Or do you have to get a masterwork silvered plus 1 Stake?
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Or do you have to get a masterwork silvered plus 1 Stake?
That's what I always figured you have to do.
Or get silversheen and the spell magic weapon
I've always found the "stake the heart" method rather impossible to pull off (short of allowing a cross bow bolt to count), and I've made several vampire hunters.
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The stake most likely doesn't cause the vampire any damage, but only slays it (until someone removes the stake). However, the vampire must be helpless to do this. The only way I can immediately see to put it into that condition is to reduce it to 0 hit points, then find its coffin within one hour after it gets back there.
The D&D vampire need silver to kill them, not wood.
Home brew games my vary.
Other games system very on what does and does not effect a vampire, as does the TV shows and movies :)
I always assumed what Starglim said is true, the stake can only be used once the vampire has been reduced to 0 hit points and forced to rest to regenerate. All the silver does is make it easier to beat the vampire down to 0 hit points, it will never kill him. Using a stake in combat is pretty much a no-go, especially as you have to plunge it directly into the creature's heart.
In addition, I'm pretty sure the stake doesn't kill the vampire outright, it only prevents him from regenerating, if the stake is removed the sucka can still come back and plague you. In our games we always had to find some running water, do some jiggery-pokery with a load of holy wafers and some light decapitation, or hope for some sunlight.
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The stake most likely doesn't cause the vampire any damage, but only slays it (until someone removes the stake).
Well, that was particularly unclear. Coenred put it much better. I probably should have said that the stake doesn't cause the vampire any hit point damage unless it beats his damage reduction, but as a separate effect, puts him into a helpless non-animated state, as the equivalent of a death effect if he was alive.
I recall an old text -- Libris Mortis, or something else? -- that said that vampires who had been incapacitated with a stake but undealt with could lie for centuries until they turned to dust from the passage of millenniae.
And for that reason, if a person picks a stake up from a pile of dust, they run the risk of the dust recorporating into a truly ancient vampire.
I intend to make that a bit of a myth in one of my games these days ... maybe pounding stakes in the ground as a superstitious ward against undead, and to pull a stake from the earth is thought to bring a curse down on you : )
After all, it's not like enough commoners can afford mirrors! Gotta get those myths in there somewhere.
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In my games, the use of silver as a weapon against vampires is actually a false legend propagated by the vampires.
The reason is that only recently in literature has silver had any affect on vampires. It was by tradition used on lycanthropes.
The reason it was useful on lycanthropes is because silver was mystically associated with the lycanthropes weakness, the moon. Therefore, using silver, was in effect using the moon to slay the lycanthrope.
In my games the same reasoning applies to vampires. Except the moon is not a weakness for vampires. The sun is. And gold is mystically associated with the sun, not silver. Therefore to kill a vampire you need to use a gilded weapon. Vampires, being intelligent, have realized mankind is a sucker for stupid myths, so they invented silver as a weakness for killing vampires. That way when the would-be vampire slayer pulls out his silvered sword and plunges it through the vampire, it can laugh at the stunned slayer and rip his throat out.
If a slayer pulled out a gilded sword the vampire would be stunned and then scream like a baby and quickly be slain.
:)
Just my little twist on the silver-vampire issue :)
oh and my vampires HATE getting a woody... >;) cause they get laid a LONG time! lol sorry had too.
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In my games, the use of silver as a weapon against vampires is actually a false legend propagated by the vampires.
The reason is that only recently in literature has silver had any affect on vampires. It was by tradition used on lycanthropes.
The reason it was useful on lycanthropes is because silver was mystically associated with the lycanthropes weakness, the moon. Therefore, using silver, was in effect using the moon to slay the lycanthrope.
In my games the same reasoning applies to vampires. Except the moon is not a weakness for vampires. The sun is. And gold is mystically associated with the sun, not silver. Therefore to kill a vampire you need to use a gilded weapon. Vampires, being intelligent, have realized mankind is a sucker for stupid myths, so they invented silver as a weakness for killing vampires. That way when the would-be vampire slayer pulls out his silvered sword and plunges it through the vampire, it can laugh at the stunned slayer and rip his throat out.
If a slayer pulled out a gilded sword the vampire would be stunned and then scream like a baby and quickly be slain.
:)
Just my little twist on the silver-vampire issue :)
oh and my vampires HATE getting a woody... >;) cause they get laid a LONG time! lol sorry had too.
+5
+5In my games, the use of silver as a weapon against vampires is actually a false legend propagated by the vampires.
The reason is that only recently in literature has silver had any affect on vampires. It was by tradition used on lycanthropes.
The reason it was useful on lycanthropes is because silver was mystically associated with the lycanthropes weakness, the moon. Therefore, using silver, was in effect using the moon to slay the lycanthrope.
In my games the same reasoning applies to vampires. Except the moon is not a weakness for vampires. The sun is. And gold is mystically associated with the sun, not silver. Therefore to kill a vampire you need to use a gilded weapon. Vampires, being intelligent, have realized mankind is a sucker for stupid myths, so they invented silver as a weakness for killing vampires. That way when the would-be vampire slayer pulls out his silvered sword and plunges it through the vampire, it can laugh at the stunned slayer and rip his throat out.
If a slayer pulled out a gilded sword the vampire would be stunned and then scream like a baby and quickly be slain.
:)
Just my little twist on the silver-vampire issue :)
oh and my vampires HATE getting a woody... >;) cause they get laid a LONG time! lol sorry had too.
.
+10
What an elegant idea. I am so stealing it.
+5In my games, the use of silver as a weapon against vampires is actually a false legend propagated by the vampires.
The reason is that only recently in literature has silver had any affect on vampires. It was by tradition used on lycanthropes.
The reason it was useful on lycanthropes is because silver was mystically associated with the lycanthropes weakness, the moon. Therefore, using silver, was in effect using the moon to slay the lycanthrope.
In my games the same reasoning applies to vampires. Except the moon is not a weakness for vampires. The sun is. And gold is mystically associated with the sun, not silver. Therefore to kill a vampire you need to use a gilded weapon. Vampires, being intelligent, have realized mankind is a sucker for stupid myths, so they invented silver as a weakness for killing vampires. That way when the would-be vampire slayer pulls out his silvered sword and plunges it through the vampire, it can laugh at the stunned slayer and rip his throat out.
If a slayer pulled out a gilded sword the vampire would be stunned and then scream like a baby and quickly be slain.
:)
Just my little twist on the silver-vampire issue :)
oh and my vampires HATE getting a woody... >;) cause they get laid a LONG time! lol sorry had too.
.
+10
What an elegant idea. I am so stealing it.
+15
Ditto. I could just imagine the look on their faces when they fail that Knowledge (religion) check by just a smidgen... You recall that sometime ago, you heard a legend pertaining to the vampire. They are said to have a profound weakness to silver.... ERNT.
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The D&D vampire need silver to kill them, not wood.
Home brew games my vary.
Other games system very on what does and does not effect a vampire, as does the TV shows and movies :)
Nope, per RAW:
Driving a wooden stake through a helpless vampire's heart instantly slays it (this is a full-round action). However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the head is also severed and anointed with holy water.
A wooden stake will work to keep them pinned. Now, as others have said, getting the vamp "helpless" can be it's own fun..
Wooden spike are only used to pinned down vampire and immobilize them forever, or until the spike is removed: (see spoiler)
In the first module the player have to have to defeat a mad druid which use the Gultias tree for his mischief. Players can find by lore check that the tree sprout from a wooden spike use to pinned the vampier Gulthias, while it was still green.
Destroying the tree released the vampire some time after.