How do 5e vampires deal with their weaknesses?

[Pinjata]

Hey guys,

In the future, my party will possibly have a chance to snoop around some vampire castle. This castle is inhabited by an old vampire family that lives (or un-lives) here for centuries. They feed from "cattle" they have breeding in regional villages. But, surely in the past, such a family was visited by a group of adventurers of proper level. And if these adventurers were smart, they would attack this castle during daylight. Perhaps damage some of the structure, to let sunlight in.

How would vampires, helping themselves with core book items and spells only, help themselves overcome their innate Vampire weaknesses?

thanks :)

[ChainsawFlwrcld]

Their strengths more than overcome their weaknesses. I've fought a 4 vampires in 5e at different times with various characters. They are much tougher in 5E than they were in the 2nd or 3rd. Their vulnerabilities (sunlight and running water) are specific enough that its easy for them to avoid. Vampires wouldn't just have their home in a well lit location especially if they have access to a castle with all those dark rooms and corridors and why would they build their crypt close to a creek or river that could hurt them? So you'd be tempted to bring the vulnerabilities to them but 5E is very limited in the amount of spells that produce actual Sunlight and you don't have much of a chance of wrestling a vampire out of their crypt and into the forest to find some running water.

[SkylarkR6]

Heavy curtains over the windows, being "eccentric but generous"to cover daytime/nighttime issues, plenty of human servants/food to avoid widespread knowledge of their presence. But mostly by going out of their way to kill or avoid all high level druids and/or paladins(druids are scarier. They got Sunlight and Tsunami)

Mechanically? Their coffins should be underground in a chamber sealed off from the cellar of their residence by a stone wall with a crack that can only be accessed by mist form. With an egress constructed similarly. Traps deadly to living creatures(poisons, pitfalls, Celine Dion albums,) should be in place to discourage hunters.

[MrStabby]

Well things like their charm effect are pretty brutal. Even if this means that PCs just stop bashing the walls down during the day it can open them up to waiting for night time.

A smart vampire aware of their vulnerability will take the fight to the PCs. Scouting with children of the night to locate their camp and to attack them in the dark is a good start.

For spells, things like rope trick might help to provide a place of shelter from sunlight. Otherwise misty step is golden - get out of the light. As it is I suggest using often the legendary action to move. Keep to the shadows and keep regenerating HP.

[Lord8Ball]

Sunglasses and glitter. :smalltongue:

[Dudewithknives]

Wear a Sombrero.

[Unoriginal]

How would vampires, helping themselves with core book items and spells only, help themselves overcome their innate Vampire weaknesses?

Aside from the Darkness spell (or magic items with that effect), having/summoning something to hide them from the sunlight completely (not including armor and clothes), and arguably/conditionally some spells that grant total cover, there is little they can do to avoid the sun.

They could make several fake coffin rooms so that enemies waste time trying to find out where they retired. And trap all the coffin rooms, even the real ones.



But, surely in the past, such a family was visited by a group of adventurers of proper level.

Why? A single vampire is already stronger than a legendary humanoid warlord or an archmage. A family of them? Gotta be among the most powerful group of the world.

[Bobbyjackcorn]

I dunno man. Vampires can walk on walls, turn into gas, commune with animals, etc. Incorporate large vaulted rooms with balconies that can only be accessed by secret stairwells so they can retreat if they need to. Use pit traps, spike traps, pressure activated traps, anything that can be avoided by walking on walls or ceilings. Have feral packs of animals roam the castle grounds by day. Make use of spawns, dominated subjects, and nefarious cohorts.
Strahd is a prime example of a vampire done right, imo: a clever, cruel survivalist, using every trick in their own book to make it hard to kill them, his only downside being his pride.

[Unoriginal]

Strahd is a prime example of a vampire done right, imo: a clever, cruel survivalist, using every trick in their own book to make it hard to kill them, his only downside being his pride.

That, and the fact he's a self-sabotaging piece of ****.

[History_buff]

I imagine vampires would avoid 11th level or higher clerics and wizards like the plague.

Sunbeam is a HARD counter against vampires, and they’re smart enough not to engage characters with the power of the sun in their hands unless they’re desperate or have some kind of plan in place to handle that.

They’d probably use thralls or other minions.

