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Has anyone toyed with undead senses? If so how did it effect your campaign?
I toyed with a life sense coupled with a subdued audio, tactile, and nonexistent taste and smell. Sunlight, aside from normal effects blinded undead (hinting that sunlight had a hint of positive energy and night had an equal negative influence which gave a better contrast, and thusly better sight during that time). The only major side effect was that illusion spells were worthless (I had to incorporate a feat to fix this for a player). Overall the plus and minuses evened out and gave undead mastery of the night and underground.
As for mindless undead. A small addendum to commanding undead that I used to some success was that causal or low level animators where limited to two simple sentences while higher level or more focused necromancers had more 'programing' space of extra and longer sentences (picture programing a robot). The interesting side effect was that when players ran across mindless undead, that were not 'roamers', they tried to devise tactics around their command orders.
Lastly, vampires... Underground... Need to rest? Why? Traditionally the answer is yes but what about pathfinder? How many subcoffins can a vampire have (I personally allow only one coffin, no subs =)...
I figure all undead have a Life Sense that works similar to Thermal detection.
Undead would have trouble finding people hiding in thick vegetation or underwater.
You could say that Sunlight has partial Positive energy traits so it confuses Incorporeal undead.
Vampires should have an excellent sense of smell and hearing, this is essential for predators.
Strong emotion, violence or lots of blood could distract any undead. Perhaps so much that they need concentration rolls for special powers/spells.
The flip side is only Vampires would need to sleep, all other undead could work down pit and mine all day and night. Vampires may choose to rest because they retain enough brains to realise they will go mad alone forever and resting helps ease this.
You could have Incorporal and greater undead tied to the Night, so Dawn makes them weak and confused so they retreat.
If you tell mindless undead to dig they will keep digging until told to stop or if they are attacked. Otherwise people could walk right in front of them.
You could have undead as being ravenous, so when the master is not around they go out hunting mortals, which has the unfortunate effect of attracting attention.
Check out the "Libra Mortis" 3.5 book, it details how undead sense their surroundings and even explains 'why' some undead want or need to feed (such as Ghouls who 'enjoy' flesh but dont need it compared to Vampires which need blood to sustain themselves).
Undead have virtually no sense of touch (only a very vague artificial sense of touch), and undead without tongues have no sense of taste, but in the vast majority of undead they retain or regain their abiity to see and hear perfectly normally in most cases (often augmented by Darkvision and suchlike if they didnt aready have it). Undead sense of smell is another factor, certain kinds of undead that are made from creatures that had a strong sense of smell sometimes retain it, but for most undead the sense is gone.
Of course, incorporeal undead have virtually no sense of taste or smell and a very limited sense of touch, but they can hear and see pretty well.
One thing I liked about the "Libra Mortis" is that it explains that since most undead were once alive - intelligent ones can be bargained with to spare your life by pleading to them to spare you from the fate that consumed them (ultimately this wears off in a few rounds as the undead in question regrets its choice and pursues the victim again (the same tactic will never work again for some time (GM's discression)). And as for diet-specific undead like vampires, if they dont feed it causes them ability score damage and forces them to make Will saves to avoid frenzying at the sight of what they hunger most in whatever enviroment/surroundings they are in.
As for Vampires, realisticaly one or two coffins, but I usuay throw in a litte requirement that they need to sleep on their own soil of their graves or place of death within that coffin, which may or may not be easy to get a hold of. Otherwise a vampire could have access to dozens of secret coffins or more.
Not to mention the "Positoxins" found within the "Libra Mortis", which is like a form of positive energy converted into a poison like substance that erodes an undeads form like poison does to a living creature, forces saving throws and deals ability damage to the undead in question (perhaps one of few sources of damage to abiity scores for undead)
In Dracula by Bram Stoker,the coffins had to contain earth from the graveyard where the vampire was buried,and Dracula had dozens of coffins.
However,as he was in England, not Transylvania, he couldn't replace the coffins that the heroes sanctified,and when he was down to one coffin, he had to return to Transylvania.