Durkon is REALLY watching the zeppelin's shadow

[Dante2001]

he's watching it like with so much passion. Just saying.. :smallbiggrin:

[One Skunk Todd]

It is relevant to his interests. :)

[littlebum2002]

Yeah, I definitely noticed him smoking, then eyeing up that shadow.

[Klear]

This might be a good place to ask - Durkon's already been smoldering for a couple of panels, and it seems he will get saved by the shadow in the last second.

Mechanically, what will have happened to him? Significant damage? Negative modifiers, or does he shrug it off once he's not in sunlight and be as fine as he was before it?

[Jasdoif]

This might be a good place to ask - Durkon's already been smoldering for a couple of panels, and it seems he will get saved by the shadow in the last second.

Mechanically, what will have happened to him? Significant damage? Negative modifiers, or does he shrug it off once he's not in sunlight and be as fine as he was before it?Mechanically, he'll shrug it off. This is the only rule for vampires that mentions sunlight:
Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape.There's nothing saying brief exposure causes damage.

[Katuko]

I actually can't recall any vampire fiction I have seen that explicitly address "medium" exposure. Either the vampire hisses, smokes, and escapes into shadow; or it is burnt to crisp and dies. No in-between that I can recall.

The closest is a brief mention of Remilia Scarlet in the Touhou Project games, whose bio once mentioned that even if she burnt in the sunlight, she could survive and regenerate as long as "a single piece" remained. This single piece could presumably be either a body part, or as specifically mentioned: Remilia has the ability to shift her body into a swarm of bats, and a single of those bats would be enough.

Vampires in some fiction can be burned by holy items etc., but this is either merely a hiss of pain, or in the case of (semi-vamped) Mina Harker from Dracula it leaves a scar. The Count himself can heal and become younger by drinking blood. No mention of what would happen if they actually took major damage, but I assume it either heals completely or becomes scar tissue.

In terms of D&D, vampires do have the ability to regenerate HP rapidly, and if they are reduced to 0 hitpoints without being explicitly killed by one of their weaknesses, they turn to mist. I assume that they can have parts of themselves vanish and still be able to Fast Heal the damage (like Roy can close that gaping hole in his stomach through magic or by downing a potion).

Still, D&D vampires don't really have any intermediate step between "pain and smoke" and "aflame, burns to ash in seconds". Once the sunlight becomes too much, they crumble like tissue paper. Think of it as the deflector shields on many sci-fi ships. They are not hurt at all before the the shield runs out of power; their energy supply can recharge on its own. But if it fails due to overload, they are instantly killed.

[Bulldog Psion]

It's amazing that a stick figure dwarf manages to convey that sudden, still inner tensing that occurs when we see the wheel of opportunity turn abruptly and solidly in our direction. :smallsmile:

[Astral Avenger]

Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape.
If Durkula holds his action, can he stay in the sunlight indefinitely? (reading as the next round is the round after the vampire takes said action)

[rodneyAnonymous]

If Durkula holds his action, can he stay in the sunlight indefinitely? (reading as the next round is the round after the vampire takes said action)

No, because readying an action can't be used to delay the onset of the next round. "The next round" is six seconds from now, regardless of how many actions are taken or not taken. Also you can't "hold" an action exactly, you can either straight-up delay your turn (that is, move down the initiative order, on purpose) or use your standard action to ready an action (say, a counterspell) which you can take immediately when the trigger event happens. If the trigger event you were waiting for doesn't happen before your next turn, you wasted your standard action last turn.

Also, "beginning" and "end" of a round don't have an absolute meaning exactly, rounds are measured relative to turns, for example if a wizard casts a spell with a duration of 3 rounds, the spell effect ends just before her initiative turn 3 rounds after it was cast, regardless of her overall initiative position. Durkon's time to escape the sun starts from Laurin's turn (when she used dispel psionics), not an objective "beginning of a round" aligned with whomever won initiative this combat. In other words, strictly, the length of the window that Durkon has before the sun vaporizes him is measured by Laurin's actions, not Durkon's. The vampire rules are talking about what he can do in that window. Some spell or effect descriptions may have exceptions that violate this timing, but it is true in general.

[Souhiro]

We know that even if the Mechanus isn't shieldung Durkula from the sun, Julio's über-Awesome flying carpet will do.

If this game were Hero Quest, Aka Hero Wars, instead of D&D, the arrival of Julio would have given the heroes 9.000.000 Infinitons of Action Points. Because sheer awesomeness

[Oakianus]

I actually can't recall any vampire fiction I have seen that explicitly address "medium" exposure. Either the vampire hisses, smokes, and escapes into shadow; or it is burnt to crisp and dies. No in-between that I can recall.

I remember this being a thing in Vampire the Masquerade, at least. IIRC, exposure to direct sunlight caused 5 levels of 'aggravated damage,' which could only be 'soaked' through supernatural means, and everything in the old World of Darkness only had 7 health levels, so it was pretty close to a death sentence. But even if you survived a round or two, you still had a bad day.