[Sigreid]

Coffins in the basement or sub basement souds reasonable. If you sleep in the tower, structure damage can be a real problem. If you're underground, you may have to mist out, but that's not a real problem.

[KorvinStarmast]

Traps deadly to living creatures(poisons, pitfalls, Celine Dion albums,) should be in place to discourage hunters. And so we spot the killer DM in the thread .... :smallbiggrin:

[Angelalex242]

Personally, I think those vampires gotta beware of the bestow curse spell.

Never know when an elder gypsy woman will curse one with his human soul, turning him into a reluctant hero who falls in love with short blonde female monks that hunt vampires... ;)

[Spiderguy24]

Personally, I think those vampires gotta beware of the bestow curse spell.

Never know when an elder gypsy woman will curse one with his human soul, turning him into a reluctant hero who falls in love with short blonde female monks that hunt vampires... ;)

What if another vampire willingly goes into a dark cave and passes a bunch of painful trials to regain his own soul due to falling in love with the same short blonde female monk? ;)

[Angelalex242]

What if another vampire willingly goes into a dark cave and passes a bunch of painful trials to regain his own soul due to falling in love with the same short blonde female monk? ;)

Yeah, well. That's what happens when one vampire has Paladin levels(Oathbreaker when the soul is missing...) and the other has Barbarian levels.

[MrStabby]

I imagine vampires would avoid 11th level or higher clerics and wizards like the plague.

Sunbeam is a HARD counter against vampires, and they’re smart enough not to engage characters with the power of the sun in their hands unless they’re desperate or have some kind of plan in place to handle that.

They’d probably use thralls or other minions.

Well their charm ability can help with Wizards - a little tougher vs Druid and Cleric though. Simply making the one person in a party that can kill you not want to kill you is a really nice ability.

[History_buff]

Well their charm ability can help with Wizards - a little tougher vs Druid and Cleric though. Simply making the one person in a party that can kill you not want to kill you is a really nice ability.

Well even against wizards, the vampire has to both see the wizard and the wizard has to see the vampire. Assuming the wizard doesn’t recognize what he’s dealing with he’s got at best on average with no help or bonuses a fifty fifty (remember wisdom is a proficient saving throw here for wiz) chance of becoming charmed. That’s not a guarantee for the vampire to be able to charm the wizard. It’s a coin flip chance.

[MaxWilson]

Sunbeam is a HARD counter against vampires, and they’re smart enough not to engage characters with the power of the sun in their hands unless they’re desperate or have some kind of plan in place to handle that.

It's a soft counter. 34 points of damage (3d8 + 20) and possibly a legendary resist if the vampire didn't succeed naturally on the save, to one vampire per turn. Better make those 34 points of damage count because when you're going up against a whole family of vampires you could be dead before you get another 34. It imposes disadvantage on the vampire's attacks, but the vampire still has +9 to hit, and sunlight does NOTHING about Charm or Children of the Night.

4 Vampires vs. 4 11th level Sunbeam casters = 4 dead spellcasters, 4 live vampires. Note that the spellcasters cannot effectively focus fire on the vampires, since "20 points of radiant damage for starting your turn in sunlight" does not stack even if you are using 4 sunbeams.

I've had my vampire spawns (not even full vampires!) enter voluntarily enter sunlight, briefly, to (try to) kill PCs. The players were very surprised. The vampire spawns lost, of course, as monsters almost always do against player characters, but they weren't anywhere close to helpless. It's not like it's hard for vampires to come up with an anti-sunlight plan: "spend one or two rounds killing PCs, then duck back under shadow to recover HP." More than a minute of sunlight will kill even a full vampire, but a minute is a long time in D&D terms, and full vampires are very mobile.


Well even against wizards, the vampire has to both see the wizard and the wizard has to see the vampire. Assuming the wizard doesn’t recognize what he’s dealing with he’s got at best on average with no help or bonuses a fifty fifty (remember wisdom is a proficient saving throw here for wiz) chance of becoming charmed. That’s not a guarantee for the vampire to be able to charm the wizard. It’s a coin flip chance.

For a whole family of vampires, a coin flip chance is good enough, especially when every round gives every vampire a Charm attempt AND 3 legendary actions.

