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I’m currently running a game in which the main villain is a vampire wizard. The Pcs have a powerful magic item that will allow them to place the vampire in direct sunlight long enough to destroy it…
The Monster Manual has this to say on the subject:
Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it; It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape.
Being a Wizard, the vampire obviously has access to spells, and it could be said that casting a spell is making an attack…
The Player’s Handbook however, lists Attack Actions, Move Actions, and Casting A Spell, as three separate categories of a Standard Action.. The entry on Vampires in the MM lists only move or attack, saying nothing of standard actions or casting spells…
I suppose it could be ruled that a vampire in direct sunlight could cast a spell, provided he makes a successful Concentration check…
It could also be ruled that a vampire is so disoriented that it is impossible for him to cast a spell…
I am leaning towards letting the vampire make a Concentration check at DC 20 + the spell level he attempts to cast. In this case, that spell would probably be teleport, setting the DC at 25. The vampire has a Concentration of +16, giving him a good chance of success…
I don’t want the players to have it easy destroying this vampire, but I also do not want the vampire to easily escape the party’s best attack against him (which is a one shot, all or nothing deal)…
Thoughts and/or opinions??
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
I’m currently running a game in which the main villain is a vampire wizard. The Pcs have a powerful magic item that will allow them to place the vampire in direct sunlight long enough to destroy it…
The Monster Manual has this to say on the subject:
Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it; It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape.Being a Wizard, the vampire obviously has access to spells, and it could be said that casting a spell is making an attack…
The Player’s Handbook however, lists Attack Actions, Move Actions, and Casting A Spell, as three separate categories of a Standard Action.. The entry on Vampires in the MM lists only move or attack, saying nothing of standard actions or casting spells…
I suppose it could be ruled that a vampire in direct sunlight could cast a spell, provided he makes a successful Concentration check…
It could also be ruled that a vampire is so disoriented that it is impossible for him to cast a spell…
I am leaning towards letting the vampire make a Concentration check at DC 20 + the spell level he attempts to cast. In this case, that spell would probably be teleport, setting the DC at 25. The vampire has a Concentration of +16, giving him a good chance of success…
I don’t want the players to have it easy destroying this vampire, but I also do not want the vampire to easily escape the party’s best attack against the him (which is a one shot/all or nothing deal)…
Thoughts and/or opinions??
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
I just treat it as a Slow effect, only a move OR attack action on their turn. So...yes my vampire would teleport away.
Give him a ring that cloaks him in a darkness spell that he can see through. That would protect him from the sunlight.
I think Attack Action can be used as short hand for a standard action.
The vampire can also use a free action, like a Quickened Spell. Or a regular attack and a Swift Expeditious Retreat out of there. Or a Quickened Dimension Door/Teleport. (The vamp might need a Metamagic Rod Quicken Spell depending on its caster level.)
Also, I'm planning a big shipboard vampire fight, and I'm afraid the PCs will twig to the idea that attacking in broad daylight would be a great idea. I've considered using Unhallow to protect the ship with Deeper Darkness, but that would also be kind of inconvienent for the vamps, even with Blindfighting.
Is there some kind of spell or magic item which makes vampires resistant to sunlight? Like a Cloak of the Night or some such thing? Or a brooch or headband or something the PCs can use the Disarm manuver against? The swashbuckler/bard has Improved Disarm.
Also, do shapechanged vampires still suffer Daylight Vulnerability? The vamps I'm planning began as yuan-ti, so they can turn into snakes, in addition to the other forms that vamps can turn into.
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Is there some kind of spell or magic item which makes vampires resistant to sunlight?
In the old 3.0 WotC module "Heart of Nightfang Spire", there was a magic item that had the "bonus side effect" of letting vampires get a full round action as opposed to a partial action...
Other than that, just the very old vampires can "run around" during the day (and even then, only in overcast conditions), provided you use the Ravenloft rules for vampires...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
I think Attack Action can be used as short hand for a standard action.
