[3.5] Level 2 party and Elite Vampire

[bigbaddragon]

Last session my party (all level 2 ATM) encountered an Elite Vampire who gave us the task to kill the high priest of my church. Since this ain't gonna happen I'm kinda worried as to what we'll be able to do against CR 15 monster (he promised we wil meet again next evening if the task is not fulfiled). I managed to found one silver greatsword but since no one in the party can't hit the damn thing (32 AC) I doubt it'll make any difference. The rest of the party made a large pile of molotov cocktails but this probably won't make a difference either.

Btw this DM did a thing like this before, sending a monster waaaaay over our capabilities and allowing us some lame way to kill it or sending an aly ridiulously stronger than us (needless to say I realy .... dislike this).

Now, except the desperate hope that I can manage to somehow repel the vampire with my holy symbol to some corner and keep it at bay till morning is there anything else we can do except kick our DM's butt and/or make new characters?

The party composition is: Cloistered Cleric (me), Fighter, Rogue, Knight, Druid and Duskblade, all level 2.

Edit: Can a vampire affect you with its Dominate ability if you keep your eyes closed?

[Tsotha-lanti]

Sit down with your group and agree on a new, better DM.

As for the rules issues: closing your eyes, wearing a blindfold, or otherwise preventing yourself from seeing the vampire works, since the dominate ability is a gaze attack. (It's just an unusual gaze attack in that you don't have to save against it every round - which means simply averting your eyes isn't going to work. The vampire must always specifically activate it and target someone.)

So if you all wear blindfolds and present mirrors or holy symbols, you'll be fine, until the vampire decides to go dominate some people to beat you up and take away your mirrors and holy symbols, summon some animals to attack you, or to just use ranged attacks.

Garlic is your best defense, since I at least can't think of any way to remove a strong scent of garlic from an area. Lace where ever you're staying with garlic. This works until, you know, your DM inevitably decides to ignore it.

Seriously, change DMs immediately, yours sucks. (Does he brag about the enemies' stats, or what? That's beyond being a bad DM, that's being a petty ********.)

[bigbaddragon]

He ain't that bad, he has a good imagination, the story is nice and everything its just that sometimes he likes overdoing things. Luckily he can be talked about things so I'll let it roll for the next session but after that some conversation will be in order for I don't believe anyone likes to be pigeonholed into something or be overshadowed by DM PCs and such stuff.

Thanks for the info on gaze attacks.

On the side note I wanted to make this character all about party utility and buffing, but if the things continue like this I will introduce him to CoDzilla if I have to :smallbiggrin:

[SoD]

On the side note I wanted to make this character all about party utility and buffing, but if the things continue like this I will introduce him to CoDzilla if I have to :smallbiggrin:

Don't bother with CoDzilla. Play Punpun.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Find the nearest island and live on it. Vampires cannot cross bodies of water on their own.

Pick up holy symbols and tie them to stakes. Surround the vampire from all sides so it can't escape and start stabbing. You'll roll a 20 eventually.

[Glimbur]

Find the nearest island and live on it. Vampires cannot cross bodies of water on their own.

Pick up holy symbols and tie them to stakes. Surround the vampire from all sides so it can't escape and start stabbing. You'll roll a 20 eventually.

It's a standard action to present a holy symbol to keep a vampire from advancing on you. That said... get some children with fighting underfoot feats; blindfold them, have them follow you as you... somehow find the vampire despite blindness and surround it, then have them stake it.

Better idea: set up a way to flood the area with running water. 3 rounds will kill the bugger.

If you could just get the sun to rise early you'd be set, but good luck with that.

[Fostire]

maybe you can try and convince him that you have killed the priest, this can be hard to do at that level, but maybe you can hire a high level caster to make some illusions for you.

[Doomsy]

Coat yourself in alchemist fire and rush him. If your DM did not want you to die he would not put you in a world where elite vampires attack your pitifully lowby party.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Coat yourself in alchemist fire and rush him. If your DM did not want you to die he would not put you in a world where elite vampires attack your pitifully lowby party.Actually...
Holy water deals 2d4 points of damage per flask. Have every character with a halfway-decent chance tie flasks all over their chests. When Init is declared, charge and attempt to grapple, breaking the flasks. It's a boopshoot, but do you really have a better option? Besides, nothing is quite as awesome as killing a 13d12 monster with d4s.

[Selrahc]

An elite vampire wants you to kill the high priest of your church, but hasn't dominated or otherwise magically compelled you into doing it?

Sounds like that could be a fake vampire, or a minion of some sort.


If you're convinced it was a real vampire, then maybe tell the high priest he wanted you to kill? I imagine if some big time evil monster is out to corrupt his followers and kill him, the High Priest will want to become personally involved. This might be what your DM intends, with a big fight between the vampire and the high priest, while you and your party hold off the vampires thralls or some such activity. Especially since you mention hes sent stronger allies to kill stuff for you before.

[Kraggi]

Make a water slide of holy water inside the high priest's church. Zaniness ensues as the high priest comes home to find his church soaked and covered in vampire dust! It's fun for the whole family that you don't want to miss!

[Pie Guy]

Crossbow loaded with a stake that has holy symbols carved into the stake, string some onions around it,all of this on fire. Tell 400 commoners to start shooting. Thats the old fashioned way to take down a vampire.

