Does a vampires vulnerability to wood literally mean you can bludgeon them to death with a baseball bat and they can't regenerate? Or is it meant to signify that staking them will make them go into some form of torpor/comatose state?

- J.

RAW?

Yup.

Regen states that the wounds won't Regen until "the allergen's presence is removed". I'd argue that unless the baseball bat is lodged in the vamp's body, it's removed. The baseball bat still gets a +4 DV for attacks (due to the Severe Allergy), but only impedes Regen when it's still in contact with the subject. (Meaning you can put a vamp into "torpor"-- as per the V:TM rule-- if you incapacitate it with wooden weapon and leave the weapon inside of them. Where you insert it is really up to you.)

I always imagined killing a vampire by setting off an explosive in a building made of wood and watching them die from the shrapnel.
Also, I just noticed Crizh plays paranoia.

This is off the subject a little but brings up another point that has always bugged me, how come every vamp in every tv show or movie owns wooden furniture? If it's the one thing that kills you, maybe it's time to make the upgrade to stainless steel.

Because they're not allergic to wood and it's the stake through the heart (outside of Shadowrun). Wooden furniture isn't a problem unless it can quickly and easily be fashioned into stakes. A relatively unreasonable proposition.

Except that nine times out of ten (according to a scientific study in which I just made those numbers) the vamp is killed by a stake fashioned out of a broken chair leg.

I would agree (no pun intended). But then, if the vamp is getting pummeled by a real (not synthetic) wooden baseball bat, I figure the clothing the vamp is wearing provides negligible(?) protection again the allergy, since the clothing itself is covering the bare skin of the vamp.
But then, that was just one of my weird thoughts.

Then hit the vamp in the face with it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Besides, if you are fighting vampiers with anything less than a gatling stake thrower...you're doing it wrong.

You could just use the good old longbow with wooden arrows.

Just make sure your bat/arrows/furniture/wooden building isn't made out of pine. In some vampire mythologies pine didn't work because evergreen trees were unnatural (un-dying like the vampire). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

{edit: if you're a particularly mean GM you can use this fun fact to ruin your vampire hunter PC's day...}

@bookwyrm: Your post cracked me up. Something about a vampire saying to himself, "Well, the wooden clothing was a bad idea."

I tend to rule that damage caused by wood can not be regenerated, but can be healed with magic. Besides wood is expensive and not all that common in most places in the Barrens. And lets face it synthwood just doesn't cut it.

Living in Seattle currently, I find it really hard to imagine the default "tree-less" future often described in cyberpunk/dystopain future settings. You would seriously have to pave over ever square foot of the greater Seattle area to eradicate the trees. And I think finding scrap wood in the Barrens would be easier than in modernized areas, because you have all kinds of pre-Awakening structures rotting and falling over. Just my take on it anyway.

Saboted shotgun slugs made of lacquered hardwood.

Interestingly, in this case a wood-chipper would be as dangerous as the wood pile it shoots out would be.

Is your Gatling stake gun called a "Wood Bee Hive Blaster"?

since I actually HAVE a vampire player character in my campaign, i've given this matter some thought. I'd rule that unless someone sticks that wooden baseball bat into the leech in question, they are able to regenerate the damage. However, they still take the extra damage from getting a beat down with their severe allergen, as someone has already pointed out.

Another thing our player has taken upon herself to note was that it can be fairly difficult to spot a vampire. with a bit of cosmetics (or nanopaste disguise) to take care of the pale complexion, she's found it relatively easy to not stand out from the crowd. She still creeps people out, but hey - she's hanging out with an ex-cop and a couple combat mages.

The only thing she hasn't done yet is address her aura. anyone getting more than one success on an assensing test is gonna know what she is and will probably freak out. But she hasn't earned anywhere NEAR enough karma to initiate yet. so....she's sorta stuck until she learns masking. But then again, not EVERYONE you meet on the streets is able to see the astral plane either.

hehehe.. what about plant spirits? *imagines a vampire being attacked by a giant angry tree*

Just to clear that up, the text of Vulnerability in Running Wild clearly states that any wound caused by a substance that the creature is Vulnerable to cannot be Regenerated or Healed with magic.

They are entities made of mana not wood. So they are no more dangerous than other spirits. Hmm I'm not so sure about ally spirits with realistic form.

But... but.... Giant angry tree!

You can see the HUGE thread on Toxins and Spirits to see what most people think about that.

Personally in the words of Judge Mill Lane "I'll allow it!" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I'll have to look that up later, but i'd disallow that in my games. Just like I changed the ghoul virus around a bit - sometimes the rules are simply wrong.

Game rules reminds me of the Flanders line to God, "But I've done everything the bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!" Confusion was written differently in every sourcebook that came out for SR2 and 3, so at some point you just had to pick one. (For my money, the PAoE Confusion worked the best.)

Edit: Was the "Vulnerability" weakness written into vampires in Running Wild, because BBB vamps have the allergy but that's it. If so, it does dramatically weaken vampires in the system. (Wooden weapons get a +4DV and cannot be regened or healed by magic, which is pretty punishing.)

Understood. However I am interested in RAI, not RAW.

- J.