And me? I'd allow anything. Hell, I'm probably the reason you'll see lots of changelings, technomancers, and other assorted weirdness in any of the Data Haven stuff. I love how weird the Sixth World is.

I know you meant "Alleviate Allergy" as referenced in many other posts.

I'm working on that bit in my copious unstructured free time. Working on phrasing it so that, while it uses the Allergy rules as a template, it isn't actually an "allergy" per se...thus, Alleviate Allergy wouldn't work. That's been one of my pet peeves for many years now.

As someone who helped write the book on Infected in SR, I have to tell you: I'm totally down with them not being player characters. I refused to write PC Infected rules for SR3, and had nothing to do with the SR4 rules (which I maintain were a Really Bad Idea, my personal regard for the guy who wrote them notwithstanding).

They do? Reference.

Sorry, SR4A.

Under "Noticing Magic" page 179

I enjoyed the vampiric former used car salesman that I got to play that one time.

I can't speak for Mr. Goodman but it wasn't my intent to say that it isn't possible to have cool vampire or werewolf PCs in SR and make it work. My main point is that there are a multitude of options to make characters distinct and opening up the Infected and shapeshifters to PC use is unnecessary. IMO it also brings more risks than benefits to any SR game in which they are present. I won't elaborate on that here because that's a whole different topic.

Anyone recall any references outside of the Tir book for the Vampire prince there?

There are mentions of noble Banshee families for elves who are somewhat ostracized and such. RC I wanna say. Not what you were looking for though

Dietary Requirement: Lack of Sunlight.
Infected must ingest a lack of sunlight from every pour in their body through osmosis at all times, else take X amount of damage. Ogre Stomach, Beak, Digestive Expansion and the like have no bearing con the requirement.

Alleviate Allergy nets the vampire a sustaining penalty that pretty much cancels out the benefit of the spell. If he wants to dump money and karma into a sustaining focus for the spell, more power to him. That's still a fairly substantial cost.

Not nearly substantial enough.

I think the issue isn't a mechanical one, but a thematic one. If they don't fear the sun, they stop being vampires in the traditional sense.

this thread has a lot of discussion on the same topic:

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...mmortal+banshee

But, Dracula doesn't fear the sun. It is merely a mild annoyance to him, and only just barely. Hollywood vampires burst into flames because F. W. Murnau couldn't be assed to film a decent fight scene (fight scenes are expensive and he didn't exactly have anything resembling an actual budget) for the end of Nosferatu and so pulled a bullshit copout that the audience bought because it was 1922 and there weren't exactly many other movies to compare it to. The fact that Hollywood has repeated this error an absurd number of times doesn't make it any more accurate to the source material.

Vampires shouldn't fear the sun. They should laugh at idiots who think they fear the sun, just as they laugh at idiots who wave around crosses and garlic cloves.

The fact that this 'error' has been repeated absolutely makes it 'more true'. It's all just made up, and it's a democratic process. That means that vampires sparkle if those crazy Twilight fans outnumber you.

IIRC it has been mentioned in fluff that HMHVV was around before the awakening - it simply didn't have any effect without sufficient magic. When the mana level rose it probably activated some part of the RNA just like it activated human metagenes. So if somebody with the virus in his bloodstream got caught in a mana spike...
Just to play the devil's advocate: metas don't "revert" to norms in space, why should non-dual-natured Infected? As long as it's just a few single specimen and not the secret vampire conspiracy among mankind, why not, actually?

Cause there isn't one of those around at all right?

Dracula did fear the sun because it weakened him. He didn't have his full range of abilities and he couldn't even fight off Van Helsing and his trio of suitors when they got him during the day. It's why VH was so adamant that they get him before the sun went down. It's also why Dracula needed Renfield.
More over he was a creature of the night. He slept during the day and hunted at night for a reason. Namely a thematic one.

