two vampire-killing questions

[Drowbane]

I'm going to go with just one coffin and I'll cite the lich as my precedent. Having multiple coffins makes things very difficult indeed for adventurers. So destroy the coffin and the vampire is toast unless it can remake the coffin before having to assume gaseous form.

Lich: LA 4; Nigh impossible to destroy short of taking out the phylactery also.
Vampire: LA 8; sunlight, disintegrate(?), running water, reduce to 0 and steal his coffin...

I'm not sure you can really site the Lich vs Vampire as any sort of comparison. The Lich has it good, even if the Vampire can have any number of "coffin homes".

edit: back to LAs... Lich is 4, Ghost is 5... but Vampire is 8?! WTF came up with that? Ghost is by far more powerful than the Vampire (unless the DM allows the Vamp full use of his Dominate and Create Spawn... ).

 

[Infiniti2000]

On on the one vs. multiple home bit, perhaps a reasonable rule of thumb is similar to how a person in the U.S. determines residency. If I live in Florida for 8 months and Massachusetts for 4, then my residency (my 'home' as it were) is Florida. i.e. only one home. Anyway, that may not be a valid comparison for you, but I think it works enough for me.

Now, the interesting part is that the PCs (and even players) may not know this. Moreover, the vampire could play the ole Three-coffin Monte trick on the PCs. If he made the coffins so very hard to open, requiring tens of minutes each, the PCs might spend enough time such that the vampire has time to rejuvenate (because they are opening up the wrong, 'fake' coffins).

How about putting in some sort of fake look-alike, too? A disguised zombie perhaps, or a simulacrum/clone-something-or-other.

 

[Drowbane]

...How about putting in some sort of fake look-alike, too? ...or a simulacrum/clone-something-or-other.

My current (very rich) vampire PC does this.

Nothing like an inert clone laying in the coffin you just gaseous-formed into (and exited via tiny holes at the bottom through tubes leading down to your real lair) to fool the Slayers

 

[Random Axe]

My current (very rich) vampire PC does this.

Nothing like an inert clone laying in the coffin you just gaseous-formed into (and exited via tiny holes at the bottom through tubes leading down to your real lair) to fool the Slayers

Oh, DAMN, that is a good idea. I gotta remember that.

Also, what if the fake lookalike was lying on top of grave earth covering a false bottom? The vamp might gas-form into the coffin, and zip past the fake body, into a second stone-encased "burial chamber" below the "apparent" coffin. That way he gets to his real coffin, but the coffin the Slayers think they've just destroyed is really just a shell?

 

[evilbob]

...the vampire could play the ole Three-coffin Monte trick...

Oh, how I remember that trick, back in the good ol' days!

Seriously, that made me laugh out loud.