I love how the Vampire just goes into the tavern to gain some thralls just to be flashbanged, flashbanged again, stunned and flasbanged *AGAIN*. Just to overall win the Encounter by getting what he wanted.
Add also since the vampire has the innkeeper as a thrall he also can use the Inn as a base of operations/lure for people to come in. The best part is that he's always a beloved guest so he can just walk right in anytime he wants
It's worth bearing in mind that Daylight doesn't cast sunlight, just bright light. It's a very common mistake, I'd always assumed a spell called "Daylight" would create the light of the day, but Crawford confirmed it isn't :/
Oh I didn't know it was officially confirmed to be useless, even though its literal name is the thing that hurts vampires. They should just remove the spell then.
I love these monster tactics videos and they are always a treat to work with. I think this video reinforces the idea that vampires aren't supposed to be a threat because they can TPK the party in a single combat, but because of what they can do to the world around them. Like a vampire isn't a threat to some well-prepared adventurers, but that's because that's generally the only that can kill one.
Yup, tbh this was a overall huge win for the vampire, it left with 5 thralls and no downside except for some pain. Best case scenario sure he couldve had 4 more thralls (being the adventurers and extra gnome) but in the end itll be much more prepared for the next time he sees these adventurers and will have 5 new henchmen to help while they can barely chase cause of the wolves
It may have been short, but the adventurers basically just lived through the extremely traumatic event of seeing a whole inn worth of people get enthralled by an undead, fighting off a small horde of wolves who were literally scrambling over eachother down a hallway like world War Z zombies, fought back a Vampire and his wife who spider climbed on walls, and even though they survived the next attack would be even deadlier.
This is why so many vampire hunters are hunters. Go to the crypt and stake the blood sucker at home. Otherwise, if you find one on a grocery run. Any survivors should consider themselves lucky. The vamp in this case should have ran when the light hit. Take the thralls and tie the party up with whatever wolves were left.
Martials use superior movement and projectiles or casters can use Charm magic and Abjurarion bs on any clerics. Even without prep a proper vampire is dang scary.
In the end it did just that, left with 5 new thralls and most of the wolves are still in there to annoy the party now that the daggers are gone, only thing staying longer caused was a little extra pain but it would be worth it to try at least that much to get 1 of the 4 people left in the building gotta remember every turn was only 6 seconds.
What's even scarier to me here is if the vampire had just enthralled the 3 patrons and the barkeep and not bothered with the party, imagine the party the next day waking up to see that almost the entire building just vanished in the night. That's a good setup for an investigation quest.
Tbf, it's not like you can pick out a random inn in the middle of nowhere and reasonably guess that it's currently inhabited by some of the most dangerous people on the planet.
@certifiedcoolguy583 The vampire could have questioned the charmed innkeeper. "So they definitely looked like a Wizard? And some priest in armour, a musician with a sword and ... Okay, we are leaving."
"But it only takes one surviving for more to pop up. They're like the trendy juice bar of monsters." Order of the stick. DnD might make it difficult to have a good zombie apocalypse, but give the count a week and the party will be up to their stinky armpits in vampires.
Actually, my character has the Feylost background, so their armpits smell like strawberries. (A sweet scent is an actual side effect option from that background.) So unless you think strawberries stink, they're not stinky.
That's what I was thinking. On failing to charm the Bard and escaping with mist the vampire should have ordered the wolves to attack to stop or slow pursuit. Then fled with the 5 victims. Can always come back stronger. Especially if the Vamp was just starting out with no home base and one thrawl.
In my recent game my party of 4 level 5 characters almost bitchslapped a cr 13 legendary monster and their entourage. They would lose eventually and it was an encounter for them to meet and learn about the BBGE of the campaign, but they legit got it to half health and killed other monsters around. In these dire times it would be wise to remember: "throw a seemingly impossible encounter at your players and let them figure out how to deal with it, they will surprise you". Maybe it's my fault, the introductory game was death house, they suffered a lot there, but this experience turned them into monsters.
@@JubioHDX My point was that the vampire found the odds were against him. And as vampires do play the long game, the vampire should have fled when outmatched. They can always rebuild so long as they don't get killed. Time is on their side.
Vampires are the epitome of 'the consequences of your own actions'. Unless your DM is Machiavellian with his subtly, or the dice just really decide they like this guy, you have to actively not chase the vampire down in order for them to get away. But if they do get away, you've met the necromancer's more stylish cousin- who with his endless minions can and will just take over a kingdom through sheer numbers. You let three people get away, now there are 15.
Except Spawns can't create Spawns, nor can they Charm substantially reducing their effectiveness as Vampires. So wouldn't say the growth is anywhere near exponential, but it's still terrifying.
@@KageRyuu6 It's often stated that Vampires don't want to create other fully-fledged vampires simply because with their free will... they're typically going to piss off and start their own coven, or try to kill their former master, or both. Also just the normal Vampire Spawn statblock won't really inspire that much fear. Give them martial training and one or two class levels, you have a small army of vampire knights, mages and assassins. Also an interesting setup for a player party. "Band of murderous Vampire Spawn looking for their master", it's like the grimdark polar opposite of "Band of Half-Races looking for their human Bard father".
A mad dash down the comments about the Daylight spell, I'm sure if the cleric can cast 5th level spells you can easily exchange the intended effect to say "Yea sorry DM I meant to cast Dawn I DO have that prepared I just got my day spells mixed up!"
YEa Beacon of Hope would end because 2 concentration spells back to back but Cmon Are ya really gonna prefer Beacon of Hope over Dawn vs vampires. Thankyou
Dawn would also have done 4d10 damage/round to everyone, including the party. It's not interchangable. This is a classic case of READ. YOUR. SPELLS. Not their names, the full text. Spell names are often misleading.
I like how he describes jojo’s bizarre adventure part 2: battle tendency as just “part 2” as if it was just an entire show called part 2 or it was the second of all of fiction.
As someone who works in a boutique hotel, I can confirm that this happens more often than we would like the public to admit. Some of the people working in hotels are even vampires, casualties of such terrible happenstances who cannot be let go by the company cause, well, firing them for acquiring such a condition would be a jerk move. >_> Very believable scenario.
