how do you slay a castle full of vampires?

[jintoya]

long time browser of the playground, never had a reason to register....until today
my problem is a simple to understand one, but a real head-scratcher, how do you take a single smash and heal cleric with bonus summoning and take out a kingdom with an unknown (but lets assume its allot) number of vampires?

things that are rather important to this:
- this is a solo game, sometimes our housemate will join in, but its usually just me and my fiance as the DM
- my fiance will not be playing favorites...at all
- cleric: 10, malconvoker: 9
- the setting is heavily infested with undead, making vampires even harder to pin-down
- my cleric travels with a tsundere drow....who the vampires think is my master...and seem like they want to make friends in the underdark, they don't know that she cant return...but it got us in the gate.
- the vampires cannot detect my alignment, they think i am a blackguard...i just have not corrected them
- my goal is to destroy most of the vampires, i want as few to get away as i can.
- i have an unknown contact somewhere in the nobility. (likely a vampire "hiring" vampire hunters.)
- the vampires have been dug in for at least a hundred years.
- they are willing and likely to use innocent civilians as meat shields, id like to minimize casualties.

so then....how would you handle a butt-load of vampires who have a castle and meat shields?

[noob]

Grab the castle and drop it in a star then resurrect the innocent?
Poison all the people with positoxins?(that you can obtain from bound efreet or something like that)
Make a giant reservoir of positoxins with high pressure from positoxin height then use ring gates to drown the castle in positoxins?
Make the vampires believe there is an intrigue against a high placed vampire when there is no intrigue then the vampires will start killing each other because they believe the intrigue is extremely well done: they could not find what was the intrigue about.

[zlefin]

editing out n/m,
I misunderstood the class description line in the original post and thought it referred to having a party of two chars of lvl 10-ish (with the lvl 9 one being the described housemate that only sometimes plays)

[noob]

It doesn't sound like you're high enough level to reliably slaughter so many vampires.
By sheer numbers the vampires, if they realize you're hunting them, should be able to swarm you and kill you. (or if the situation somehow looks bad for them, they scatter in every direction, too many to chase down)
As such you'd have to rely very heavily on trickery and getting allies; or power-leveling somewhere else and come back later.

He is definitively high level enough to kill all those vampires.
He can cast ninth level spells and he can planar bind an entire army of evil outsiders.

[Doctor Awkward]

In the broadest strokes, you will make your move during the day. Either one of you can employ a scroll of control weather (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/controlWeather.htm) to ensure you have nothing but bright, calm, sunny skies. It will cost 2,275 gp, and require a caster level check of 13 in order to activate it. If I assume that any level of property damage is acceptable so long as the innocents are safe, the simplest path to victory is to have a bunch of summoned monsters start smashing windows and ripping holes in ceilings. Ask your DM if you can make Knowledge: architecture checks to use well-placed castings of disintegrate to bring down huge sections of larger buildings and expose the interiors to the sun.

If you are aware of an sort of underground tunnel network that the vampires might use to avoid the sun, procure a number of scrolls of Flashflood. This is an 8th-level cleric spell from Sandstorm that creates 100,000 cubic feat of rushing water in a single round (that's enough to completely fill 400 5-foot squares). Once you corral the vampires into a location that they cannot extricate themselves from in 3 rounds, you can use these to annihilate them. They will cost 3,000 gp per use.

If a straight-up fight is inevitable, you will both require an extended death ward (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm) spell, as well as something that protects yourselves and potential civilians against the dominating gaze. Magic circle against evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicCircleAgainstEvil.htm) would likely be the best bet, as it protects you and any dominated creatures sent to engage either of you in melee combat will immediately have the domination suppressed as soon a they approach you.

[noob]

In the broadest strokes, you will make your move during the day. Either one of you can employ a scroll of control weather (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/controlWeather.htm) to ensure you have nothing but bright, calm, sunny skies. It will cost 2,275 gp, and require a caster level check of 13 in order to activate it. If I assume that any level of property damage is acceptable so long as the innocents are safe, the simplest path to victory is to have a bunch of summoned monsters start smashing windows and ripping holes in ceilings. Ask your DM if you can make Knowledge: architecture checks to use well-placed castings of disintegrate to bring down huge sections of larger buildings and expose the interiors to the sun.

