Tactics on Vampires

Eridor

First Post
Hi Volks,
well me, a Conjurer, a Cleric of Tempus, a Barbarian and a Fighter, all LVL 11, going to oppose a strong vampire troop, consisting of mages, thieves and fighters. We're playin "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" tracing the demilich Acererak, and now are going for the Amulet of the Void. Can you recommend some tactics against vampires. What should we pay attention to before starting combat?
I also have a staff of the magi at my disposal, but i'm afraid of using it,except in a true emergency, cause i still don't know, how many charges the stick has. Any Suggestions?
 

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There are three main problems with vampires. In order of severity:

First: they dominate at will. Get a protection from evil on everyone in the party. In fact, since there are dispel-capable spellcasters among the bloodsuckers, get multiple protection from evil spells on everyone (magic circles work well in this regard). Against multiple vampires, I'd make sure to layer at least three anti-domination spells on top of each other, with more prepared. If you can't be certain that you have sufficient protection against domination, don't even try. Think about five vampires each deciding to dominate the fighter with no protections.

Second: they deal negative levels, and lots of them. Get a death ward on your tanks if possible, or they won't tank at all. If you can't death ward, at least try to give them stellar AC somehow. Don't be afraid to cast your biggest spells soon, because if you get hit by negative levels, they'll be gone.

Third: they have very good DR. 10/magic silver is dreadful; you need a weapon that is both silver and magic. If you've got silver weapons that aren't magical, get a magic weapon on them. If you lack silver weapons, you're out of luck unless you can get your hands on some silversheen.
 

Use wooden stakes. Seriously. Most people focus on beating the vampire down and overlook this key weakness that vampires have.

I remember playing through a Dungeon adventure a few years back called "The Dying of the Light" which had, I think, seven different vampires. My aging, physically weak arcane trickster ended up dispatching three of them on his own just from focusing on their weakness. Other players were making dealing out loads of damage with things like smite evil or flurry of blows, and the vamps would just heal it within a couple of rounds. But one lucky hit with a stake took one down for good.

Otherwise, the above advice on defenses is very good. In particular, if you can get your tanks resistant to negative energy attacks and in close to keep the vampire busy, you probably won't have to worry about too many tricks like Dominate or other spell-like abilities.
 

Speaking of which..

Byrons_Ghost said:
Use wooden stakes. Seriously. Most people focus on beating the vampire down and overlook this key weakness that vampires have.

The MM entry lists it as a weakness but no rules for how to stake one in the heart exist AFAIK. So I'm curious to know what rules you used to work it out (so that I can too! :D )

J from Three Haligonians
 

Umm, the 3rd edition rules? :heh:

I really have no idea, sorry. We played this when it first came out like three years ago, and I wasn't DMing, just playing a PC. I think we had the heart hit on a critical roll, such as a 19 or 20. There may have been guidelines in the module, someone with a copy might be able to help. But I'm not sure.

If nothing else, a True Strike spell ought to get the stake in the right place... provided your wizard wants to run up and attack the vampire, of course.
 


WRT the staff of the magi, use it. It's now classified as an artifact, so you won't get anything with analyze dweomer, but a carefully worded divination should be able to let you know whether you'll depower it by using a few high-charge powers. Once you've used them, ready actions to absorb spells cast by the vampires until you've replentished the charges you use and then use those charges again. You don't need to know exactly how many charges you have as long as you know that you can keep going through the same four to nine charges again and again.

What other items do you have available to you? My advice is that some of the best other items for you to acquire would be:

A phylactery of undead turning--with that, the cleric should be able to turn vampires fairly reliably unless they're individually powerful enough to have CR>2+your party level without being vampires.

A lesser metamagic rod of extend spell--magic circle vs. evil? Cast it on everyone and make it last twice as long or keep it going all day. At 11th level, a single casting lasts 1:50 and an extended casting lasts 3:40, so you'd need three rods of extend spell and seven slots devoted to the spell to keep it up all day. That's a pretty painful investment, but if you don't expect combat on any given day, it's probably worth it to have the spell up when you're attacked.

A silvered undead bane weapon. At a +1 equivalent enhancement, bane is a no-brainer when you know the type of your major enemies--that's what it's for.

Other things:

One challenge of dealing with a vampire is dealing with it permanently. When reduced to 0hp they turn to mist and float back to their coffins. Now, you could follow them back to their coffins because mist form is rather slow, but if they're clever, you might need gaseous form for that and if they're clever, they will go via a route that is very dangerous to you (trapped or inhabited by other foes). So, you can't count on being able to follow them to their coffins and stake them. It's nice if you can but don't count on it.

What other was are there to kill them?