A storm giant or a red dragon are scary because they will absolutely rock all of your shit single handedly. A vampire is scary because he overcomes his weaknesses by crafting plans and building an army to do everything he can’t. He may have been foiled today, but now he knows the strength of the party. He might wait until they are in a more advantageous spot like a camp outside or an inn where he already controls the owner. See how the party likes it when the opening move is not a failed charm but instead three simultaneous sneak attacks by vampiric assassins while they slumber
Or, honestly? That rediculously powerful wizard who commands the fabric of reality is worth just as much food as farmer jimmy who can't escape your grip with a nat 20. Just give them some gold, tell them you've changed your ways, and go off to continue harrassing people that are actually in the food catagory and not the living weapon of mass destruction catagory.
Now that i think of it i think he did not do this encounter well in one single point. The party was tired (supposedly) after adventuring beforehand yet it seemed like they ware at full power even though they did not do a full long rest. Sure the cleric and wizard ware op here but what if most of their spells ware used before this? What if the corridors could fit several wolves in one square (seriously they ware chunky bois if only one could fit in a square meter)? Sure dnd vamps are weak af but here party should be in some trouble.
I mean, a red dragon will also likely be commanding a squad of hand-picked admirers or mercenaries as well. Plus, they're incredibly meticulous and like to make sure they always have the upper hand. But vampires do definitely have a cool dark flavor that makes it fun when there's one running a huge nighttime terror campaign. Plus, the stark weaknesses of the vampire make it fun as the creature is constantly trying to cover its ass while the party is actively trying to exploit those weaknesses.
Vampire is best used against a lower level party. Party of lvl 15 is gonna shred this encounter. But give the vampire a village to turn into an army of spawns and pit it against of ~lvl 10 party and you got yourself a great BBEG
I think this shows how Vampires make great antagonists. They are not a threat to the Heroes necessarily, but they are a threat to everyone the Hero is trying to protect.
I still remember quite fondly casting Blindness on a Vampire - the first time I ever used that spell with my character - in 3.5. The DM was stunned. He thought the Vampire would be near impossible for us to beat and yet here he was cartoonishly flapping his arms around trying to find us. :D
Hmm I wonder if the vampire reverted to mist, would the blindness be dispelled? In mist form, vampires don't 'see', at least not with eyes, but they can still sense your location, somehow.
If you ever decide to do this again, maybe take into account that the party hasn't finished their long rest yet and therefore has fewer spell slots and HP. (Though, as you pointed out, the vampire's goal was to eat, not kill the party. Which he succeeded at doing.)
It's important for your encounters to have "optional success conditions", stuff that lrads to victory or defeat that isn't just removing the opponent's HP. This is a perfect example of that.
Since you're starting to make videos about running monsters/villains tactically, I've got a suggest for you; Necromancer, either an understudy or a fledgeling, and his small group of skeletons decide to convert more people to his faith of the macab dance.
The take away here is that it took 3 legendary (I would personally consider 3 level 15 PCs to be hero level) individuals to make the vampire fuck off. Not to kill him, not to make him leave before he got what he came for, no. It took all that just to make him leave, and even if they managed to kill him, he would of been fine. This should teach you that even the lamest of vampires tend to just win on account of being vampires, and that you should make a bunch of super vampire thralls who suck super hard with a vampire master who's smarter than any of the PCs are. Or in other words, just make dio and his minions because they're really funny.
Plus, it hinged on a cleric with prepared Daylight, which is rare. Can't recall my players doing that outside the underdark or as a reaction to a recent relevant (e.g. vampire) encounter.
not the awesome failproof encounter I hoped for but a great way to show how every fight goes down differently and how you'd practically need experience with every constellation to predict anything. for example wolves in a line not good, wolves that surround the party pretty good.
I just realize why this is so funny to me. The Party: Okay so, how much xp did we get from that? The DM: Nothing. Summoned monsters are considered under the summoner’s CR and you only killed wolves.
0:46 To add to that, spoiler warning for those who haven't read Dracula: The actual hunting and killing of Dracula was a huge coordinated effort by a group of six, this including a highly experienced vampire hunter, a character with prior experience with other vampires that gave the squad a heads up before they potentially walked into a trap, and another character that basically wound up with a psychic link to Dracula and could relay his position to everyone else. Taking down a vampire - especially an old and powerful one - is some serious shit.
Van Helsing is NOT an experienced vampire hunter, he's literally just a doctor that happens to have read up on them and is willing to accept the idea that they exist as an answer to the mysterious illness he's trying to solve in the Dracula novel, not one character aside from Dracula himself has ever encountered a vampire before having to deal with Dracula
@@Pattabazza I'm going to have to read through it again myself, because I could have sworn there was something that said he was, if not at least implying it.
fun fact, unless a spell explicitly states that the light it produces is sunlight, it isn't sunlight so the DAYLIGHT spell is actually useless against vampires
"That was so, so lame, but it was really scary" sums up Vampires perfectly. Absolutely ridiculous lore, allergic to garlic, must be invited into places, can't be seen in a mirror, and so on. 75% of them seem like over the top villain-for-the-sake-of-villainy types who live in gothic castles, permanently fixing themselves as aged metaphors for aristocrats... And yet... Something about them can fill us with fear. Its like all that silliness juxtaposes against the fear of a creature who can dominate your mind and corrupt your body with a single look or bite, who's power and age give it a wisdom like nothing you've ever faced. The confidence of a being who knows its an apex predator, and you are its prey. Vampires are hella interesting.
My favorite vampire fight that I've done was in the Mad Mage campaign. I was playing a Monk who had expertise in athletics, and we had a Druid, Artificer and Bard in the group as well. There were two vampires that attacked first. The Artificer trapped one of the vampires in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere right away. The Druid cast Moonbeam and my monk grappled the vampire with his absurd Athletics roll and dragged him into the moonbeam. Both of us were taking damage from it but I was making most of the saves and the vampire, being a shapechanger, was rolling with disadvantage and failing most of them. He was taking extra damage from the rest of the party attacking him while he was headlocked in the moonbeam. So it went until the vampire ran out of HP and, being a shapechanger in a moonbeam, was prevented from shapeshifting into mist and was destroyed on the spot. The second vampire, who had been observing this from withing the Resilient Sphere the whole time, then had his turn getting a Moonbeam swirly.
