Vampires --- what is a DM to do?

[wlmartin]

Our local DM game has a regular DM who we (4 of us) enjoy playing in front of in our regular Thursday Night Game.

As one of the group is away this week, i'll step in to be running a one-session adventure.

So far I have setup the following circumstances which I need to build on and would like some ideas on what to do.


Gnomish Villagers have captured one of the PCs playing a Vampire and are planning on watching at a village event as she is tied to a pole and burns to death when the sun comes up (Refreshment stands already setup)

The PCs friends (2 of the group and an NPC cleric) who are also Vampires hear of this and make haste to rescue their friend.


The adventure will start with the outside Vampires reaching the village limits and the captured Vampire bound to the Pole. The group will begin split and before the first combat encounter will be joined together.


The Levels of the group are :

: 1 x Captured Vampire : LVL 15
: 2 x Non Captured Vampire Friends : LVL 11
: 1 x NPC Healer Vampire : LVL 15

This creates a balance of level 13 split into a 4 player party.
Typically this gives me 4000xp to play with and whilst I wouldnt want to go under, going over by a little isnt the worst thing I could do... in fact considering them as a 5000xp budget as if they had 5 members would work out quite well.

Being vampires I could play on the Radiant Damage idea although exposing PCs to their weakness could result in underbalancing... however I would want to avoid the opposite of throwing necro attacks at them as well.

The most important thing is to find a fluid way to join the group together without it seeming forced. Typically this means that the Captured Vampire is guarded and the group fights their first encounter against those guards.



I am pretty stuck for ideas

I thought about Werewolves that lay waste to the village, although i would need to level the Werewolves as not many at high level.

I thought about Vampire Hunters although they seem a bit dry since they are just humans(or similar) with Anti-Vampire powers.


I am open to any suggestions

 

[Infiniti2000]

So, one PC is L15 and the other two are L11? Don't do this. I have no idea why you would think this is a good idea, but it's not. Make them all the same level and ensure that the first encounter is the rescue. The second encounter (after a short rest) could be against a strong group of Good NPCs, the "heroes" that captured the first vampire. "See, I told you we should have just staked her right then!" You definitely have to include Radiant damage. I really don't see things being valid without it. Certainly, the townspeople will have such things on hand.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You have a captured Level 15 Vampire? Who can turn into a swarm of bats and has some sort of powerful gaze - and a diplomacy modifier of at least +8?

What the hell captured her? And how are they keeping her prisoner?

And how much control do the PCs have over the timing? Light opposition but a race against time before sunrise? Also gnome illusionists faking the sunrise might be fun for a big budget anti-rescue mechanism.

 

[wlmartin]

So, one PC is L15 and the other two are L11? Don't do this. I have no idea why you would think this is a good idea, but it's not. Make them all the same level and ensure that the first encounter is the rescue. The second encounter (after a short rest) could be against a strong group of Good NPCs, the "heroes" that captured the first vampire. "See, I told you we should have just staked her right then!" You definitely have to include Radiant damage. I really don't see things being valid without it. Certainly, the townspeople will have such things on hand.

Regardless of if I should or shouldnt do it, I have done it and the worst thing that happens is it doesnt pan out too much but its a temporary adventure for one session - just a bit of fun!

So assuming that I dont plan to change this, I get your idea of heroes assaulting the group as the 2nd encounter, I however have some issues to deal with

: What is the best way to deal with the fact that the captured vampire is on display in front of 100s of witnesses... and I forsee one of 2 possibilities

1 : The Vampires who come to rescue attempt to mingle through the crowd and either attempt a bold faced rescue (and attract attacks from the town guard) or attempt a diplomacy with the officials. I however forsee that something else would need to kick in at the diplomacy where if it succeeds, another force intervens (ie Vampire Hunters) and if fails, the town guard attacks them
2 : The Vampires who come to rescue find that the village has been laid to waste, bodies everywhere and the Vampire is under guard in the centre of the carnage - someone has laid waste to the village for some reason and they are either Vampire Hunters looking for more Vampires, Werewolves looking for more Vampires or just bad luck that some bandits decide to rampage through the village when this is all going down

Apart from the above I cant think of any scenario to start the adventure off with

 

[wlmartin]

You have a captured Level 15 Vampire? Who can turn into a swarm of bats and has some sort of powerful gaze - and a diplomacy modifier of at least +8?

What the hell captured her? And how are they keeping her prisoner?

And how much control do the PCs have over the timing? Light opposition but a race against time before sunrise? Also gnome illusionists faking the sunrise might be fun for a big budget anti-rescue mechanism.

Firstly - I have temporarily nerfed the bats/gas by a neat cocktail of garlic forced down her neck.

