totally failed his stealth roll when he tried to bite us.
I was thinking how cool it would have been to drag out his hiding a bot longer and maybe have us role against him. If he won wed get the debuff and ne none the wiser. But then it hit me. We didn't have to roll because Astarion rolled a 1 lol
In the first session I DMed, the level-1 Rogue missed their first sneak-attack from stealth. The player exclaimed "Shit! Did he see me?" which we all then agreed was said in-character as well.
The reaction to the roll is what you should've used to alert the npc
Must have been the wind.
My friend just started a campaign for us wherein I decided to be a rogue halfling who is trying to fight against his impulses and so now he's a monk. But I still like to RP him as a recovering kleptomaniac. So as we're recieving our first quest from this bureaucratic empire stoog I see that he has a few awards on his shelf along with a picture of him and his family. Initially I was just going to steal the gold award, but after ducking behind my giant tortoise teammate I rolled a nat20, and naturally stole all his awards, his certificate for empire management training, and of course, his family photo. Gotta roll with what you get lol
Recall that in time, all becomes dust and bone.
Classic Caspian moment ;D
I mean, that’s what I say when I roll a 1.
Same.
When i critical miss a 1 hp opponent....shit.....
If you play his origin you can bite someone and they won’t know
Do you have to roll a stealth check?
Yes
And then a Wisdom check to stop drinking. If you fail one you can try again (like Tav's Persuasion rolls)
Poor Astarion failed 3 rolls in a row
Can he bite Withers?
I don’t think Withers has even a single liquid molecule in his body
"No."
I heard his voice xD
Withers is not a hydro homie.
What? But he gave the old eyes to Karlach
Our skeleboy is all dust at this point
You say dust, I say pure protein powder.
Pretty sure it would look like one of those cinnamon challenge fail videos where Astarion just coughs dust for ten minutes.
Underrated comment
Which I find absolutely hilarious because in what world do people not feel anything and keep sleeping soundly when two pointy fangs puncture their damn carotid?
To be fair I sleep like the dead lol
I've slept through firework shows before lol
I’ve slept through multiple fire alarms. It happens
Same here. And two tornadoes. My parents even carried me out of bed, evacuated, and brought me back to our hotel room for a false fire alarm, and I slept through the whole damn thing when I was 8 or 9.
I am so jealous of all you heavy sleepers. I wake up at the slightest sound. I can't remember the last time I slept the whole night through.
I would have woken up the second Astarion even made a yum-yum face at my neck.
I was just gonna say this too 😭 Ugh what I wouldn’t do to get a SLIVER of that heavy-sleeper gene but noOOOooooo, I have to wake up if my earring falls off my nightstand
Same with me.
If it helps, I became a very light sleeper when I had kids, I now wake up to footsteps before they even reach the bedroom door. I miss sleeping that deeply, lol
Well, no, because I take no joy in your 'not sleeping'. You have my commiserations, friend.
I've slept in Front of the Wacken Main Stage through the whole Gig of Helloween and wasn't even Drink 😅
I headcanon vampires to have an analgesic effect tied to their bite, because yeah it doesn't make sense otherwise.
That's what the narrator describes, too, that the pain fades to numb almost immediately.
Yeah, but she also says that the sting of the the initial bite is painful as hell, before the numbness (which is likely due to the blood loss). Should probably jolt someone awake.
Vampire bats allegedly have a numbing agent in their saliva.
It worked out for Dracula most of the time. They either slept through it or thought it was one weird dream.
Doesn't Dracula hypnotize his victims, or something like that? It's not a natural sleep, he enraptures them so they don't wake up. Astarion doesn't seem to have such tricks up his sleeves. He relies 100% on pure dumb luck.
Yeah, the protagonists in Dracula try to bar entry to the room where his victims sleep, and Dracula hypnotises them to unlatch the window for example
Speak for your Astarion, mine is a bard (the latest addition at least)
Tbf Tav/Durge/Other origin is the first “thinking creature” he’s ever been able to feed on. He knows turning is painful but he [Astarion backstory spoilers] . He could think/assume it works like a vampire bat where the prey usually sleeps through it all and is not terribly harmed (rabies aside).