If you are aware of an sort of underground tunnel network that the vampires might use to avoid the sun, procure a number of scrolls of Flashflood. This is an 8th-level cleric spell from Sandstorm that creates 100,000 cubic feat of rushing water in a single round (that's enough to completely fill 400 5-foot squares). Once you corral the vampires into a location that they cannot extricate themselves from in 3 rounds, you can use these to annihilate them. They will cost 3,000 gp per use.

If a straight-up fight is inevitable, you will both require an extended death ward (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/deathWard.htm) spell, as well as something that protects yourselves and potential civilians against the dominating gaze. Magic circle against evil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicCircleAgainstEvil.htm) would likely be the best bet, as it protects you and any dominated creatures sent to engage either of you in melee combat will immediately have the domination suppressed as soon a they approach you.

Sadly it does not works if the vampires are using the meatshields as hostages doing stuff like killing the hostage when the light is close to them or if they get into water.
on the other hand the fighting vampire part will be easy thanks to a swarm of planar bound creatures under your control.

[jintoya]

He is definitively high level enough to kill all those vampires.
He can cast ninth level spells and he can planar bind an entire army of evil outsiders.

i absolutely could do this, planar binding could be the soloution, i am somewhat good at problem solving my way out of sticky situations.
i have some demons that i repeat summon by name who might be a help
i also have a one time use "get out of death free" card, a single free resurrection (nearly impossible in this campaign)
my cleric is kinda a "hero of the common man" type, but i traveled a long way (like two weeks ride) from my allies, which is why the vampires don't know who i am.

magic balance is rather odd in this campaign, i have fewer spells, but i get way more usage of it before i run dry.
my real issue is just finding out how to kill that many vampires...seeing as i am sure they have backup plans for if it hits the fan.
if they are allowed to run...il never catch them.

[jintoya]

[insightfull wall of text] (post limit too low to post links still)
the use of daylight as a weapon would be a good one, i doubt they will see this coming, disintegrating holes in buildings is also clever, but i think some manner of flying demons is far cheaper...and i know just the demons for that job.

as for the tunnel thing, apparently there was a failed rebellion in the near past, they used the waterways and sewer tunnels to move, but i bet that is full of vampires since they were a failed rebellion, and the water idea will work nicely here.
i could also make sure to have some heal, mass on hand for AoE.

[flappeercraft]

Stone shape is only a 3rd level spell and could be rather useful for destroying structures or opening them up for sunlight. You could even use it to block the sewers or similar to avoid the use of those for escape.

As for recognizing the vampires, Detect undead is a first level cleric spell and a knowledge check should honestly suffice.

As another method for killing that I came up mid post and a more stealthy one, you could use holy water for killing. Put some holy water in a drink when they’re distracted and when they drink it they won’t be having a fun time. Of course you might say why would they drink, they’re undead. Well, they need to keep the guise of a living being, and if they don’t then you know just who to kill. If your DM is permissive enough, drink the holy water and they won’t be having much fun if they try and blood drain you. Coating your weapon with it would also be useful.

[noob]

Stone shape is only a 3rd level spell and could be rather useful for destroying structures or opening them up for sunlight. You could even use it to block the sewers or similar to avoid the use of those for escape.

As for recognizing the vampires, Detect undead is a first level cleric spell and a knowledge check should honestly suffice.

As another method for killing that I came up mid post and a more stealthy one, you could use holy water for killing. Put some holy water in a drink when they’re distracted and when they drink it they won’t be having a fun time. Of course you might say why would they drink, they’re undead. Well, they need to keep the guise of a living being, and if they don’t then you know just who to kill. If your DM is permissive enough, drink the holy water and they won’t be having much fun if they try and blood drain you. Coating your weapon with it would also be useful.

there is a positoxin you can drink for harming vampires which drinks your blood.

[jintoya]

Stone shape is only a 3rd level spell and could be rather useful for destroying structures or opening them up for sunlight. You could even use it to block the sewers or similar to avoid the use of those for escape.

As for recognizing the vampires, Detect undead is a first level cleric spell and a knowledge check should honestly suffice.