A great example of Vampires Versus Unprepared People is Hellsing's infamous Embassy scene. Yeah, if you're prepared for vampires, you're fine, but if not? Your cheeks will get clapped so hard it'll sound like you're applauding the vampire.
My favorite campaign ever I ran a Dhampir eloquence bard from Lvl 1 - 20 and instead of feats/ASIs at each level he gained more and more of the vampiric abilities until Tier 4 where he was a full monster PC bard/vampire. All the vampire abilities, all the bard abilities, cloak of invisibility, ring of telekinesis (that could cast the regular spell without limitations... so 5th level spell AT WILL) and a blood fury tattoo going into the final 8 sessions and he was the weakest member of the party and the DM still kept the game challenging as hell (half the party died in the last 8 sessions). Goated DM.
That's a perfect encounter, dude. You dropped some major motivation on them and upped the ante for the next time. You couldn't have planned it better than that!
To be honest, this encounter would still be pretty cool and terrifying for me as a player... one moment we think "oh yeah, we showed them! We're so good" and moments later we realize that *the whole tavern* is no empty and all other patrons including the innkeeper have been killed or, worse, abducted to serve as snack-to-go and/or future vampire spawn to be unleashed on the world... That's not what a win looks like in my books. :D
The reason the wizard knows sunbeam is that it is literally anti vampire, anti drow and anti shadow fell blasting. Like magic missile, counterspell and mirror image, I can't think of a reason any wizard shouldn't learn them.
Came here to say this. Dawn specifically states it counts as sunlight, Daylight does not. If you GM rules it differently that's on them, but rules as written the Daylight spell wouldn't have any adverse effects on vampires. The good news is that at level 15 both the wizard and the cleric can be packing Dawn and would roast the vampires real quick.
The funny thing is that daylight doesn't actually make sunlight so it isn't useful against vampires. However, sunbeam does. "For the duration, a mote of brilliant radiance shines in your hand. It sheds bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. This light is sunlight." Not only can you deal 6d8 radiant damage in a 60 feet line every round, you constantly scorch them. So any vampire would have to either get as far away as possible or try to break concentration. But yes, vampires need to be played either very smartly (as in, they act smart and intelligent, plan and stack the deck against ya) or give them more combat abilities on top. Though the second option is not the best since that would make an already long statblock even longer.
This is a win for everyone here, the Vampires got away with plenty of thralls/food for later, the party didn't die, and the DM has a chance for a reoccurring antagonist
Vampires Vs Therianthrope has been a long thing that really never get explored Soo my headcanon is making both of them originally from Shadowfell and Feywild respectively, one is a Spiritual Entity that needed Blood as its food source while the other are Humanoid Animals that are guardians to Pure Animals and were ancestors to some Humanoid Animal species The 2 Race lived surprisingly peacefully despite their Queens having wars on one another but all is changed when a Powerfull Hag manipulated the 2 into fighting one another, no one won and they end up needing to preserve their history into The Moon for Therianthropes and The Abyss for Vampires But of course, the Hag instead turn Vampirism and Therianism as a Curse which is why both have incredibly specific downsides because they were either desires of the Therianthropes or the fact Vampires are not supposed to have Physical Bodies
It kinda reminds me of the werewolf vs vampire thing from WoD (which i know very little of, tbh). Therianthropes are creatures overflowing with life, connected to the Earth itself and who defend the natural world. Vampires are the polar opposite, they are beings who defy the natural cycle via their undeath.
I loved that you just rolled with it when it went all haywire. Well played, and that's a party of three just made an enemy who can think long term. Not half bad.
Great example of how vampires can become an accumulating threat over the course of the game. Going to be harder to beat him with these thralls, which then exponentially grow into more thralls.
It’s honestly an interesting idea for a campaign, the players have guardianship over a large town or city and have to deal with a slowly growing vampire threat. The faster the players counter the vampire attacks, the less forces and resources they’ll have to command later. I’ve always wanted to run one of these campaigns where it’s a long struggle against a defined enemy type, I just worry it would get samey after a while
0:57 It actually makes so much sense that instead if going through the extra effort of making a second floor for the inn that it would just go next to the bar instead afterall it's built on the road and has so much space to work with Edit: I see stairs connecting the bar and the inn so I think I misread the map
That's actually a great setup for a villain. He attacks but 'fails' so the groups think they have an advantage. They try to find him, prepare for it, and BOOM, he actually now has a crew, and they are in his lair
My first encounter with a vampire was me and my level 6 party. We learned vampires sucked ass because we destroyed his ass in 2 turns since he was gonna be the big bad my dm had to rewrite the whole story because of it.
Head vampires should almost never be encountered. They are the master minds with time on their side. Any time I have had a vampire as the BBEG they have never encountered the party where the vampire didn't initiate the encounter and was well prepared for it. All other encounters would be with minions or lesser vampires under the head vampire's command. With your case, your DM should have just made the vampire you killed a henchman/ cut out of the "REAL" BBEG. Some one the actual head vampire set up to be the face of the operation and take the fall if it went bad so no one would suspect them.
Vampire’s may suck against a party who knows how to exploit its weaknesses in a one-on-one fight, but a smart vampire can easily beat the party through attrition, as they can gain a bunch of thralls, fight alongside them, and if the vampire gets low hp, they can easily run away to regenerate and then rejoin the fight. Can even inform thralls to do the same and have two groups that switch every few rounds so they all don’t get hit at once with sunlight aoe. Don’t underestimated smart vampires.
Even when the vampire isn't designed to fight outside of their lair, they STILL somehow manage to win against this party by knowing when to fold and walk away with what prizes they've obtained.
I think Vampires are definitely intended as more of a “mastermind” villain than a combat powerhouse. All of their abilities and stats excel in social situations. I feel that a Vampire would be most at home in a dense city than a remote castle. They could live out their nights as a reclusive noble who throws lavish parties, plays intrigue at court, and hunts prey in the dense slums where a missing peasant or two isn’t likely to raise any alarm bells. Over time, they may have the city watch on payroll or enthralled under their control, all while their lavish manor in the wealthy district becomes a deadly lair defended by powerful enchantments and monstrous guards.