The vampire can also use a free action, like a Quickened Spell. Or a regular attack and a Swift Expeditious Retreat out of there. Or a Quickened Dimension Door/Teleport. (The vamp might need a Metamagic Rod Quicken Spell depending on its caster level.)
Also, I'm planning a big shipboard vampire fight, and I'm afraid the PCs will twig to the idea that attacking in broad daylight would be a great idea. I've considered using Unhallow to protect the ship with Deeper Darkness, but that would also be kind of inconvienent for the vamps, even with Blindfighting.
Is there some kind of spell or magic item which makes vampires resistant to sunlight? Like a Cloak of the Night or some such thing? Or a brooch or headband or something the PCs can use the Disarm manuver against? The swashbuckler/bard has Improved Disarm.
Also, do shapechanged vampires still suffer Daylight Vulnerability? The vamps I'm planning began as yuan-ti, so they can turn into snakes, in addition to the other forms that vamps can turn into.
Check out Libris Mortis, you'll find soem help for this 'problem' in there. =)
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IMO, your issue isn't one of rules, so much as how you want the encounter to progress.
On the one hand, the party has this cool magical doohickey that's supposed to be great against vampires.
On the other hand, if it works, it's a total anticlimax and *the party hasn't beaten him,* they just sat back and watched the magical mcguffin totally annhilate his night-stockinged arse.
On the gripping hand, having the magical mcguffin turn out to be utterly useless, will also be bitter-tasting.
So, the ideal solution is to have the magical doohickey do *something*, like prevent the vampire from teleporting out / going gaseous, and causing it some damage each round, which can appear all dramatic and crap (his flesh sears and peels off of him in strips, combusting into ash before it hits the ground, surrounding him with a black cloud of soot!), but actually amounts to 1d6 damage per round or something, and leaves the vampire quite able to attack during that time. So the party has to fight, and fight hard, but the magical mcguffin *is* actually doing something and helping them 'beat the bad-guy' as opposed to being a big dud or a massive killstealer.
That's, IMO, what matters. The item doesn't upstage the players. The item doesn't turn out to be a massive waste of time that leaves them frustrated. For it to be a satisfying climactic encounter, the party needs to not just 'win' by Deus Ex Machina or DM Fiat, but to actually beat (or fail to do so) the bad-guy by virtue of their own class abilities, cleverness and die rolls.
And if you want the vampire to have a chance to get away, perhaps the McGuffin doesn't fully prevent him from escaping, but only requires him to make some sort of Concentration checks based on the positive energy damage he's taking, or resisted level checks vs. the items Dimensional Anchor effect or perhaps it only lasts X rounds, and if they don't get him dead in that time, he can flee to safety as the light fades! They might still get him dead, and the item prevent him from going gaseous, thus making it a true death and not a 'I'll be back to get you, my pretties, mwa-ha-ha!' death. Either way, it will be in their hands, not the artifacts and not a fait accompli in either direction. (Automagic win or guaranteed failure, either of which I'd find unsatisfying for a climactic fight.)
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IMO, your issue isn't one of rules, so much as how you want the encounter to progress.
On the one hand, the party has this cool magical doohickey that's supposed to be great against vampires.
On the other hand, if it works, it's a total anticlimax and *the party hasn't beaten him,* they just sat back and watched the magical mcguffin totally annhilate his night-stockinged arse.
On the gripping hand, having the magical mcguffin turn out to be utterly useless, will also be bitter-tasting.
So, the ideal solution is to have the magical doohickey do *something*, like prevent the vampire from teleporting out / going gaseous, and causing it some damage each round, which can appear all dramatic and crap (his flesh sears and peels off of him in strips, combusting into ash before it hits the ground, surrounding him with a black cloud of soot!), but actually amounts to 1d6 damage per round or something, and leaves the vampire quite able to attack during that time. So the party has to fight, and fight hard, but the magical mcguffin *is* actually doing something and helping them 'beat the bad-guy' as opposed to being a big dud or a massive killstealer.
