I don't know what they've done to the ethos with the Twilight movies (I refuse to watch them or read the books), but in the past, after a vampire feeds, didn't it often return to its coffin to "sleep it off" like it just had a huge Thanksgiving meal? The blood was needed to keep it going, so in that sense drinking makes it more "powerful", and if they don't drink, they become weak and susceptible to things, so yeah, I guess if they don't drink and get more powerful that would seem backwards.

But is it more powerful, or does lack of blood just make them more active and desperate?

To me, a vampire archetype is just that. If you want to create something like a vampire but with major differences, call it something else.

A starved animal is more agressive than one that just fed.
It dosen't make it stronger, it is infact, weaker.

And yes, vampires blew in Oblivion and they're just as bad now. Was really hoping they'd give us some cool powers and a questline/faction.
Oh well,will haveto wait untill some decent mods come along so i can play one and enjoy it.
Looking at you Unholydarknes2.

I love the backwards vampirism, but I hate the lore. Where are the vampires that can teleport through ice and freeze people's blood and are monstrously hideous? And where is the noble and civilized clan of vampires that can blend in and manipulate people through politics and influence while gaining their own political power?

There is a questline that involves vampires.

The lore of Vampires and Werewolves are completely different in the Elder Scrolls universe, as they should be. Every story has there own spin on these lores. In the Elder Scroll universe, Vampires and Werewolves exists because of the Daedra. These divine beings created them. Lycanthropy is a curse that binds your soul to the Daedra lord Hircine. So Hircine is the god of the werewolves. Some see it as a curse and others see it as a blessing. Vampirism is a curse that acts like a disease, created by the Daedra lord Molag Bal. Making him the god of the vampires. Like with lycanthropy, some see vamprism as a curse and others as a blessing.

Both werewolves and vampires can be extremely powerful, when played correctly. You have to cater to their strengths and acknowledge their weakness. Werewolves should take full advantage of their supernatural strength and always use power moves, howl and pounce attacks. Vampires should take full advantage of their strengths, like bonuses to sneaking (stealth kills) bonuses to illusion spells (using calm,fear,mayhem,invisiblity). Then you have pure vampire powers that are similar to mage spells, like vampire servant and seduction. Night vision can be useful too.

I have read more than one thread, stating that vampires are weak and its not worth becoming one. I very strongly disagree. If you use their abilities as they were meant to be used, a vampire is an extremely powerful supernatural being. Now, I should make it clear though, that mages make better vampires than warrior types, just because a vampire's powers enhance mage's spells. Just to give an example, One of my vampire characters wiped out an entire town. Now, I realize that any decent warrior or mage could easily do the same, but just to show that vampires are not weak, here is what I did.

I waited until dark and sneaked into town (using vampire's sneak bonus) and stealth killed a number of guards. Another guard saw me and the fight was on. I waited until about 10 guards surrounded me and cast mayhem (using vampire's illusion bonus) the guards started attacking each other and more guards that arrived. When one guard dropped I cast vampire servant and my minion joined the fight. As the guards were killing each other I was using vampiric drain on them filling up my health meter and draining theirs. When their heads cleared I cast frenzy, taking their attention of me again and on each other. If I ran out of mana, I would switch to Molag Bal's mace, (the personal weapon of the god of vampires himself) and slaughter anyone in front of me and filling up my stamina doing so. This tactic would usually be enough for killing a town full of people. If there are some left, I could cast fear and watch them cower and just cast vampiric drain on them.

Good point
well said

It's like the werewolfs of skyrim, that can turn into a werewolf whenever they want to, but according to a book, the werewolfs of skyrim are under a different curse, so it dosn't affect then the same way as others. Maybe that's the same case for there vampires?

Yet your argument relies on non-magical, real-life animals.

Then what do they base it on then?

PS. Not whining here, I just assumed vampires in Skyrim are based on "our" lore.
Also Skyrim is my first Elder Scroll game, so go easy on me.

I think of it like Day Breakers, if you don't feed vampires turn to their primal side. Eventually you become so primal that humans want to kill you just looking at you.

Vampires here need a serious overhaul, perhaps they can make it so with an expansion, but it would have to be pretty damn good at explaining why.

I can accept the lore behind the rarity of werewolves, but not the bull about vampires.

Waaait a second. There's no Porphyric Hemophilia in Skyrim?
*looks it up*
So they really had to change it to something with "Vampir" in the name? Was the name of the disease too difficult for people to understand?
:brokencomputer:

The fact that you lose power when you feed is quite backwards in terms of gameplay. However, it makes somewhat sense that you turn more human and can walk amongst them when you drink their blood. You don't drink it for strength, you drink it for skin-shifting, so people won't know what you really are. The price you pay is a suppression of your inherent vampiric abilities.