[Unoriginal]

4 Vampires vs. 4 11th level Sunbeam casters = 4 dead spellcasters, 4 live vampires.

Well yeah. One CR 11 monster is a medium encounter for 4 11th level PCs. One vampire is CR 13. If you make PCs face something way over 4 times stronger than a Medium encounter, their death is kinda expected.



I've had my vampire spawns (not even full vampires!) enter voluntarily enter sunlight, briefly, to (try to) kill PCs. The players were very surprised. The vampire spawns lost, of course, as monsters almost always do against player characters, but they weren't anywhere close to helpless. It's not like it's hard for vampires to come up with an anti-sunlight plan: "spend one or two rounds killing PCs, then duck back under shadow to recover HP." More than a minute of sunlight will kill even a full vampire, but a minute is a long time in D&D terms, and full vampires are very mobile.


True. Also, smart use of the vampire spawns.

[Joe dirt]

Any powerful vamp would have access to spells in addition to their natural abilities. They would use things like their charm abilities to get certain villagers to comply with their needs and to alert them to outsiders in exchange for this loyalty they could be spared.... perhaps the vamps work with the local royalty who made a peace pact that only the peasants and outsiders are food... in exchange the vamps get special privileges like non undead guards. They would also lair deep underground and only come out at night only. They also might locate their operation in cloudy rainy regions where the fog is thick.

Against adventurers they would have traps, undead minions, and spells like counterspell, fog cloud, and menions that can fight without vision... say an elemental (tremor sense), or uses area effect damage like say something that breaths fire

[OvisCaedo]

It's a soft counter. 34 points of damage (3d8 + 20) and possibly a legendary resist if the vampire didn't succeed naturally on the save, to one vampire per turn. Better make those 34 points of damage count because when you're going up against a whole family of vampires you could be dead before you get another 34. It imposes disadvantage on the vampire's attacks, but the vampire still has +9 to hit, and sunlight does NOTHING about Charm or Children of the Night.

4 Vampires vs. 4 11th level Sunbeam casters = 4 dead spellcasters, 4 live vampires. Note that the spellcasters cannot effectively focus fire on the vampires, since "20 points of radiant damage for starting your turn in sunlight" does not stack even if you are using 4 sunbeams.


Well, it's certainly not a HARD counter, but I think you're selling it a bit short. Level 11 spellcasters would often have a DC of 17, so a vampire's con save of 4 with disadvantage would probably burn through those legendary resistances pretty quick if they were being focus fired by four people throwing it out. Of course... I would agree that trying to use four sunbeams is not a very good tactic to start with. If a bunch of 11th level spellcasters wanted to unfairly counter and destroy a group of vampires, I think you'd really only need the one sunbeam to provide the 60 foot radius sunlight source, and have 2-3 of the others instead just using walls of force to trap the vampires as they burn or protect the group as needed, depending on how the vampires have spread out. If they were particularly well versed in what they were up against, assuming a favorable enough opening (which will always be the huge coinflip with spellcasters), they could even turn away or close their eyes once the spells are up to not risk being charmed. Have a familiar or two keeping watch.

...Though an engagement with a vampire family will probably never be so clean, and a party of four 11th level spellcasters has a gross potential to cheese a LOT of encounters that should be difficult.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Large groups of people tend to live near water it’s weakness vampires can not avoid unless they avoid food.
The you have control water a 100ft cube within 300ft. You can direct more or less how you wish even up hill. So if a river is 300ft to the west. You can send part of it 300ft passed you to the east.
Now medieval cities weren’t that big. Not only in population but also in area. So grabbing part of the river, lake or well and sending it into the crypt is a realistic possibility.
And of course a vampire could use it to part the waters and cross a river or otherwise avoid the hazzard.

Then you have the Dawn spell from xanthars which not only deals 4d10 radiant damage but says “This is sunlight” in the spell discription. So add another 20 to vampires. It’s also has a 30ft radius lasts a minute and you can move it.

[Grek]

Castles are build to be defensible against whatever it is you think you're going to need to defend against. In D&D, that includes stuff like flying monsters, teleporting assassins and angry ghosts. For vampires in particular, it means sunlight, running water and people with stakes.

Flying Monsters and Sunlight are defended against in basically the same way: you build underground, or you extend your 'walls' into a roof over your head that keeps them out. For sunlight in particular, you want to have multiple redundant walls. Something like
https://i.imgur.com/toCl1p5.png
would not be considered unreasonable to any society with the architectural chops to accomplish it.