That's, IMO, what matters. The item doesn't upstage the players. The item doesn't turn out to be a massive waste of time that leaves them frustrated. For it to be a satisfying climactic encounter, the party needs to not just 'win' by Deus Ex Machina or DM Fiat, but to actually beat (or fail to do so) the bad-guy by virtue of their own class abilities, cleverness and die rolls.
And if you want the vampire to have a chance to get away, perhaps the McGuffin doesn't fully prevent him from escaping, but only requires him to make some sort of Concentration checks based on the positive energy damage he's taking, or resisted level checks vs. the items Dimensional Anchor effect or perhaps it only lasts X rounds, and if they don't get him dead in that time, he can flee to safety as the light fades! They might still get him dead, and the item prevent him from going...
Yeah... what he said
I'm with Set on this one. I think the vampire should get a standard or move action, like they were staggered. But I also think you should think about this magic item they have. If it was a trinket they bought it probably shouldn't be as powerful as real sunlight (and maybe the DC for casting the spell in sunlight is like 17-18, if they used a wish spell to create the item, if that). If it was a reward for a series of adventures/plot item (or lesser artifact like) than it being that powerful is ok. However if that is the case I think that you might want to do something like have the vampire or his minions steal the item and try to find a way to destroy it. That way you have another driving force (messing with PCs stuff ticks them off usually lol, and if this has been the main reoccurring bad guy it takes it to a whole other level), mix in some urgency and you can govern the encounter better than "Oh crap the PC's just turned on the sunlight switch and the vampire is now dead, they won". He will have body guards or traps and protections or whatever else you deem necessary to make the last encounter that much more exciting and climatic. It also becomes more of a puzzle and game of keep away (possibly burning through the spells the vampire has so he can't just teleport away when they get the item - if you are ok with this being the final encounter with the vampire) than just a walk in kill the monster and leave encounter.
Also it is a great deal easier to fudge some rolls on your end and let the characters get to the item if they played smart or just got crappy rolls, than it is to say "Oh yeah the items ability doesn't work like that this time" (saving you from having to come up with plausible reasons it didn't work) if there is ever another encounter with a vampire. Or make the item burn itself out after doing it's job so you don't have to worry about it. I like to make adventures consistent and having to change rules mid way bothers me. I'm also not fond of BBEG's who are dumb/stupid. There is a reason they are powerful, if there were things that could stop them/disrupt their plans you better believe they learned about them and went through a lot of trouble to make those things unobtainable or destroyed them.
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Thank you all for the responses. Most thought provoking...
I will rework the item's actual power to align more with what Set has suggested. The players have yet to use the item (and it is only a one shot item), so they don't know "exactly" what it does, only that it will help them defeat the vampire. Which is good, so I need not worry about changing things on the players mid-way through an adventure...
Thanks again...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
Can I throw out a crazy idea? How about this: play it up, set the stage, make it really difficult for them, but actually let them pull it off, andf kill the vampire! Or so they think. The vampire wizard has prepared for this ultimate eventuality and returns as an undead vampire-liche!
You could do a season-ending thing like heroes, and have their ultimate sunny victory marred by a black ooze sinking into the earth. Or any number of ways. It is a taste of victory for them, and a job well done, but soon they have bigger worries...
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Can I throw out a crazy idea? How about this: play it up, set the stage, make it really difficult for them, but actually let them pull it off, andf kill the vampire! Or so they think. The vampire wizard has prepared for this ultimate eventuality and returns as an undead vampire-liche!
You could do a season-ending thing like heroes, and have their ultimate sunny victory marred by a black ooze sinking into the earth. Or any number of ways. It is a taste of victory for them, and a job well done, but soon they have bigger worries...
Oh man, that's evil! I LOVE IT...
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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You could also ignore the monster manual. The idea that vampires are destroyed by sunlight is actually a Hollywood idea rather than from myth or legend. Bram Stoker's Dracula walked around in the sunlight.