Assuming your DM doesn't use the dying of the light rules (the stake rules are from that dungeon mod if I read the reviews correctly), you could try having a deathwarded character grapple and pin the vampire while someone else stakes it. This, however, is unlikely to work. First, the DM might rule that staking is like a coup de grace and the vampire is pinned, not helpless. Second, a clever vampire would just turn gaseous to escape the grapple. Third, vampires are dangerous grapplers and could use blood drain on the grappler. If you're going to use a stake, you'll need something like the halt undead spell. Odds are good that the vampires will save against it, but you only need them to fail once....

Another method for killing the vampires would be to expose them to sunlight. If inside a building, a well timed disintegrate aimed at the ceiling might manage this. Be careful not to bring the roof down on your heads, but it could still work. In a pinch, stone shape could perform the same function. If you have a scroll of sunbeam or sunburst, those would work too (though you'd need to get the vampires to fail a reflex save and they're pretty good at those--bring some recitation spells if your DM allows Complete Divine/ Defenders of the Faith material).

A final method for killing vampires would be immersing them in running water. There are a number of ways this might be managed if you engage them near a stream or river. Grapple--it would take two consecutive grapple checks--one to grapple them and one to move them--in order to pull it off. Or you could bull rush--using telekinesis or Bigby's forceful hand in order to get them into the water. At the DM's option, a quickened grease spell on the ground underneath them might make it easier to bull rush them.

Finally, if the vampire is reduced to 0hp and then kept away from his coffin long enough, he will die. You might accomplish this by catching the gaseous vampire in an otiluke's resilient sphere and then building a ventless box around it using wall of stone and stoneshape spells. A hemispherical wall of ice might serve a similar purpose but wouldn't be able to keep the vampire from escaping through the floor so only try it on nonpourous surfaces.

Even following these strategies, a likely result is that you'll destroy a few vampires and others will escape to come back for more. What can you do if you don't manage to destroy the vampires permanently?

1. Escape. This is when the magic circle and the vampire's weakness vs. holy symbols comes in. If everyone stays in the magic circle and presents their holy symbol to the vampire, it can't make melee attacks and it can't dominate party members. At that point, you can back up to a secure location and rest.

2. Fortify yourselves. Vampires can't enter buildings without an invitation. So, sleep in a leomund's secure shelter. The vampires can try to dispel it (and will probably eventually succeed, but they can't enter. If you can find a real building that is not public to sleep in, that's even better. Temples are arguably public, but they are also usually hallowed--meaning that you have an even better chance of turning them and the magic circle vs. evil effect will protect you from domination.

3. Attrition. When vampires go gaseous, they tend to take their loot with them. But they can't take it if they don't have it. Consider disarming or sundering their weapons and holy symbols, grappling to remove their periapts and cloaks, etc. Living in a dungeon full of treasures, they will no doubt replace some of it, but the replacements won't necessarily be of the same quality. Plus, you get loot every time you fight them.

Also, consider permanent duration spells like bestow curse. It's possible that the vampires will have a means to remove them but it's also possible--especially if you wax their spellcasters early on--that they won't. When they come back, they may still have the penalties you inflict on them.
 

In a recent camapign, we ran up against a few vampires. Killing them was easy, it was keeping them that way that was the problem. We came up with this solution: Once we had reduced the vamp to 0 hp and it assumed its mist form, one of the casters would cast wind wall to contain the mist. The Cleric would cast lesser planar ally (IIRC) summoning a Djinn. The Djinn has create object or something similar as a spell like ability. We would request the Djinn create a glass globe around the mist trapping it inside. The Djinn would then take the globe (with vampy inside) back to the plane of air (could substitute the positive energy plane). In our campaign at least, the plane of air is always bright and sunny. Even if somehow the vampire was able to escape before the sunlight did him in, the vampire must get back to its coffin within 1 hour or it disipates, effectively destroying it. Worked well for us but as always YMMV.
 

I once DMed a group who fought vampires (or a vampire) like this. The party's mage cast wall of force (this was in the days when you could make a sphere) around the vamp, then while the other players stood by with stakes, the cleric cast daylight.

I shouldn't have allowed that to work. As usual my players got what they wanted by giving me all their actions at once so I didn't have time to think about it. The rules about daylight and vampires were, and still are, very non-specific. These days, my ruling is much clearer - i.e. only real, natural, non-magical sunlight actually kills vampires.

If your DM is particularly ditzy or a neophyte you might try that on and see how it fits...
 

Daylight said:
The object touched sheds light as bright as full daylight in a 60-foot radius, and dim light for an additional 60 feet beyond that. Creatures that take penalties in bright light also take them while within the radius of this magical light. Despite its name, this spell is not the equivalent of daylight for the purposes of creatures that are damaged or destroyed by bright light. If daylight is cast on a small object that is then placed inside or under a light- proof covering, the spell’s effects are blocked until the covering is removed.

Daylight brought into an area of magical darkness (or vice versa) is temporarily negated, so that the otherwise prevailing light conditions exist in the overlapping areas of effect.

Daylight counters or dispels any darkness spell of equal or lower level, such as darkness.
You need sunbeam or sunburst to kill vampires off, but that's high level magic.
 

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