Dealing with running water is mostly an issue of building very high up and having excellent drainage. You're not going to be able to completely get rid of the issue, but you can make it so that all of the water flows downhill and directly away from you, such that it doesn't interfere with your mobility too badly. Likewise, you can't really stop dedicated attackers from having access to stakes, so the main thing is to make it so that all of your attackers have a hard time getting the stakes to you. Since they can only stake you while you're in your crypt, it behooves you to make your crypt stupendously hard to get to by anyone who isn't a vampire while still making it possible to get to it in mist form. Fortunately, clever construction makes it possible for vampires to navigate the place in three dimensions while requiring everyone else to run through a trap filled gauntlet, all while the vampires either evacuate or do skirmishing attacks that they regenerate from. Particular bits of architecture include:
https://i.imgur.com/3AYeuYh.png

Teleporting intruders can be handled via interior decorating. Yes, really! Don't look at me like that. The spell can only send you to places which currently exist. So if you make the interior of your castle modular and frequently change the layout, they either have to start outside (fine, you have walls for a reason), or teleport in based on a false description. False description teleports always take their unlucky victim to the closest "similar area" and frequently involve damaging teleportation mishaps to boot. Since you own the place, you can build approximate duplicates of old room designs to qualify as "similar areas" in locations of your choice, and you can fill them with a wide variety of deadly traps, ambushes or other delicious prizes for would-be assassins. The Vampire Perches shown above are excellent for this: Take a 10' wooden platform, fasten furniture to it as desired and then dangle it from the ceiling on chains. If you need more than 10' space in a room, lash more than one together. Use paper screens for the internal walls between these 'rooms' and don't bother with ladders or stairs - you and your spawn can all fly to get in, while the intruders will have to figure out how to climb the individual chains to get at you. It's also a great solution to that tricky 'running water' problem, as anyone wanting to fight you will need to somehow get said running water up into the rafters where you and your brood are lurking. Magic can help with this, but mostly it's just going to fall to the bottom floor where you keep the miserable blood thralls.

Ethereal attackers can (mostly) be avoided by periodically putting small vials of holy water and/or acid inside of bricks during construction. Nobody friendly is going to to be phasing through the walls into your castle unannounced, to it's entirely kosher to install a minefield that kills people like that. If you're feeling particularly vindictive, put in the occasional glyph spell in during construction to smack incorporeal intruders extra hard. Note that this has the pleasant side effect of making it really obnoxious to tear down the walls, since they're occasionally filled with pockets of acid and magical booby traps.

[MaxWilson]

Well yeah. One CR 11 monster is a medium encounter for 4 11th level PCs. One vampire is CR 13. If you make PCs face something way over 4 times stronger than a Medium encounter, their death is kinda expected.

...Unless the PCs have a hard counter. Like how darkness hard counters beholders.

All I'm saying here is that sunlight is a soft counter to vampire, not a hard counter.


Well, it's certainly not a HARD counter, but I think you're selling it a bit short. Level 11 spellcasters would often have a DC of 17, so a vampire's con save of 4 with disadvantage would probably burn through those legendary resistances pretty quick if they were being focus fired by four people throwing it out. Of course... I would agree that trying to use four sunbeams is not a very good tactic to start with. If a bunch of 11th level spellcasters wanted to unfairly counter and destroy a group of vampires, I think you'd really only need the one sunbeam to provide the 60 foot radius sunlight source, and have 2-3 of the others instead just using walls of force to trap the vampires as they burn or protect the group as needed, depending on how the vampires have spread out. If they were particularly well versed in what they were up against, assuming a favorable enough opening (which will always be the huge coinflip with spellcasters), they could even turn away or close their eyes once the spells are up to not risk being charmed. Have a familiar or two keeping watch.

...Though an engagement with a vampire family will probably never be so clean, and a party of four 11th level spellcasters has a gross potential to cheese a LOT of encounters that should be difficult.

