Post/Author/DateTime	Post
skrap-san 01-24-08, 05:33 PM	I have a problem, I'm running the whispers of the vampires blade, and one of the players upon discovering a coffin in the cart, one of my players roll a 27 on knowledge religion, so based on further other clues he gather that it is a vampire. I follow a rule I seem to remember that it says that you need to beat a DC: 15+hd to know what kind of creature you are dealing with. So here is what I need help with. 1: How much should I let him know, through his initial check and further study on the subject? These are experienced players who sometimes gets it into their thick heads that their characters are entitled to all the knowledge they themselves poses. 2: Do you have any suggestions about making the final encounter more memorable for them without crippling what they have learned and can take advantage of? Thanks on beforehand.
Cloud Divider 01-24-08, 06:57 PM	I have a problem, I'm running the whispers of the vampires blade, and one of the players upon discovering a coffin in the cart, one of my players roll a 27 on knowledge religion, so based on further other clues he gather that it is a vampire. I follow a rule I seem to remember that it says that you need to beat a DC: 15+hd to know what kind of creature you are dealing with. So here is what I need help with. 1: How much should I let him know, through his initial check and further study on the subject? These are experienced players who sometimes gets it into their thick heads that their characters are entitled to all the knowledge they themselves poses. Well, first off, the player in question did roll a 27, versus a DC on the order of 18-20 (I forget what level Lucan was...I doubt it was any higher than 5th). So he rolled a fairly meaningful success, there. So it's important to ensure that the PC gets the benefit of that. Regardless of what the actual rule is for identifying supernatural creatures is, you'd already set an approximate bar for the PC to try and beat when you allowed him to roll when he asked "Hey, can I roll my Knowledge (Religion) to try and figure out what this means?". He rolled well, so now throw him a bone. Now, here's the real key: couch what information you reveal in the sorts of ways a Religion roll would suggest. I'd assume this character's a cleric - use imagery of their chosen religion as best you can - holy water blessed by Dol Arrah (or whoever the sun-aspected Sovereign is), bathed in the light of the holy Silver Flame, and so forth. If they're Blood of Vol, it's a little more...interesting. Also, there's probably a fair amount of "common knowledge" about what Vampires can do - sure, maybe not all of it's accurate, but between Karrnath and the Blood of Vol, Vampires are pretty common. Ditto lycanthropes, incidentally (especially for Silver Flame adherents). 2: Do you have any suggestions about making the final encounter more memorable for them without crippling what they have learned and can take advantage of? I suppose that would depend on how they decided to use the knowledge you gave them. If they went in loaded with holy water, blessed arrows, silvered swords, oaken stakes and other tried-and-true undead-slaying devices, let 'em have it. That'll actually give you a little bit more of an excuse to play up Lucan's other abilities on top of his vampiric powers, because I personally felt that he's a particularly dangerous opponent for a low-level party. Energy drain is nasty at low levels. But if the PC's are forewarned, and forearmed, that evens the odds quite a bit. Lucan's a pretty clever fellow, plus he's got the whispering blade, too (though I forget what that does). So you could have a pretty exciting game of cat-and-mouse as a game of attrition plays out, with him taking advantage of his intellect (trained spy, remember), to try and nickel-and-dime the PCs over the course of a long night in a dark ruin. He can use his gaseous form to escape combat after inflicting the odd level drain or two on the PC's, and then hide away until his fast healing brings him back up. Even if he does get "defeated," he's not truly done as long as he can make it back to his coffin. If his coffin remains undiscovered for the next hour, he's up and ready to rock in short order (2hp/turn means he's up to full hp within two minutes). If the PCs end up camping, hopefully they know well enough that Vampires have the power to Dominate, so they won't leave a single person on watch. Now, things get interesting once it gets closer to daylight. He's still got to have his coffin. The PC should definitely learn that he needs his coffin (or a coffin) to hide in during daylight. So should the PCs survive the night, all they'd need to do is...stake out (har!) Lucan's coffin, and wait for daylight. And if they absolutely, positively have to be sure, they can cart it up to the roof, and open it up and let Mr. Lucan get a nice little suntan...
Toloran 01-24-08, 07:54 PM	I have a problem, I'm running the whispers of the vampires blade, and one of the players upon discovering a coffin in the cart, one of my players roll a 27 on knowledge religion, so based on further other clues he gather that it is a vampire. I follow a rule I seem to remember that it says that you need to beat a DC: 15+hd to know what kind of creature you are dealing with. So here is what I need help with. 1: How much should I let him know, through his initial check and further study on the subject? These are experienced players who sometimes gets it into their thick heads that their characters are entitled to all the knowledge they themselves poses. The general rule of thumb i've seen is DC 10+HD just to identify it. For every 5 you beat the result by, they get a single fact (starting with most common knowledge). If they want to know more about it then that, they need to find some source of knowledge and do research (the research feat being useful? Heresy! =p). Here is how I run research: For every hour of studying, they get a +2 on the knowledge check. When they decide they've spent enough time studying (or some outside force interrupts them), I (the DM) roll the new knowledge check. The DC is exactly the same as the original one (including the +5 for additional tidbits). If the result is less then their original roll by 5 or less, they don't get any more info. If they fail by more then 5 then there is a 50% chance they'll get a single tidbit but it will be incorrect. A natural 1 means they automatically get erroneous information. 2: Do you have any suggestions about making the final encounter more memorable for them without crippling what they have learned and can take advantage of? When I ran the encounter, I had a similar problem. The players figured out the whole silver AND magic thing during the ball encounter and knew that was the only way to hurt him. Although only two and a half people in the party could really do anything to him, they still took him down fairly quickly. So here is what I learned: 1) Remember: The sword has abilities, namely confusion 1/day (or was it insanity?). Use it. 2) Most of the vampires lethal weaknesses (running water, daylight, etc) aren't really accessible during this encounter to the players. Anything else can be bypassed by lucan. 3) Vampires are pretty strong. If the players manage to keep him out of arms reach, consider him throwing one of the sarcophagi lids at them (or breaking them and throwing a chunk). 4) Don't be afraid to go after the squishies.
skrap-san 01-26-08, 03:13 AM	Thanks for the great tips both of you. I decided to turn him into a ninja instead of a rouge giving him even more duck and cover abilities. And a higher will save which he needs against the necromancer with the control undead spell.