And also i mean pretty much everyone i’ve ever known with a cat has woken up with a scratch at some point from sleeping through midnight zoomies.
His bite ability doesn't wake up sleeping folks either. It does no damage when it's done on a sleeping target. Probably intended to be interpreted as some kind of vampire skill.
I think that actually changes based on whether you tell astarion he can feed on you at night, or if you let him feed on you at all
Oh interesting. Will totally admit that I have issues with saying no to that face :P
I genuinely slept through my brother repeatedly pelting me with various objects to wake me. I only woke up when he started laughing because he had apparently bit my hand so hard his teeth left marks.
they are very sharp which would make it more likely. I've woke up bleeding before and not felt being cut. And your arteries are not more sensitive than other parts of you
That's how vampire bats work too. So sharp you won't notice the bite, which is why even if you don't think you were bit, if you find a bat in your house you should get a rabies vax.
I've also accidentally scratched myself in my sleep without waking up, and only realized in the morning that I had a nasty bleeding scratch somewhere.
It's a different kind of pain than the intense, sharp, stabbing pain that the narrator describes, though. That kind of shooting pain did jolt me awake at night, after a surgical operation on my foot. My brother had the same struggle after the extraction of some of his teeth. And we both have a high pain treshold.
Lancinating pains are really a kind of pain you can't ignore, like a pregnant woman's contractions.
I've had needles and blood taken while I was asleep and not woken up. Maybe it's a kind of pain you can't ignore but that's not universal.
I also said cut not scratch for a reason. I've woken up with a pretty significantly blood stained bed, or with things imbedded in me. Not a little cut
And the narrator described it as numbing quickly so it's far from unrealistic that a person might be disturbed and partially rouse but fall back to deep sleep quickly and not remember in the morning.
Needles absolutely don't provoke that kind of pain. In fact, they usually don't provoke any pain at all. They are specifically designed not to hurt you. I don't feel them either.
I'm not sure you ever felt what a lancinating, stabbing pain feels like. I'm describing an open foot surgery, tooth extraction and labor pain, you're talking about mere needles, lmao.
I’m not familiar enough with 5e lore to know, but logically speaking if Vampires have to live off of blood wouldn’t they have the ability to numb the bite like a mosquito does?
I can absolutely believe it - my young brother has to frequently jab himself with small needles for his glucose test (diabetic). He's so used to it that he can literally sleep through drawing a little blood - once I had to make him take the test in middle of the night because it was a treat day and there was a chance he would need insulin injected before he waked up. I messed up the first jab, smearing blood instead of taking in inside the thingy, next time similar, and only with the third needle I managed to gather it into tester. He sleeped soundly through all of it, and as I was cleaning blood of him I though he is literally this stereotypical unknowing vampire victim
I think there's a slight difference between a needle, which is specifically designed for you not to feel it too much, and someone's very pointy set of teeth, which are not, lmao.
I wish the best to your brother, though. Diabetes can be constraining.
It's not the carotid artery, it's the vena jugularis.
The carotid is more well hidden under layers of muscle and fascia.
Anyways, it's not described as very painful. I've slept through worse lol.
Thanks. I hesitated between the two big veins of the neck, and had a 50/50 chance, so of course I picked the wrong one, lmao.
Yeah, the carotid usually refers to the artery, which would 100% lead to a complete spurting blood bath.
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-30e1576516637a40c2d6c3882314c9e1-pjlq
The external jugular vein would be the most accessible and medically safe vein for a nighttime treat IMO. Especially if vampire bites have some sort of magical would closing effect (seems like they probably do). I doubt the teeth would be able to penetrate the muscles well enough to get to the artery, they're not very long.
