Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (
More info?)
Nikolas Landauer wrote:
>
> Piggybacking slightly.
To add insult to injury, I'm replying to my own post, which was a
slight piggyback.
> Jasin Zujovic wrote:
> >
> > I'd rule that if you bring him down to 0 with a stake
> > attack, he's now staked instead of gaseous.
I followed this with some options, one of which was a poorly-conceived
grappling solution. Through IM with Keith, I changed my mind about
that. So, to change my suggestions:
You can stab a helpless vampire at or below 0 hp through the heart
with a stake (I would consider this a full-round action that provokes
attacks of opportunity, though obviously not from the helpless
vampire). That said, it's not easy to get a vampire at 0 hp (and
helpless) outside its coffin.
To make this more common, I've added this rule:
HEART-SHOT (or other direct vital organ attack) VS. UNDEAD.
You may make a heart-shot against a vampire while wielding a wooden
stake (or a direct attack against another vital organ in a creature
for whom it matters), with two qualifications:
1) your wooden stake attack brings the vampire (or other undead) to
0 hp or less; and
2) you do one of the following with the wooden stake attack:
a) roll a confirmed critical (but with no extra damage, since
undead are immune to criticals); or
b) make an attack which would qualify as a sneak attack (but with
no extra damage, again); or
c) you declare *before* the attack that you are attempting a
heart-shot (or other direct vital organ attack) and take a -5 penalty
to your attack roll.
If you want to expand this past undead, for those characters who might
wish a "signature kill style", you can do so by replacing all
instances of "0 hp or less" with "-10 hp or less" or whatever
threshold your game uses for death (IMC, for instance, that value is
-Con).
The only reason this Heart-Shot action is possible against vampires is
that they have a specific targetable weak point, which most other
undead and constructs do not.
Similarly, Keith put it best for mortals as "want to heartshot a
human? Take -5 on your hit roll, [or] successfully crit or sneak
attack, *and* get him to -10 hit points and congratulations,
heartshot"
Note that the sneak attack qualification makes it *much* easier for
rogues to perform this action than other character classes. This is
partially intentional, since rogues are pretty much vampire fodder
normally, so this gives them a role in a fight against a vampire, and
preserves their genre flavor: (Keith again) "Everybody else beats up
on it until [the rogue] can get in and finish it off with a
well-aimed, well-timed *spike*."
One final note: This doesn't help you kill the vampire any faster
(which is what Keith, and a lot of others were surely concerned
about), it just saves you having to track down the coffin.
--
Nik
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