Or...if you'd rather not ignore the monster manual...maybe the wizard has found an alchemical solution to the problem of sunlight and takes a potion on a regular basis to allow him to walk in the daylight. The characters could even find his lab books once they really do defeat him, explaining why sunlight didn't affect him.
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that is why i loved the contingency spell :P
actually Strahd von Zarovich in ravenloft had this... if his hps arrived to 0 or he wasexposed to sunlight he woudl automatically teleport... to a safe crypt... one hidden and away from the players... if you want... let some ashes with some simple spell... that fools them he is destroyed :D
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Bram Stoker's Dracula walked around in the sunlight.
Varney and Carmilla were also unaffected by daylight (both of which predate Dracula)...
The idea that vampires are destroyed by sunlight is actually a Hollywood idea rather than from myth or legend.
I wouldn't give Hollywood that much credit... :-p
Myth had it, that if you scattered poppy seeds around the gravesite, the vampire would occupy himself by picking them up and counting them all night long. It was this and other factors of the vampire's preferred nocturnal activities that led Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and his silent film Nosferatu (Germany, 1922) to fear daylight (and it was the light of day that actually killed Murnau's vampire). Murnau however, did not move to Hollywood, until 1925...
Anyway, back to vampires in D&D...
I use the rules for vampires from Ravenloft, where, as the vampires ages, he becomes more and more powerful. Eventually letting him walk around during the day...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
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Even if the vampire is alchemically or magically or just really-old-and-powerfully protected against being destroyed by sunlight, the magical mcguffin should still have *some* effect. IMO, the players shouldn't feel robbed of any chance of victory, or that they DM rooked them with a bupkiss artifact he got out of a Cracker Jack box.
I like the idea of it perhaps Slowing the vampire (or perhaps forcing him to save each round, to take a full action, which would be more complicated) or forcing it to make Concentration checks to use it's spells, and doing minor damage (1d6 / round would be fine), giving the players a definite advantage, but not winning the battle for them by any means.
I'm comfortable with making the sunlight a 'slow bake' because I kinda house rule away a lot of vampire stuff anyway. There are minion vampires, a la Buffy, that are strong, tough, fast, blood-sucking corpses, and they burn pretty fast in sunlight (still only 1d6 per round), and then there are the older non-minion vampires that can turn into mist, fly, summon animals and charm people, but they aren't incapable of crossing running water or instantly slain by sunlight or powerless before garlic or whatever (nor do they inflict negative levels, since I hate that mechanic). The 'master vampires' aren't as utterly crippled with seven different weaknesses like the Monster Manual versions.
It's also more fun to introduce minion vampires at first, and give the players a false sense of security (Hey, these aren't so bad!), then throw the big guy at them with his animal swarms and gaseous form and charming gaze and scoffing at their holy symbols (since master vampires need to be Turned, they don't just recoil helplessly from any commoner with a holy symbol or a clove of garlic).
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I'm also not fond of BBEG's who are dumb/stupid. There is a reason they are powerful, if there were things that could stop them/disrupt their plans you better believe they learned about them and went through a lot of trouble to make those things unobtainable or destroyed them.
The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
Or...if you'd rather not ignore the monster manual...maybe the wizard has found an alchemical solution to the problem of sunlight and takes a potion on a regular basis to allow him to walk in the daylight. The characters could even find his lab books once they really do defeat him, explaining why sunlight didn't affect him.
Alchemical Sunscreen!
I use the rules for vampires from Ravenloft, where, as the vampires ages, he becomes more and more powerful. Eventually letting him walk around during the day...
If you use Ravenloft for the vampires, then perhaps you could make this particular vampire the Nosferatu subset from the 3.5 Ravenloft books. If I remember correctly, they were fine in daylight, and if you wanna make this vampire more different, take the Cerebral Nosferatu alternate.
