This character build is an exploration into another vampire bloodline and a combination of skills and spells not yet explored by me: a battlemage vampire. The Khulari are Iliac Bay vampires who share the same powers as a normal vampire, but also possess another dark gift. I have tried my version of a pure mage vampire, and wanted to transform a character into a melee oriented spellsword vampire that could handle even the toughest of enemies with agile movements, more powerful spells, and strong sword skills.
The Khulari
To understand the Khulari, we must understand where they are first introduced (Daggerfall) and where they come from. The Iliac Bay is the large bay separating the southern coast of High Rock and northern coast of Hammerfell. The Khulari are settled in heavily Redguard populated areas, such as Totambu and the Dragontail Mountains. What sets these vampires apart are their distinct ability to paralyze their prey when hunting and feeding. I chose not to focus on conjuration, sneak, or illusion for this build, much like Mason's The Volkihar, so I could create something that strays from the beaten path and implores a more unique set of skills and spell combinations to achieve great power and strength. (For most of my new character concepts, I play the game "who else has done something like this?" as unique character builds are hard to come by. This I thought is a fun standout attempt, but have been privileged enough to gather resources and skill ideas from other builds.) Of course, there are many other vampire bloodlines, and I implore everyone to read up on their special abilities, but the Khulari sounded so freakin' cool and unique that I had to make a build.
The Khulari is a character concept that I tried to mimic the effects of my Fearmonger but instead of fear, focus on the strong power of paralysis. This character build is also more melee based with destruction and alteration magic to back it up in need of ranged abilities. This Khulari vampire was difficult to begin to research, as there is not much lore written about the bloodline, and I began to write my own story, being a stranded, weakened vampire. The rest of my clan wiped out and must seek neighboring clans for help. The Volkihar, provided by Dawnguard DLC, give us more than I bargained for.
Build
Race: Redguard. The racial ability fits very well with this character concept as vampires are faster and stronger. With the ability to greatly increase stamina regeneration, we can run longer and power attack more often which makes this build very efficient when in combat situations.
Stone: The Lady
Major Skills: Alteration, One Handed, Destruction, Enchanting
Minor Skills: Restoration, Light Armor, Smithing
Apparel: Enchanted Blades Sword (Absorb Health+Frost) / Harkon's Sword / Chillrend, Enchanted Alik'r Hood, Enchanted Vampire Armor (grey), Enchanted Vampire Boots, and Enchanted Vampire Gauntlets. If you have not tried this aesthetic, go try it now, it is badass.
Shouts:
Become Ethereal - Essential to pull off Mass Paralysis without a hitch!
Frost Breath and Ice Form - Fantastic fit for ice spell augmentation, and ice form paralyzes in its own way!
Marked for Death - Great for dealing with multiple enemies.
Slow Time - Great to demonstrate our vampire speed and agility. Combined with the Redguard's adrenaline rush, this build can take down many enemies in quick time using brutal power attacks.
Whirlwind Sprint - Vampire speed!
Soul Tear - Great to augment our rare and special necromantic abilities.
Vampire Lord: The ability to transform into a powerful vampire lord is a great addition to the build. Utilizing your normal vampire form, you are able to use your blade to cut down your foes very quickly and paralyze efficiently while firing off multiple ice spells. Vampire Lord form, however, really lets this vampire character to delve into necromancy and summoning spells a normal necromage vampire would have access to in normal form. Vampire daily powers and vampire lord are thus appreciated a lot more when used as you are not spending perks into the all powerful perks trees such as illusion, conjuration, and sneak.
The fun thing about this build is you are not going to be an all powerful spellblade right away in any sense. No 50+ magicka boost, no magic resistance or Dragonskin power ... playing as my favorite race, Redguard, is refreshing and has been a great twist on a vampire, especially one from this particular bloodline.
The synergy I tried to bring to this build are the multiple opportunities this character has to literally stop enemies in their tracks and fall over, utterly paralyzed and helpless to further magic attacks and quick blade strikes.
- We have, if you have not guessed it, our main spell in the left hand is the paralysis spell. Being able to shoot off bolts of stun-you-in-your-tracks magic is a powerful feeling. This ability also comes in two flavors: the normal spell, which can be dual casted to improve chance to paralyze (if needed at all!) and mass paralysis, the master level spell which can take out anyone around you in one fell swoop.
