Weapons to kill a Vampire

Sparketh:

Also make sure your arrows are wooden. It'd be a bit embarrassing to put a metal arrow through the heart of a vampire.

A lot of modern arrows do use metal heads and aluminum shafts- so that's definitely sound advice...

But it reminded me of a subject that I am a bit on the fence about when it comes to mechanical interpretations of what would and would not constitute staking.

So... vampire myths- some of which White Wolf clearly borrows from or references and some of which they do not- vary on what can and cannot be used to stake a vampire and what happens when they are actually staked...

The rules are clear that it does not result in their death, merely a state of immediate immobility and incapacitation akin to topor. The rules skip the idea of the wood needing to be from a particular tree... oak, ash and elm being three that come up a lot as having mystical significance, but obviously only from areas where those three are indigenous and varying right alongside the vampire myths from different parts of Europe (and the world, where they can get very very divergent).

But when it comes to rules in the game... does the wood have to be the actual object that pierces the heart, or does there just need to be wood present inside the heart? A steel arrowhead might have a wooden shaft attached to it, but the wooden shaft didn't pierce anything, it just ended up in the wound. Does the wood need to completely project from one side to the other, passing completely through or would a piece of wood lodged only halfway through have the same effect? Is there a limit to how much wood needs to be used; there's a difference between a stake the size of a railroad tie and a toothpick- would both work equally well?

As far as I know, the rules aren't specific with regards to those questions, although I'll happily take a look for anything I might have missed. So I have always just made my own judgment calls during gameplay- I'm curious as to how others may have ruled these things and if it's ever come up for them.

Unfortunately, most of that falls under the purview of ST ruling. I personally would allow a metal tipped arrow to work as long as the shaft is wooden. Staking would be identical mechanically (called shot, exceptional success), but I would describe it as the arrow entering the heart on one side and coming out the other. The arrow wouldn't have to come out of the back, but wood would have to be present throughout.

Though I could see an argument for any amount of wood being in the heart, a toothpick strikes me as a bit too much. Ironically, I would totally be cool with this in an OWOD game. Those tended to be a little over the top anyway.

Now a clever and talented character might be able to pull off a staking with a series of toothpicks if they can line them up to effectively create a stake. After the first shot, I would raise the penalty to that of hitting the eye since they would have to hit the same spot as before several times.

jburgos:

These two are the obvious choices, but nothing beats an acid-etched katana for decapitation (what Blade uses).

Actually, if you go by the mechanics in Armory, nothing beats a Kukri sword for decapitation.

The toothpick actually came up for me in-game... The vampire in question was restrained and the chest was opened in a fairly messy garage style surgery maneuver- managing to break partially free from the bonds at exactly the wrong moment for those who had decided to root around inside his torso. The player characters began combat, one of them stuck a toothpick into the exposed heart.

I let it count, because it was pretty quick thinking under the circumstances, the character rolled exceptionally well with the called shot dice penalty and a difficulty modifier and because the character habitually had a toothpick hanging out of their mouth, so it was a material close at hand in an environment otherwise filled with surgical tools. Surgical tools being noteworthy for how rarely they're composed of porous organic materials.

I guess thats why it falls to storyteller interpretation. In that situation, I'd have ruled in the same direction. In the theoretical conversation as to whether a toothpick universally counts as a stake, I would rule against it.

An ol' whaling harpoon gun

Questerr:

Actually, if you go by the mechanics in Armory, nothing beats a Kukri sword for decapitation.

I second this statement. Though you can make it better if you have the Spetnaz Knife Fighting Style merit and/or you were a Werewolf, as there is a Klaive listed in Tribes of the Moon that can be made with a Kukri that makes it even better at decapitation.

kurasu:

Questerr:

Actually, if you go by the mechanics in Armory, nothing beats a Kukri sword for decapitation.

I second this statement. Though you can make it better if you have the Spetnaz Knife Fighting Style merit and/or you were a Werewolf, as there is a Klaive listed in Tribes of the Moon that can be made with a Kukri that makes it even better at decapitation.

An ex-Spetnaz knife fighting specialist armed with Kukri Klaive he acquired from a Gurkha werewolf who served as a SAS operative? Talk about a curious hunter background. :-D

You could always liquify UV light and put it in a bullet....
no.... wait , I forgot.....THATS F-ing RETARDED

dart guns filled with coagulants, the coagulants could make the vitae in his system useless, or at least thats how we ruled it.

Neat idea, but for my money i'd say it wouldn't work to well.   With out a functioning circulatory system to pump it though the body it'd likely just sit in a little bubble underneath the skin at the injection site, it'd take a lot of time to spread through out the body, several minutes at least if we're being generous.  So possibly handy as an improvised weapon, but your likely better just shooting/stabbing them, prefferably while they sleep.

On a more serious reflection on my previous sad attempt at humor, I find the use of technological gadgetry as a vamp killing tools distastefull for the most part.  They're mythological creatures rife with mystical symbolic import, as are their traditional banes.  Why cheapen all that with something silly if you don't have to?

For my money the best weapon against vamps is daylight, not just cause it freking kills the hell out of them, but it restricts they movement, gives you a giant planning advantage, and heres the big one.... helps high light thematically the cost of immortality when you open the coffin lid to find an honest to god corpse in the clothes of that evil predator from last night.

Baaldam:

An ex-Spetnaz knife fighting specialist armed with Kukri Klaive he acquired from a Gurkha werewolf who served as a SAS operative? Talk about a curious hunter background. :-D

Actually, there is a pretty good background you can make out of this. The character was a wolfblood, train in knife fighting by his werewolf relative and given the Klaive as a graduation gift of sorts. Before he goes through his first change, he is turned into a vampire. He then starts hunting other vampires, using the training he received and the Klaive, in order to get revenge for his sire turning him before his first change.

Shaila:

Are there any types of weapons that are good for killing vampires? I mean besides a wooden stake, which is pretty obvious, Im thinking more like modern weapons, like maybe an improved piano wire type weapon, which could be used to decapitate vampires and so on?

The reason why Im asking this is well, first off, I could be nice to use a but more untraditional ways to kill off vampires in my vampire campaign.
And I have one of my players, whom has a somewhat weird relationship to his sire. His sire, finally seeing it wasn't a mistake to embrace the player, would like to give him a token of this, a symbol of pride.
Since the sire is an assassin, and rather good at it, I want it to be some sort of weapon, which has been passed on to him by his own sire and and he passes it on. So a side from it going to be pretty unique, I want it to be suitable to kill of both mortals and vampires.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Places where I should look?

how old is his sire (actual age)

Not being serious, an Array if satellites equipped for reflecting sun rays from the lit side of the earth and project it on a certain spot. could be nice addition to the hunter organization Valkyrie. But I'm not sure that even physically possible (Storyteller discretion i guess)

I once invented a Task Force Valkyrie weapon called the LOG-01 (Light of God, Designation 01). Basically a gun that shoots a blast of high intensity solar radiation that inflicts lethal damage non-vampires but is even more effective against vampires. Against humans its a weapon with a +4 damage bonus, inflicting damage from solar radiation burns. Against vampires though its even more effective. On a hit it inflicts a minimum of 4 levels of aggravated damage (3 plus any successes on the attack roll as the gun is considered intense sunlight to a vampire). The disadvantage with the weapon  that it is bulky, impossible to conceal and the Energy Cell has a limited capacity (6 shots). It also requires natural sunlight to recharge VIA a solar cell hence once all the shots are used up, the gun becomes useless. Still the weapon is VERY effective against vampires, able to kill a vampire in one shot with enough successes. You better hope you got Resilience if you encounter this weapon.