As another method for killing that I came up mid post and a more stealthy one, you could use holy water for killing. Put some holy water in a drink when they’re distracted and when they drink it they won’t be having a fun time. Of course you might say why would they drink, they’re undead. Well, they need to keep the guise of a living being, and if they don’t then you know just who to kill. If your DM is permissive enough, drink the holy water and they won’t be having much fun if they try and blood drain you. Coating your weapon with it would also be useful.

holy water might be a good bet, but if i don't get allot of them in one go that way...i just made a banquet hall full of blood suckers very angry, but if i can get them in a toast...then that could make for an awesome scene, with me calmly eating as they burn all around me.
i don't really know how sunlight interacts with the change in form abilities that vampires have.
so, is there a spell that returns a vampire from gaseous form?
will a vampire in a non-physical form still be destroyed in sunlight?

[flappeercraft]

holy water might be a good bet, but if i don't get allot of them in one go that way...i just made a banquet hall full of blood suckers very angry, but if i can get them in a toast...then that could make for an awesome scene, with me calmly eating as they burn all around me.
i don't really know how sunlight interacts with the change in form abilities that vampires have.
so, is there a spell that returns a vampire from gaseous form?
will a vampire in a non-physical form still be destroyed in sunlight?

Well there is nothing in the gaseous form description that says they can survive sunlight while in that form so as far as RAW is concerned it grants no protection. Alternate form maybe but depends on the DM, I personally would rule it doesn't as it doesn't state it does.

No spell that does that that I am aware of.

They should.

Also be wary that there are protections againts sunlight such as the Endure Sunlight feat and the Night's Mantle spell, don't rely entirely on sunlight.

[jintoya]

Well there is nothing in the gaseous form description that says they can survive sunlight while in that form so as far as RAW is concerned it grants no protection. Alternate form maybe but depends on the DM, I personally would rule it doesn't as it doesn't state it does.

No spell that does that that I am aware of.

They should.

Also be wary that there are protections againts sunlight such as the Endure Sunlight feat and the Night's Mantle spell, don't rely entirely on sunlight.

after some reading, i agree that poofing into smoke, with no clear way across the sunlight flooded streets would just lead to death for the vampire.
thanks for pointing it out to me that this isn't a sun-shield.
i think i will call a toast with some classy wine....that has holy water in it, have holy water to portal in ready just in case, flood rooms with coffins in holy water and begin purging the others.
after the ruling party is gone, i will then begin wiping out the ones that sleep all day and work my way to the waterway, which i will flush with magic and....that is technically running water...so it might destroy them outright.
maybe i will march demons in to overturn houses quickly, mopping up any i missed the first time....and sack the city

[noob]

after some reading, i agree that poofing into smoke, with no clear way across the sunlight flooded streets would just lead to death for the vampire.
thanks for pointing it out to me that this isn't a sun-shield.
i think i will call a toast with some classy wine....that has holy water in it, have holy water to portal in ready just in case, flood rooms with coffins in holy water and begin purging the others.
after the ruling party is gone, i will then begin wiping out the ones that sleep all day and work my way to the waterway, which i will flush with magic and....that is technically running water...so it might destroy them outright.
maybe i will march demons in to overturn houses quickly, mopping up any i missed the first time....and sack the city

still throwing the castle in the sun is an option.

[jintoya]

still throwing the castle in the sun is an option.

Alright, I'll bite, how would I go about doing that?
And I'm not conjuring an ifriit, that will blow up in my face 100% guarantee

[Yogibear41]

My Dm told me a story of his 1st edition days once, where a powerful enemy was held up in his castle with all kinds of super powerful magic shielding and protections.

An Enemy spell caster opened up a gate spell to the elemental plane of fire in the air over the castle and essentially a waterfall of magma/lava poured out endlessly on the castle annihilating pretty much everything.

[Malphegor]

The obvious solution to me would be to call up a clerical order that hates vampires then pump so much holy energy in the area there is only smug holiness and radiant energy for years in the area.

But that might not work or you end up with vampire clerics who can pump out unholy energy to make the place a beacon of pure evil forever.

My suggestion? Belmont it. You walk in, weapons at the ready, and you systematically slaughter every bloodsucker in every room, one by one, casting whatever you need to to prevent them escaping your wrath.

You might die, but what a beautiful battle it will be! Legends will be sung!

