How have other people dealt with players wanting to stake Draktar in combat. There's no called shot rules in 3.5e of course.
I've cobbled these rules together from various sources. They are untested, anyone see a problem with them?
I've cobbled these rules together from various sources. They are untested, anyone see a problem with them?
I don't like the Exotic Weapon Profiency (wood stake). It seems that only a very dedicated vampire hunter would take that feat -- which reduces the feat-requirement to a general -4 penalty.
I certainly don't like the Ranged Staking. It seems that a low-level wizard with a crossbow and access to True Strike and Magic Weapon (and perhaps potions or scrolls with Cats Grace and Invisibility) would stand a too-good chance of staking a vampire with only a small risk involved.
I like the part with "you can stake a pinned vampire", but I would probably allow the vampire a free grapple check before the Staking-attempt to break the pin and thus ruining the Staking-attempt.
/ Henning
I don't much care for the ranged attack either when you put it like that. I shall remove it.
Personally, I wouldn't allow players to stake a vampire unless it was helpless, pinned, or at least flat-footed. And both of the last two would involve opposed checks. Since the vampire is pretty much toast once the party stakes him, allowing them to try to stake him from the very start of combat just weakens vampires too much.
But putting that aside, I'd also comment that allowing the vampire's DR 10/magic and silver apply (or is Drakthar's DR weaker? my party has just started Lifes Bazaar) to the stake pretty much means the stake will never do damage. I don't think you can have a silver wooden stake.
As a note of interest, I just ran a different party through one of Dungeon's adventures (the one with the heptad of vampires; I don't remember the name off hand, something to do with light or darkness), and they had a special rule for staking vampires. It was mainly intended if you surprised them in their coffins and caught them flat-footed. But the point I wanted to mention was that they too had a rule about Exotic Weapon Proficiency (wooden stake).
Sounds like a coup de grace to me... he has to be helpless, you kill him in one shot...