Nitpick: the vampire's con save is not made at disadvantage. It's just a regular +4 vs. DC 17ish. There's not even any real benefit to the spellcasters even if the vampire does fail a save--it just causes an extra 14 HP of damage that turn. After two rounds of combat they may have burned 1 vampire down to near-zero HP, forcing it to retreat using Legendary Actions, but at that point the vampires have inflicted gotten off 8 Charm gazes plus 2 x 4 x (1d8+4 + 4d6+4) ~= 225 HP of unarmed strikes and life drain damage on the PCs, modulo their hit rate at +9 to-hit with disadvantage from sunlight. (Against AC 17 that would be 100 HP of damage; against AC 21 it would be 54 HP of damage.) Probably at least half the PCs are charmed now and no longer Sunlighting, and the uncharmed PCs are well on their way to being out of HP--a poor trade for forcing a single vampire to withdraw temporarily from combat.

To your other point about alternative tactics: yeah, Wall of Force + source of sunlight is a hard counter to vampires, provided the DM does not allow magical abilities like Charm to penetrate the Wall of Force. That's a much better tactic than Sunbeam spam.

To say nothing of simply murdering the whole family of vampires with a dozen or so Planar Bound elementals, which is well within the capabilities of an 11th level party.

[History_buff]

...Unless the PCs have a hard counter. Like how darkness hard counters beholders.

All I'm saying here is that sunlight is a soft counter to vampire, not a hard counter.



Nitpick: the vampire's con save is not made at disadvantage. It's just a regular +4 vs. DC 17ish. There's not even any real benefit to the spellcasters even if the vampire does fail a save--it just causes an extra 14 HP of damage that turn. After two rounds of combat they may have burned 1 vampire down to near-zero HP, forcing it to retreat using Legendary Actions, but at that point the vampires have inflicted gotten off 8 Charm gazes plus 2 x 4 x (1d8+4 + 4d6+4) ~= 225 HP of unarmed strikes and life drains...

I believe you’re missing one of the most important things about sunbeam. The con save actually is made at disadvantage because a vampire is undead and the sunbeam line has that effect. Also, and this is far more important it blinds the target.

A blinded vampire cannot charm anyone.

If a sunbeam lands well it will be a shrieking, blinded, panicked vampire.

[Malifice]

With therapy.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I believe you’re missing one of the most important things about sunbeam. The con save actually is made at disadvantage because a vampire is undead and the sunbeam line has that effect. Also, and this is far more important it blinds the target.

A blinded vampire cannot charm anyone.

If a sunbeam lands well it will be a shrieking, blinded, panicked vampire.

I think he's also missing out on the fact that sunbeam is an area effect 5ft wide and 60ft long. So each beam may be hitting two or more vampires every time they fire.

Also if vampire one has be charmed but vampire's 2-4 are still attacking my friends. Well Vamps 2-4 are still my enemies and attacking my friends so sunbeam away.

[Unoriginal]

How is Darkness an hard counter against Beholders?

The aberration will likely use its antimagic eye on you, then use Telekinesis to throw something at you or go in melee (if it thinks it has good chances).

Or make the ceiling fall on you. Or make you fall in a hole it created with Disintegrate.

[Lord8Ball]

Well if you cast darkness on a rouge with devils sight they can outmaneuver a beholder and shoot if from a distance without as heavy a retaliation.

[MaxWilson]

How is Darkness an hard counter against Beholders?

The aberration will likely use its antimagic eye on you, then use Telekinesis to throw something at you or go in melee (if it thinks it has good chances).

In 5E, a beholder cannot use its eye rays on something that it's holding its antimagic eye on. They're mutually exclusive. Furthermore, it cannot use its eye rays on something it cannot see. Either the beholder can't see you because of darkness, and is therefore helpless, or it can see you but it can't zap you because you're in an antimagic field.


Or make the ceiling fall on you. Or make you fall in a hole it created with Disintegrate.

Be serious. Like adventurers can't climb out of a hole? A beholder which is reduced to digging holes and rigging ceiling traps is not even 10% as scary as a beholder that can disintegrate you while petrifying you and energy draining you and three other effects all at the same time.

[MaxWilson]

I believe you’re missing one of the most important things about sunbeam. The con save actually is made at disadvantage because a vampire is undead and the sunbeam line has that effect.

Whoops, you're right, I overlooked that line.


Also, and this is far more important it blinds the target.

A blinded vampire cannot charm anyone.

Good point. A blinded vampire will have to fall back on physical attacks or minion-summoning instead of Charming. Point.