That said the first bite is quite ... spurty. So he might not be able to control it well at that point (first time biting a humanoid). Looks pretty dramatic with the freecam and considering he easily kills you by accident it probably is!
https://i.imgur.com/OXcWNz0.png
Didn't see this to that extent in the other scene with a possible bite. ;)
I believe is like mosquito bite, it anesthetize you while being bitten
waves hands and make spooky noises Maaaaaagiiiiic
I found rule it as a dm that it’s akin to mosquito bites, you don’t feel it when punctured like the bugs work, you notice is once fangs retract. Then another stealth role to escape.
I dunno about the lore in dnd or the game specifically, but in many canons vampires are able to locally numb the area before biting to make it less likely that their victims will wake.
You can’t bite karlach or gale though right? Karlach is too hot and burns him if he tries, while trying to bite gale poisons astarion
When I played as Astarion I failed the stealth check too 😂 felt very appropriate
He must have succeeded for me, one play through all I saw was a cut scene of his legs creeping away which I thought was pretty random. Another play through I did catch him biting.
Oh the sneaking away is him sneaking away to hunt 🙂
Yep. I love how his Origin run has you roll a Wisdom save to prevent you from accidentally draining a party member as well, if you go for it.
What happens if you fail? Gotta hide a body?
IIRC, it just cuts to the next morning. I don’t remember if you’re confronted like what happens to Durge.
When I got the scene, I accidentally killed Lae’zel and reloaded after the morning
Biting Lae'zel is a brave choice
"Hmmmm, I do so very like spicy food"
It’s either her or shart, gale tastes bad
At the time, I only had Gale and Lae’zel with me (I rested on the beach right away and Shadowheart left to go to the grove)!
I was determined to keep the vampirism a secret for as long as possible. I initially bit Gale! The scene played out and I felt bad (Astarion practically vomits, Gale wakes up and the secret is out), so I reloaded and opted for Lae’zel instead.
Ah, my choice was to simply not bite them haha, I haven't gotten far in Astarion origin though
If you let him feed on you and tell him he can keep doing it, just with your permission, he promises to be more stealthy going forward so that he doesn't keep interrupting your beauty sleep lol
Last night while playing I had the Dark Urge kill your lover cut scene. After fighting all night long to not murder Shadowheart I eventually came to my senses and realised Astarion visited me in the night for his nightly top up of blood. Motherfucker didn't try and help Shadowheart at all, probably just saw me writhing on the ground in a murderous rage as she tried to sooth me and said "Excuse me darling, do you mind if I borrow her for a moment, just need a quick drink is all... *Slurp Slurp*... alright, good luck with her, hopefully she regains her senses soon, toodaloo".
I noticed this on my Durge run too, but I was romancing astarion. Like damn, bro, I know I said you could earlier, but weird vibe.
“Read the room!!!” 😂
Maybe he bit you early in the night and then Durge woke up and went for revenge 😠
"He took a little of my blood... I took all of his"
I’m just saying, I wasn’t rolling those saves with the bloodless modifier 👀
Oh... Well...
Then it's your fault! He had to look after you during the night and couldn't go hunt. Boy was hungry 🥺
Whats a Durge run
The dark urge origin. Highly recommend trying it if you haven’t, there’s multiple fun ways to play it
Whats a dark urge origin. Sorry. Im new here
It's an option when picking/creating your character. You can create your own, which people call Tav because that's the default name of the "Create your own" character, or you can pick one of the other main characters, OR you can pick the dark urge character.
Dark urge is the name of the "mode" you play as a character who is basically evil. People combine the two words, Dark URGE to the word DURGE.
Small correction: you have evil dialogue and a few compulsions, but it's very close to a regular custom character, with a bit more backstory built in.
There's very little that is forced upon you in that run compared to the other origins, except Tav, but that's a given.