I think both drinking blood and not drinking it should give you powers, there shouldn't be any favour to one side.
The player should be given the choice to choose which playstyle they'd prefer to go down, not be nudged into one or the other because of fanbase preference.
With this in mind, I have developed my own opinion (or idea) on how vampirism gameplay in Skyrim should have actually been developed into:

You should start off at stage 5 vampirism, which would be a happy medium.. or the casual vampire.

Drinking blood takes you down the stages, giving you bonuses to illusion, alchemy & sneak.
However this type of vampire would suffer from upgrading weaknesses to fire & lightning damage, the more stages you go down.
But at stage 1 they'd gain bonuses while in darkness or night, with the negative side being that they have constant sun damage.

Racial abilities for Stage 1-5 would be similar to the current ones that Bethesda has deployed on us: a drain, an invisibility spell, night vision etc.

Not drinking blood takes you up the stages, giving you bonuses to alteration, smithing & speech.
This daywalker vampire would suffer from upgrading (as well) drops to disposition with npcs & slower health regen.
But at stage 10 they'd gain double damage with all weapons, with the negative side effect of looking beastly (falmer-like) / hostile to all npcs (unless calmed).

Racial abilities for Stage 5-10 would be different to the ones seen in Skyrim: a frost form spell which is cast if talking to an npc for too long, longer sprinting etc.


But well that's my small dreamed up idea and opinion on the subject. Vampirism in Skyrim needs a lot of fixing, which I know the developers won't do.
Hopefully by the time the next Elder Scrolls comes into development, Bethesda would have learned their lesson and made vampirism into something more pleasing to most.

Clavicus VIle=backwards vampirism. No body seems to understand this.

It still is a disease. The way I understand it it is originally a disease that then becomes the curse if not cured in enough time.

You are more powerful when you have fed. As in you can blend in and be accepted as just another living body. A wolf among sheep. That is real power.

Not feeding means you lose that ability to blend in as your feral instincts and form begin to surface. Sure, your starving body might seem to become more powerful but the trade off is that your prey is aware and becomes your hunter.

I don't mind it this way and it does make sense if you think about it.

What does simplicity have to do with this?

I believe the rationale behind the way it works is that vampirism is a disease and a curse. It's not meant to be a blessing in any way, shape, or form. By feeding to keep yourself more human, you're basically being mocked by the gods in an ironic way; you must commit the acts of the curse in order to keep it from getting worse.

Not all vampires have backwards effects, just the Cyrodiilic vampires. Skyrim vampire NPC are probably not even the Volkihar, except for a few selected NPC's.

Yeah, its backwards, it should be like in Morrowind where the more you feed the more powerful you get.

Hmm, a few things would be a nice change (and make me actually want to play as a vampire for once)

First, a questline, the first quest in it being you become a vampire unwillingly, like the people of the group makes you drink something that happens to have the disease in it. You can then choose to stay a vampire and join their ranks, or cure yourself before you transform completely and destroy the group. Later on in their questline you would find that one of their members secretly wants to cure himself, and you can follow that questline as well.

2nd, changing the level of vampirism to maybe 2 or 3 days each level would be something I would appreciate, give you more time to play a certain level that you like. Also, drinking blood would bring you down one level only, so you can choose to stay on a certain level you like.

3rd, maybe a power that let's you calm somebody and have them go to sleep. May make it too easy to feed though.

That's great for Cyrodiil's vampires, but that doesn't excuse Skyrim.

As you and I have discussed before, there are too many holes with the way vampirism works in Skyrim for us to say that they're the Cyrodiilic clan, but many of the mechanics shadow the way vampirism works for the Cyrodiilic clan.

It's like Bethesda couldn't make up their minds, or simply rehashed Oblivion's system and put it in Skyrim as an afterthought.

I don't say it often, but Beth got lazy by just reusing the Cyrodiil strain. From what we know from the lore, the Cyrodiil "Order" as they are referred to, wouldn't want their strain infecting Skyrim, as they see most other Vampires outside of Cyrodiil inferior. Hell Id expect to see one of the nine Iliac Bay strains before Cyrodiil's again.

And the idea of Skyrim's unnamed clan being the same as Cyrodiil's also doesn't make sense from a mechanical standpoint; they cannot walk outside during the day unhindered.

They are the closest of any other two strains. Plus Todd mentioned that it was the Oblivion strain before release, which made a lot of fang bangers upset.