Advantages/Disadvantages of being a vampire?

[VANTAPURPLE]

I somehow became a vampire about a day ago, and I was wondering whether to get rid of it or not, so I want to know if it has any dangers or benefits.

[nacho]

vanilla vampires so weak not worth it

[alexander_dougherty]

Vampires do not get any real benefits.
Vampire Lords get perks and bonuses that you can buy by feeding or using energy drain ability in combat. However most people playing Vampire Lords use mods to make them less vulnerable.

[Liquid Inc]

Vanilla vampires are alright, but your weak in the day (Obvious) and weak to fire, but you possess some level of cold resistance and get some abilites like night vision.
Your biggest asset is your bonus to Sneak.
And, combined with some equipment, can turn you into an undetectable OP killing machine;
Combined with Cicero's gloves, and the sneak perk for daggers , you can pretty much one shot whatever you want to, and won't get seen when you do...
Does require going through the DB questline until you get the gloves though

You also get some really quite awful glowing eyes, because no one can notice that, right? They mention your "pale skin" but not the glowing radioactive fruit jammed in your eye sockets...... (Im not really sure what Bethesda was thinking with this)

As to vanilla "Lords", they are only "powerful" early game. Once you start levelling, the "Lord" form does not, and so you progressively get more useless in "Lord" form.... As alexander said, most mod this so it's not quite so hopeless.

[jonnin]

its a net win for a max/min. You don't have to drink blood at all, and you get 100% immunity to all disease and poisons, buff to sneak and illusion, but the BIG PERK to it is that you are UNDEAD which makes a LOT of things buffed by the necromage ability (restoration school). This effects nearly 1/3 skill tree perks and a variety of buffs from gear as well, its strong. Note that necromage is a 2 edged sword: your debuffs are also increased (weak to fire gets much worse!).

vampire lord is an EXCELLENT travel form. Outside, even in the daytime, you can throw any annoying enemy except dragons up in the air and flat out kill them that way, and you can walk over water, and you have a lot of stamina so your 'run' mode lasts a good long while. The downside is you can't loot in the form, among other aggravations, but it really saves walking time and is on par or slightly better than a horse.

in the daytime you need regeneration equipment if you care (you won't need this at high levels, but lower levels you may) and possibly a + fire resist item.

all in all its worth it for the necromage perks alone. The actual gameplay and such are at best RPG / fun for a little while but thankfully can be ignored if you grow bored of it. You don't get attacked even at worst stage of starvation, you just get comments from people about being pale or having scary eyes. I have never been attacked as a vampire in a city just for being there looking all scary.

a minor perk: you get a secret room in your cellar for the 3 customized homes.

you can cure vampire at least twice without mods etc. The first one is by doing the companion quest line. The second is a quest specifically to cure it. So you can try it out and see if you like it or not, but without necromage, its 85% flavoring.

[Fear2288]

It doesn’t feel all that special or interesting in the vanilla game. It’s more for the “cool” factor, I guess (and being able to join the Volkihar side of the DG questline).

If you like using mods though, there are lots out there that make being a vampire more worthwhile.

Overhauls to the gameplay range from ones like Scion which tweak and add some improvements to the vanilla system, to really big and detailed ones like Better Vampires which offers all kinds of new and complex changes and additions that can be customized to your liking.

There are spell packs such as Bloodmoon and Flames of Coldharbour that add lore-friendly blood and cold flame spells appropriate for vampires.

And plenty of “flavor” mods that add in vampire themed weapons/armor, character aesthetics, and player homes.

So yeah, vanilla game vampire play can be pretty underwhelming but the mod community did a fairly good job of making being a vampire more useful, more fun, and more interesting.

[PaulEric]

Read Dracula and you'll know the dangers.