Next - I gave the group the following concept

(The group is lvl 11 aside from 1 PC who is lvl 15 and one NPC healer who is llvl 15, the PC(15) has been kidnapped and the others need to rescue him/her)

I then told them to roll me up some toons asking the kidnapped guy to come up with a story for his character, he suggested that the toon was captured by the local towns people and thus is the start of my story.

I had a concept of them having to rescue him from a corrupt temple with Beholders running around but I gave the group the opportunity to set the starting point and here we are !


She is kidnapped because she was found feasting on an animal near the village and the gnomish bumpkins do the only thing they can think of... make a party out of her burning!


So far as suggested above my biggest problem is getting the rescuers to the captured vampire in a way that seems realistic and allows me to chain the following encounters from that point on.

There is no point in me saying "Poof, you make your way to the pole in the centre of the village with everyone watching, you release him and escape the village and now you are all being hunted"... thats not my angle

The group have given me a story to work with and it is my job to find a way to make it work both in a believable fashion but foremost in a way that reunifies the party before any serious action begins

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's vampires and a one-shot?

Play it up. Go for all the cheesiest vampire lore you can think of. Holy symbols, running water, mustard seeds/grains of rice/the works. The villagers don't have to (and indeed can't) win. Except by keeping the vampires themselves occupied. The adventurers who hear about the vampires are another story.

 

[wedgeski]

Absolutely agree with Neon. Play it up. Personally I'm thinking of the scene near the start of Van Helsing where Dracula's ?wives? swoop around the church attacking him and the villagers, flying them up into the air, dropping them through roofs, etc., all while Van Helsing is pelting them with shot from his super-crossbow of undead slaying. An attack from some other vampire coven, attempting to rescue the kidnapped PC from a grisly fate, could be just the diversion the rest of the party needs to effect a rescue. It might not fit with the atmosphere you had in mind, though.

 

[wlmartin]

It's vampires and a one-shot?

Play it up. Go for all the cheesiest vampire lore you can think of. Holy symbols, running water, mustard seeds/grains of rice/the works. The villagers don't have to (and indeed can't) win. Except by keeping the vampires themselves occupied. The adventurers who hear about the vampires are another story.

Just my thought
I plan to do some research and see about adding in some proper Vampire stuff (not that twilight lovey dovey stuff)

Running Water... hey why not have the battle go on in a watermill that has been spiked with Garlic... running garlic water MUHAHAH

Should be fun... good thing is if it all goes up, its a one-shot so I dont have to deal with the fallout.

 

[wlmartin]

Absolutely agree with Neon. Play it up. Personally I'm thinking of the scene near the start of Van Helsing where Dracula's ?wives? swoop around the church attacking him and the villagers, flying them up into the air, dropping them through roofs, etc., all while Van Helsing is pelting them with shot from his super-crossbow of undead slaying. An attack from some other vampire coven, attempting to rescue the kidnapped PC from a grisly fate, could be just the diversion the rest of the party needs to effect a rescue. It might not fit with the atmosphere you had in mind, though.

You just gave me another idea...

What if I play it Smoking Aces style.

Enter the following
: A group of rival vampires
: A group of werewolves
: A group of Religious Zealots
: A group of Vampire Slayers

And along with the PC party, they all battle it out Royal Rumble style

... or perhaps not but the idea is funny


Another one someone else suggested is have the idea of there being a party a ruse to lure the other Vampires in. The gnomes lay a trap where do-gooders come to kill the other Vampires rescuing.

This is either the gnomes laying the trap themselves or Vampire Hunters have infiltrated the village and have the entire village under lockdown, everyone is barred in their homes and the nobles are held up in the village community hall under guard... The Hunters want to attract the Vampires and ambush them, this will no doubt fail and the Vampires then have the opportunity to escape (and thus ill have some backup encounter ready, which is not ideal) or they seek to free the village proving they are in fact worthy of respect.







Or... maybe the Gnomes are devil worshipers looking to make a sacrifice to the demons of the abyss. When the group defeat their first encounter (the gnomish devouts) the demon comes up from hell with a scaly ghostly hand to pull the Vampire on the pole down but he escapes just in the nick of time and the Demon Lord sends his minions to the material plane to punish the impudence!

The only way for me to get Radiant Damage into the equation of any of these ideas is to have a Religious / Vampire Hunter type as the common enemy and have it make sense that their attacks deal this damage



Of the above ideas, which ones sound better --- i am very unsure

 

[wedgeski]

Of the above ideas, which ones sound better --- i am very unsure

I'll be honest... for a one-shot, any one of those ideas sounds great.

I'm drawn in particular to the band of vampire hunters so convinced of their own righteousness that they'll force innocent townsfolk to put themselves in the middle of what will no doubt be a bloody and violent affair. If that does sound a bit dry (as per your OP) then give them some other agenda: perhaps they're werewolves enacting a bloodletting ritual that will cleanse them of their curse, or some-such. Either way the zealout angle always appeals to me.