Killing a Vetala Vampire

[Joe1288]

So this is how the book said Vetala's are killed.

"Reducing a vetala's hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn't always destroy it (see fast healing). However, consecrating the vetala's remains and burying the body destroys it forever. A vetala's body is considered consecrated if it is doused with a vial of holy water and buried, if it is buried in earth affected by the spell consecrate, or if bless, prayer, or a similar divine spell is cast upon it as it is being buried. Digging up a vetala's corpse or profaning the area where it's buried does not restore a buried vetala."

Can you use a big holy water mud ball, a collapsing pitfall trap affected by consecrate or something else to this effect to bury a Vetala for an instant kill? Or would it have to also be at 0 hit points?
In other words, does a vetala have to be at 0 hp to be destroyed?

[Lost In Limbo]

I think the relevant line here is "consecrating the vetala's remains and burying the body destroys it forever". Everything after that is just the various ways the body can be consecrated.

Since it specifies remains that seems like the vetala has to be "killed" temporarily before you can finish it off for good.

[Joe1288]

I see what your saying, & I agree, but that too could be put to ?. A vetala is an undead so doesn't that already make it the remains of what ever it was before it was a vetala?

[Lost In Limbo]

Eh, you can only push the language so far. Pathfinder wasn't written by lawyers or linguists.

And it doesn't say you're consecrating the remains of the dwarf or the elf or whatever, your consecrating the remains of the vampire.

[RDM42]

For some reason I can't read this thread title without seeing "killing a Velveta Vampire". Don't know what a Velveta Vampire is, but there you go ...