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Thrawn183
2007-11-29, 09:51 PM
So I'm in a 6th level party that is chasing after a vampire (and somebody else who has hit us in the past with 2 lightning bolts and a fireball, all caster level 5, from scrolls). We just hit level 6, so I don't know entirely sure what they other characters may have gained from the level.

We're going to get on a train to chase them and won't have time to buy any kind of weapons capable of overcoming the vamp's DR, which we know in character.

My character is a Ninja 3/Ranger 1/Swordsage 1/Chameleon 1. I have a 14 in Wisdom so I get 3 or 4 first level spells and 1 second level spell. My DM is vacillating between letting me cast from any divine spell list or just cleric/druid/probably any full divine caster.
Other characters are
Cleric 5 (LA +1 from toned down drow) that has focused on healing but is rather poor when it comes to spell selection. Can recognize a good spell when its shown to her, but spends far more time looking at alternate class features and such rather than spell selection.
Beguiler 6 that really can't contribute at all to the best of my knowledge, at least not against the vamp.
Swordsage 6 that has sadly done his best to imitate all the flaws of the monk. I didn't think it was possible to make a poor swordsage, but this guy's managed it. He's hard to hit, but he does literally nothing.

My DM is allowing me to use Weapon Finesse on a double scimitar I picked up (+1/+1 and intelligent though my character doesn't know it because he's rolling too poorly on his wild empathy checks). I've got mountain hammer and burning blade so I can do a small bit of damage but I don't have adaptive style... so its a one time deal.

I have a healing belt, as does the beguiler.

My current plan is to try to max out the damage we do to the vamp at one time (using all the charges on the belts at once) in conjunction with a higher level cure spell from the cleric because we can't overcome the DR and I'm worried about the fast healing.

What would be some good spells for me to prepare? I've only got a caster level of two and the save DC's would be quite low so I'm kind of at a loss for what to do. I looked at flame blade just so that I could overcome DR, but I don't know if I can hit reliably enough to actually do more damage than the vamp has fast healing. Can anybody help?

Oh, and I really can't rely on the cleric (A good turning attempt didn't work last time, and she was quite surprised when I mentioned Magic Circle Against Evil... this one's probably going to end up falling on my shoulders)

tyckspoon
2007-11-29, 10:33 PM
It's probably going to be up to you to provide the Prot. Evils; that'll take up your first-level slots. Otherwise, your party sounds curiously incompetent (I don't really intend to offend, but you've got a useless cleric and a useless swordsage.. that takes some kind of genius. And your own build looks sub-optimal, but probably better off than somebody who used Swordsage to recreate the Monk) so your best option, if it becomes possible, is probably to run the hell away.

Other than that:
Get your Cleric to memorize and cast Consecrate and Eagle's Splendor. Smash up some of your coins for the material component of Consecrate if you have to. Then have her try another Turn check; she's getting +5 from Consecrate and the Cha buff, so if she rolls reasonably well she should be able to affect the Vampire. If that doesn't work- or, since this is fairly probable, the vampire comes back after the turning duration ends- have her throw a Bestow Curse or a Blindness/Deafness at it. If it fails the save, blinding it or afflicting it with the 50% chance to do nothing curse would seriously reduce its threat. Blindness/Deafness is probably the better choice since Undead Fort saves tend to be very low.

Other than that? Fire, and lots of it! Use torches as improvised weapons to do flame damage if you can't get around the DR any other way. Throw alchemist's fire and acid flasks at it, if you have 'em.

What are your Cleric's domains, btw? She might have a more useful spell on one of those lists.

Aquaseafoam
2007-11-29, 10:38 PM
Youre on a train? Somehow get a rope on the sucker, tie it off to something, throw him off.

AslanCross
2007-11-29, 10:59 PM
Oh, and I really can't rely on the cleric (A good turning attempt didn't work last time, and she was quite surprised when I mentioned Magic Circle Against Evil... this one's probably going to end up falling on my shoulders)

Turning won't work very well as vampires have Turn Resistance +4.

I'd suggest entangle, as it still slows him down to half speed even on a successful Reflex save. That could allow your party to surround him and beat him up enough to knock him out.

I really don't think it'd be fair to let the burden of slaying a vampire fall solely on you. What's the Swordsage's build? If there's anyone who should be able to help, it should be him.

As for the Cleric, she should use Divine Favor and the other standard buff spells. Bull's Strength on both you and the swordsage should also help hitting and damaging the sucker.

Prometheus
2007-11-29, 11:14 PM
Remember the weaknesses. If you can get the vampire during the day than you just have to tear a hole in the sealing or in its clothing. Keep a mirror, holy symbol, or garlic with you even though its a caster. And above all, you have to destroy its coffin if you're not beheading it alive, burning it with sunlight, or immersing it in a stream, otherwise you've wasted your work (also a good way to draw it out during the day). Also ask your DM what the rolls associated with beheading and staking are (if your DM is the sort to answer that type of question).

Ramza00
2007-11-29, 11:25 PM
your cleric is two levels away from it, but if you don't beat him till lvl 7 there is a great undead killing spell in Complete Champion.

Sacred Item. You cast this 4th lvl spell on an item and it lasts till it is discharge (thus you cast it on days of rest). Place it on several arrows. Now when an undead (or various other listed creatures) touch these arrows they take caster level*d4 damge up to 10d4.

Shooting two or three of these per round will allow you to quickly lay down some damage.

kpenguin
2007-11-30, 12:11 AM
Chasing a vampire and a caster? On a train? You guys are playing Whispers of Vampire's Blade, huh?