- Next are frost spells. These destruction spells are great once the perk deep freeze is unlocked, at which point enemies with 20% or lower in health have a chance to be paralyzed. Extremely useful when fighting long range mages, especially those pesky fire mages. They become less of a problem with stronger fire resist enchantments.
- Last, are our weapon enchantments. Sure, you can enchant your blades sword with paralyze, which I have one, but I prefer to use frost damage and absorb health as it plays into the vampire theme. The coolest sword to use at higher levels is Chillrend, a unique glass sword enchanted with frost damage and paralyze for 2 seconds. It just looks so awesome too...
So in short, if you would like to give this build a try, and I highly recommend that you do, you will have enemies falling like stones left and right around you. Blizzard-ing a room while firing off paralyze and swinging a smithed blades sword is something to marvel at.
Skills and Perks
Alteration: Novice-Master, Magic Resistance 3/3, Dual Casting, Stability, Atronach
Heart of the build. Paralysis makes the Khulari stand out and be exceptionally powerful, and resistances!
Enchanting: Enchanter 5/5, Insightful, Corpus, Extra Effect
The only crafting skill I maxed out on the build. Enchanting does many things for this character concept. Adds damage and paralysis to our weapons, gives greater regeneration rates for weakened day time vampires, and much needed resistances, especially fire. This also provides some very welcome one handed damage. Such a generous skill...
One Handed: Armsman 3/5, Fighting Stance, Savage Strike
Redguards are exceptional warriors and this build focuses on a heavy melee influence while not investing in a ton of perks.
Destruction: Novice-Master, Augmented Frost 2/2, Deep Freeze
Great source of damage, slows targets, and chance to paralyze when foes are weakened. Sweet!
Restoration: Novice-Adept, Regeneration, Respite, Recovery 2/2, Avoid Death, and of course, Necromage!
Healing, helps with magicka regeneration, as well as the great vampire perks Necromage. This allows for longer paralysis durations and stronger enchantments.
Light Armor: Agile Defender 5/5
To upgrade out armor for protection during melee combat. I choose to favor aesthetic over the better defense numbers, but with these 5 perks, it will make the build harder to take down in a sword fight. Vampire armor is light armor, getting major boosts here.
Smithing: Steel, Elven, Advanced, Arcane
Advanced armors is need to upgrade vampire armor and arcane to make sure we can upgrade the magical enhanced variants.
Level 50 : Here
This has been one of my more spread out characters skill wise, but given that most are not fully perked out, the abilities combine well with each other and I am more than happy withe the result.
Gameplay
The character concept is all about roleplaying a vampire in a different way. Most are illusion masters who can sneak around without being detected. This build is focused on being a powerhouse that does not have to rely on illusion trickery like my last build, but yet it is extremely powerful being able to paralyze enemies and then take them out with even further paralyzing frost spells and a powerful sword. Combine sword hand and multiple choice spellbook for the left is very efficient.
I leveled very fast as most of my skills are being in use 95% of the game. Enchanting is always fun to level up, gathering the plethora of enchantments needed to customize your character. I have multiple sets of armor depending on situations or my feel for what is to come, but the general idea is to reduce costs for alteration and destruction (not 100%, that is not fun for me), fortify healing rate and magicka regeneration rate, as well as boosting one handed damage. Once extra effect is unlocked, your combinations are endless to create a perfect balance that suits YOU.
The Blades Sword provides a rather powerful choice for melee weapon, with a high base damage and upgrading it makes it slice down enemies quickly. One can be found in Nightgate Inn, carried by Fultheim. Enchanting the sword with absorb health/stamina is a great way to keep strong even during the daytime.
Video was taken down, so hopefully a new one is made soon!
Replies
This build is very powerful. Can't believe how long it has been. The paralyze stacked on top of a generalized spellsword playstyle just toys with enemies.
I've been re reading your builds. Man, its been ages since I've read some of these. I have come to notice that you favor paralysis effects in quite a few of your builds.
Far out Albino - I swear you love your Paralysis. Also, you hit Rank:Apprentice