Ty
A playthrough with The Dark Urge as your main character
Why did i imagine him doing that with a silly straw lol
You know he probably has a beautiful ornate leather case that's filled with silly straws lol
New headcannon unlocked!
that end in sharp IV needle point on one side
When someone’s unconscious, don’t drink their blood. Unconscious people need their blood.
Reference; https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeB2QmkK/
It's helping! The bloodloss makes you weaker and easier to handle so you won't kill everyone.
I’ve been laughing for like for 5 minutes at this. He’d be delighted at the opportunity to be so bloody unhelpful
I wish we had a dialogue to tell him to bite the other companions. Gale for example. Or Withers.
If you play Gale as a origin you will learn that his blood tastes like bile for Astarion.
That would make it extra funny as an asshole option
Mmm, who doesn't like beef jerky.
It would be INTERESTING to bite Withers.
Gale explicitly tells him his blood is bile or something. You even get dialogue about it if Astarion uses bite on him
Oh, when he promises to “eat me right up” and leaving me wanting more? Yeah, I like that dialogue.
oh that's not AT ALL how i take that conversation 👀👀👀
i am...way thirstier for that man than i thought
I’m sure the horny vibes were intentional on the part of Larian lol
If you kill him when tried to bite, the next morning Karlach and the others dialogue basically goes
"Did none of you noticed he's a vampire?"
"Nope."
"Well, we're screwed."
Lol, i was shocked at how nonchalant everyone was. Especially Karlach, who was just like, " Damn dude, you almost got bit in your sleep." I even tried to defend Astarion a bit, and the group was like," Your kindness almost got you killed."
I mean tbf if the vampire had been anyone else that would be a fair thing to say.
LMAO
The stake sequence you can choose is hilarious. You just pull a 4ft stake out from under your pillow.
Trusty tent spikes if you ever feel like raising your own.
Tav doesn't set up their tent because of their vampire phobia?
Idk if it was real, but I remember a clip in Early Access. Tav would take some wood from the campfire and quickly snap it in two to make the stake.
game planned a nat 1 for astarion
literally unplayable
uninstalling rn
Game Master wisdom is to never make your players roll for something you haven't planned for them to fail, I suppose the same can work if you don't have a plan for them to succeed.
Nat 20
Perhaps proof that he's truly in need of some sustenance!
Rolled with disadvantage
I got a convo where Astarion was acting drunk and claims he drank a bears blood... did he bite Halsin???? Love him either way but that'd be hilarious if he did.
That scene is really funny if it happens in the underdark. Apparently you can respond with "where the fuck did you find a bear? we're in the underdark."
That happened to me! He basically was like “I dunno! It was big and hairy! Whatever!”
"...has anyone seen Halsin?"
I got that in my current playthrough. He then implies maybe it wasn't a bear but he thought it was
He claims to have drank all of the bear's blood. If he did that to Halsin, he'd have turned back into a druid and they'd have a very awkward encounter on their hands.
No, I believe somewhere around the goblin camp there's an "exsanguinated boat" that's all pale. Astarion ate that.
"Exsanginated boat"
Yeah, that's called a raft.
Awww, shit. Lmfao
You can find that way before he says the bear line.
It changes location depending on when you see him sneaking out of camp
Interesting.
Astarion mentions the bear fought back and that astarion took "all its blood". Halsin wouldn't be that alive with no blood
He didn't get halsin lol but I got the convo when I was in the goblin camp and was honestly so scared he killed halsin
Was an awkward conversation for my druid as in Act 1 she was mostly a bear
I just love that if you look close when you talk to him (Before it's revealed) you can see his vampire fangs
I love how I completely missed all the signs on my first playthrough. Me and my Tav both had perception in the negatives haha. Saw the bite marks on his neck and went “interesting scars…or moles…whatever, not important”. Didn’t even notice the fangs. Figured the red eyes were an artistic choice by the developers. And him sneaking around and telling me about a vampire draining the local boar population just didn’t even phase me 😅 So this was my face in all seriousness when he tried to bite me 😱
I started this game completely blind and with no knowledge of DND at all. I remember thinking I guess elves have vampire teeth and looks in this universe
Had been playing for a good three hours before my partner comes in and looks over my shoulder as Tav is talking to companions in camp, and partner immediately clocked that he was a vampire, pointing out the bite marks, fans, eyes, paleness, etc. Apparently I share Tav's lack of observation skills. 😂
To be fair, hadn't he become malnourished and weak leading up to that reveal? He was desperate and needed some blood just to be able to go out hunting.
