If a vampire hunter meets a vampire lord...

[Three_Haligonians]

...they probably fight.

But I have a question nonetheless.

In Libris Mortis, there is the feat Vampire Hunter which states that a character who has it is

immune to the dominating gaze ability of vampires and vampire spawn.

Now on the WoTC website, in the retired Monster Mayhem article, there is the Vampire Lord Template which states that its Domination ability is

As base vampire, except that a vampire lord can do this either by gaze or voice. It does not require line of sight to the target, but the target must be able to hear the vampire lord's voice when it speaks at a normal volume level.

So then, by the RAW, the Vampire Hunter feat can be trumped by a Vampire Lord. My question is: do you think it should?

What I mean is, do you think the meaning behind the feat is to make a character immune to the Dominate ability of a Vampire regardless of how the Vampire attempts it and that Vampire Hunter was worded that way because they didn't bother checking every out-dated source (like a retired article on the site) and that without the word "gaze" in there, a character with the feat would be immune to any Domination attempted by a Vampire (like, with spells etc.) and therefore, the feat should protect against the voice-based Dominate of a Vampire Lord as well?

Or do you think that Vampire Hunter should specifically protect only against a Vampire's Domination gaze and that any character with it is in for a nasty surprise when they run into a Vampire Lord?

Whatever your answer might be, my next question is why?

Thanks,

J from Three Haligonians

 

[MadMaxim]

I think it's supposed to protect against a vampire lord's voice-based dominate as well. It's a very specialized feat. It's only good against vampires so I'd rule that it makes the character immune to a vampire lord's dominating voice as well.

 

[Ferret]

Yeah so specialised it should work on all domination attempts by vampires. Unfair that it doesn't, it seems like that would be the attempt, but there is no mistake that it only protects against the gaze by the RAW. :\

 

[Infiniti2000]

I side with the vampire lord, but that's because I'm normally DM.


I say it doesn't work against the voice domination.

 

[Quidam]

I side with the vampire lord, but that's because I'm normally DM.


I say it doesn't work against the voice domination.

I'm with Inf on this one if only to be able to provide a sense of drama & tension to the story when this un-dominatable has to resist domination. He'd still wade through the enslaved vampires and the spawn, able to look them all in the eye- yet when he comes face to face with the BBEVL, take the tension up a notch.

And because I'm mostly the DM, too.

 

[Stalker0]

Even Buffy got the mind whammy from time to time

 

[nothing to see here]

Why am I reminded of playing "Castlevania II" back in my days of youth.

"It's a horrible night to have curse"

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I side with the Vampire Hunter. When the feat was written, the writer probably was not thinking about an old 3.0 article on Wizards website. He didn't think a vampire would have any form of domination other than gaze, so that's the only one he mentioned.

More importantly if the player spent the feat on it, he should be able to reap the rewards of it. Saying it doesn't work because of this little techincallity will be frustrating.

 

[the Jester]

I think it's clearly intended to apply only to the gaze of the vampire. I would let the voice get through, and I wouldn't give the hunter any protection against a dominate person spell cast by a vampire either.

 

[werk]

I side with the Vampire Hunter. When the feat was written, the writer probably was not thinking about an old 3.0 article on Wizards website. He didn't think a vampire would have any form of domination other than gaze, so that's the only one he mentioned.

More importantly if the player spent the feat on it, he should be able to reap the rewards of it. Saying it doesn't work because of this little techincallity will be frustrating.

This exactly expresses my feelings on the issue.