[Tokiko Mima]

Ask the Priest for a Candle of Invocation. Use it to Gate in an Efreeti. Wish for a ring of three wishes. Either continue the Pun-Pun progression or just keep wishing for or summoning monsters to fight for you.

Seriously though, talk to the DM. The "bringing in a super powerful NPC to fight the battle" thing is especially bad. If he insists, see if you can request a transcript of the exciting hardcore NPC-on-NPC action while the rest of the gaming group goes out and has lunch or whatever. :smallwink:

[bigbaddragon]

An elite vampire wants you to kill the high priest of your church, but hasn't dominated or otherwise magically compelled you into doing it?

Sounds like that could be a fake vampire, or a minion of some sort.

If you're convinced it was a real vampire, then maybe tell the high priest he wanted you to kill? I imagine if some big time evil monster is out to corrupt his followers and kill him, the High Priest will want to become personally involved. This might be what your DM intends, with a big fight between the vampire and the high priest, while you and your party hold off the vampires thralls or some such activity. Especially since you mention hes sent stronger allies to kill stuff for you before.

I identified the vampire with my 25 roll on knowledge religion check, plus after talking to us he assumed his gaseous form and flew away.

High priest is already informed of this but I doubt he'll be of much help since I don't believe he is very "high" but we'll have to wait and see about that.

Anyway, this DM hosted a session a few months ago (as a guest DM) during which he unleashed wolves, dire wolves, gargoyles, ghasts, lycanthropes and Werewolf Lord (CR 14) at six level 4 characters. We found ourselves on a very small island in the middle of the lake with no way of escaping. The island had an underground temple which we tried to storm but had to retreat. For some reason the werewolf lord whose residence the temple was didn't come out for two days and a night which left us with enough time to deal with some lesser monsters and find some tunnels through which we flooded the temple with water from the lake. So we barricaded the entrance with some heavy stuff and let the water in (for some reason the water from the lake was silvered). My problem with this is that it was extremely obvious what we had to do and how, the only thing missing were color coded pointers on the map :smalltongue:. He played Diablo too much.

As bad as this sounds this guy is still salvageable if talked to so I have until Monday to think what to say to him if he repeats the werewolf lord crap.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

You could just start buying cloves of garlic and hanging them around you campsites, beds, and eating them(yes, horrid, and probably Fort saves to keep them down, but CR15). That would be an in-character response to something horribly dangerous, and force it to send minions after you(and not spawn).

[Tokiko Mima]

Agree to meet the vampire at about 10 minutes to daybreak in an open field with no cover, then get him monologuing about how superior he is and how your party has played right into his hand. Be sure to be standing on the west side of him as he does this, and just keep him talking. Ask questions, and say things like 'You won't get away with this!' then sit back and let nature take it's course.... :smallcool:

[RTGoodman]

Find a home the vampire hasn't been in. Go inside. Ta-da!


EDIT: More specifically, your character should be scared for his life that a vampire is coming after him and he has no conceivable way to stop it. I think it's perfectly in character to hide out where he can't get you, and I think a DC 25 Knowledge check, especially at level 2, is probably good enough to tell you that a vampire can't enter a house uninvited.

[bigbaddragon]

There is a river not far from the city (running water) so if I manage to level up before he shows up and make him mad enough to chase me to the river I could cast Dark Way (from SC) to make a bridge across the river and if he chases me wait for him there and when he comes to me dismiss the bridge so we both end up in the water. If my calculations are right he'd be dead in three rounds but I would have to make him really mad to fall for something like this :smallannoyed:

[erikun]

Actually...
Holy water deals 2d4 points of damage per flask. Have every character with a halfway-decent chance tie flasks all over their chests. When Init is declared, charge and attempt to grapple, breaking the flasks. It's a boopshoot, but do you really have a better option? Besides, nothing is quite as awesome as killing a 13d12 monster with d4s.
If this is accurate, then just grab around 50 vials of holy water, and borrow a catapult. Have someone cast True Sight, then fire the catapult into the vampire's square. That's 50d4, averaging over 100 points of damage, and you only need to hit an AC 10 + modifiers. That should kill it off, and will likely kill a 13d12 creature at max health (156 HP).

PS. If it doesn't work, you've succeeded in making him "really mad." :smallamused:

[oliana0]

Show the DM who's boss.

Let all the characters die.

Nothings says, "Dumb move, there DM" than an entire session spent rolling up new characters.

[Cuddly]

Show the DM who's boss.

Let all the characters die.

Nothings says, "Dumb move, there DM" than an entire session spent rolling up new characters.

Or get the vampire to bite your whole party and become undead minions.

[oliana0]

How is XP calculated for something like that? DMG has a limit to the difference in encounter level vs. character level for calculating XP.

I mean if the CR was 9, you'd skip level 3 altogether if you succeed.

[JBento]

Ask the High Priest if you can spend the night in the temple. If not, sneak into the temple and do so anyway.

Hello, holy ground filled with divine symbols, holy water and a bunch of folks with cleric levels.

When the vampire shows up, insult the GM and say you're roleplaying your character insulting his vampire:smallwink:

[Cuddly]

How is XP calculated for something like that? DMG has a limit to the difference in encounter level vs. character level for calculating XP.

I mean if the CR was 9, you'd skip level 3 altogether if you succeed.

I think there's a rule that only lets you level up one level per encounter. So going from level 1 to 3, you would get stopped at 2999 xp.

[Handsome Rob]

hire a high level caster to make some illusions for you.

... or hire a high level caster to kill it?