How to DM a vampire party?

[evisiron]

I'm running a high power level 10 gestalt game, and a vampire managed to sneak in and (with a consistently terrible set of Will saves) dominated the party turned 2 of the 3 into vampires.
The third broke free and Plane Shifted out of there. The player is going to roll up a new character (some kind of Undead or the like) while his main is in NPC mode.

My question is:

What can I send to fight this party?

0HP is now just a minor setback, stat drain is no longer an option and I'm at a loss on how to effectively challenge the players.

On a side note, I am tweaking the vampire rules slightly, removing things like their inability to enter houses. Would you have any suggestions of minor tweaks that would make things run smoother?

[Draconi Redfir]

paladans. lots and lots of paliadns.

maybe some clerics too.

[Telonius]

Depends on how the players want to play it. Do they (and the characters) still want to accomplish the same goals as they did, pre-vampirism? If so, just bump up the difficulty of the enemies and encounters from here on out. Clerics and Paladins make great challenges.

This turn of events is made for plot hooks. Previously-friendly NPCs (Friends? Relatives? Lovers?) are great for this. Do they react with horror? Try to help them? Are there any goody two-shoes Clerics or Paladins in the vicinity who could cause trouble for them?

Since this is Gestalt, you have another very specific set of problems: what to do about the level progression. While UA doesn't specify one way or the other, the normal way of Gestalting a level adjustment template is to have Vampire on one half of the Gestalt, with something else on the other side. But since the template is acquired, it throws things all out of whack. My personal suggestion would be to just give them the whole template now, but require that they can only add one half of the gestalt for the next eight levels (until the template is "paid for"). Alternately, I think Savage Species has some rules about turning Vampire into a class progression. I don't own the book to say for sure (or if it's a good option).

[yugi24862]

Savage species had a Vampire Spawn monster class, but not a Vampire one.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Your first problem is gestalt without severely tight house rules.

Do you think vampires are ... strong for their LA? If so just throw normal CR +gestalt challenges and watch them fail.

If you are being reasonable and want them to not fail I have the only build I've ever seen that makes Vampiric PC actua

[BillyBobJoe]

Here's a Savage Progression (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a).

[TroubleBrewing]

Clerics. Cleanse them with fire, and then roll up new characters.

Alternatively, have them go on a quest for the cure, only to find that it cures their vampirism, and instead gives them all the Gheden template. :smalltongue:

[Honest Tiefling]

As for the weaknesses...

1) Remove restriction about running water. I...Don't really know how this is supposed to work with plumbing and underwater streams, and always struck me as silly. Might want to reconsider submerging in water as well. I think saying that people can kill vampires for good in running water, but a vampire taking a dip is not going to die is alright. Maybe refluff as holy water, since clerics and paladins make good enemies.

2) Keep sunlight. Very iconic!

3) Garlic? This one is strange. Probably too well known to get rid of, but I'd reduce it. Maybe just repels people?

Now, for plots! First off, how many people know there are vampires about? If no one knows, tell your group that they should feed without arousing suspicion. If they fail, the Friendly Neighborhood Church of Light n' Smite will probably come a-knocking with a bit more then pamphlets.

Vampires do retain their memories, so ask them if they retain their goals, abandon them, or alter them. This should be up to the players, and they'll probably mention some other goal if they have one.

Another plot to do would be to make a secure place for them to rest. They can gather resources, scout out good hunting grounds and raid places for the money necessary to construct things. However, they are unlikely to be able to wander into many shops, so even shopping is tricky now. They might have to find sneaky ways to get resources.

[McStabbington]

Vampirism and undeath doesn't immediately turn a person evil. It's more centuries of using mortals for feed that turns them evil. So it depends on how they game it out. It could be that they're still trying to accomplish their old heroic goal. Maybe they even are just holding off being turned to dust until they've finished their goal. But now in order to do it, the cost goes up. They have to eat, and they have to eat people. And they're going to attract npc's that want to take them out.

[marcielle]

1) Remove restriction about running water. I...Don't really know how this is supposed to work with plumbing and underwater streams, and always struck me as silly.

OMG This is hilarious. That means all you ever need to do to trap a vampire is to build a sewage system around their castle and watch in as they rage in utter confusion.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

change garlic to strong smells, get rid of sunlight vunerably and change to vampire powers dont work in sunlight, running water is just stupid.

[Malimar]

On a side note, I am tweaking the vampire rules slightly, removing things like their inability to enter houses. Would you have any suggestions of minor tweaks that would make things run smoother?

See, for me, little things like their myriad of weaknesses would be 90% of the fun of playing a vampire. The title character dealing with his weaknesses was (a small) part of why Angel was so good, and lack of any weaknesses is part of why Twilight is so <vitriol redacted>.

