This come up in our game this week...
If a PC successfully uses Disintegrate on a Vampire, is it destroyed completely as the spell, or turns gaseous as the vampire ability?
What does the assembled community here say? Would like to know how we played it agrees with the consensus...
Both effects are triggered upon reaching zero hp.
In a tie-breaker to see which prevails, I would go with the vampire taking gaseous form. What good is having such an iconic monster if the more difficult, or legend-related means of killing it can be sidestepped by a single spell?
But that's just an arbitrary thing, really.
This question seems awful familiar. I think it might have been beaten pretty severely way back in the 3.5 days on the Wizards' site. Can't remember the consensus, though.
I'd probably compromise and have gaseous form trigger, but have the recovery take twice as long, or something along those lines. Both are very powerful abilities and would tend to either cancel each other out completely or both would happen, but at a weaker effect than normal.
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I am going to with the contrary to what others have said here. Distinigrate is a powerful spell and if the vampire fails their save they fail their save thus distinitgrated. It is not as if the spell is a fireball it is a 6th level spell, I just don't see the being able to then turn into gaseous form then why wouldn't other characters be able to use gaseous form to avoid that spell being cast upon them (I don't think it makes them immune to the spell. Just my 2 cp
In my games over the years I have always described disintegrate as leaving a fine dust behind. It is only a small logical step to allowing the vampire to escape in gaseous form. YMMV
Maybe I'm confused but I always thought Vamps were IMMUNE to out right death effects like disintegration. No finger of death, no disintegration they don't have constitutions, Disintegration is a special case because it does affect objects however because it's used this way it is treated like a death effect.
Maybe my rules knowledge is off but that's my thought w/o consulting my books.
Interesting thoughts, Steven.
I would have an True Blood-esque explosion, but that's just me.
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Maybe I'm confused but I always thought Vamps were IMMUNE to out right death effects like disintegration. No finger of death, no disintegration they don't have constitutions, Disintegration is a special case because it does affect objects however because it's used this way it is treated like a death effect.
Maybe my rules knowledge is off but that's my thought w/o consulting my books.
Disintegrate is not a death effect and yes, because it works on objects, it also works on undead (despite the fact that it requires a Fortitude save). It just deals a crapload of damage on a failed save.
Personally, I'd be inclined to say disintegrate works just as well as sunlight at making a vampire stay dead (the end result is the same: pile of ash).
I tend towards disintegrate works to kill them permanently. It works on people when they hit 0, not when they hit neg con score. It's a very good spell for... well... disintegrating something.
I'm in the gaseous form school. You've successfully blasted it to tiny bits, but those bits turn gaseous and it retreats to its coffin to reconstitute. Though I imagine that takes longer.
Both effects are triggered upon reaching zero hp.
In a tie-breaker to see which prevails, I would go with the vampire taking gaseous form. What good is having such an iconic monster if the more difficult, or legend-related means of killing it can be sidestepped by a single spell?
But that's just an arbitrary thing, really.
This question seems awful familiar. I think it might have been beaten pretty severely way back in the 3.5 days on the Wizards' site. Can't remember the consensus, though.
A concensus was never really reached. Both sides had valid arguments.
As written, IIRC, disintegrate doesn't actually reduce the target to 0 hp (or less) - it destroys it by turning it to ash. As was said above, this is the same thing that sunlight does to vampires to destroy them forever - turn them to ash. So, I'd say that RAW leans more heavily toward they're ended than not. True, vampires are supposed to be big, bad, eternal nasties, that can gain levels and scale, but they've got their share of weaknesses that can end them rather quickly, including the ever-dreaded... running water. And, again, as stated before, disintegrate isn't an apprentice's kind of power - it's a pretty high-level ability, which means it's kind of expected that it does weird things.
That said: it's your game, do what you wish!
Cheers for the replies. I can see the reasons why both cases could be true
As for when it happened, I actually went with Disintegrate winning and the vampire being destroyed, really for two reasons
- Disintegrate is a very powerful spell and should be treated as such, even able to off a vampire
- If I had the vampire turn gaseous, the party would have tracked it, found its coffin and finished it off. As the coffin was deep underground (via cracks in the earth and suchlike) it would have taken about an hour of gametime which everyone at the table would have seen as a chore. I didn't want to drag the game down in that way.
In other cases, I would have treated a Lich differently, but purely because on difference in how the Lich reforms.
I went back and looked and now see why I think Disintegrate is a "death" effect. If you cast death ward it will protect you against disintegration. It lists it as one of the things it protects against along with finger of death and the various cause X wounds spells.
Again the disintegration spell does affect objects so that causes it to be a special case unlike other death effect spells.
Not trying to say anything against the way anyone's running just being my usual rules Nazi self(and I like me being this way)
TBA it sounds like you came up with the perfect solution for your game, I hate when our DM bogs down with tracking stuff down.
Interesting thoughts, Steven.
I would have an True Blood-esque explosion, but that's just me.
I haven't seen that one, I'm more familiar with them dusting like the Buffy TV series.
except any clothes armor etc are still there so I guess they just dust naked and the party gets their plus OMG ring of protection and uberness (that didn't seem to work against us)
As written, IIRC, disintegrate doesn't actually reduce the target to 0 hp (or less) - it destroys it by turning it to ash. As was said above, this is the same thing that sunlight does to vampires to destroy them forever - turn them to ash. So, I'd say that RAW leans more heavily toward they're ended than not. True, vampires are supposed to be big, bad, eternal nasties, that can gain levels and scale, but they've got their share of weaknesses that can end them rather quickly, including the ever-dreaded... running water. And, again, as stated before, disintegrate isn't an apprentice's kind of power - it's a pretty high-level ability, which means it's kind of expected that it does weird things.
That said: it's your game, do what you wish!
I'm changing my opinion to this one. You can all rest easy now.