[noob]

Alright, I'll bite, how would I go about doing that?
And I'm not conjuring an ifriit, that will blow up in my face 100% guarantee

get enough str to lift the castle then grab the castle then teleport near the sun then teleport back without the castle.
there is exercises about stacking str with only spells in dnd.
for example first shapechange into a zodar then cast draconic polymorph into the creature with the most str you know(you lose only the special qualities of your normal form and your normal form is not the one of a zodar) then use that spell that gives you a stat boost depending on the trapped evil outsider on which you cast it(pick an evil outsider with tons of str alternatively instead of that spell you can use bite of the werebear) then use a bunch of other str boosting spells then use the zodar power to double str then you are probably so strong you can lift the castle.
0 wish involved even through you take a shape that usually grants wishes.

[jintoya]

The obvious solution to me would be to call up a clerical order that hates vampires then pump so much holy energy in the area there is only smug holiness and radiant energy for years in the area.

But that might not work or you end up with vampire clerics who can pump out unholy energy to make the place a beacon of pure evil forever.

My suggestion? Belmont it. You walk in, weapons at the ready, and you systematically slaughter every bloodsucker in every room, one by one, casting whatever you need to to prevent them escaping your wrath.

You might die, but what a beautiful battle it will be! Legends will be sung!

I have a single free rez waiting for me upon my death, so it might be worth the death... The power to return from death is incredibly rare in this setting, in the house rules the bite may cause you too contract vampirism, but lycanthropes are immune (no were-vampires allowed) so I purposely contracted a form of lycanthropy (at random, from a list of animals) for immunity to it, Pelor would never grant a vampire spells... If plan A falls flat... It's plan B... B stands for Belmont

[jintoya]

get enough str to lift the castle then grab the castle then teleport near the sun then teleport back without the castle.
there is exercises about stacking str with only spells in dnd.
for example first shapechange into a zodar then cast draconic polymorph into the creature with the most str you know(you lose only the special qualities of your normal form and your normal form is not the one of a zodar) then use that spell that gives you a stat boost depending on the trapped evil outsider on which you cast it(pick an evil outsider with tons of str alternatively instead of that spell you can use bite of the werebear) then use a bunch of other str boosting spells then use the zodar power to double str then you are probably so strong you can lift the castle.
0 wish involved even through you take a shape that usually grants wishes.

This would be so funny, it's not really my cleric style, but my last character would do this immediately (C/S warlock who specializes in trolling the DM, assanine magic items and polymorphing into things... Most often he was an abberant creature in a tuxedo who spoke the Queen's English and murders for sport... But never without his manners and chipper disposition)

My cleric is more likely to mutter about heresy as he uses heat metal on his huge mace, pulls out a big shield, and walks toward them in full-plate.

[Quertus]

WWQD?

Step -2 - find out (what your character knows about) how vampires work in this campaign world.

Step -1 - explain to those whom you are asking for help the ways that your game differs from RAW, especially with regard to your spells, and vampires.

Step 0 - protect yourself. You should have these defenses up before even step foot near a lone vampire, let alone a known nest. Others have covered the basics on this.

Step 1/2 - protect your Tsundere. Of course, she may make applying touch spells difficult.

Step 1 - appraise the castle.

Step 2 - set the stage. Do the math, and time accordingly.

Step 2a - begin providing "civilians" with Contingencies.

Step 2b - begin binding an army, of value up to 1/4 the value you got in step 1. Alternately, have a bound creature do the legwork of raising said army

Step 3 - D-Day.

Step 3a - at the designated civilian spot, cast Protection from Whatever, 10' radius. Increase that area as much as you can manage.

Step 3b - Open a Gate to another plane. Have the army you bound take the castle apart - literally. It's their payment. Have them transport the castle through the gate, piece by piece.

Step 3c - watch vampires fry as they are exposed to sunlight, while fighting off loyal minions, and maybe minions that have become vampires since they received your protection for "civilian" status.

Step 4 - enjoy your XP. Hopefully, it's enough to make up for the spells that you cast.

This is the skeleton of a plan. Personally, I'd let the occasional vampire or two flee, to lead me to more fangs to kill, and more loot, but you can easily add extra steps to cover their subterranean retreat.

[noob]

WWQD?

Step -2 - find out (what your character knows about) how vampires work in this campaign world.

Step -1 - explain to those whom you are asking for help the ways that your game differs from RAW, especially with regard to your spells, and vampires.