I'm not a player, but I love this sort of thing. Instead of whack the party really hard, affect things around them seems much more engaging and interesting.
Now imagine an entire party of paladins and clerics. Its stuff like that that just makes vampires nope out of a place and go enslave someone elses village.
Others have already pointed this out, but the Daylight spell does not create sunlight, just magic light. Back in 2nd ed AD&D, it was just called continual light, which let people know that the spell was just an improved version of what is now the light cantrip.
How I think this would've technically run, starting with Tiddieslaps: Essentially until the vampire shows he vampy boi, he and his wifey are presumed by the party to be some bounty hunters after them, and wind up charmed by the vampire because he got through their saves by what they assumed to be spammed Charm Persons because he's a mage who also has 15 pet wolves and kidnapped everyone in the inn.
I don't want to be pedantic (I'm going to anyway), but the daylight spell does not state that it acts as sunlight, thus it wouldn't trigger the vampire's sunlight sensitivity. This issue came up in a campaign that will not be named (for fear of spoilers) and we all thought it was stupid. Now a spell such as the 6th level sunbeam spell specifically states in it's spell description that it counts as sunlight and thus it would affect a vampire.
This is a thing I love about vampires though. The party might think they absolutely stomped this idiot, but secretly the vampire's like "I got what I came for, all the better if they underestimate me next time o,..,o"
ah, reminds me of the time my level 5 druid took out a full ass vampire on the first meeting, pretty much by himself. GM decided vampires were human enough for hold person, which gave me time to put a rudimentary stake in his heart and throw the blinds open
- in earlier editions, the vampire's Forbiddance weakness explicitly didn't apply to public places (like taverns) where you don't need an invitation to enter. - is Daylight sunlight or merely "like" sunlight? Earlier editions specified that it wasn't sunlight for the purpose of burning creatures that don't like sunlight? - the nastiest thing about vampires is their Legendary Action that lets them run without disengaging. Combine that with regeneration, and unless you can pin a vampire down, they have effectively infinite health.
Just a thought: older vampires are frequently wealthy, and sometimes landowners to boot. What's to stop a vampire from owning an inn (even if they have someone else to run it)? You don't need an invitation to enter your own property, so there's nothing to stop you from snacking on the occasional traveller.
Now, a smart vampire would have asked the innkeeper if there were any adventurers or clerics staying the night, confirmed their rooms, and then specifically avoided those rooms, instead making off with all the normies without incident and leaving the adventurers wondering where everybody went.
The spell you're thinking of is "Dawn". 5th level, concentration, actually creates LEGIT sunlight. Daylight, contrary to it's poorly chosen name, does not count as sunlight technically. The fact that a 5th level spell is required to make sunlight really puts the nail in the coffin for Daylight not counting as sunlight.
In my experience the only way to make people fear vampires is to use the Vampire Spellcaster (CR 15) or homebrew other types of vampires (like vampire dragons or giants). Swap out a few spells and its things like Hold Person that will make players sweat. Plus, thematically, never hurts to give them other types of undead minions, since necromancy.
I love how the Vampire just goes into the tavern to gain some thralls just to be flashbanged, flashbanged again, stunned and flasbanged *AGAIN*.
Just to overall win the Encounter by getting what he wanted.
Mission Failed Successfully.
wasnt as fun of a date night out with the wifey as he imagined but he achieved his goal nonetheless
the second time they find him he is wearing sunglasses at night
@@MegaBichiX So he can keep track of visions in his mind, naturally.
Gives the Vampire good reason to hate the party and see them as threats.
"Not THESE FUCKING GUYS AGAIN!?"
Add also since the vampire has the innkeeper as a thrall he also can use the Inn as a base of operations/lure for people to come in. The best part is that he's always a beloved guest so he can just walk right in anytime he wants
I feel like that’s a bad idea because there are survivors that could just tell people like the vampire hunters about this
@@super-zw3ep Assuming they both find out and escape.
It's worth bearing in mind that Daylight doesn't cast sunlight, just bright light. It's a very common mistake, I'd always assumed a spell called "Daylight" would create the light of the day, but Crawford confirmed it isn't :/
was just about to comment the same thing lmao good spot
Oh I didn't know it was officially confirmed to be useless, even though its literal name is the thing that hurts vampires. They should just remove the spell then.
@@Runesmith I just figured this out recently. They should honest just fix it. I don't know if it's a typo or a mistake, but it's very misleading.
That's dumb.
Welp at least as the DM I can just flip the rules off and my players can use a cool spell in my CoS game.
Ya, I’ve always homeruled it as sun
I love these monster tactics videos and they are always a treat to work with.
I think this video reinforces the idea that vampires aren't supposed to be a threat because they can TPK the party in a single combat, but because of what they can do to the world around them.
Like a vampire isn't a threat to some well-prepared adventurers, but that's because that's generally the only that can kill one.
Yeah, the vampire Itself isn't the biggest threat. Its the army of thralls that will rip the party to shreds if they aren't careful.
Yup, tbh this was a overall huge win for the vampire, it left with 5 thralls and no downside except for some pain. Best case scenario sure he couldve had 4 more thralls (being the adventurers and extra gnome) but in the end itll be much more prepared for the next time he sees these adventurers and will have 5 new henchmen to help while they can barely chase cause of the wolves
Like all batmen, his greatest power is prep time.
It may have been short, but the adventurers basically just lived through the extremely traumatic event of seeing a whole inn worth of people get enthralled by an undead, fighting off a small horde of wolves who were literally scrambling over eachother down a hallway like world War Z zombies, fought back a Vampire and his wife who spider climbed on walls, and even though they survived the next attack would be even deadlier.
This is why so many vampire hunters are hunters. Go to the crypt and stake the blood sucker at home. Otherwise, if you find one on a grocery run. Any survivors should consider themselves lucky. The vamp in this case should have ran when the light hit. Take the thralls and tie the party up with whatever wolves were left.
Martials use superior movement and projectiles or casters can use Charm magic and Abjurarion bs on any clerics. Even without prep a proper vampire is dang scary.