So he was bloodless with a -1 to ability checks and could have rolled a 2.
Good point, I think if he had rolled nat 1, he would have tripped or made a sound, but with the 2 he kind just hopped we'd roll a 1
Good point
In his origin, he can succeed. The person I bit didn't wake up. She felt like shit the next morning and didn't know why.
I hid my vampirism until Act 2. Made for very interesting roleplaying.
That's what I'm hoping to do when i play him. Or atleast hold off on the reveal until the swamp.
In the swamp, it will be revealed if you talk to Gandrel.
So I walked right past him and went back alone later the same day with my ogre buddies and solved that problem.
It was a tough fight at that level!
I suspect being romanced might trigger it being revealed in Act 2, as I've heard of people making it further.
Wild! In my Durge play through I didn't get the reveal cutscene until after the tiefling party, after the gur monster hunter and auntie -- if memory serves, I was forced into camp before we were able to exit the map for a new area.
In the origin, does he have to wait that long to bite enemies whilst in a party?
In the origin, you get the option right (because you start questioning the rules).
The latest patch makes the reveal happen a lot quicker for durge/Tav, if you want to avoid it, just pick him up first and long rest a couple of times (at least that's worked for me). I think the bite is a cool part of an Astarion romance, but that's just me.
oo, makes sense!
I liked the paralleled late reveal ( ), but I can see your view and look forward to that potentiality on my next pt :)
In his defense he was starving. He even tells you his hunger has made him weak and vulnerable.
He was not really starving I think.
(Spoilers for Astarion origin ahead)
Your way of spelling “Cazador” either Caszador or Caszadors is annoying me for no particular reason
Corrected it!
There’s some dialogue for if another companion just ‘disappears’ during the night, and Astarion lies about not knowing anything hidden in the files. Not sure if this is for his origin run or any though? I’ve never seen it play out
maybe you saw a different footage, there is an event (without many spoilers) where you may have a dead body in your camp and you can blame in on the vamp, but it wasn't actually him
Oh no I don’t mean durging. This is in the dialogue files, one of our og companions just disappears in the night and Astarion is guilty af. Maybe it was cut content.
I can kind of understand why they would cut it. I would be furious if I woke up and Astarion had killed Karlach in the middle of the night and there was nothing I could do about it.
I think she and Gale are the only ones who can survive his bite. I remember Astarion burning his mouth on Karlach and not enjoying the taste of the weave in Gale's blood
Could be wrong
I would feel the same way if I were romancing Shart, Wyll, or Halsin.
Tav really did just get lucky.
He didn’t do it in our game. He just told us he was a vampire… not sure what we’ve done to “avoid” that cutscene it’s a shame I wanted to see that !
You can also fail a perception roll on one of your first long rests. In that case, Astarion seems to bite you without you noticing.
you might need to long rest more often?
I just got the spontaneous confession for the first time (5th playthrough) last night -- it seems like it's more that you can continuously preempt his bite scene with other plot progress scenes, and eventually he just... pops out with it. I was very surprised, especially given that this time I'm a paladin. Although that made the RP of reluctantly deciding to keep him around much easier: he's proven that he can keep his shit together without biting people!
Although (Dark Urge spoilers)
Maybe ? We’re already act 3. I thought we were already long resting quite often as we’re not trying to do the game “hard mode” but maybe the scene will come one day!
if you are on PC I heard there is a mod that notifies you when/if there is a camp scene.