I definitely like it better as a system, but I'd be perfectly fine with that system not applying here, since the D&D rules are pretty blatant about only destroying the vampire. Though the exact wording from the SRD that was quoted earlier does mean that there's a bit of fudging going on, it seems to me - attempting to cast Protection from Daylight and failing seems like it'd be an 'attack action,' meaning that Durkon shouldn't have a move action available next round and ought to just set on fire.

I'm still okay with that level of fudging, and technically it hasn't happened yet - it could be the Mechane that moves, or someone could tackle Durkon into the shade or something equally helpful without using a move or attack action on Durkon's part.

[Trillium]

I actually can't recall any vampire fiction I have seen that explicitly address "medium" exposure. Either the vampire hisses, smokes, and escapes into shadow; or it is burnt to crisp and dies. No in-between that I can recall.



In a half-good movie "Daybreakers" vampires did regain humanity when fully exposed to direct sunlight, but then quickly shielded from it and extinguished (since they burst in flames).

[factotum]

I actually can't recall any vampire fiction I have seen that explicitly address "medium" exposure. Either the vampire hisses, smokes, and escapes into shadow; or it is burnt to crisp and dies. No in-between that I can recall.

It happened in the TV series "Ultraviolet" years ago--as I recall it, the vampire in question ended up with burns that would never heal, thus being in pain forever. Doubt that'll happen to Durkon, mind you, just pointing it out as an instance where this has happened in vampire fiction.

[Killer Angel]

he's watching it like with so much passion. Just saying.. :smallbiggrin:

Can you blame him? :smallbiggrin:

[Nimin]

I actually can't recall any vampire fiction I have seen that explicitly address "medium" exposure. Either the vampire hisses, smokes, and escapes into shadow; or it is burnt to crisp and dies. No in-between that I can recall.

Anne Rice's vampires take damage from sunlight even if not outright annihilated by it, same for many other different novels (Anno Dracula to cite one).
There's also the same thing in Blade lore or Underworld.

[KillianHawkeye]

I actually can't recall any vampire fiction I have seen that explicitly address "medium" exposure. Either the vampire hisses, smokes, and escapes into shadow; or it is burnt to crisp and dies. No in-between that I can recall.

There was an episode in the first season of Angel where Angel jumps out of a van in broad daylight in order to tackle the episode's villain. He bursts into flame en route but survives by diving (with villain in tow) into the water. They then proceed to duke it out in the shadowy area beneath the pier.

I'd classify that as middle ground.

I'm sure there have been similar incidents in other episodes of Angel or on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well.

[coineineagh]

Surely smoldering, the early stages of burning, cause some form of physical damage.

I've always seen vampire's light sensitivity from a chemical perspective: Being an undead vampire that drinks blood to survive has changed its physical nature. Vampires are essentially composed of volatile substance, extremely combustible by photoactivity. That's my take, at least. Durkon should not be entirely unscathed.

[Alysar]

There was an episode in the first season of Angel where Angel jumps out of a van in broad daylight in order to tackle the episode's villain. He bursts into flame en route but survives by diving (with villain in tow) into the water. They then proceed to duke it out in the shadowy area beneath the pier.

I'd classify that as middle ground.

I'm sure there have been similar incidents in other episodes of Angel or on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well.

That's the exact same example that I thought of. He was running to the end of a pier as he burst into flames and then jumped off it.

[JessmanCA]

Couldn't he use his shield for a partial shadow for now?

[drazen]

Now someone's going to have to re-watch Angel and see if that run off the pier lasts more than one round (6 seconds). ;)

I believe Spike ran around outdoors on Buffy once by carrying a blanket over him. He still smoked a little, but seemed to come out mostly unharmed.

Spike also had a ring of sunlight immunity in s4e3, The Harsh Light of Day (the first of a 2 part crossover leading to the aforementioned van/dock scene), and was forced to retreat when she got it off of him.

I'm going to go with dramatic license for #929-930, because it has to be way more than 12 seconds to speak all the dialogue between Elan/Tarquin.

[Klear]

Now someone's going to have to re-watch Angel and see if that run off the pier lasts more than one round (6 seconds). ;)

I believe Spike ran around outdoors on Buffy once by carrying a blanket over him. He still smoked a little, but seemed to come out mostly unharmed.

Spike also had a ring of sunlight immunity in s4e3, The Harsh Light of Day (the first of a 2 part crossover leading to the aforementioned van/dock scene), and was forced to retreat when she got it off of him.

I'm going to go with dramatic license for #929-930, because it has to be way more than 12 seconds to speak all the dialogue between Elan/Tarquin.

My time to shine! It so happens I started to watch all of Buffy/Angel for the first time recently, starting Angel season 2/Buffy season 5 yesterday.

It takes Angel 8 seconds between leaving the van and falling underwater, but most of that is in slow motion, so in reality it was probably around 5 secs. I think that's about consistent with how long it it takes for other vampires to die in sunlight in the series.

Spike makes it into safety in 6 seconds, but there's a bit of a shade from a nearby building. He also only smokes a bit compared to Angel's bright flame.

[Amphiox]

Couldn't he use his shield for a partial shadow for now?

It's too bad Haley couldn't have fired a multi-shot volley over Durkon's head, so that he could have "fought in the shade"....