In the end it did just that, left with 5 new thralls and most of the wolves are still in there to annoy the party now that the daggers are gone, only thing staying longer caused was a little extra pain but it would be worth it to try at least that much to get 1 of the 4 people left in the building gotta remember every turn was only 6 seconds.
What's even scarier to me here is if the vampire had just enthralled the 3 patrons and the barkeep and not bothered with the party, imagine the party the next day waking up to see that almost the entire building just vanished in the night. That's a good setup for an investigation quest.
Tbf, it's not like you can pick out a random inn in the middle of nowhere and reasonably guess that it's currently inhabited by some of the most dangerous people on the planet.
@certifiedcoolguy583 The vampire could have questioned the charmed innkeeper.
"So they definitely looked like a Wizard? And some priest in armour, a musician with a sword and ...
Okay, we are leaving."
"But it only takes one surviving for more to pop up. They're like the trendy juice bar of monsters." Order of the stick.
DnD might make it difficult to have a good zombie apocalypse, but give the count a week and the party will be up to their stinky armpits in vampires.
hellooooo, fellow oots fan!
Actually, my character has the Feylost background, so their armpits smell like strawberries. (A sweet scent is an actual side effect option from that background.) So unless you think strawberries stink, they're not stinky.
I feel a level 15 party is over qualified for one vampire.
The bigger threat is the vampire getting away to make more thralls.
That's what I was thinking. On failing to charm the Bard and escaping with mist the vampire should have ordered the wolves to attack to stop or slow pursuit. Then fled with the 5 victims. Can always come back stronger. Especially if the Vamp was just starting out with no home base and one thrawl.
Yeah 5e CR is all over the fucking place.
In my recent game my party of 4 level 5 characters almost bitchslapped a cr 13 legendary monster and their entourage. They would lose eventually and it was an encounter for them to meet and learn about the BBGE of the campaign, but they legit got it to half health and killed other monsters around. In these dire times it would be wise to remember: "throw a seemingly impossible encounter at your players and let them figure out how to deal with it, they will surprise you". Maybe it's my fault, the introductory game was death house, they suffered a lot there, but this experience turned them into monsters.
@@davidtherwhanger6795 it did leave with 5 thralls it just attempted to take a few more first, but same outcome as what youre suggesting.
@@JubioHDX My point was that the vampire found the odds were against him. And as vampires do play the long game, the vampire should have fled when outmatched. They can always rebuild so long as they don't get killed. Time is on their side.
Vampires are the epitome of 'the consequences of your own actions'. Unless your DM is Machiavellian with his subtly, or the dice just really decide they like this guy, you have to actively not chase the vampire down in order for them to get away. But if they do get away, you've met the necromancer's more stylish cousin- who with his endless minions can and will just take over a kingdom through sheer numbers. You let three people get away, now there are 15.
Except Spawns can't create Spawns, nor can they Charm substantially reducing their effectiveness as Vampires. So wouldn't say the growth is anywhere near exponential, but it's still terrifying.
@@KageRyuu6 It's often stated that Vampires don't want to create other fully-fledged vampires simply because with their free will... they're typically going to piss off and start their own coven, or try to kill their former master, or both. Also just the normal Vampire Spawn statblock won't really inspire that much fear. Give them martial training and one or two class levels, you have a small army of vampire knights, mages and assassins.
Also an interesting setup for a player party. "Band of murderous Vampire Spawn looking for their master", it's like the grimdark polar opposite of "Band of Half-Races looking for their human Bard father".
Would vampire Gnomes just be called Ankle Bitters?
That what kids are also called
@@Heavenriser_leader So, yes to Fallenmonk's question?
no thats just people who are 5.11 and shorter
"Ankle Biter" is the nickname for my pirate gnome who slashes Achilles heals.
No, that's halflings. They're shorter
A mad dash down the comments about the Daylight spell, I'm sure if the cleric can cast 5th level spells you can easily exchange the intended effect to say "Yea sorry DM I meant to cast Dawn I DO have that prepared I just got my day spells mixed up!"
YEa Beacon of Hope would end because 2 concentration spells back to back but
Cmon
Are ya really gonna prefer Beacon of Hope over Dawn vs vampires.
Thankyou
Dawn would also have done 4d10 damage/round to everyone, including the party. It's not interchangable. This is a classic case of READ. YOUR. SPELLS. Not their names, the full text. Spell names are often misleading.
@@probablythedm1669 "Spell names are often misleading." That's sure as hell the truth... D&D is a weird game.
@@MannonMartin Had a very awkward moment where i had to explain that chill touch cant be cast through a familiar because its not a touch spell
This, he would’ve had Dawn, so it doesn’t matter if he said Daylight.
Warlocks, rejoice! Our patron has returned!!!
All hail the mighty runesmith knowledge maker and big brain thinker
Pact of the LARPer
I like how he describes jojo’s bizarre adventure part 2: battle tendency as just “part 2” as if it was just an entire show called part 2 or it was the second of all of fiction.
Is he wrong tho.
As someone who works in a boutique hotel, I can confirm that this happens more often than we would like the public to admit. Some of the people working in hotels are even vampires, casualties of such terrible happenstances who cannot be let go by the company cause, well, firing them for acquiring such a condition would be a jerk move. >_>
Very believable scenario.
Why do you think some supermarket stores hire greeters to welcome customers? Corporate vampires looking to do some grocery shopping of their own.
A storm giant or a red dragon are scary because they will absolutely rock all of your shit single handedly. A vampire is scary because he overcomes his weaknesses by crafting plans and building an army to do everything he can’t. He may have been foiled today, but now he knows the strength of the party. He might wait until they are in a more advantageous spot like a camp outside or an inn where he already controls the owner. See how the party likes it when the opening move is not a failed charm but instead three simultaneous sneak attacks by vampiric assassins while they slumber
Or, honestly? That rediculously powerful wizard who commands the fabric of reality is worth just as much food as farmer jimmy who can't escape your grip with a nat 20. Just give them some gold, tell them you've changed your ways, and go off to continue harrassing people that are actually in the food catagory and not the living weapon of mass destruction catagory.