Step 0 - protect yourself. You should have these defenses up before even step foot near a lone vampire, let alone a known nest. Others have covered the basics on this.

Step 1/2 - protect your Tsundere. Of course, she may make applying touch spells difficult.

Step 1 - appraise the castle.

Step 2 - set the stage. Do the math, and time accordingly.

Step 2a - begin providing "civilians" with Contingencies.

Step 2b - begin binding an army, of value up to 1/4 the value you got in step 1. Alternately, have a bound creature do the legwork of raising said army

Step 3 - D-Day.

Step 3a - at the designated civilian spot, cast Protection from Whatever, 10' radius. Increase that area as much as you can manage.

Step 3b - Open a Gate to another plane. Have the army you bound take the castle apart - literally. It's their payment. Have them transport the castle through the gate, piece by piece.

Step 3c - watch vampires fry as they are exposed to sunlight, while fighting off loyal minions, and maybe minions that have become vampires since they received your protection for "civilian" status.

Step 4 - enjoy your XP. Hopefully, it's enough to make up for the spells that you cast.

This is the skeleton of a plan. Personally, I'd let the occasional vampire or two flee, to lead me to more fangs to kill, and more loot, but you can easily add extra steps to cover their subterranean retreat.
Not letting the vampires flee is more because he fears the vampires that flees might hurt people or plan for vengeance rather than a "I want more xp" reason.

[jintoya]

Not letting the vampires flee is more because he fears the vampires that flees might hurt people or plan for vengeance rather than a "I want more xp" reason.

im pretty heavy in the rp with Dimitri, he is the saddest cleric ever, and he is all heart.
he once went on a quest to return a little girls bones to the parents, when he found out they moved, he got on his horse and rode several days, town to town...eventually he found them...necromancers had torched the town just two days ago.
he went on a righteous necromancer killing spree until he found the cult responsible and returned to the town, carrying the bones of the whole family back to the town cemetery, where he put them to rest himself.... all of this was completely unprompted, but it tells you the kind of character he is.

[Doctor Awkward]

as for the tunnel thing, apparently there was a failed rebellion in the near past, they used the waterways and sewer tunnels to move, but i bet that is full of vampires since they were a failed rebellion, and the water idea will work nicely here.
i could also make sure to have some heal, mass on hand for AoE.

How big a kingdom are we talking about? If it's any decently sized storm drain system we are dealing with, I'd be careful then with the flooding plan. Especially if your DM is really deep into world-building and infrastructure.

An inch of rainfall over a square mile is a million gallons of water. Cities that size have drainage systems designed to handle well in excess of that kind of runoff. The flashflood spell creates just under 750,000 gallons in a single casting, so it would be nearly impossible to completely flush a city-sized storm drain with that method.

[Quertus]

Not letting the vampires flee is more because he fears the vampires that flees might hurt people or plan for vengeance rather than a "I want more xp" reason.


im pretty heavy in the rp with Dimitri, he is the saddest cleric ever, and he is all heart.
he once went on a quest to return a little girls bones to the parents, when he found out they moved, he got on his horse and rode several days, town to town...eventually he found them...necromancers had torched the town just two days ago.
he went on a righteous necromancer killing spree until he found the cult responsible and returned to the town, carrying the bones of the whole family back to the town cemetery, where he put them to rest himself.... all of this was completely unprompted, but it tells you the kind of character he is.

I mean, sure. But letting foes "successfully" flee is just pragmatic - they lead you to other things (like their allies / more vampires who might want revenge) that you probably want to kill.

[Efrate]

planar bubble as big as you can, positive energy plane, ideally in as strong a place as possible. planar traits immunity. set on you. walk in, watch them pop. once they do, move on to next group. repeat.

cancer mage on one of your bound fiends, burning anger. throw into sun after some time on a fast time plane to get absurd strength.

Bind something with wall of force at will. encase entire area but a 2 small holes with walls of force. decanter of endless water. wait. in one hole, out the other.

[noob]

planar bubble as big as you can, positive energy plane, ideally in as strong a place as possible. planar traits immunity. set on you. walk in, watch them pop. once they do, move on to next group. repeat.

cancer mage on one of your bound fiends, burning anger. throw into sun after some time on a fast time plane to get absurd strength.

Bind something with wall of force at will. encase entire area but a 2 small holes with walls of force. decanter of endless water. wait. in one hole, out the other.

