Bringing a Vampire Underwater

[CrazyYanmega]

Greetings. One of my allies, a Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker, has turned into a vampire. Unfortunately, we are soon going to go into an underwater adventure. Are there any ways for my Druid, the only Full-Caster in the party, to allow the vampire to continue adventuring with us? Assume I can cast up to 6th level spells.

[Crake]

Vampires with a swim speed can survive in water without issue, so a Lesser armor crystal of Aquatic action would give him no ACP to swim, a swim speed of 1/2 his land speed for only 1000gp (and requires a +1 armor to augment), or if you wanted to upgrade to greater for a mere 3000gp, you can also ignore underwater fighting penalties as if you had freedom of movement, though you'd need a +3 armor for that. The greater one also lets you breathe underwater, though for an undead that's a moot point.

Something you might want to look into for the whole party though.

[Extra Anchovies]

You'll have to ask your DM for an exception to the "can't cross running water" rule, as well as find some way around the auto-destruction via running-water immersion. I think having a swim speed lets you ignore the hit point loss, but not the general restriction.

[hamishspence]

Something like

"The sea, and lakes, and water-filled dungeons, are not running water, they're standing water. Only rivers count as running"

[frogglesmash]

Something like

"The sea, and lakes, and water-filled dungeons, are not running water, they're standing water. Only rivers count as running"

Well, by RAW water elementals who take the run action could also be considered "running water" which means that as long as a water elemental is running no vampire can cross in front of it. Of course we could also interpret cross to mean annoy, or antagonize which means that as long as a water elemental takes run actions it is immune to aggressive actions perpetrated by vampires. It would also mean that vampire would have the oddly specific inability to harm rivers and streams.

[Xuldarinar]

Well, by RAW water elementals who take the run action could also be considered "running water" which means that as long as a water elemental is running no vampire can cross in front of it. Of course we could also interpret cross to mean annoy, or antagonize which means that as long as a water elemental takes run actions it is immune to aggressive actions perpetrated by vampires. It would also mean that vampire would have the oddly specific inability to harm rivers and streams.

This could be used in some interesting ways in a campaign. Perhaps water elementals may be used by some groups to combat vampires, or maybe there are vampires enslaved by water elemental forces. Maybe there is a religion supporting either notion, viewing water as the ultimate vampire bane or as the masters of the vampires.

Edit: One could always take it a step further..

"Vampires are also unable to cross running water" could be misconstrued as (and since magic is well... magic, this could be allowed) vampires are unable to annoy or antagonize an individual named Running Water. (Or their truename must translate to running water, to add complication.)

[Uncle Pine]

Something like

"The sea, and lakes, and water-filled dungeons, are not running water, they're standing water. Only rivers count as running"

It's also possible that the vampire doesn't have to cross the body of water: he can, for example, enter the sea, do his business and then come back after all the enemies have been slained. Then he can board on a ship and cross the sea just fine without fret.

[Saintheart]

Perhaps if the party is journeying into the underwater home of some aquatic citizen, who invites them in? The vampire should have no problem entering the ocean then.

[Aldrakan]

This could be used in some interesting ways in a campaign. Perhaps water elementals may be used by some groups to combat vampires, or maybe there are vampires enslaved by water elemental forces. Maybe there is a religion supporting either notion, viewing water as the ultimate vampire bane or as the masters of the vampires.


I'm actually in a campaign right now where before I joined they fought a group of vampires, and our summoner managed to talk the DM into ruling that a water elemental could grapple a vampire, pull the thing inside itself, and would qualify as running water and destroy it.