Helpless vampire and his dominated minions

[Perun]

Say a vampire has been rendered helpless by inflicting enough damage to force him in his gaseous form. So, when he reaches his coffin, he's helpless for an hour until he can start recuperating from his injuries.

Can he still take purely mental actions (such as controlling a dominated minion)? The description of the helpless condition doesn't say anything on the matter, just that the creature is "paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent’s mercy". "Helpless" can cover a number of different conditions -- for example, a paralysed, held, or bound creature, while certainly helpless for purposes of attacks and coup-de-grace, can still manifest psionic powers, use spell-like abilities, speak, or merely watch and listen, while sleeping or unconscious creature's can't do any of those things.

The relevant section from the vampire description in the SRD:

If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, it automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. It must reach its coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (It can travel up to nine miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to a vampire forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in its coffin, a vampire is helpless. It regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round.

What say you?

Regards.

 

[werk]

What say you?

"Changing your instructions or giving a dominated creature a new command is the equivalent of redirecting a spell, so it is a move action. "

 

[Zurai]

"Changing your instructions or giving a dominated creature a new command is the equivalent of redirecting a spell, so it is a move action. "

Which, unfortunately, sheds no light on the question. Helpless doesn't mean you can't take actions, it just means the only actions possible are mental actions - which controlling a vamp-thrall is. The question is whether a gaseous vampire forced to return to its coffin is unconcious-helpless, or merely unable-to-protect-itself helpless. The first doesn't allow even mental actions, while the second does.

 

[werk]

Which, unfortunately, sheds no light on the question. Helpless doesn't mean you can't take actions, it just means the only actions possible are mental actions - which controlling a vamp-thrall is. The question is whether a gaseous vampire forced to return to its coffin is unconcious-helpless, or merely unable-to-protect-itself helpless. The first doesn't allow even mental actions, while the second does.

Seems we are both side-stepping the real question...I wonder why...

 

[FreeXenon]

I think it is important to carefully read what that says. The vampire is not helpless until he is resting in the coffin. A "helpless" vampire could not flee back to his coffin if it was truly 'helpless' in gaseous form as the examples seem to dictate.

A vampire at rest in its coffin is helpless, but not until then.

Just my modest view.

 

[werk]

Some fishing provided this from a RotG article "Helpless: You cannot act when helpless."

The only mention of mental actions that I am finding is in Paralyzed which specifically states you are helpless and CAN perform mental actions, which seems to directly contradict the RotG. Helpless lacks that distinction in the description.

Under ability damage I found, "A character with Dexterity 0 is paralyzed." but it looks like the real difference is helpless is treated as Dex 0, and paralyzed IS Dex 0 and Str 0.

By that all, you could induce that paralyzed is a worse state than helpless, and you could rule on that...

 

[Perun]

I think I'm going to complicate things a bit

I'm going to rule that while the vampire is helpless recuperating in his coffin, the dominated character is no longer under his direct control. Instead, the vampire can use suggestion as a supernatural ability (DC 10 + 1/2 vampire's HD + his Cha modifier) on the dominated character at will.