A quite unintuitive thing is that undead feed on positive energy and grows stronger while doing so(because they send the positive energy in the negative energy plane through the conduit that allows them to subsist).
bursts of positive energy hurts undead but continuous positive energy such as the one of the plane of positive energy heals the undead and possibly allows the undead to accumulate temporary hit points indefinitely in the same way most undead who can feed eats positive energy from its targets and heals from that.
or you can refuse the fluff from libris mortis and houserule that the positive energy plane deals damage to undead

[Quertus]

positive energy heals the undead and possibly allows the undead to accumulate temporary hit points indefinitely

What? Are undead immune to the "pep pop"?

[noob]

What? Are undead immune to the "pep pop"?

The plane of positive energy explodes you if you reach too high hit points and fail a fortitude save.
Since the death on excess of positive energy is an effect that does not works on objects and is resisted by a fortitude save then undead are immunized to it.

[Bucky]

How do you slay a castle? The traditional approach is siege engines. An earthquake would do the trick, if you were a high enough level. You could also undermine the walls - consult a Know(engineering) expert - and have them collapse outwards.

The vampires don't really change the picture much, as long as you keep a safe distance from them.

[Doctor Awkward]

The plane of positive energy explodes you if you reach too high hit points and fail a fortitude save.
Since the death on excess of positive energy is an effect that does not works on objects and is resisted by a fortitude save then undead are immunized to it.

Who says it doesn't work on objects?

That would explain why the plane is a barren wasteland with nothing but energy.

[jintoya]

How big a kingdom are we talking about? If it's any decently sized storm drain system we are dealing with, I'd be careful then with the flooding plan. Especially if your DM is really deep into world-building and infrastructure.

An inch of rainfall over a square mile is a million gallons of water. Cities that size have drainage systems designed to handle well in excess of that kind of runoff. The flashflood spell creates just under 750,000 gallons in a single casting, so it would be nearly impossible to completely flush a city-sized storm drain with that method.

It's fairly big, not sure about population, it's small enough that the flash flood spell will flood it... But I've secured a gate to the holy ocean at the base of the mounting plains of heaven by calling in a favor, so... Infinite holy water.
I'm opening it on the top floor of the castle, just did an entire session of prep work

I've got an army of loyal demons to seige the town.
it just snowed, so making it sunny will be reflective and I'm seeing up a few payed casters to scry for escape vampires so I can hunt them all down, there are at least two I suspect will escape, both are sorceresses and are suspicious of us, so I'm sure they have a backup plan

[Yael]

Step 1/2 - protect your Tsundere. Of course, she may make applying touch spells difficult.
I-it's not like I need your protective spells! D-dummy!

[Calthropstu]

Slaying a house should be a simple matter with a sledge hammer.

If the vampires will interfere, simply wait until day time when they can't come outside and go to work.

All joking aside, this very well may be the way to go. Destroy the castle and forcibly expose them to the sun. If you can bind an elemental with disintegrate, do so many times and blast the castle with thousands of simultaneous disintegrates, destroying their protection from the sun and poof.

[jintoya]

Slaying a house should be a simple matter with a sledge hammer.

If the vampires will interfere, simply wait until day time when they can't come outside and go to work.

All joking aside, this very well may be the way to go. Destroy the castle and forcibly expose them to the sun. If you can bind an elemental with disintegrate, do so many times and blast the castle with thousands of simultaneous disintegrates, destroying their protection from the sun and poof.

this would be cinematic as hell, and likely a better solution than the hundreds of demons i summon.
i imagined that scene from harry potter: deathly hallows pt.2 where all the evil wizards blast the castle with a magic volley.
i usually use legion demons to do grunt work, and the only motivation they need is to fight and wreck things...
i was building a loyal demon army long before this happened...because i am going to lay seige to the 6th layer of the nine hells (i think knocking Glasya from the throne and creating a power vacuum is a great way to end a campaign.)

[jintoya]

I-it's not like I need your protective spells! D-dummy!


not entirely incorrect, she gets possessive of "her servant" when people assume i'm up to no good, because she knows he wouldn't harm a fly. (unless it were a fiendish fly.....dire fiendish fly, that is an interesting monster idea)
Dimitri and her have a good dynamic as far as roleplay goes, but her standoffish attitude helped us when taking to some of the vampires, i kinda think they have their own plans...and yesterday i found a traitor in their midst.
the plot thickens.

