Alpha:Vampire(race)

Skills

• Gains 7 Base Damage per level, instead of 5
• No Health Regen - you lose 1 HP per tile explored instead
• First Strike
• Immune to Poison
• Immune to Mana Burn
• Can sense the locations of all monsters of equal or lower level
• Spells cost Health instead of Mana
• Restores 10% of Max Health from blood pools
• 25% Life Steal, gains an additional 5% for every glyph converted
• Every next spell cost one more HP, than last; cost sets to normal after hand-to-hand fight
• HALPMEH doesn't work.

Life Steal causes you to get back a percentage of your Total Damage you dealt as Health when you use a melee attack. So if you hit a monster for 50 damage, you'd recover 12 Health with 25% Life Steal.

General Strategy

Vampire is tricky at the start; once you've gained a couple of levels though, your increased Health and Damage makes taking on almost any enemy a breeze. Also, First Strike does not let you go before other enemies with First Strike, and the lack of regen means that Gorgons can pose a minor threat if you're not careful. The increased Base Damage means that effects that increase your Damage Bonus are even more potent as well.

Once you get BURNDAYRAZ, the Vampire can beat bosses almost immediately, because they draw mana from health, and at level 4, you can have, say, 52 health, which gives you 6 casts: 52-6-7-8-9-10-11=1, where each cast costs one additional HP, for a total of 96 damage, which is enough to take out most level 7 monsters, possibly level 8 if you can take advantage of First Strike.

Vampire is the only race/class in the game, that don't need exploration control - actually, you should explore as much of dungeon as you can. After first exploration you could start attacking - even with 1 HP you can kill a bunch of monsters. Level up will heal you; from this moment you can attack monsters 1-2 level higher than yours. One thing that you really need is BURNDAYRAZ. Other glyphs usually can be converted for lifesteal. Try to save bloodpools. First two-three levels is hardest. Use you potions - on high level you usually wouldn't need them. Factory is exception, though - save all potions you can.

Deity Choice

Be careful with Glowing Guardian; praying to him will heal you, but first attack will make him denounce you - because of lifesteal. Still, one healing can save the game