But that's only going on the assumption that Storker's vampire is the only vampire. It has become an iconic image of nearly 90 years of cultural evolution in all forms of media, and you can't just ignore that.
If you do want to to say that Dracula is the only true vampire, then you also have to accept that God is a big part of that story. Heck, he's the driving protagonist.
I, personally, want to leave God out of Shadowrun. Hence why vampires should burn in the sun.

Not all vampires are spellcasters.
Most spellcasters wont give a focus containing their astral signature to a vampire.

These two points should make the sunlight shielded vampires a bit rare.
If, for whatever reason, the existence of sunlight immune vampires is intolerable to you then just turn the sunlight allergy into sunlight weakness.
I currently have 1 vampire PC in my game, it hasn't been a problem yet because she isn't someone who tries to milk every advantage or exploit loopholes.
YMMV.

They are however, all awakened.
It would be trivial for them to decide to be magicians.

(Unlike most people, awakened critters could go out and pickup Mage or Adept whenever they felt like it)

Something else for me to ignore if I ever get to run a game again...there are a lot of changes between earlier editions and SR4A that don't make any damn sense to me, and this is one of them.

Oh I completely agree. But the rule is there and it allows me to say that ShadowRun vampires sparkle (thus validating why I hate the rule because ShadowRun vampires DO NOT SPARKLE).

While I am generally a 4th edition backer, I also did not like the change to noticing magic. I simply house-ruled it so that you have to be casting pretty high-force spells to get sparkles.

I mean, sparkly magic doesn't *not* make sense. It's magic, anything is equally valid.

I don't see a problem with the SR4 Noticing Magic rule compared to past editions.
Shadowrun 4:

  Just how obvious are magical skills? Not very, since most spells and spirits have little, if any, visible effect in the physical world (unless the magician prefers to have flashy effects, or her tradition calls for it). An observer has to notice the magician’s intense look of concentration, whispered incantations, and small gestures. Magicians of some traditions display a more visible change when practicing magic known as the shamanic mask. The shamanic mask typically changes the magician’s features temporarily to display characteristics appropriate to her mentor spirit or tradition—an eagle shaman, for example, might seem to have feathers or beaklike features while spellcasting or summoning.
  Noticing if someone is using a magical skill requires a Perception Test (p. 135) with a threshold equal to 6 minus the magic’s Force. More powerful magic is easier to spot with the gathered mana normally appearing as a disturbance or glowing aura in the air around the caster. The gamemaster should apply additional modifiers as appropriate, or if the perceiver is Awakened themselves (+2 dice), astrally perceiving (+2 dice), or if a shamanic mask is evident (+2 dice).

Shadowrun 3:

  Just how obvious are magical skills? Not very, since most spells and spirits have little, if any, visible effect in the physical world. An observer has to notice the magician’s intense look of concentration, whispered incantations, small gestures and changes like the shamanic mask (p. 163). The raw power and complexity of an effect determines how visible the magician’s efforts are.
  Noticing if someone is using a magical skill requires a Perception Test. The base Target Number is 4, plus the caster’s Magic Attribute, minus the Force of the magic being performed. So, a spellcaster with Magic 6 casting a spell with a Force of 4 results in a target number of 6 to notice it (4 + 6 – 4). If the spell were Force 2, the target number would be 8 (4 + 6 – 2).
  Situational modifiers for Perception Tests should be applied (see Perception Tests, p. 231). Consult the Noticing Spellcasting Modifiers Table for additional modifiers.

SR4 does not indicate when magic becomes "More powerful", so it is up to the GM. Even in SR3, the target number when overcasting got so low, as to be almost automatic. All SR4 does is give an example of what might be visible in those cases. At my table Overcasting is the threshold for a visible sign (other than concentration etc.) Those with a totem of some sort show a shamnic mask, and those without show more of a glow. Both effects seem to me to fit the all but automatic target number / threshold level indicated for powerful magic.

The precedent from earlier editions where magic was very hard to notice makes those options a smidgen less than equally valid, imo.