[Telonius]

Multi-part plan.

Part 1: Frame Job. Surreptitiously start teleporting the hostages away to someplace safe-ish. Be sure to knock them out and draw a little bit of blood to smear around just before you do it. When it's been noticed that the foodstock has started disappearing, start sowing discord among the vampires. Clearly somebody's been sneaking midnight snacks. See who's suspected, and leverage that. (With any luck, at least a few of the vampires will attack/kill each other just on principle, decreasing the number of them that you'll have to fight).

Part 2: Grand Vizier. Offer your services to the Head Vampire to root out who's been offing the meatshields. Figure out who the second-most-powerful vampire is (other than the head guy), and manufacture some evidence that they're behind it. Pin it on him and his supporters. Make sure Head Vampire wins the power struggle and executes the other guy.

Part 3: Witch Hunt. Offer your services permanently to the Head Vampire. Start finding more and more "evidence" of treachery. Keep teleporting the hostages, this time without leaving blood evidence. This time, forge some messages to show that they've been ordered away on some mission that's against the orders of the Head Vampire.

Part 4: Praetorian Guard. When the ranks of the castle have been sufficiently depleted, offer to "recruit" some of your demons (and whatever other people you can trust to fight, friendly-ish Clerics if you can find them) to serve as "additional security."

Part 5: Endgame. With the vampires whittled down and your own people (and I use the term loosely) in charge of strategic choke points, begin your final assault. Whether that's standard physical combat, daylight exposition, or flooding the castle with a river, doesn't matter too terribly much. You'll have surprise, tactical advantage, and (possibly) higher numbers of combatants.

[noob]

Multi-part plan.

Part 1: Frame Job. Surreptitiously start teleporting the hostages away to someplace safe-ish. Be sure to knock them out and draw a little bit of blood to smear around just before you do it. When it's been noticed that the foodstock has started disappearing, start sowing discord among the vampires. Clearly somebody's been sneaking midnight snacks. See who's suspected, and leverage that. (With any luck, at least a few of the vampires will attack/kill each other just on principle, decreasing the number of them that you'll have to fight).

Part 2: Grand Vizier. Offer your services to the Head Vampire to root out who's been offing the meatshields. Figure out who the second-most-powerful vampire is (other than the head guy), and manufacture some evidence that they're behind it. Pin it on him and his supporters. Make sure Head Vampire wins the power struggle and executes the other guy.

Part 3: Witch Hunt. Offer your services permanently to the Head Vampire. Start finding more and more "evidence" of treachery. Keep teleporting the hostages, this time without leaving blood evidence. This time, forge some messages to show that they've been ordered away on some mission that's against the orders of the Head Vampire.

Part 4: Praetorian Guard. When the ranks of the castle have been sufficiently depleted, offer to "recruit" some of your demons (and whatever other people you can trust to fight, friendly-ish Clerics if you can find them) to serve as "additional security."

Part 5: Endgame. With the vampires whittled down and your own people (and I use the term loosely) in charge of strategic choke points, begin your final assault. Whether that's standard physical combat, daylight exposition, or flooding the castle with a river, doesn't matter too terribly much. You'll have surprise, tactical advantage, and (possibly) higher numbers of combatants.
The only problem is that vampires are already plotting so much that actual plotting is less efficient than just subtly making vampires believe there is a plot against the vampire lord and see everything crumble as they get more and more confused because there is no traces at all of the plot(because it is just a rumor and not an actual plot) and then they all killed each other before you summoned twelve demons for the destroying part.

[daremetoidareyo]

Secretly cast hallow on certain structures? Offer your help to find the insurgent responsible. Inquire as to areas that absolutely need protection from the hallowing. Congrats, you found what areas to get sunlight into.

[jintoya]

Secretly cast hallow on certain structures? Offer your help to find the insurgent responsible. Inquire as to areas that absolutely need protection from the hallowing. Congrats, you found what areas to get sunlight into.

not a bad idea
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hallow.htm
attaching spell effects to the hallow could also hinder them in other ways, especially if i can make it hard to undo somehow, it could be made to look like a real epidemic that i can solve, alleviating some suspicion from us and gaining some trust in the process.