@@midnightstorm6576 “I’m gonna pay you $100 to fuck off”
Now that i think of it i think he did not do this encounter well in one single point. The party was tired (supposedly) after adventuring beforehand yet it seemed like they ware at full power even though they did not do a full long rest. Sure the cleric and wizard ware op here but what if most of their spells ware used before this? What if the corridors could fit several wolves in one square (seriously they ware chunky bois if only one could fit in a square meter)? Sure dnd vamps are weak af but here party should be in some trouble.
I mean, a red dragon will also likely be commanding a squad of hand-picked admirers or mercenaries as well. Plus, they're incredibly meticulous and like to make sure they always have the upper hand. But vampires do definitely have a cool dark flavor that makes it fun when there's one running a huge nighttime terror campaign. Plus, the stark weaknesses of the vampire make it fun as the creature is constantly trying to cover its ass while the party is actively trying to exploit those weaknesses.
Vampire is best used against a lower level party. Party of lvl 15 is gonna shred this encounter. But give the vampire a village to turn into an army of spawns and pit it against of ~lvl 10 party and you got yourself a great BBEG
I think this shows how Vampires make great antagonists. They are not a threat to the Heroes necessarily, but they are a threat to everyone the Hero is trying to protect.
I still remember quite fondly casting Blindness on a Vampire - the first time I ever used that spell with my character - in 3.5.
The DM was stunned. He thought the Vampire would be near impossible for us to beat and yet here he was cartoonishly flapping his arms around trying to find us. :D
Hmm I wonder if the vampire reverted to mist, would the blindness be dispelled? In mist form, vampires don't 'see', at least not with eyes, but they can still sense your location, somehow.
If you ever decide to do this again, maybe take into account that the party hasn't finished their long rest yet and therefore has fewer spell slots and HP.
(Though, as you pointed out, the vampire's goal was to eat, not kill the party. Which he succeeded at doing.)
It's important for your encounters to have "optional success conditions", stuff that lrads to victory or defeat that isn't just removing the opponent's HP. This is a perfect example of that.
Since you're starting to make videos about running monsters/villains tactically, I've got a suggest for you; Necromancer, either an understudy or a fledgeling, and his small group of skeletons decide to convert more people to his faith of the macab dance.
danse macabre :^ )
The vampire actually won that encounter. The PC's merely survived.
The take away here is that it took 3 legendary (I would personally consider 3 level 15 PCs to be hero level) individuals to make the vampire fuck off. Not to kill him, not to make him leave before he got what he came for, no. It took all that just to make him leave, and even if they managed to kill him, he would of been fine. This should teach you that even the lamest of vampires tend to just win on account of being vampires, and that you should make a bunch of super vampire thralls who suck super hard with a vampire master who's smarter than any of the PCs are. Or in other words, just make dio and his minions because they're really funny.
Plus, it hinged on a cleric with prepared Daylight, which is rare. Can't recall my players doing that outside the underdark or as a reaction to a recent relevant (e.g. vampire) encounter.
@@dylutant That and daylight, despite the name, doesn't create sunlight. It's just a darkness dispeller.
@@The_Crimson_Witch huh, right you are. Between different languages and editions, I didn't even bother checking.
This could not have come at a more perfect time! I run the 1st session of a vampire themed campaign in a few hours
Be sure to say "Bleh bleh bleh" It's important for immersion
not the awesome failproof encounter I hoped for but a great way to show how every fight goes down differently and how you'd practically need experience with every constellation to predict anything.
for example wolves in a line not good, wolves that surround the party pretty good.
I just realize why this is so funny to me.
The Party: Okay so, how much xp did we get from that?
The DM: Nothing. Summoned monsters are considered under the summoner’s CR and you only killed wolves.
0:46 To add to that, spoiler warning for those who haven't read Dracula: The actual hunting and killing of Dracula was a huge coordinated effort by a group of six, this including a highly experienced vampire hunter, a character with prior experience with other vampires that gave the squad a heads up before they potentially walked into a trap, and another character that basically wound up with a psychic link to Dracula and could relay his position to everyone else. Taking down a vampire - especially an old and powerful one - is some serious shit.
Van Helsing is NOT an experienced vampire hunter, he's literally just a doctor that happens to have read up on them and is willing to accept the idea that they exist as an answer to the mysterious illness he's trying to solve
in the Dracula novel, not one character aside from Dracula himself has ever encountered a vampire before having to deal with Dracula
@@Pattabazza I'm going to have to read through it again myself, because I could have sworn there was something that said he was, if not at least implying it.
The goal of a young vampire isn't to kill the adventurers, it's to get away with thralls and snowball their influence
fun fact, unless a spell explicitly states that the light it produces is sunlight, it isn't sunlight
so the DAYLIGHT spell is actually useless against vampires
Imagine actually giving your NPCs agency as a DM, what is this, immersion? Actual storytelling instead of pure combat??
I love it.
"That was so, so lame, but it was really scary" sums up Vampires perfectly. Absolutely ridiculous lore, allergic to garlic, must be invited into places, can't be seen in a mirror, and so on. 75% of them seem like over the top villain-for-the-sake-of-villainy types who live in gothic castles, permanently fixing themselves as aged metaphors for aristocrats... And yet... Something about them can fill us with fear. Its like all that silliness juxtaposes against the fear of a creature who can dominate your mind and corrupt your body with a single look or bite, who's power and age give it a wisdom like nothing you've ever faced. The confidence of a being who knows its an apex predator, and you are its prey. Vampires are hella interesting.
My favorite vampire fight that I've done was in the Mad Mage campaign. I was playing a Monk who had expertise in athletics, and we had a Druid, Artificer and Bard in the group as well. There were two vampires that attacked first. The Artificer trapped one of the vampires in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere right away. The Druid cast Moonbeam and my monk grappled the vampire with his absurd Athletics roll and dragged him into the moonbeam. Both of us were taking damage from it but I was making most of the saves and the vampire, being a shapechanger, was rolling with disadvantage and failing most of them. He was taking extra damage from the rest of the party attacking him while he was headlocked in the moonbeam. So it went until the vampire ran out of HP and, being a shapechanger in a moonbeam, was prevented from shapeshifting into mist and was destroyed on the spot. The second vampire, who had been observing this from withing the Resilient Sphere the whole time, then had his turn getting a Moonbeam swirly.
