Question

[Immabozo]

So undead, other than vampires, are unaffected by the loss of their head. So what if you took a vorporal weapon and cut off the head... then one arm... then the other... then one leg... then the other? They wouldn't be dead, but all possibility of momentum is gone, no possibility of melee attacks unless someone sticks their hand in the thing's mouth, no spell casting with a somatic component. Then throw the pieces into a hole in the ice of a frozen lake.

I ask because I am in a private message war with someone with an undead level 30 gestalt and challenged the Playground to figure out who had the bigger, none cheese filled, stick. My character has 24 vorporal attacks per round, can only hit him on a crit and crit on a confirmed crit (he is in the same situation on me, minus vorporal attacks and only 5 attacks per round, both of us, on top of that, having regen, well I have regen, he has fast healing my regen is gotten around by cold or acid and I am immune to cold and acid resist 60).

The only thing he has on me is bestowing negative levels. An item of negative energy protection gets around that.

My alternate was a war troll/half dragon/werebear//druid 20/war hulk 10 a str of 125 or so with no item optimization (+16 enhancement bonus from bite of the werebear is something I don't know how to get better than, and that ON a werebear is something that will never cease to amuse me) but only hitting up to AC 100, and his AC 125, same boat, but with such high strength, using a scythe for x4 multiplier, and 10 attacks per round able to do enough damage to just brute force overcome his defenses.

EDIT: If I can find some way to get my natural str to carry over to a shapeshifted form, I win by taking a stronger form.

[Flickerdart]

Vorpal weapons have no special ability to remove non-head limbs.

[Immabozo]

I thought they did! Damn...

[KillianHawkeye]

Also, undead are not typically subjected to critical hits. It requires specific spells or magic items to circumvent that immunity FYI.

[Cog]

Also, undead are not typically subjected to critical hits. It requires specific spells or magic items to circumvent that immunity FYI.
Yes, but that explicitly does not stop Vorpal's decapitation; such creatures simply suffer no ill effects from that event.

[Immabozo]

Yes, but that explicitly does not stop Vorpal's decapitation; such creatures simply suffer no ill effects from that event.

My thoughts exactly. The creature suffers little, but the body is none-the-less taken apart and the creature rendered ineffective.

Or that was my original thought, anyway

[Qc Storm]

Can a decapitated undead still bite? I would imagine the severed head hopping around and biting toes.

[Slipperychicken]

Vorpal only triggers off a Natural 20, not any old critical.

[Immabozo]

well still, 24 attacks a round, there is going to be a few 20s eventually.

[Deaxsa]

Vorpal only triggers off a Natural 20, not any old critical.

with 24 attacks, the chances are actually really good, though. and that's just one round.

[Zanthy1]

The real question would be this. If the undead loses its head, which part retains movability? Or do both parts? Did you just make a headless zombie? Or a bodyless zombie head? Or are they just physically separated, and someone could potentially sew them together again?

[Flickerdart]

The real question would be this. If the undead loses its head, which part retains movability? Or do both parts? Did you just make a headless zombie? Or a bodyless zombie head? Or are they just physically separated, and someone could potentially sew them together again?
Considering that a zombie isn't a "creature" so much as "a meat puppet animated by magic" the larger part probably retains mobility if any parts must lose it. In either case, sewing it back will probably not make it work like before because zombies retain their original strength scores and corpses have to be relatively fresh, so they probably work off their original muscles. Where this puts skeletons, I can't really say, so you could argue both ways.

[Kane0]

Nay, 'tis but a scratch...

[Immabozo]

sewing it back ... Where this puts skeletons, I can't really say, so you could argue both ways.

Good luck sewing a skeleton

[nedz]

I thought they did! Damn...

Your probably thinking of the Sword of Sharpness from AD&D which worked just like a vorpal sword except that it removed a random limb.

It would be easy to port to 3.5, but that would be homebrew.

It's why the spell Regeneration exists.

Also (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4)