Personally I always get the 'bite scene' when I long rest in/near that ruined village. never gotten the conversation where he just tells you.
No we’re on PS5. It’s ok though we’ll probably do another run to explore the game differently and might see it then :)
What amuses me the most about this is that my Tav is a high elf, and that makes her the only one in camp who is trancing and not sleeping. He really picked the one person who isn't even fully unconscious and would be more difficult to snack on.
Yeah that's my headcanon that's he failed a roll lol
I just completed act 1 pretty thoroughly for the first time and he didn't try to bite any party members. I wonder what u did differently...I know I skipped past meeting him for a while on accident. I reached the Grove and met wyll before Astarion. Anyone know if that's why?
Also depends on the events triggered during the day, on the number of long rests you’re doing and what other long rest specific cutscenes have been triggered.
I’ve had playthroughs where the biting event happened on the 4th long rest, but mostly they happen way later.
I’ve seen a video of where there is never a biting scene at all, and Astarion confesses to be a vampire when hitting Act 3.
Yeah, I've had a lot of long rests since meeting him. He told me he was a vampire in act 1, and despite me having low acceptance rating, he wanted a romance fling pretty soon.
So strange.
Could be. If i was to guess, by not recruiting him immediately it opened the possibility of more camp interactions. So you just never got it. Tough to say without knowing what all you did tho
My guess is not enough long rests after finally recruiting him.
A sensible guess. I also found it weird I have low approval rating yet he was the second companion to want to make some fuck
I got through the grove map in 4 long rests and went to the mountains. Astarion was never in my party and the camp scene never played. He will just simply tell you "yeah by the way, sorry its never come up, but Im a vampire" and you can respond "well obviously..." which I just adore!
He also tries to bite an elf if your character is an elf, something that’s technically impossible to do since elves go into a trance for four hours instead of sleeping for eight. You could literally say that you waking up when he goes to bite you was just the end of your trance if you’re playing an elf
Nah, the game accounts for that. Instead of saying you “wake up” it says you “break meditation”
Elves don’t technically need sleep but they still sort of drift off and become very unaware, unmoving. Like half-sleep.
The actual D&D lore for trance is that, depending on the elf’s age, they’re reliving memories from a past life or meditating on how best to approach situations. If they’re sub 100 years old they’re likely meditating, if they’re over 100 they’re likely reliving a previous life of theirs. There’s a limit on how many elven souls exist and they constantly get reincarnated unless they become immortal like Astarion
In my most recent run, the first cut scene where he is sneaking off into the woods didn't even play. Just straight into the bite one immediately after I got him on first rest. Bro was super hungry I guess? It's not like I waited for ages. I always run around and grab everyone with a long rest between each as soon as I hit the beach.
imagine it the other way around, you go to sleep and RNGsus says: roll a perception roll, failed? ok you are dead
Or maybe he feeds every long rest only this time he failed his roll…
I've played 3 campaigns and never got a scene where astarion bites/asks about biting me. I don't have any debufgs either. He just at some point always reveals he's a vampire and my character goes "yeah I could tell" and then I guess he keeps eating animals or whatever.
Does he? Cause I've seen clips of him burning his mouth on a spicy teifling
Is role/roll the new rouge/rogue?
Pfft, I'm a Ranger. That boi ain't getting past this perception.
It's okay, because I rolled 1 on persuasion check with him. We match.
One of my favorite moments in our old D&D campaign was when my rogue got a crit fail when trying to sneak through bushes. Cut to her falling flat on her face. So I asked if I could try an acrobatics check to make it a roll. Nat 20, rolled right up the the main bad guy, and stabbed him in the face.
Improvise! Adapt! Overcome!
Next you tell me he is a vampire /s
To be fair, since you're sleeping, he would (at least if we're going by table top rules) roll against your passive perception. Can't make an active perception check if you're sleeping.
So do vampires suck through their teeth like opposite snake fangs or do the teeth just puncture and gush method?
......yes
“well, shit.”