I'm also not fond of BBEG's who are dumb/stupid. There is a reason they are powerful, if there were things that could stop them/disrupt their plans you better believe they learned about them and went through a lot of trouble to make those things unobtainable or destroyed them.The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.Or...if you'd rather not ignore the monster manual...maybe the wizard has found an alchemical solution to the problem of sunlight and takes a potion on a regular basis to allow him to walk in the daylight. The characters could even find his lab books once they really do defeat him, explaining why sunlight didn't affect him.Alchemical Sunscreen!
I use the rules for vampires from Ravenloft, where, as the vampires ages, he becomes more and more powerful. Eventually letting him walk around during the day...If you use Ravenloft for the vampires, then perhaps you could make this particular vampire the Nosferatu subset from the 3.5 Ravenloft books. If I remember correctly, they were fine in daylight, and if you wanna make this vampire more different, take the Cerebral Nosferatu alternate.
It worked for the BBEG in Blade the movie.
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I don't want to have him totally immune to sunlight...
But I think you're on to something Set with that damage per round idea...
Though with Fast Healing 5, I think 1d6 might be too low, as most (if not all) of the damage he took from the device would be gone the very next round...
I am thinking more along the lines of 2d4 or 2d6, just to make him take some damage from the light each round...
Again, thanks you for the input people...
It is much appreciated...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
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If you use Ravenloft for the vampires, then perhaps you could make this particular vampire the Nosferatu subset from the 3.5 Ravenloft books. If I remember correctly, they were fine in daylight, and if you wanna make this vampire more different, take the Cerebral Nosferatu alternate.
Love the Nosferatu from those books...
I think one intriguing idea that has been proposed here is the idea of having the vampire and/or his underlings steal the artifact in question. Ideally, the fight with the vampire himself would then take place in the same area that he has housed the artifact, perhaps while the vampire is trying to destroy it. Rather than just being out to clobber another monster, the objective of this fight would be not only to prevent the artifact's destruction, but to retrieve it and use it against the undead leader. To facilitate this, you may wish to make the vampire stronger than normal, so much so that the party is going to have a very difficult (but, of course, not impossible) time defeating him without the use of the item. However, if the players manage to get the doohickey from the minions and bring it to bear on the BBEG (which should be a challenge no greater than a normal tough boss fight, overall), they get the satisfaction of using their toy to annihilate the vampire (since in this mode, the artifact probably should produce sunlight no-save insta-death) and feel all badass, of having taken and accomplished significant actions in combat (rather than being overshadowed by the item itself), and you get the satisfaction of the vampire still being a tough fight.
I don't know what kind of encounters you've been running in your campaign, but if could be a good way to mix things up.
This method is also likely to make the successful use of the item require more than one check; i.e., the single Concentration check mentioned earlier to get a teleport spell off. A similar situation would be the item allowing a single save vs. destruction. You're reducing both the artifact's power and the strength of the vampire to a single die roll, which will either totally undermine the item or the BBEG. Not so good.
But that only holds true if there is no impediment to the item's use. If the party must struggle to repossess the thing in the first place, then it isn't reduced to a single die roll. In that case, making the item produce even the aforementioned sunlight no-save insta-death is perfectly okay from a play and encounter balance perspective, because the appropriate level of challenge has been presented.
The only sticking point of this whole approach is the assumed theft of the item. Getting it away from the party may prove difficult. If you try too hard, you may end up (in a way) rail roading your players into the proposed situation. If you don't press the theft hard enough, the whole thing collapses before it begins. My suggestion, if you should choose to pursue this approach, would be to have the vampire (or rather, a minion) con the party into giving it up. Come up with a plausible reason for the party to need to give the item away, then have a disguised minion approach them (perhaps appearing as a long-time friend, acquaintence, or ally, one who may or may not need to be eliminated by the vampire for this to work and to drive home the fact that this undead guy is a real bastard), tell them this likely story, and abscond with the artifact, never alerting the party to the ruse until they return to pick it up, he's gone, and it's far too late.
Whatever route you go with this plot, best of luck and happy gaming!