Anything that calls for the players to come up with a clever solution is a good thing. Inability to cross a threshold into a private domicile without an invitation should be a fun challenge for PCs to overcome (probably by burning the house down). Taking that away makes it all superpowers and no fun.

That said, there are two major ones which could be genuinely problematic: the sunlight vulnerability and the inability to cross running water. The former might indeed be too iconic to remove, though if you are inclined to do so I would suggest going the original Dracula way and changing it to "you are listless and torpid during the day, but sunlight doesn't actually hurt you".

The water thing could potentially be very bad, especially in a city with omnipresent plumbing like ancient Rome. So this really depends on your setting. If it's a more standard "the bathroom is a hole in the ground and the water main is a well" setting, this isn't so problematic and could safely be left in.

If you find the weaknesses getting old, then and only then would I suggest, not retconning the weaknesses out, but offering magic items which would overcome them, one at a time. (Or even nonmagical items - maybe you can overcome the weakness to garlic with a perfectly mundane clothespin. Not that vampires breathe anyway; maybe the clothespin just prevents garlic molecules from wafting into your nose or something.)

[Unseenmal]

Also you should realize, they can't enter any "private" building without being invited such as a home. Places like shops and the like are public. So for them to go shopping at the local smithy should not really pose a problem.

[Shadowknight12]

A handful of folklore explanations of why vampires have those weaknesses:


Sunlight was when activity took place in medieval times. You did not go outside when it got dark, unless you had a *very* good reason to. Conversely, daylight was seen as "safe." Remember that in ages past, people really believed that vampires actually existed. If they dwelled in the night, but they were nowhere to be found in the day, the simplest explanation was that they *couldn't* stand the touch of sunlight. Strong associations of sunlight with holiness and goodness only reinforced this belief (because in Northern Europe, nights are rather cold, while daylight is bearable. In tropical and desert areas, cultural beliefs are often the opposite, and sunlight is portrayed in a much poorer light) .
Garlic has antibiotic, antiparasitic, antiviral and antifungal properties, and it's a well-known folklore medicinal herb. Given that vampires were originally associated with disease and plagues, it's no leap of logic to presume that the herb that drives infections away would drive vampires away just the same.
Running water was believed to "wash away" magic, curses and other unnatural things (Law of Sympathy in effect here. Just like running water washes away dirt, weariness and other unseemly things, it must also wash away magic). If I were to implement this belief in my campaigns as a more generalised phenomenon, I would treat submerging in running water as having Dispel Magic cast upon the swimmer, with a Caster Level depending on the size of the body of water.
Silver was believed to be a metal associated with good (or purity, my sources aren't very clear on this). The reason you cannot capture a vampire's figure on photographs is because the chemicals that were used on the films back in the day were silver compounds. Furthermore, mirrors used to be made of burnished silver, which also explains why witches and other evil creatures cast no reflection. The fact that there was a very strong association between mirror reflections and souls in the old days (coupled with the fact that witches, vampires and other evil creatures were said to have lost/traded their souls) contributed to this belief. This is probably the reason why a vampire's DR is bypassed with silver, just like a werewolf's. I would guess that this is also why the "expensive" version of the standard holy symbol is made of silver, because of this very same association.
Undead were not the only ones who were said to be "repelled" or (you guessed it) "turned away" by the power of faith. Fey, werewolves and anything "unwholesome" was believed to be powerless before the power of faith. Whether this had any metaphysical basis or if was just a marketing ploy on behalf of the church, well... that's irrelevant. It's not uncommon to hear stories of evil fey who are driven away by the sound of a church's bell tolling, or werewolves being unable to set foot on consecrated ground.
Plants with thorns (like hawthorn, wild roses, etc) were believed to be effective at driving away evil (including vampires), though I'm unclear if it's because of the Christ association or because of the Law of Sympathy and the tendency to use plants with thorns as a sign of unwelcome.
Much like running water, iron was believed to be an antimagic material, that absorbed (or blocked, or redirected, or reflected) curses and spells, and that magical creatures (such as fey) were horribly damaged by iron weapons as a result. That's probably the reason we have DR/Cold Iron.
Stakes were used to be driven into bodies at burial in order to pin them to the coffins and prevent their rise as undead (see how in the rules, a stake driven through a vampire's heart does not kill it, it merely halts it. That's because stakes in folklore were never meant to kill the vampire, but immobilise it). Other habits included placing a stake on the coffin ceiling, so that the would-be revenant would impale himself on it and be unable to escape. Tying into previous myths, the wood of certain trees was preferred (and, depending on the region, it could mean that using other types of wood would not have the same results). In areas with strong druidic influence, wood of sacred trees (oak, holly, etc) was preferred. In other areas, they usually used wood from a thorny tree (hawthorn, mainly) due to the association with the thorn myth previously mentioned.
The inability to enter a home unless invited has some seriously murky origins. Bram Stoker made it popular, of course, by having Renfield state that Dracula was a gentleman and waited for permission to enter the first time, but then came and went as he pleased afterwards. However, Bram Stoker reputedly based himself on folklore myths, and I have come across some similar beliefs when applied to other creatures, so it's possible that it was not something he simply made up. There's a prevalent theme in many myths about answering one's door to a stranger that comes calling in the night. I could go on about the psychological and sociological beliefs of the period, but that'd be pure conjecture on my behalf. My personal choice for the origin of this weakness is the belief that evil cannot break into your home. It must be invited in. A vampire, being pure Evil, cannot enter your home by force. The home and the hearth are Sacred and as long as the will of their inhabitants is strong, it can keep evil at bay. In true medieval fashion, this was a way of using myth to impart folk wisdom. "Be careful of who you allow into your home."
In some of the oldest beliefs, evil gave you OCD. You could distract witches, vampires, fey and spirits by scattering seeds, rice, grains or sand and the evil chasing you would actually stop to count them all. If you threw enough, they would actually stay counting until dawn (with all the implications of such an event). I have no idea where this comes from, just throwing it out there.