[atemu1234]

Blow the roof off the place?

[Son of A Lich!]

I'd recommend, if you have the charisma to pull it off, turning the vampires against one another and sowing doubt among the thralls.

Vampires are created in subservience to their master, the vampire that sired them. While they can't actively oppose their master's will they have precious little freedom where ever the "ink touches the paper," so to speak. Fostering paranoia between the Lord and his Sire who could stage a coup on his house will lead to them clearing out plenty of the internal forces for you.

Thralls are not in the same boat, they are literally dominated. However, that doesn't mean that their loyalty can't be split between an internal cold war of domination amiss the higher level vampires in the house.

at Dusk, after the vampires have left and resumed their normal responsibilities, go into a bedroom and clean a coffin of it's grave soil; do this to which ever Vampire sire is most loyal to the Lord of the manor. Watch the antics ensue.

Offer use of Zone of Truth on the members of the household and ask them leading questions that test their loyalties.

If your cover is not blown, only take risks that incriminate someone else. If your cover is blown, hold out until sunrise and run.

[jintoya]

it went somewhat fine, a few escapees, but i will track them down, it was the sorceresses...i am having trouble locating where they went off to, so i expect there to be a part 2 to this...

summoned the demon army
proposed the toast with holy water that was transfigured into wine through a temporary effect, when it turned to holy water, they fried.
i then opened a portal straight to the silver sea (did a favor for the shields of Bahamut, so he did me this favor)
the castle flooded with holy water, killing nearly all the vampires, i then signaled the demon army to storm the city, they were instructed to throw all the coffins they can find out into the sun (control weather)

what i didn't count on was the riot that took place as the vampires lost control, some fled the demons, many instead went "the enemy of my enemy!" and also tossed the coffins into the sun.

the churches were full of impostor clerics, the basements to the churches were where the human cattle were kept.
so after a bit of a challenging fight, i freed the prisoners.
found a few vampires that were hiding in smoke form in dark places, a few escaped, and i am unable to track them (i find it unlikely that they escaped via gate or portals, analyze portal turned up nothing in the castle.)

[flappeercraft]

it went somewhat fine, a few escapees, but i will track them down, it was the sorceresses...i am having trouble locating where they went off to, so i expect there to be a part 2 to this...

summoned the demon army
proposed the toast with holy water that was transfigured into wine through a temporary effect, when it turned to holy water, they fried.
i then opened a portal straight to the silver sea (did a favor for the shields of Bahamut, so he did me this favor)
the castle flooded with holy water, killing nearly all the vampires, i then signaled the demon army to storm the city, they were instructed to throw all the coffins they can find out into the sun (control weather)

what i didn't count on was the riot that took place as the vampires lost control, some fled the demons, many instead went "the enemy of my enemy!" and also tossed the coffins into the sun.

the churches were full of impostor clerics, the basements to the churches were where the human cattle were kept.
so after a bit of a challenging fight, i freed the prisoners.
found a few vampires that were hiding in smoke form in dark places, a few escaped, and i am unable to track them (i find it unlikely that they escaped via gate or portals, analyze portal turned up nothing in the castle.)

Well it seems like it was well carried out even if some escaped. I'm glad you used the holy water on the drink idea, I've been wanting to use it or see it used for a long time.

[jintoya]

Well it seems like it was well carried out even if some escaped. I'm glad you used the holy water on the drink idea, I've been wanting to use it or see it used for a long time.

it worked really well to ensure that all the most powerful of the vampires were destroyed right in-front of me...so i know for sure.

also, it worked well with my tsundere drow, because she just sat back and made a dismissive gesture toward me and with a "go get them already." my vampire killing spree began...it fealt really good to have a plan come together for once.

now i will begin my siege of the 6th layer of hell...building a loyal demon army is hard because they are backstabbers by nature. so far i have been doing well to avoid demons who don't just like destroying stuff, this makes them easy to motivate.

[Ellrin]

I would start by planting a yearning for tea in their collective subconscious...

[jintoya]

I would start by planting a yearning for tea in their collective subconscious...

Then, kill or buy all the tea businesses in the area... But don't sell to them until they are rabid for it and will pay an outlandish price... Put them in debt and make them sell the castle to feed the need... Evict them on a sunny day... That's where you were going with this... Right?