The spirit of the game and the Sage

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, there's an easy solution:

Called Shots
When you attack, you can declare your intention to strike a particular body part, with intent to disable, sever, cut out, impale, or otherwise f*** it up. If your attack deals enough damage to drop the creature, your called shot does the effect you intend. Otherwise, it simply deals normal damage.

Hit points represent how much work you have to do to defeat a foe. Once the foe is defeated, you can do with him as you wish.

 

[Dross]

Another thing to note is that if the PCs can have a 25% chance to stake a vamp through the heart, thus a 25% chance to stake any non-vamp through the heart, any foe with a modicorum of fighting skill should be trying to do that to the PCs.

I wonder how happy even a 10% chance of being staked and dying instantly each combat round would make the players?

 

[Odhanan]

Nothing. It's just that most DMs have wised up to the fact that allowing a high-level fighter a 25% chance of instantly killing - I'm sorry, "staking" - a CR 18 vampire with each attack is a bad idea.

Called shots have gone out of the game because they're stupidly overpowered (or underpowered).

Cheers!

I think that's just fine and good as game theory, but that's just that: game theory. Rules in a vacuum.

If a PC staking a CR 18 Vampire at the game table just makes the game more dramatic/action-packed/surprising/[whatever seems more fun] at the moment the idea comes up, then it just makes sense to make it possible. If it just potentially pisses off a player around the game table, then don't do it. That just depends on the circumstances and people around the gaming table primarily, to me.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Personally, I think the whole approach to how the Sage answers the questions could be tweaked a bit. Please note that I mean this as a suggestion, not a criticism.

Answers can come in two forms. First is a By-The-Rules answer. The Sage already does this. Give the official, by-the-books answer, then move on to part two.

The second part is the In Your Game part. Give some suggestions on variations to the rules, or ways of making the game more "Hollywood." The idea is to have fun, so this is the area where the Sage can make suggestions on fun house rules and DM adjudications.

Anyway, that's my suggestion.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Yeah, I'm fine with the Sage's answer, and for the same reason others have already brought up. If the rules make it possible to stake a vampire through the heart in combat, why can't I stake/stab anything of similar build through the heart?

It's the same reason I despise the "make a sunder attempt to behead a hydra" nonsense. Why can I do that to a hydra and not to, say, a dragon?

 

[WayneLigon]

But when the rules don't allow that bit of classic vampire essence, another bit of the wonder goes away.

I think that most of the Sage answers are meant for your GM that isn't comfortable just winging it like that and wants a solid, concrete answer to confront Ruleslawyer Bob.

Ruleslawyer Bob is the guy who will take any variation you give him and run with it, he's incapable of understanding the art of dramatic license either because he has a touch of Asperger's or he's just a dick.

This Week:
RB: we stake the vampire; hooray!
Next Week:
RB: OK, I take my wooden stake and drive it through the eye of the giant we're fighting. He dies.
You: What?
RB: An eye is certainly more vulnerable than driving a stake through a person's breastbone, and it's undeniably a bigger target. So, going by what you let us do last week, I kill him.
You: Well, that's a special case for vampires and...
RB: That doesn't make sense! It works for them, it works that way for everything!
*20 minutes of arguing ensues, killing the enjoyment of the game for everyone save perhaps RB.

Now, a lot of us would be more than comfortable with telling Bob where to stick it, but your newbie GM - the one probably most likely to be reading Sage - isn't probably comfortable with that.

 

[delericho]

This isn't about removing limits. Removing limits would be "Here's how you do it. It's incredibly hard to do in the ebb and flow of combat, but hey, PCs are heroes." Instead, this is a closed mentality. You know how I read it? "Our rules don't give rules for targeting specific locations, so you just can't try it."

And from a rules mechanical point of view, I understand. If you can put a stake through a vampire's heart, why not a goblin? Or a dragon? Ease of combat vs. exceptions, etc. Adding in something like this to the abstract combat of D&D doesn't work well.

But when the rules don't allow that bit of classic vampire essence, another bit of the wonder goes away.

Okay, here are some rules you can use. Firstly, a stake:

Light Simple weapon, 1d4 piercing damage, no range.

To stake a vampire through the heart: attack it with the stake. If your attack reduces it to 0 hit points, it does not revert to gaseous form, but instead is staked through the heart.

Done.

 

[Sammael]

^ To add to the above, I'd perhaps make it so a stake can score a critical hit on the vampire.

 

[Maggan]

But when the rules don't allow that bit of classic vampire essence, another bit of the wonder goes away.

I'd say the opposite, actually. If you allow "staking" during combat, the classic "wonder" bit about tracking down the vampire, making sure he's not gonna attack you, fearing his minions and all that goes away. And with that, some of the wonder as well.

As for the "this is not removing limits, this in enforcing them", sure it's enforcing a limit. But the context is The Sage answering rules questions, which people use at their tables.

He's answering questions about the rules, and is not so much supposed to make up rules of his own, I think. (Although I'm a bit hazy on the precedent there, maybe he does make up new rules on the spot all the time. If so, then I'd prefer him to answer questions about existing rules, not introducing new ones).

And from that context, he's cetainly enforcing limits; the limits of the rules.

/M

 

[Klaus]

Here's my House Rule, based off the Buffy RPG:

Vampires & Stakes - When you strike a critical hit with a stake to a vampire, calculate the additional damage dealt by it separatedly. If the damage dealt would be enough to drive a vampire to 0 hp, the stake has been driven through the vampire's heart. The vampire falls to the ground, incapacitated, until the stake is removed. The body decays quickly to a skeletal state. A stake deals 1d6 piercing damage. Against a vampire, its critical multiplier is x3.

Vampires & Beheading - If you strike a critical hit against a vampire with a slashing weapon, calculate the additional damage separatedly. If the entire damage dealt is enough to drive to vampire to 0 hp or less, you behead the vampire and instantly kills it.