[Solaris]

change garlic to strong smells, get rid of sunlight vunerably and change to vampire powers dont work in sunlight, running water is just stupid.

That depends on which folklore you're going with here. Personally, I find the garlic and running water vulnerability to be more iconic than 'insta-kill sunlight' and always wondered why vampires didn't have an obsession with counting things.

[Malimar]

In some of the oldest beliefs, evil gave you OCD. You could distract witches, vampires, fey and spirits by scattering seeds, rice, grains or sand and the evil chasing you would actually stop to count them all. If you threw enough, they would actually stay counting until dawn (with all the implications of such an event). I have no idea where this comes from, just throwing it out there.

I was filled with glee when I first realized this was part of the explanation for Sesame Street's Count von Count. (The other part being the obvious pun.)

Also, I approve of that entire post and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Brother Oni]

1) Remove restriction about running water. I...Don't really know how this is supposed to work with plumbing and underwater streams, and always struck me as silly.

The way I understood the running water restriction, is that the vampire couldn’t cross an open stream. Underground streams and water mains are covered and hence do not impede the vampire. Sewerage pipes don’t contain clean water and are also exempt. Castle moats also tend to be full of stagnant water, so are covered by the same clause as sewerage pipes.

In a modern setting, a player could theoretically stop a vampire by blowing up a street and hoping to burst the water main, but in any setting that doesn’t have piped clean water to individual homes, it’s not a problem.

A bucket of thrown water isn’t sufficient to count as running water, but an ingenious use of a decanter of endless water could set up a permanent moat of running water around their home.

However there's nothing stopping the vampire from covering or bridging the stream (a wooden board or nearby tree) or being carried across it (I believe Dracula has his szganzy allies carry him across for him in the original novel while he rested inside his coffin).

Edit: it probably won’t work for the OP’s party as they were all turned by the same vampire, but you could take inspiration from the old film Captain Kronos that had the interesting phrase “There are as many types of vampires as there are birds of prey in the sky”, so essentially you have different genealogies of vampires, each with different strengths and vulnerabilities (although not to the same extent as the World of Darkness game).

The movie also had another interesting piece of folklore associated with the uncleanness of vampires – if you buried a dead toad (regarded as an unclean creature), a vampire passing nearby would bring back to life, although the protagonist noted that not all vampires did this.

[Master_Rahl22]

Do what we just did to kill some NPC vampire assassins after they failed to kill us in our sleep. Our Beguiler cast a spell that let her locate a certain number of creatures, not sure what the name of the spell was. We then follow the mist cloud to the coffin and make sure to bring along stakes. Voila, dead bloodsuckers. So 0HP is more than just a minor inconvenience, it's an opportunity for the PC's enemies to find their coffins and catch them while they're vulnerable. :smallwink:

[Morbis Meh]

Send in a party of Radiant Servant of Pelor clerics with a crap ton of turning feats, if you don't want insta kills use the variant turning system that does damage to the undead.

[PirateLizard]

Hmm...you could do kind of a mafioso yakuza/theme. The vampires start a cult, and as it's most powerful members, must then eliminate anything that threatens their nefarious plans for world domination. Again with the clerics and paladins, but then theres other stuff too. Nosy kids, other rival rackateering schemes, witness intimidation (lol ded), FBI agents, Matrix agents...