If a sunbeam lands well it will be a shrieking, blinded, panicked vampire.

...or a vampire that withdraws behind total cover for a few seconds, until the blindness wears off. It still has 150' of movement per round if it wants to (Dash + legendary actions).

Alternately, withdraw behind cover for sixty seconds so that Sunbeam's duration expires. A vampire presumably is not a dummy and knows that most spells (in 5E's world) last only for about a minute. If the vampires are planning on doing this they won't even bother using Legendary Resistance against the Sunbeams in the first place.

There are hard counters to vampires but Sunbeam is not one of them.

[History_buff]

That’s why you should always have a well balanced party with a big hulking Barbarian or fighter to grab the vampire and hold em in place.

Perhaps hard counter was poorly worded, but a party with sunbeam has good potential to trivialize a vampire encounter.

[MaxWilson]

That’s why you should always have a well balanced party with a big hulking Barbarian or fighter to grab the vampire and hold em in place.

Perhaps hard counter was poorly worded, but a party with sunbeam has good potential to trivialize a vampire encounter.

Yeah, grappling a vampire works really well when it's in sunlight. Those vampire spawns that I mentioned earlier, who deliberately entered sunlight? The PCs got wise after being strafed and grappled them. It turns out that it's really hard for a vampire to break a grapple when it's in sunlight (because of disadvantage on ability checks, plus PCs usually having way better Athletics than vampires have Acrobatics or Athletics).

To me that's an ideal fight, where the players have to fight smart in order to win. It was great.

[Slayn82]

I always wanted to ask: technically, does a Water Elemental charging at a vampire counts as running water?

No, really. Water elementals must be pretty hard counters against vampires holed in a nest if everything else fails.

Vampire tries to retreat in mist form through a small duct? The elemental follows. And faster than the Vampire. And the Vampire can't shapechange under running water. Ouch.

Give it Protection from Evil and Good, and watch as it washes down the vampire.

[Dr. Cliché]

This is probably a minor thing, more world-building than combat stuff.

However, I had the idea for a vampire-controlled region that featured strange devices attached to most of the bridges in the area.

The devices are used by thralls or servants and temporarily close off the flow of the river, allowing a vampire to cross to the other side.

[Vaz]

This is probably a minor thing, more world-building than combat stuff.

However, I had the idea for a vampire-controlled region that featured strange devices attached to most of the bridges in the area.

The devices are used by thralls or servants and temporarily close off the flow of the river, allowing a vampire to cross to the other side.

Like a Lock?

[Dr. Cliché]

Like a Lock?

Like the gate of a Lock, yes. Not an actual Lock, though. They're about raising or lowering vessels to different levels of waterway.

It would also probably be a smaller scale, for the most part.

[Foxydono]

If I were to be a mean DM, I'd give the vampire family a heirloom: A cubic gate. They once payed a warlock to create a demiplane for them, which is protected by 10 death symbols. They activate after one round when any non-vampire enters the plane doing 100d10 damage to any non-vampire creature who is still on the plane after 1 round after entering.

They enter this realm by opening the cube one hour before the sun comes up. But they don't use it anywere, only in their secret cellar (30 by 30 ft) which is located a 100 feet below their castle. There are two small 1 inch shafts leading towards this underground cellar which are located under a wooden floor.

The cellar is protected from divination and scrying magic and it is held in place by a large wooden pilar (AC 14, 100 HP). If there are any instruders in the cellar, four shield guardians are instructed to destroy the pillar. This will make the floor collapse doing roughly a 60d10 damage and trapping anyone under the rubble, which makes it impossible to move. No save allowed for half damage.

[Dr. Cliché]

Quite honestly, Vampire weaknesses in 5th are pretty negligible to begin with.
- Can't enter a residence without permission from one of the occupants? Charm them and have them give you permission to enter. Or just own all the land so that every residence in the district is yours by right.
- Take damage if immersed in running water? Don't stand in a river.
- Paralysed by a stake through the heart after its already been incapacitated? Does this even count as a weakness? It's a bit like saying humans are vulnerable to having their heads cut off.
- Sunlight vulnerability? This is the only one that even resembles a meaningful weakness. Hint for vampires: don't include windows on your castles and don't go out during the day.