrally percieve, they can assense them to find out.

Also Im not sure if in this version if they are dual natured, I know Ghouls still are, but I think only the Kreiger HMHVV causes dual natured and only ghouls are made from it.

EDIT: just looked through the book again, your right, nothing about other vamps, cept the wendigo.

There's only one type of vampire in 4th edition so far. They are not dual natured but can be magically active.

I'd go with one of the regeneration tests. This can be as simple as, during combat, making perception tests whenever they're hit.

A simple perception test on a good shot against him should do it. No blood on a shot that obviously should have caused some bleeding? It's a vamp!

No, the lack of bleeding isn't a big deal. The big deal comes when after being blown across the room by a grenade, all the pieces turn into a fine mist and flow back. As soon as someone takes a considerable amount of physical damage, their regeration power is going to be obvious to anyone in the room.

-Frank

Of course, if someone regenerates, that doesn't necessarily mean that the only rational choice is to kill them with extreme violence. They could, for example, be a shapeshifting eagle or something.

But it does mean that they aren't human. So you can put a shaped charge on their backpack and say "Look, I need you to level with me... you aren't human are you?" And if they lie, or admit to being a vampire, or try to bite you, you blow them up. And then if they come up with something really weird like "I was actually born as a badger, I've only recently tried to pass myself off as a human." then you get a really weird look on your face and harrumph "Well, alright then." (and try to get your shaped charge back before he notices it).

Vampires are homocidal and dangerous to have around. Even if they never tap their evil powers once, they still have to kill about 2 people a year. And every time the pop somebody, there's a chance for more vampire attacks. It can go crazy really fast. A responsible person whois at all concerned about humanity as a whole has really no ethical choice but to kill all vampires. Even Insect Spirits and Toxic Shamans can be negotiated with, Vampires have a biological need to slaughter humans at an unacceptable rate.

Even if they agree to only prey upon bad people, it's still totally unacceptable, because then new vampires will be created who are templated on bad people. It's lose/lose no matter how you look at it.

-Frank

Actually in SR, vamps can restrain their hunger, well more so than other meta-HMHVV-types, and like the book says, some only take off wiling subjects. So in fact they aren't homicidal maniacs, and actually I remember an old mission book made by FASA that had vamps in it, cant remember the name though

what need killing are the wendigos and Dzoo-noo-quas, those creepers have issues, they have to eat the flesh of people they kill, not take a bit of blood from people who live in the end.

And also, if anything that regens is hit and the damage is to the spine or head (say a grenade hits them, or any explosion really) they don't regenerate. And if they did right infront of you, I doubt they would let you come up to them and talk to them, plus they would notice the shaped explosive that would be put on them, so that probably wouldnt work.

Yep, Shadowrun vamps are some of the relatively "nicest" in any Rpg around. They can suvive without killing at all. (btw what the hell is wrong with killing? this is Shadowrun!)

[OFFTOPIC]Hey, the Hollow Earth theory has never been proven wrong! [/OFFTOPIC]

That's why I always voted for the extinction of all ghouls.

Don't forget the bounty.

Previously not all ghoul tranformation resulted in, what Sir Topham Hatt would call in your senario, "really useful ghouls". Oddly enough that could be part of the nitch for a small number of, er, co-operative Vampires to exist in your [somewhat chilling] vision of a managed state. The gap, if it exists, between the lower boundry of Sapience and the lower boundry of being a "really useful ghoul".

I, personally, always envisioned SR vampires as alive. Altered on a basic level, but alive. Not only alive, but basically the exact same person as before with very very different instincts. Makes them more interesting than the classic "undead" creatures. The writers do not seem to take an easy out. Hell, even in other systems, vampires can still be "good" people. Both World of Darkness settings have that.

As for the homicidal maniacs, thats one extreme and not the whole picture. You go from an omnivorous being who has no base instinct to kill others of its kind (normally) to a new creature with all the urges and instincts of a wild, literally bloodthirsty predator. Lets not forget that to both the victim and the vampire the drinking of blood/essence feels real good. While a person of high moral standards and good willpower could likely stay more or less similar to how he was before, rather few of the people turned to vampires likely have this resolve.

Vampires and the like don't have to kill that many people. Reasonably, an average shadowrunner will kill more people in the course of an average job than a vampire will have to eat in a month.

A vampire wetwork specialist can get his fill without causing any net harm. As for the potential of the victims comming back as vampires, just leave them with a tenth a point of essence and cap them in the head.

Leave them with a tenth a point of essence
and cap them in the head
[Repeat to the turn of The Saints Go Marching In]

for that matter, vampires don't even have to actually kill anyone, iirc. they could just drain 1 point of essence from a lot of different people.

furthermore, you could use vampires to hunt other HMHVV infected critters that are causing problems =P

in fact, considering i've seen a houserule (caused by the essence hole/replacing cyberware situation) that essence come back, slowly, in any campaign with that rule vampires don't even cause permanent harm (ermmm... well, not necessarily at least).

however, that being said, i believe that in general vampires should probably be killed, as many of them probably aren't the kind of people you want to have around.

yes, well that assumes a run goes perfectly, pretty much.

like that's gonna happen all the time...

It's not a real Shadowrun until somebody dies.

Just sayin'.

Note I never said any shadowruns ever turned out reasonable.

For some shadowrunners, it is reasonable to level an entire city dlock in downtown Seatle killing hundreds. It all averages out.

"I wouldn't call it living...call it surviving."

Indeed, Ghouls have:

I try to like ghouls, I really do. But the fact remains that they are basically walking plagues. All it takes is one drunk/drugged/pissed off ghoul to spread their contagion to anyone that looks at them funny. I'm amazed there hasn't been a George Romero zombie syle Ghoul Plague yet.