Thrawn183
2007-11-30, 12:13 AM
The swordsage uses Black Pearl of Doubt. He makes a lot of attempts to boost his AC (like running away from a group of enemies to draw attacks of opportunity, which is amazingly useful when they have combat reflexes...). He has maneuvers that do things as amazing as let him jump... The only good things I can say is that he took some of the saving throw counters: high AC, and saves but little damage, starting to sound like a monk?

I know my build is suboptimal, I did it so I couldn't optimize myself beyond the rest of the party.

The cleric is a cloistered cleric, so between that and the level adjustment she doesn't have the highest BAB. The beguiler has a Con penalty! She got knocked unconcious by the first fireball we ran into (I never expected to see a 5th level character go down to an average roll for 5d6 damage).

The consecrate idea is sounding pretty good. I may see if I can get the cleric to cast Eagle's splendor on herself before battle and then just delay turning until I cast Consecrate so that hopefully the vamp won't have a chance to figure out what's up and run away.

Edit: Yeah, we are playing whipsers. We haven't actually gotten on the train, we ended the last session just after hitting level 6 and before going to sleep. So we have just enough time to sleep, prepare spells and hop onboard, but not enough time to grab much, if anything, in the way of supplies. Oh, and no spoilers about whipsers please, its been a wild ride so far, and I hope to keep it that way.

Chronos
2007-11-30, 01:50 AM
Blindness/Deafness is probably the better choice since Undead Fort saves tend to be very low.Unfortunately, the reason undead Fort saves are low is that they don't have a Con score. Which, among other things, renders them completely immune to Blindness/Deafness. Targeting an undead's Fort save is a good idea in principle, but there are very few spells which can do so (Disintegrate and Polymorph Any Object are the only two that come to mind).

tyckspoon
2007-11-30, 02:21 AM
Unfortunately, the reason undead Fort saves are low is that they don't have a Con score. Which, among other things, renders them completely immune to Blindness/Deafness. Targeting an undead's Fort save is a good idea in principle, but there are very few spells which can do so (Disintegrate and Polymorph Any Object are the only two that come to mind).

Bugger. My eyes skipped over the 'Anything that requires a Fort save' line when I was checking the Undead immunities last time. Bestow Curse could still work, but then you're going against the vampire's best save. Hmm.. then for the Cleric's third level spell, you're probably going to want Circle of Protection. If you can't sell that one, Searing Light would be her best contribution to the pile on and positive-energy dump on the vampire plan. Ranged touch attack, so even a Cloistered cleric should have a decent chance of scoring the hit. A Prayer spell could also help make a difference; between that and the Consecrate effect, the vampire would be taking -2 to pretty much anything that matters. Wouldn't help very much with your damage-dealing problem, however. This is just thinking in the PHB spells; if you've got other books to check, it'd probably be worth paging through those for some more specific anti-undead spells.

Unless your cleric has the Sun domain to use a Greater Turning with, she probably won't have enough strength to destroy the vampire. If you do successfully turn it, try to convince your DM that the 'best and fastest' way for the vampire to run away is to go gaseous, leave the train, and fly the opposite way. Between that and the train's own movement, you'll at least have some time to prepare for the next encounter (try and scrounge some silver stuff from any other passengers, maybe.)

Nattypat
2007-11-30, 02:32 AM
Ya, I've played Whispers too. Our group was pretty vanilla though, (paladin, rogue=me, cleric, and oh god, I'm embarrassed to say.... ugh samurai. We were so new and naive). Eh... we made it, but we weren't so specialized. That's the problem sometimes when more than one person in a group is specialized to only one role, sometimes overall effectiveness takes the hit. But I suppose since you guys have a lot of healing capability you could try to use that against the undead.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-11-30, 02:36 AM
Question. How much do you know, in-character, about the vampire's Sword of McGuffinry? There's certain things about it that you might strategize around...

Also, my party played through this module. They're fairly competent, but the vamp still nearly killed them. I had to fudge one or two things to bail them out, and he still got away. That was mostly due to excellent rolls on his part, though. (Actually, they walked away and completed the mission because the vamp rolled a natural 20 at just the right time...)

Thrawn183
2007-11-30, 08:43 AM
Question. How much do you know, in-character, about the vampire's Sword of McGuffinry? There's certain things about it that you might strategize around...

We know that he apparently has it and that's about it, in character and out, so not much we can do about that.

Fortunately almost every book in existence is available to us, though any of the non-eberron specifc settings stuff is going to be pretty tough to swing.

kpenguin
2007-11-30, 10:36 AM
Question. How much do you know, in-character, about the vampire's Sword of McGuffinry? There's certain things about it that you might strategize around...


Don't read this, Thrawn.
The sword won't matter, because they won't battle him in the train and the vamp won't use it in the final showdown in the ziggurat.

Keld Denar
2007-11-30, 10:37 AM
See if you guys can break into a bit of silversheen lying around somewhere on the train. Vamps have DR/magic and silver. Since you already have magic covered w/ the weapon, you just need to apply silver to your weapon. Silversheen is the item for you! I think you'd need two of them to cover a double weapon, but even with one side covered, you can wield one end of it 2handed to take advantage of any str and PA your character might have.

You really want to jack your ACs up though, each slam attack from the vampo steals 2 levels. That means 3 strikes and you are out, permanantly.

Triaxx
2007-11-30, 10:44 AM
Level 6? Alright, if your cleric is good aligned, they might want to try dumping healing spells into the vampire, if the turning still succeeds in failing. Try and convince the beguiler and sword sage to pound the caster into the ground. You and the caster then have to confront the vampire alone, but if you happen to have a little time before the fight, consider blessing some water. Holy Water coated weapons are always useful against undead.