A great example of Vampires Versus Unprepared People is Hellsing's infamous Embassy scene. Yeah, if you're prepared for vampires, you're fine, but if not? Your cheeks will get clapped so hard it'll sound like you're applauding the vampire.
Daylight doesn't produce sunlight, grease can't be set on fire, and there is no war in ba sing se.
My favorite campaign ever I ran a Dhampir eloquence bard from Lvl 1 - 20 and instead of feats/ASIs at each level he gained more and more of the vampiric abilities until Tier 4 where he was a full monster PC bard/vampire. All the vampire abilities, all the bard abilities, cloak of invisibility, ring of telekinesis (that could cast the regular spell without limitations... so 5th level spell AT WILL) and a blood fury tattoo going into the final 8 sessions and he was the weakest member of the party and the DM still kept the game challenging as hell (half the party died in the last 8 sessions). Goated DM.
That's a perfect encounter, dude. You dropped some major motivation on them and upped the ante for the next time. You couldn't have planned it better than that!
best type of vampires are the ones who like to go for enthusiastic walks
The party feels like they just majorly kicked ass, and then they look at the actual aftermath and the whole tavern is just EMPTY. Oh shit indeed
To be honest, this encounter would still be pretty cool and terrifying for me as a player... one moment we think "oh yeah, we showed them! We're so good" and moments later we realize that *the whole tavern* is no empty and all other patrons including the innkeeper have been killed or, worse, abducted to serve as snack-to-go and/or future vampire spawn to be unleashed on the world...
That's not what a win looks like in my books. :D
The reason the wizard knows sunbeam is that it is literally anti vampire, anti drow and anti shadow fell blasting.
Like magic missile, counterspell and mirror image, I can't think of a reason any wizard shouldn't learn them.
See also: shield
Daylight doesn't make sunlight. It wouldn't hurt a vampire. You'd want to cast Dawn to do that.
Came here to say this. Dawn specifically states it counts as sunlight, Daylight does not. If you GM rules it differently that's on them, but rules as written the Daylight spell wouldn't have any adverse effects on vampires. The good news is that at level 15 both the wizard and the cleric can be packing Dawn and would roast the vampires real quick.
The funny thing is that daylight doesn't actually make sunlight so it isn't useful against vampires.
However, sunbeam does.
"For the duration, a mote of brilliant radiance shines in your hand. It sheds bright light in a 30-foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet. This light is sunlight."
Not only can you deal 6d8 radiant damage in a 60 feet line every round, you constantly scorch them. So any vampire would have to either get as far away as possible or try to break concentration.
But yes, vampires need to be played either very smartly (as in, they act smart and intelligent, plan and stack the deck against ya) or give them more combat abilities on top. Though the second option is not the best since that would make an already long statblock even longer.
Even when the vampire lost, he won.
This is a win for everyone here, the Vampires got away with plenty of thralls/food for later, the party didn't die, and the DM has a chance for a reoccurring antagonist
This video has less then ten minutes, but it teaches so much. This is what to be time efficient. Please keep it up
Vampires Vs Therianthrope has been a long thing that really never get explored
Soo my headcanon is making both of them originally from Shadowfell and Feywild respectively, one is a Spiritual Entity that needed Blood as its food source while the other are Humanoid Animals that are guardians to Pure Animals and were ancestors to some Humanoid Animal species
The 2 Race lived surprisingly peacefully despite their Queens having wars on one another but all is changed when a Powerfull Hag manipulated the 2 into fighting one another, no one won and they end up needing to preserve their history into The Moon for Therianthropes and The Abyss for Vampires
But of course, the Hag instead turn Vampirism and Therianism as a Curse which is why both have incredibly specific downsides because they were either desires of the Therianthropes or the fact Vampires are not supposed to have Physical Bodies
It kinda reminds me of the werewolf vs vampire thing from WoD (which i know very little of, tbh). Therianthropes are creatures overflowing with life, connected to the Earth itself and who defend the natural world. Vampires are the polar opposite, they are beings who defy the natural cycle via their undeath.
I loved that you just rolled with it when it went all haywire. Well played, and that's a party of three just made an enemy who can think long term. Not half bad.
"When did you learn that you have a vampire infestation?"
'...Well he started a vampiric pyramid scheme-"
Perfect timing, I needed a vampire attack
Actually this would be a sick encounter to set up an actual hard encounter later. This is all at level 15, so good on you.
Great example of how vampires can become an accumulating threat over the course of the game. Going to be harder to beat him with these thralls, which then exponentially grow into more thralls.
It’s honestly an interesting idea for a campaign, the players have guardianship over a large town or city and have to deal with a slowly growing vampire threat. The faster the players counter the vampire attacks, the less forces and resources they’ll have to command later. I’ve always wanted to run one of these campaigns where it’s a long struggle against a defined enemy type, I just worry it would get samey after a while
0:57
It actually makes so much sense that instead if going through the extra effort of making a second floor for the inn that it would just go next to the bar instead afterall it's built on the road and has so much space to work with
Edit: I see stairs connecting the bar and the inn so I think I misread the map
Vampires can enter inns and other public places.
The wolves running over their packmates would wake them up.
That's actually a great setup for a villain. He attacks but 'fails' so the groups think they have an advantage. They try to find him, prepare for it, and BOOM, he actually now has a crew, and they are in his lair
The real danger/forward plot is old papa vampire using the party to find for the ex-thrall with wife and new kids.
My first encounter with a vampire was me and my level 6 party.
We learned vampires sucked ass because we destroyed his ass in 2 turns since he was gonna be the big bad my dm had to rewrite the whole story because of it.
The DM failed to use tactics
Head vampires should almost never be encountered. They are the master minds with time on their side. Any time I have had a vampire as the BBEG they have never encountered the party where the vampire didn't initiate the encounter and was well prepared for it.
All other encounters would be with minions or lesser vampires under the head vampire's command.
With your case, your DM should have just made the vampire you killed a henchman/ cut out of the "REAL" BBEG. Some one the actual head vampire set up to be the face of the operation and take the fall if it went bad so no one would suspect them.