[Shadowknight12]

I was filled with glee when I first realized this was part of the explanation for Sesame Street's Count von Count. (The other part being the obvious pun.)

Also, I approve of that entire post and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I was going to mention the Count as an example, but I heard a loud noise and then completely forgot about it. Good catch!

It was my pleasure! I always try to incorporate folklore to my games, it's an incredibly rich source of flavour, stories and realism.

It's not easy, though, since folklore was very human-centric. The notion of looking at things from something other than a human's point of view is very modern (ever wondered what a dryad or a wraith do when they're not interacting with humans? And how old literature is conspicuously silent on the issue? That's why.), so it requires a measure of work to make the adaptations.

Still, definitely worth it!

[Drglenn]

Switch to playing Vampire: the Requiem (or Masquerade)?

[Tiki Snakes]

A good thing to consider is, whatever type of activity they are engaged in, you should look into including 'failure' scenarios seperate to whether or not they are killed. For example, a standard Dungeon Crawl would be bad, because they can just respawn infinately and zerg their way slowly in.
If they were racing the spawn/acolytes of one of their new master's rivals to the artifact at the heart of the dungeon, however, then misting away at 0hp becomes a genuine 'loss' again.

And so on. Generally I think there should be many of these 'survive but lose' results possible reguardless of the type of creature the party currently is, because it means that they can fail without the campaign ending, but, yeah.

[Flame of Anor]

but I heard a loud noise and then completely forgot about it.

SQUIRREL!!! :smalltongue:

[Shadowknight12]

SQUIRREL!!! :smalltongue:

http://www.elezea.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/squirrel.jpg

[crazyhedgewizrd]

That depends on which folklore you're going with here. Personally, I find the garlic and running water vulnerability to be more iconic than 'insta-kill sunlight' and always wondered why vampires didn't have an obsession with counting things.

dont really care for the hollywood vampire lore

[OracleofWuffing]

Sunlight was when activity took place in medieval times. You did not go outside when it got dark, unless you had a *very* good reason to. Conversely, daylight was seen as "safe." Remember that in ages past, people really believed that vampires actually existed. If they dwelled in the night, but they were nowhere to be found in the day, the simplest explanation was that they *couldn't* stand the touch of sunlight.
For that matter (and I wish I still had the book that talked about it 'cause this is all good stuff that you're willing to explain the context of and I'd like to return the favor), those who suffered from lack of skin pigmentation and other close conditions not only actually couldn't stand the sunlight, but also had the pale skin certain vampire renditions had. There really were a few people that stayed inside until night because they'd suffer deadly burns in the day without capes and cloaks to hide themselves.


I was going to mention the Count as an example, but I heard a loud noise and then completely forgot about it.
Please tell me the noise was a thunderclap followed by an, "Ah ha ha!" :smalltongue:

[Tvtyrant]

Have them fight Mindflayers, with their ability to be immune to their mind-blast turning them into the worlds only real hope.

[Shadowknight12]

dont really care for the hollywood vampire lore

What is this hollywood vampire lore you speak of?


For that matter (and I wish I still had the book that talked about it 'cause this is all good stuff that you're willing to explain the context of and I'd like to return the favor), those who suffered from lack of skin pigmentation and other close conditions not only actually couldn't stand the sunlight, but also had the pale skin certain vampire renditions had. There really were a few people that stayed inside until night because they'd suffer deadly burns in the day without capes and cloaks to hide themselves.

Oh, yes! I remember those conditions. How could I have forgot about the iconic Porphyria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyria) (symptoms: light sensitivity for the vampires and excessive hair growth for the werewolves), Albinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinism) and Rabies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies)! Or any of the other causes of photosensitivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitivity_in_humans).

One thing to remember, though, is that the modern vampire myth is the consolidation of many other different myths together. In a lot of them, sunlight didn't affect the vampire, or it made it impossible for the vampire to use his powers except at dawn, dusk or noon. And some other monsters, like the oft-forgot revenant, in fact started possessing some of the strengths and weaknesses later attributed to vampires.

And, of course, when the vampire wasn't the result of some terrible sin committed by the person in life (or in death! Suicide was a terrible sin, after all), the other reason it could rise from the grave was to avenge some terrible wrong (which later became associated with the revenant figure in general). Again, this was meant to be an educational tool. Not only were you doomed to an unlife of eternal suffering if you were a sinner in life, you could also doom others by doing them a terrible wrong, and in so, become the victim of your own wickedness.

But that's not quite related to sunlight. :smalltongue:


Please tell me the noise was a thunderclap followed by an, "Ah ha ha!" :smalltongue:

It might well have been! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go do my daily shopping. Those potatoes aren't going to count themselves.