Vampire’s may suck against a party who knows how to exploit its weaknesses in a one-on-one fight, but a smart vampire can easily beat the party through attrition, as they can gain a bunch of thralls, fight alongside them, and if the vampire gets low hp, they can easily run away to regenerate and then rejoin the fight. Can even inform thralls to do the same and have two groups that switch every few rounds so they all don’t get hit at once with sunlight aoe. Don’t underestimated smart vampires.
oh my god i used to watch this channel in work all the time a couple years ago im so glad it's still going
The editing on this video made me cry laugh, please more of this.
"Vampires can't enter unless invited" is one of the stupidest weaknesses a creature has ever had.
Even when the vampire isn't designed to fight outside of their lair, they STILL somehow manage to win against this party by knowing when to fold and walk away with what prizes they've obtained.
"Hamboning will save your life one day!"
- Rigby
I think Vampires are definitely intended as more of a “mastermind” villain than a combat powerhouse. All of their abilities and stats excel in social situations. I feel that a Vampire would be most at home in a dense city than a remote castle. They could live out their nights as a reclusive noble who throws lavish parties, plays intrigue at court, and hunts prey in the dense slums where a missing peasant or two isn’t likely to raise any alarm bells. Over time, they may have the city watch on payroll or enthralled under their control, all while their lavish manor in the wealthy district becomes a deadly lair defended by powerful enchantments and monstrous guards.
Imagine the next encounter. 2 fully fledged vampires, 5 thralls, and the same number of wolves. And this time they know about Cherrycheeks.
I'm not a player, but I love this sort of thing. Instead of whack the party really hard, affect things around them seems much more engaging and interesting.
Yes. Please more of this. A: I love learning of different ways of tactically controlling monsters. B: Vampires suck
The second I saw a new Runesmith monster tactics video pop up on my notifications, you can bet I jumped on that immediately!
Each and every full vampire is a legendary creature per the spell “Legend Lore” (from 3.5 at least). People keep forgetting this.
Remember people, Daylight doesn't create sunlight RAW.
DUDE I AM SO STOKED. I LOVE THESE TACTICS VIDEOS
This entire encounter scenario was just the vampire getting his ass handed to him and yet somehow manages to fail his way upward to a net gain
Now imagine an entire party of paladins and clerics. Its stuff like that that just makes vampires nope out of a place and go enslave someone elses village.
I have zero idea why but this video just absolutely kills me, best belly laughs I’ve had in a long time
Wake up babe, new Runesmith video just dropped
I love how his whole demonstation gets ruined by the party and dice rolls. That’s classic D&d
Others have already pointed this out, but the Daylight spell does not create sunlight, just magic light. Back in 2nd ed AD&D, it was just called continual light, which let people know that the spell was just an improved version of what is now the light cantrip.
How I think this would've technically run, starting with Tiddieslaps:
Essentially until the vampire shows he vampy boi, he and his wifey are presumed by the party to be some bounty hunters after them, and wind up charmed by the vampire because he got through their saves by what they assumed to be spammed Charm Persons because he's a mage who also has 15 pet wolves and kidnapped everyone in the inn.
I don't want to be pedantic (I'm going to anyway), but the daylight spell does not state that it acts as sunlight, thus it wouldn't trigger the vampire's sunlight sensitivity. This issue came up in a campaign that will not be named (for fear of spoilers) and we all thought it was stupid. Now a spell such as the 6th level sunbeam spell specifically states in it's spell description that it counts as sunlight and thus it would affect a vampire.
These are my favourite type of your videos
that's so cool you are back at the tactical encounter videos, it shows your big brain
This is a lot better than stopping people on the street and declaring yourself blood inspector.
This is a thing I love about vampires though. The party might think they absolutely stomped this idiot, but secretly the vampire's like "I got what I came for, all the better if they underestimate me next time o,..,o"
Yes! I loved the mind flayer version of this you did, hope to see more of these, they're great.
I love these monster tactics videos. I re-watch them because they're so entertaining
ah, reminds me of the time my level 5 druid took out a full ass vampire on the first meeting, pretty much by himself. GM decided vampires were human enough for hold person, which gave me time to put a rudimentary stake in his heart and throw the blinds open
- in earlier editions, the vampire's Forbiddance weakness explicitly didn't apply to public places (like taverns) where you don't need an invitation to enter.
- is Daylight sunlight or merely "like" sunlight? Earlier editions specified that it wasn't sunlight for the purpose of burning creatures that don't like sunlight?
- the nastiest thing about vampires is their Legendary Action that lets them run without disengaging. Combine that with regeneration, and unless you can pin a vampire down, they have effectively infinite health.
Just a thought: older vampires are frequently wealthy, and sometimes landowners to boot. What's to stop a vampire from owning an inn (even if they have someone else to run it)? You don't need an invitation to enter your own property, so there's nothing to stop you from snacking on the occasional traveller.
Now, a smart vampire would have asked the innkeeper if there were any adventurers or clerics staying the night, confirmed their rooms, and then specifically avoided those rooms, instead making off with all the normies without incident and leaving the adventurers wondering where everybody went.
That bongsmoke turning his head and power word stunning was fucking gold. I haven't laughed that hard in a while, lmao
Thats a major W for the vampire UNTILL the party remembers they are not beholders and can just follow them outside
i found that the best way to make vampires an acual threat to any party is to get rid of the water weakness and make it to an underwater encounter
Honestly, if ANY creature actually used tactics against the party, they’d never have a chance.
The spell you're thinking of is "Dawn". 5th level, concentration, actually creates LEGIT sunlight. Daylight, contrary to it's poorly chosen name, does not count as sunlight technically. The fact that a 5th level spell is required to make sunlight really puts the nail in the coffin for Daylight not counting as sunlight.
YES, please do more attack/scenario episodes this is always fire
More video like this! Really enjoyed breaking down the encounter.
So vampires have Batman clause, got it. Also, people probably said this, but the Daylight spell ≠ Sunlight.
Am I the only one who was disappointed that this wasn't a case of "the inn is run by vampires"?
In my experience the only way to make people fear vampires is to use the Vampire Spellcaster (CR 15) or homebrew other types of vampires (like vampire dragons or giants). Swap out a few spells and its things like Hold Person that will make players sweat. Plus, thematically, never hurts to give them other types of undead minions, since necromancy.